Okay blizzard so you’re too scared to back out of your covenant choice. We get it. We all know that the system you have in place will be a problem. We’ve predicted it and it will happen at launch as it has already happened on beta.
So. A new idea, if you haven’t came to this idea then i don’t know why.
All covenants are obtainable. Through the same way you have in place now, but one doesn’t remove the previous one you selected. Now once you’ve completed the quests to gain the ability for that covenant you get to keep that covenant. You can add a new covenant ui that allows you to pick which one you would like to pursue renown for. Pursuing renown for said covenant progresses you toward the armor sets or cosmetics you have in place in the game already.
Now you have all 4 covenants on your person. Which means you have all the abilities for the covenants on your person. You can now swap to any of the covenants at any given time in any given place to use the ability you need or want for the specific content you do. Using that covenant choice while playing the game earns you renown toward that covenant, whether you’re pursuing the progression or not. Problem solved on the hard covenant swapping.
Problem solved on the ability problem.
Problem solved on the “meaningful” player choice. Because you choose the order on which covenant you wish to pursue, as well if you wish to not pursue certain ones. We all know there are players who do not care to be “meta” or “optimal.” That’s fine, so they still have that choice. We all know players who would like to pursue every covenant for story and lore reasons. That’s great, with this you could do that without repercussion. Players who want to be optimal and desire to have every ability on hand for any type of content? Well, this fixes that too.
Now covenants would be mainly cosmetic only like people want. If you wanted to implement a reward of “bonus” renown gain that stacks each day the longer you stick with the covenant while completing content in the game then fine, that too promotes the player base who would prefer to stick with one single covenant and have “meaningful” choice.
And before someone mentions “but i don’t wanna see a kyrian covenant player in Kyrian transmog using Venthyr abilities, how immersion breaking.” No, just no, you will not even notice eventually, transmog is transmog, that is player choice. Seeing a fire mage dressed in frost transmog is the same concept here.
This entire system right here, would be the win/win/win/win/win/win to every scenario.