We don’t really know how much a player would gimp themselves by choosing wrong, and how much they might be gimped later if their abilities are nerfed.
People change goals. Someone who was happy not raiding, pushing keys, or doing pvp may find that the one they picked for story reasons is optimal for none of these.
I mean yeah I agree with you about things can generally be beaten with really almost any class/spec if you work hard enough at it. But that doesn’t really stop some people from only wanting what’s the currently defined best spec/class/etc.
So yeah even if I agree people are kinda dense for only wanting what’s the best at times, that doesn’t mean that the people that feel this way will just stop. And with how things generally go I’m sure once a defined best covenant and class combination gets spread around we’ll see this general mentality play out.
That is indeed true, it is called a balance problem and will always exist, just like some classes are unplayable and blizzard took 6 months to fix in the start of bfa.
Should they also give free boosts when a class is broken and isn’t fixed for 6 months? If you chose this class because it fits you, you will stick with it, if you change because of dps, you are an fotmer and nobody really cares about those people
The min maxer/former mindset is their own problem, they are the ones creating the problem for themselves, I won’t be changing because I ll stick to the one which fits me most even if the abillity gets nerfed [quote=“Vadimier-tanaris, post:22, topic:488053”]
Why do you feel that cosmetics and player power should be directly connected?
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Because if they are not there is no real meaning to the choice, the very fact that player power accompanied with many other non power rewards depends on that choice is what gives it meaning.
If ppl could choose their skill as a form of talents everyone would change them non stop depending on situations and they would just join the covenant with the rewards they like, that is a no brainer, a no brainer means no choice
Exactly - they create their own suffering. Sure - Blizzard could make it so you can switch; and the people that want to stay committed to one covenant could do so on their own; but it’s much more fun to see the people that would benefit from the flexibility suffer with the system as it is now.
Do you really think it’s reasonable to expect a player to continue to play a meme spec that has been broken and is rarely accepted for even moderate level content? Should it be up to the player to suck it up and keep paying, even though they are getting way less than most other specs out of the deal?
Does it still “fit them” after it’s been nerfed and is barely playable?
How long should people be punished for making wrong choices? Why would anyone put up with that in an entertainment product that was supposed to be about having fun playing a game?
You keep saying that “it fits”. At what point is a person allowed to say, “It doesn’t fit anymore”? Never? Or is the only answer to quit the game they paid for?
Why is it wrong for everybody to have fun?
This isn’t about math. Let me reiterate again:
Ohh the irony, when op complains about people whining about choices, when your whining yourself about how they should matter Hahaha… just cracks me up.
Although I agree that people should just pick what resonates best for their character and theme.
im mainly worried when the inevitable nerf hammer drops.
you just know that one covenant is going to be ridiculous for one ( or more ) popular spec like havok, and everyone and there mum will be it, and then blizz nuke that covenant ability from orbit as they are known to do ( " we just dont want players playing that spec right now " ) and then everyone and there mum is screwed.
we all know its going to happen. this isnt a case of if it will happen, its a case of what specs and classes are going to get screwed so hard. like thanos, this is inevitable. blizz hamfist this stuff, they have NEVER been surgical with nerfs. they carpet bomb specs with nerfs. they N2 Mine things with nerfs.
and then they will pull the " we never got any feedback about this ever. wheres the feedback?!?!?!? * insert travolta looking around meme * ".
blizzard themselves are memes with things like this. its always the same excuses and canned responses.
I don’t think they’ll nerf them because of a particular spec.
I think they’ll nerf Kyrian because it’s near-mandatory for some raid encounters, or Venthyr or Night Fae because everyone’s using them to hop around in M+.
Things like that. No way to know for sure until we see the specifics.
Easy solution;
Allow us to “change” the faction while retaining the ability to use the cosmetic of the prior on that individual character.
If the time sink is akin to Aldor/Scryers, it’s a very fair trade off.
If I want to use Revendreth abilities but use the Bastion wings, I need to max out whatever with Bastion first, then do the reset.
Then at the end of the expansion, when it doesn’t matter, the appearances go account wide.
Either that or just make the appearances account wide from the get go. Yeah, immersion is broken a bit, but frankly, if we’ve earned it - whatever. They’re encouraging us to play alts and see all the stories. Maybe reward us for doing all of them by allowing transmog restrictions to be lifted?
I think the response Mr Hazzikostas gave in an interview is interesting:
In Legion, they didn’t plan for long term with the artifact so they needed to add more traits and Netherlight Crucible. In BFA, the Essence system was in response to the feedback. The idea is that there may be horizontal or vertical expansions to the Covenants system, but no new systems will be added.
So he has come out and said - Covenants are it. Whether this will carry over into gear I can only wonder. Will we get another example of Azerite gear to Benthic gear to Corrupted gear? Or will they keep things horizontal rather than vertical (as in simply adjust the same gear that carries across the expansion rather than add new types of gear in patch after patch).
As to whether Covenants are hard or easy choices will depend on how the players react to it. If it works out well and the majority of serious players enjoy the Covenant systems, it probably won’t be altered. History has shown that if there are enough complaints, the devs may well change their minds. They did it with Essences (sort of). Only time will tell I guess.
I think new abilities are fine, desirable even, but I think they should be accessible. There are a number of ways they could implement it where it plays out a talent choice in that you can only have one at a time. For example lets say you get your covenant ability with your covenant but you can swap to others by using items looted from the other factions and taking that power for your own, but only one at a time, you could even recycle the essence menu for it. That would fill in the flavor reasons why you are using abilities outside your covenant while allowing players to be able to choose covenants because they like the covenant instead of for metagaming.
They don’t respond to complaints in the forum. People complain about everything, and not necessarily in any particular proportion to the playerbase at large.
Also, people sometimes get used to something they were complaining about back in the beginning.
They respond with changes when the complaints are the tip of the iceberg, and a great many players are quitting over an issue.
You can switch. If I remember correctly, the first switch will be easy, precisely for those situations
Only if Blizzard refrains from undermining our choices with sweeping changes. It’s no more fair to lock someone into a choice they made because they wanted X ability, and then nerf or remove that ability, than it would be if they chose based on a thematic element which was then removed.
If people make choices, for whatever reason, then Blizzard needs to not mess with any of those reasons due to their constant numbers tuning and narrative 180s.
I assume blizzard understand the gravity of the situation so I dont think they will be changing or revamping the abilities as to avoid this very issue.
They will definitely change the values though, as well as soulbind changes(Which they keep insisting abilities are overall balanced if you combine them with soulbinds).
The gameplay aspect of those abillities wont be changing, the damage will, but if you chose an ability for its damage instead of gameplay then clearly you are min maxing dps.
No.
This is not a “hard choice”.
It’s no choice at all. If you are casual and don’t care about performance you will pick the covenant you like best.
If you are pushing content and care about optimizing your toon you will pick the covenant with the best DPS.
Covenants have the potential to be super cool, or something everyone ends up hating because they feel like they have no choice.
Don’t tie player power to covenant choice.
I sincerely hope you’re right, but while Blizzard can be stubborn in some ways, the devs don’t have the best track record for consistency. I would not be at all surprised for the first patch to bring major changes to the covenants, if the covenants aren’t getting the kind of feedback/participation the team is looking for. If “too many” people are picking the same covenant, for example, Blizz might look to sweeten the pot for the least popular choice.
I didn’t say forum complaints. I said complaints. There are a great many sources of opinion beyond this one. There are content creators videos and streams, websites, chat sites, all kinds of places that provide input. Don’t think this is the only place they look at. In fact, it’s probably one of the least.
And you say “tip of the iceberg” and that is the point. We literally are the tip of the iceberg. When they said they were removing flight during WoD, the forums went ballistic. But they were a small voice compared with players in general and all the other websites and sources of opinion out there.
That is gonna be an interesting thing considering I feel the majority are jumping to the venthyr xD
Though I have a slight suspicion they plan on making adjustments through soulbinds more in order to balance covenants instead of touching abilities often, but until we see how soulbinds work exactly we cant know for certain.
Unless you are world first raider, you are forcing yourself in this situation and that is YOUR PROBLEM, which you created for yourself.
Content can be just as easily be cleared with a sub optimal build, it doesnt affect you unless you are world first, you are creating this problem for yourself.