Devs update with refusal to pull the ripcord

Community General Discussion
1

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/development-update-the-road-to-shadowlands/638371

“We’ve also heard from many players who, rather than being worried about regretting their choice, would prefer that they not have to choose at all; they have advocated that we offer a way to switch among the various active abilities offered by covenants without friction. But these covenant systems are thoroughly intertwined: Covenant abilities are often modified by covenant-specific conduits and soulbinds; most of those soulbinds in turn are unlocked through covenant-specific narrative campaigns. Granting access to one of these without the others would lead to an incomplete or confusing result. In short, pulling on that thread (or cord, as it were) would unravel the entire fabric of the system. Even so, we would embrace the work required to rebuild the covenant system along those lines if we agreed that it would be an improvement, but we ultimately do not share that view.”

They admit everything is too tightly connected to be able to ‘pull the cord,’ but that they fundamentally disagree with the need for it regardless.

There’s absolutely no reason I should be penalized for joining a Covenant based on my spec, desired content type, or desired aesthetic regardless of min-maxing. Every piece of evidence so far suggests the Covenant system is neither robust enough, balanced enough, nor foolproof enough to mitigate the extreme benefits one Covenant will have over another for a particular class, spec, or content type.

My DK will literally have to join a separate Covenant for each type of content if he wants to exceed. This is a joke. A two-week penalty for wanting to do the best I can across the different content I do is ridiculous. This simply sounds like a glorified time-played metric.

This isn’t just about the 1%, this is going to impact everybody, just as WoD, Legion, and BFA systems affected everybody. Anybody who partakes in any level of progression, LFR warriors, and pugs are all going to be competing with meta.

I have abstained from pre-purchasing Shadowlands with the hope that they would revert the penalty for having to switch Covenants. It looks like they’ve doubled down, and I will not be purchasing Shadowlands until they revert that penalty.

I’ve watched Blizzard receive community feedback from alpha testers through patch X.3 since 2015. The cycle generally goes as follows:

  • Blizzard has a bad idea
  • Community addresses bad idea
  • Blizzard insists bad idea is a good idea
  • X.0 releases and bad idea is still bad if not worse
  • Community gets tired of bad system and feedback falling upon deaf ears then stop playing (paying)
  • Blizzard reverts bad decision in X.2 or X.3

I’m not interested in paying for a glorified beta for several patches before Blizzard opens their eyes.

146 Likes
2

Speak for yourself.

42 Likes
3

Yea yea hot take “YOU DON’T SPEAK FOR ME”. Regardless it WILL affect everyone.

89 Likes
4

It won’t affect everyone, there is a player base that actually are fine with what Blizz does, they just don’t obsess on the forums over entitled ways of how they want to enjoy a game.

56 Likes
5

Good for Blizzard. I look forward to seeing what new designs they can come up with so long as the community doesn’t keep failing them like it has the entire alpha/beta cycle. The min max culture needs broken.

32 Likes
6

It will affect everyone. Did I say it will negatively affect everyone? No I didn’t. There’s always people like you who don’t care one way or another about something that if changed wouldn’t impact you or your gameplay in the slightest but you want to negatively impact MY gameplay for…what reason?

16 Likes
7

I assure you your covenant choice won’t prevent you from attaining your AOTC.

15 Likes
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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

This ain’t it pal.

10 Likes
9

Blizzard white Knights generally won’t agree with you and it takes a huge negative to make them change their mind on the issue at hand.

26 Likes
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Without min/maxers all youre left with is LFR heros who cant even move out of a giant red circle on the ground.

16 Likes
11

Probably not. It will prevent maximum enjoyment of the game though.

20 Likes
12

Well, not people who don’t buy shadowlands.

Otherwise I am fine with covenants as long as I find them fun. They won’t hurt my progression at all.

7 Likes
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I don’t negatively impact your gameplay, the dev’s decisions will apparently.

14

But you support that so you support negatively impacting my gameplay.

4 Likes
15

That’s asinine. Devs had their vision long before I voiced my opinion, you are reaching.

10 Likes
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As a Paladin, choosing anything other than Kyrian makes no sense. All 3 specs get an ability that can generate max holy power. That is insane. And while I like Kyrian, I would prefer Maldraxus. But that 5 holy power is too insane to pass up.

7 Likes
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This is why nothing changes. People like you who would not be impacted by freely swapping covenants don’t care and will not say “hey maybe this will be bad for other people” so you voice your opinion in favor of this system. That makes them think they’ve done a good job for the players when they really haven’t.

9 Likes
18

Welp, guess I’ll hate the covenant I’m in for 2 years then so I can have better gameplay. Not sure why that’s a good thing but here we are.

15 Likes
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That’s silly talk, things change BECAUSE people voice their opinion. People have a right to like something and not care what others feel. You aren’t playing for me, I could care less what you like or dislike. I don’t go passionately fighting to Blizz to see things your way. I say it how it is, if I like something, I like it, if I don’t, I say I don’t and explain why to the important people that ‘‘say’’ they want to hear feed back.

Not hard to understand.

8 Likes
20

Well you won. Congratulations.