This is a quote from Blizzard they use to push new system after new system, and some of them work. They also use it when they talk about talents, and honestly I love the new talent trees, I much prefer them over the cookie cutter, “if I click this I get 1% crit” of old. But that’s what I want to talk about, talents.
Talents are the key talking point when it comes to “Choices should matter” but if that’s true, why are 9 of my BM Hunter’s talents dead choices? Why were talents like Spitting Cobra not buffed, changed, or replaced? They’re so quick to nerf classes, and change azerite days before the raid comes out, but classes are just stuck with the same talent trees for entire expansions? Makes me feel like my choices don’t matter when the only one I really change on a consistent basis is my level 100 talent, and spitting cobra isn’t even worth considering. 40k damage on 1.5 minute cooldown grumble grumble
Anyways, it’s a bit silly that they’re so willing to buff and nerf/buff azerite, corruption, and other borrowed power, so why is it that the fundamental parts of classes gets ignored?
Also in light of where the quote comes from - mainly the covenants - I belive choise is good. YET the choise we are presented here may work in Singleplayer RPG enviroments, not hoever in a Multiplayer Online RPG where difficult content may need you to play the entirety of the game optimally…
Yeah this. Most breakdowns for how people should pick talents is, “there’s virtually no reason to pick this talent ever” or “this has no impact whatsoever so pick anything”.
My biggest gripe with their ideal of ‘choice’ is that if we’re talking about a bubble in which the player is the only influence on success or failure of completing content, it’s great, but we don’t play in singular bubbles. We’re reliant on others and so making the poor choice is letting them down, making the poor choice is impacting their experience. Balance just cannot be achieved, they’ve historically failed at achieving true balance, with that in mind there is only one ideal choice.
Tie meaningful choice to aesthetics, to story divergences, to other areas of the game which aren’t bound to power and gameplay (Combat gameplay. Gameplay in questing, WQ’s etc is another topic where that choice can exist).
Because talents are not a real choice, that is why we need REAL CHOICES.
If you can change the talents, even ones that sim similar to each other, tryhards will always change them if they excel for a different boss, meaning different build for boss one, different for boss 2 etc etc.
Choices means you dont get to change them for each boss and instead are locked in one and do all bosses with that one.
That’s not even a tryhard thing? That’s just called being decent at the game? Being forced to do an entire raid with the exact same talents sounds like a terrible experience oh my lord.
Edit: I would just like to point out that that would make the disparity between classes even larger. You have classes like DH who don’t really need to change talents or rotation for ST vs AOE and you have classes like Shaman who relies entirely on it’s talents to do decent damage in single target or aoe. Taking a chain lightning talent would just make you useless on every single target boss so why should we bring you when we can bring this frost mage who doesn’t rely on talents?
Changing builds non stop to be optimal doesnt make you skilled, here’s a thread about it.
And that is what thankfully covenants are forcing, you are no longer allowed to be optimal at everything, you stick to one covenant which will be sub optimal for some bosses and activities : )
Then people will just take those that are more optimal over others, creating a wider gap between the playerbase than already exists. Why would I take the shaman, who relies on swapping talents for ST and AOE, when I can take the BM Hunter, or the Mage, both of whom don’t have many, if any at all, talents to swap between ST and AOE but can still do good damage in both, even if not with the optimal talent setup.
You should definitely wait until it plays out, as anyone with experience with Blizzard knows that until it’s fully played out you can’t take their word at all.
Oh I know covenants will remain locked because I know how blizzard works, all the whining and crying from tryhards is irrelevant to them since their goal is EXACTLY to force them into not being optimal at everything by changing builds at every boss.
Which shows two things, that they ll spend ages trying to get specific covenant for each boss because it is optimal and also that they are so bad they can clear a raid without being optimal while raids are balanced with balanced comps in mind that dont stack fotm/meta.
It only shows how bad you are if you need meta to beat content xD
You act like Blizzard hasn’t changed how systems work due to player feedback, especially some of the more unpopular and punishing ones.
Remember when Blizzard said they removed reforging because they didn’t want people to have to sim in order to determine if it’s an upgrade? That they wanted people to equip it right away? Lol.
Meta is what bad players worship because they dont understand the game, the actual elite who are racing to world first understandably need every tiny advantage in order to win the race.
So they are gonna stack the most broken combs which is we why see most bosses getting roflstomped as bosses are not balanced around everyone being optimal/fotm else the casual non tryhard guilds aka the majority of guilds with balanced comps wouldnt be able to clear bosses.
So if you are stacking fotm and cant beat it with a balanced comp by definition you are less skilled and less competent compared to a guild who downs bosses with a balacned comp
Covenants are gonna launch locked as they are now with only way to change being an extremely grindy and possibly timegated quest