Which is my very real “fear” about Shadowlands. We make our choice based on looks and abilities and then they change the abilities…well X was just a little “too much” so we nerfed it into unusableness (because we all know Blizz doesn’t do lil tunes)…and why didn’t YOU notice this in Beta where these things are supposed to be tested?
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I think there’s a double-edged sword here:
I like the idea that you have to make a meaningful choice that has pros and cons, and I want it to be hard/impossible to change. That’s part of a RPG, in that it is directly tied to your character’s growth so it takes a while to figure out which one to pick and then you’re stuck with it; it defines your character.
That Method doesn’t want this isn’t a reflection on them, given who they are, but it shows the issue with approaching the game only as a competition to win, and nothing else matters. A choice like this is directly in conflict with what they want, which is to be able to min-max and optimize as much as possible to push the competitive level of the game.
These two philosophies are really at odds to the very core. A player interested in the RPG aspect is going to want to pick the choice that fits their character the most: Your Tauren Druid picks Night Fae to be closer to nature, your Blood Elf Rogue picks Venthyr because aristocratic sneaky vampires, your Human Paladin picks Kyrian because they are angelic warriors, and so on. Your person who could care less about that, and probably wouldn’t care if they were using amorphous blobs instead of character models, is just going to pick the best one and that’s it; the flavor or feel or theme matters nothing, it’s all about “Is this good”.
Honestly I don’t see a solution that helps everyone. If I had to pick I’d say to hell with the ultra-competitive people, let it be a meaningful choice. Let it be something you can’t min-max and game. Ion himself has said that the team doesn’t WANT everything min-maxed to the nines and have all the flavor optimized away. Of course the real underlying problem is the “monkey see, monkey do” approach most WoW players have to where they parrot the top players whether or not it matters to them (there’s a big difference between trying to eke out even a 1% increase when you’re competing for world first and that’s your career than it is when you’re just doing content for fun). You just know that people are going to parrot this crap at all levels and deride anyone who doesn’t pick the best.
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In before WOW shop respecs.
I’m glad Method is publicly against Covenant abilities, but I fear people are going to dig their heels into the ground even further and stand by the “it only matters if you’re a world first player” argument.
They clearly state it will hurt everyone but the people making those arguments don’t like to see reason or meet the other side in the middle. They just want their “RP elements” back, clueless as to how this hinders the choice for RP reasons.
Hopefully Blizzard wakes up and realizes SL is good enough without a Covenant power system. Slap them to a level 60 talent tree (it’s fine for them to be themed after the Covenants - just not tied) and Soulbinds will be a lot easier to manage.
The actual Covenant base abilities simply need removing.
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I think the reason for this is because it IS an RP element and it should have a choice that stays with you, just like picking a class. So there is no middle. Either you make covenants just another swappable ability to cater to the competitive “Best or nothing” mindset, or you stick to your guns and draw the line in the sand saying no, you pick this and your choice is set (if not permanent than hard to change), deal with it.
Nobody wins, because the community is at odds with the fundamentals.
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It’s not like picking a class, because a class has internal options. This is one major ability.
But they can’t even get class balance right, why would you want them to add another layer ontop of that?
You’re the exact person I described lol.
Being able to swap talents does not cater to the competitive, it caters to those looking to have fun. People who do competitive will choose the BiS regardless.
I’m not exclusively looking for BiS, I’m looking for what is fun.
“Sticking to your guns” is a nice saying, but bad practice. Another way to phrase it is “Ignoring your customers”.
Incorrect.
Nobody loses if they loosen up the restriction.
Everybody gains something regardless.
With tight restrictions this system can really sour peoples experience. With loose restrictions you’ll just have a few people saying "Oh I wanted my choice to matter"
Which by the way goes against your choice.
Without player power Covenant is only determined by your choice.
It’s counter intuitive.
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This is just ridiculous. If you have a raid full of players who have the worst azerite and worst essences for their spec, you’re going to be at a huge disadvantage even if you play perfectly.
Every player should be using the best items possible in order to contribute to the team.
Even Arcane mages and sub rogues with the best setup can’t compete. Could you imagine how useless they would be if they didnt have the correct essences? It isn’t fun to carry anyone.
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To be completely clear, Blizzard is not in any way suggesting that you should do that. Blizzard is suggesting (more like proclaiming) that you will not need to do that and you should chill.
Player definitions of “need” do not always agree with Blizzard’s, but don’t misrepresent Blizzard’s stance even if you disagree with it.
You won’t be locked into your covenant for 2 years, but I agree with the rest of the sentence. Blizzard should commit themselves to the goal that every spec wants to use all 4 covenant abilities, in every form of content. You should never be choosing between good and bad abilities, only between good and better.
That’s true even for a lot of us who agree with their concerns. I don’t care if Method will have to work harder, but I know from past experience that Blizzards inability to address admittedly difficult balancing issues means the concerns will affect anyone who goes beyond dailies and queued content.
I used to believe that, but history proved otherwise. Blizzard may think they made that commitment, but it always turns out that it’s impossible to fulfill.
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See the big issue here is how Blizzard wants it to work out versus how players will make it work out. It’s clear that Blizzard’s idea seems to be that you pick a covenant for flavor or theme or character or whatever, basically anything except “Is this the best” while the player mindset is the opposite (rightly or wrongly) to the point where there’s already talk of excluding players who aren’t min-maxing covenants (despite Blizzard saying they don’t want you to)
So Method fears that in order to do World First stuff, they’ll need to do more busy work. Who would’a thunk it.
The less Blizzard caters to Method and their ‘‘fear’’ the better.
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They are the top of the top players that ALWAYS have multiple characters during the world first race. This really isn’t a new practice all things considered.
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They can say it, but they haven’t put forward a convincing argument why it will “hurt everyone” other than the fact people will be elitist about it… because they tell people they should be elitist about. It’s literally “you should agree with us because we say so” and they say so because they have ulterior motives that aren’t in your interests.
Simple fact of the matter is, if it was up to Method, WoW would not have its class system, which is literally the heart of the game. They are in almost every way against the interests of your average gamer. They are against Mythic+. They are against Covenants. They are against Artifacts. They are against Legendaries. They are against everything you consider fun and they are for everything you consider unfun.
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What do you consider a “moderate” level?
I know a healer who recently got an essence upgrade that improved her effectiveness in autoinvite PVP raids by 50%. They’re autoinvite; we’re not talking about high level content here. I recently got an essence upgrade that has saved wipes in low M+ and LFR. Essences matter in everything above maybe emissaries.
Far less than 99% of players can honestly ever say they did all the mechanics right. I doubt even 1% of the players can honestly ever say they did every mechanic correctly. For the other 100% of the player base, gear matters.
Millennial and Gen Z wants a RPG without meaningful choices. Sounds about right to me. Not to mention they’re competitive raiders.
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Which goes back to the “design for competitive gamers” or “design for RPG gamers” that WoW seems to have had problems with for years now.
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Have they really had issues for years? I only recall it being an issue in Legion and BFA with now SL possibly being tedious.
I could argue that roleplaying includes character growth that consists of realizing you made a mistake and fixing that, or growth that consists of learning skills from multiple groups.
We all make meaningful choices anyway when we choose a character class. And often, that means a character ends up horribly suboptimal or even unplayable for patch after patch.
I 'd love to roleplay more, but not if it means I can’t play the game, which is what it means in this game. Blizzard is much better at game mechanics than they are at supporting roleplay; limit yourself to the roleplay part and you’re better off just roleplaying in a chat room.
Its been an issue since they allowed swappable talents and specs instead of requiring respect at increasingly higher cost per use
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I think the big issue here is the difference between how Blizzard wants it to work out and how it will actually work out given Blizzard’s limitations.
From a roleplay standpoint, why isn’t a cosmetic difference on identical abilities enough? From a roleplay standpoint, cosmetic differences are meaningful.
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