i’ve read every post in this thread. you just need to understand that what you want is inherently flawed and refuse to see it for some reason.
It’s what I call the I want factor. When a person wants something bad enough. It becomes really hard to see the flaws in the thing they want. Everyone is guilty of it, yes even myself.
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So letting you pick a different ability regardless of the covenant you chose is wrong?
i’m certain everyone does at some point. the issue for me stems from them expecting an echo chamber and getting mad when it doesn’t happen. i’m certain i’ve done it at times but that doesn’t change the fact that i’m wrong when i am, indeed, wrong.
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This echo chamber talk is so ironic
TBH, this is why we need the dislike button. Without the bury function. It would help us gauge who shares the community opinion more. Right now it’s just people fluffing their feathers and peacocking around.
Right now both sides think they are right because they think the community supports them. We both see likes after all. But how do you really know how many people hate it versus how many people like it.
your idea is just as restrictive. blizz wants you to lose progress for changing covenants and you want people to lose progress to change ONCE and never again. your idea is actually worse because with blizzards system, i can change more than once.
let’s say that you decide to change your idea from losing 2 weeks of progress for one permanent change to changing any number of times for less progress lose. i’ll use one day of progress as the bar for this example. if i want to do m+, i’ll need to do all my m+ at once because if i don’t, i’ll be losing a minimum of 2 days of progress just to swap. same thing with pvp, raiding, etc.
now let’s look at what i like to do. i only like pve so i really only do world content, m+, and raiding. i’ll need to swap to aoe unless it’s a single target week so there goes one day of progress. then i’ll need to swap again if the boss my guild is progressing is single target so thats two days of progress. if i want to do anymore m+ between our raid days, that’s 3 days of progress. then i’d swap back for the next raid night for a fourth day of progress gone. then if i want to m+ before the week resets, that’s a 5th day of progress gone.
so just going off what i like to do, that would be a minimum of 3 days of progress lost just to swap abilities if i don’t m+ outside of the set raid days. even if i limit myself in the extreme to only using one ability during the raid time frame and swap to aoe for a set number of days to do m+, that’s 2 days of progress lost. at that point, i would feel the game doesn’t respect me or my time. why would i grind for two days if i am just going to lose that progress?
your system is SO much worse than what blizz is doing and blizzards is already horrible.
You know what? I never thought about that. I think I should change my Support to the OP now. I’m all for it after I heard it’s more restrictive lol.
You’re clearly missing something. I dont think people should be able to change their ability whenever they want. That’s what I mean by making it permanent. You wanna change your ability in exchange for 2 weeks of progress lost (once again, only what I imagined when making the post) then go ahead and swap as often as youd like. What I’m suggesting would just allow you to have the covenant you like and the ability you like regardless of the covenant you picked.
If it feels just as restrictive then that’s good. As I said I dont think they should be changed freely. Not all players have to be equal in every situation.
that’s an even more restrictive stance that blizzards and blizzard at least understands that people don’t want to play the same content day-in and day-out when other content exists and is already in game. i play one character. i have alts i like to play some times but when it comes to end game, it’s this one character.
ya, swap as often as you like so long as you don’t like making any progress in content that doesn’t give gear. that is SO generous of you… /sarcasm
i might have the covenant ability i like and the covenant i like IN THE MOMENT but what if i want to experience the content of the other covenants after i’ve maxed out my first one? your answer is screw you for playing a game and expecting to be able to play it without dumping dozens of hours into 3 other characters you don’t want to play.
again, SO generous of you… /sarcasm
considering people are complaining because of how restrictive the current system is, no, that isn’t good.
and the players that don’t have to be equal are the ones who don’t play with other people because they don’t do content that have other players wanting to increase their chances of finishing content.
your system is bad.
Your example is poor because it’s not that I don’t have the desire to do a good job, I just want to do the best job I can within my class/spec/covenant choices.
It’s a bit on blizzard to balance these 3 levels of character development though, and I’m with you on optimizing the talents/soulbinds so that there’s at least some synergy and optimization involved. However, if people are expected to switch covenants for every difference in content/dungeon/boss encounter etc, then I feel like that third level of character development may as well not exist. We barely have a 2nd layer of character development through talent specializations.
I honestly don’t care too much if people are able to easily swap covenants. What I have a problem with though, is the perception that covenants are just talents to swap around for the encounter when they’re clearly not intended to be. I at least want to see blizzard give it a shot at balancing this, even if it’s finding the most optimal gear/talents/soulbinds for each class/spec/covenant and adjusting the numbers where they lie so that they’re all reasonably close to one another. They don’t even have to bother to balance the other talents/soulbinds to hit the same benchmarks. If there’s at least one way to build an optimal character that’s within range of all others for each class/spec/covenant, then I think that’s a huge win for everyone.
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People won’t be expected to switch covenants, it just doesn’t make sense with how they are intended to be as you said later, and also because it will intentionally be made frustrating and difficult to do so.
My example isn’t poor just because it doesn’t apply to you. It’s fine if you want to do the best you can with what you have. The reality we’re in makes that impossible unless the covenant you’ll pick is the best for the content you do. There’s nothing more to it.
It’s honestly so simple. Untying the player powers from Covenants solves everything. Those who say it doesn’t simply fundamentally misunderstands the issue at its core.
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i think you may be misinterpreting what people are saying though i do only speak for myself. at least for me, it’s not that i view them as another talent row that should be easily switchable. i’m all for having a meaningful choice. heck, i would even consider a permanent choice fine to an extent. my issue comes from the fact that blizz has never been able to balance wow to a point where such a meaningful choice has power attached to it. we can use corruptions, essences, azerite traits, many expansions of spec balancing, trinkets (especially mop era trinkets), and more that show blizz just isn’t capable.
that means there will be people who will be screwed over when a nerf happens or ignored if a bad ability isn’t buffed. and those who see another covenant get buffed will want to change but lose tons of effort just because of one change that doesn’t even affect the entire covenant system. even going back to legion, blizzard said they wouldn’t buff or nerf any artifact and then they did it anyways because their balance was that bad.
i’m concerned about an overly restrictive system (like there was in early legion) that blizzard can’t possibly balance because they’ve never successfully done so in their 14 (i think?) years of trying. even if blizz got rid of the offensive abilities that get added and just made us choose the utility spells, i’d still be a little hesitant.
i understand this point of view but blizz is going to have to balance class abilities, utility spells, soulbinds, and conduits. you saw just this expac how adding one power based system on another just inflated the issues on balance. i get that they probably want to try to but when blizzard designs a system where a person can just get 4 or 5 pieces with a passive proc on it and top damage without doing anything skill wise to warrant their dps, that isn’t balanced. blizzard can not even hope to balance the system as it is now.
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My interpretation was that it did apply to me because after putting myself in the example, I could see how the the assumption is that I don’t have a desire to do a good job if someone were to only check my covenant of choice, which is false. If it’s a misunderstanding, fine. That was just my interpretation.
I get that. I think easily swapping is still a valid option if things don’t go as planned balance-wise. My stance is more so that I have a vision for where my character will go with this covenant system, and I just don’t want to have to choose between the development of my character and the damage potential my character can do (in terms of significant differences, not small percentages). Maybe just detaching power ends up being the best option. I’m just an idealist and see how awesome the covenant system could be in a world where they are able to successfully balance them. It’s entirely possible that covenants add the additional flexibility to do it. Never know until it’s tried right? It’s at least better than pushing the same thing over and over because it’s safe, at least in my opinion anyway.
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one thought is, if they made trinkets that have similar effects that anyone could use. maybe a longer CD on them but just by having those it would allow people to try it out a covariant ability every now and then without needing to shift covenants.
I think players are more or less used to not having the same trinket effects as another player with the same class because often times trinket drops are rng.
maybe have the Trinkets with the covariant ability be a BoA item that unlocks at exalted with the corresponding consonant so you would still have to unlock it with an alt. but once you learn it, all your alts can use them. could even get some cool combinations.
This is a good wisdom.
i’d like to see an example of this if you have one. as an example for my side, flayed shot (https://shadowlands.wowhead.com/spell=324149/flayed-shot) has a random chance to allow hunters to use kill shot on a target at any hp. comparing that to resonating arrow (https://shadowlands.wowhead.com/spell=308491/resonating-arrow) which only increases my crit chance, death chakram (https://shadowlands.wowhead.com/spell=325028/death-chakram) which is only at it’s best with at least 2 targets, and wild spirits (https://shadowlands.wowhead.com/spell=328231/wild-spirits) which is best with at least 5 targets, i don’t see how blizz can balance these to just small percentages like you want.
i agree that trying new things is something blizzard should do. islands and warfronts were extremely interesting ideas. it just turned out to be very boring in practice. however, i wouldn’t chalk this up to something interesting. i do think blizz is trying to make this a flavorful and hard choice but i don’t think it will be for the reasons they want it to be. i just think it would be best to use my idea i said prior (don’t know if you read that post) where instead of covenants requiring loyalty to use their power, they instead send emissaries to oribos to lend us the power to end the anima drought and defeat the jailer.
they could still keep the current covenant system then and instead of joining for power, we would join based on beliefs, cosmetics, lore, etc. i think that is choice is just as meaningful and it won’t anger players.
as a side note, it is very nice to see someone of the opposite view point who is willing to admit their faults (i try to do the same but i don’t think i always manage it) but still listen to fleshed out arguments and not dismiss it out of hand. also, it’s midnight where i am so i am going to bed. i’ll be sure to respond to any post when i get up so don’t think i’m leaving the conversation if you wish to continue.
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whts a convenant )
I think we should stop pretending WoW is an RPG because it isn’t. It an online action game. Your character makes zero meaningful choices, your character is a mute with zero input in the story. Your character does not exist outside of being a "champion’. I don’t play this game to play an RPG, I play it because the gameplay is fun and I have a feeling a good chunk of the player base are like me. WoW isn’t immersive like SWTOR or Witcher or Mass Effect. And its not a single player experience where being suboptimal isn’t that big of a deal.
Restricting gameplay is just asinine. I shouldn’t be punished for wanting to explore everything about the class I choose to play as. And that is what this system is, a punishment for people that enjoy playing their class.
that actually would be more rpg
you’d keep what you earned, and still make sacrifices to get a hold of it