So what makes you think Covenants will be any better? Having them be hard to switch between seems like it could lead to the same situation.
Choose Covenant A, that gets nerfed, grind to the next “best” Covenant. Then that gets nerfed.
Or we could skip the whole rigmarole and have Covenants be functionally identical with aesthetic differences.
It’s interesting that they’re going with this type of pigeonholed design, where a character is “locked in” to being good at one type of content, even as their overall design has recently been “All your characters should be doing everything. No more profession alts unless they’re doing mythic+ to farm cores. PVEers go do PVP for your BIS essence; PVPers, go do mythic+ for gear. Everyone needs to do all our content.”
But in Shadowlands, you’ll be sub-optimal for at least some of that content thanks to the covenant system.
Ok what about this:
Let’s say you play DK, right?
You go through the Night fae zone and after you save the day, the Night Fae, impressed by your action GIVE YOU,
[Death’s Due]deaths-due) ( Replaces Death and Decay ) Corrupts the targeted ground, causing [(3.6036% of Attack power) * 11] Shadow damage over 10 sec to targets within the area. Enemies deal 1% reduced damage to you, up to a maximum of 15% and their power is transferred to you as an equal amount of Strength.
While you remain within the area, your Necrotic Strike and Heart Strike will hit additional targets. Scourge Strike and Clawing Shadows will hit all enemies near the target.
Then you continue down your adventure and you get help the folks in the Kryian, they are impressed and give you a new spell for helping them in the zone:
[Shackle the Unworthy]shackle-the-unworthy) Admonish your target for their past transgressions, reducing the damage they deal to you by 5% and dealing (175% of Attack Power) Arcane damage over 14 sec. While Shackle the Unworthy is active on an enemy, Rune spending attacks reduce its cooldown by 4 sec.
This repeats itself as you level yourself to 60. There, you now have access to ALL the abilities. You got it for doing work, which is questing and learning the story, similar to how you would with Allied races. You’re rewarded for your effort.
Now… you’re level 60 and you want to specialize into something. You want to be a primary PVP player. So, you sign up for the Night Fae for their sweet teleport ability. Someone else may sign up for a different one.
I think this solution from Reddit, is the best solution because now everyone gets the abilities. But you keep the choice of the “ultimate” ability which is just kind of a utility spell. Covenants still matter because some of those soulbinds are insane, like one makes you immune to CC.
This sounds like the best solution and would cut out on 99% of the problems since everyone gets 4 sweet new abilities for helping each of the covenants through their story.
We’ll see what they do with it all. What I’m hoping for is that content won’t be so super tightly tuned this expansion in terms of raw numbers. Hopefully, it’s filled with more idiot checks and mechanics. Stuff like those pools of bad that are avoidable? Yeah, it’s got a 20% damage debuff if you get hit. If people screw them up over and over again, you’ll be too behind on the boss to kill before berserk. If people follow it properly, then the boss will die with a decent amount of wiggle room to spare. (in terms of mythic progression vs the current model of everyone having to pinch out every extra 500 dps they can)
I don’t think it just the MDI and world first players are the only ones who want to be optimal. Many players who are pushing keys, pvping, or raiding according to their level, being optimal is important because the bread and butter of WoW is piping, keys, and raiding. Be it pushing a 25 or 10, that little bit extra goes a long way. If the devs want to put in more RP, I don’t think this is the best way to do it.
So all the art specifically made for a fund raiser wasn’t art? That clears things up.
Exactly, if a piece is made with the purpose of creating money it is no longer art, because art is free to be something the artist envisions or wants people to feel.
When all,that is thrown out and it is focused on generating money and pleasing x crowd, it is no art, it is pandering
Two things can be true at once. Someone could create art for all the artistic reasons you mentioned AND intend to make money.
This is a false choice. It’s like saying fire can only be life saving or deadly. It’s both.
You are trying to make your subjective opinion about art seem objectively true.
And it’s a completely trash opinion. Equal parts romantic naiveté and cynical moralizing.