Maybe it doesn’t matter to you if things are horribly unbalanced and people feel forced to pick a covenant they don’t like. If you want a play a game with restrictions on choices and consequences, then you’re at the wrong place.
It’s not a choice. It’s the definition of a false choice. It’s like if a game gave you a choice between a minigun with target tracking rounds 250 round clip 250 damage per shot and a nerf pistol that did 1 damage per hit 1 shot per clip. Sure there’s a “choice” but there really isn’t.
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Its called a meaningful choice.
There’s some big assumptions here about how I play the game, clearly. I’ve been playing a Destruction Warlock for 12 years. It has always been my main, regardless of who much it sucks at the time. If that’s flavor of the month, it’s been a long month.
There are so many other RPG elements to covenants that make the choice meaningful. And if they want people to make that choice based on those RPG elements, they shouldn’t hide player power behind it. My preferred covenant gives me a virtually unusable spell. It’s a spell that fits the play style of a spec that I do not play. Why should I have to sacrifice my class identity if I want to get the privilege of using the ability that my chosen covenant gives me? If they really want to go down this road, then we need covenant spec abilities instead of class abilities.
How are casual players being kneecapped? They can choose their covenant. They get all the transmogs, mounts, quests, and other RP elements that come with it. They also unlock the abilities for each covenant, and if they want to chose the ones that go with their chosen covenant, they can do that. They lose nothing.
I mean I understand the whole “it won’t be balanced” complaint. That’s actually a valid one since it’s a very real possibility.
It was sarcasm.
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Not a possibility, an inevitability.
Why should covenants be only impactful in the story and not in gameplay? wouldn’t making them impactful in the way you play make it even more meaningful? they’re already meaningful in the ways you mention them, but I am actually curious as to why they should be impactful in those aspects alone and not on gameplay, when gameplay is one of the most important things in wow
Covenants aren’t even impactful in the story.
Are you serious? Its the difference between picking a water pistol and a real pistol.
Yes. They will be meaningful enough to make me unsub. If I dislike my aesthetic because I want fun gameplay I’ll unsub. If I dislike my gameplay because I want a certain aesthetic, I’ll also unsub. I play games to have fun, and neither of those situations are fun. This wouldn’t be an issue if blizzard actually knew what they were doing, but as I said above, a lot of the abilities look like they were designed by people who have no experience with the class the ability is for. Some classes only have 1 viable option because the other abilities would actually hurt their gameplay if they used them. Those other options might as well not exist. That isn’t fun at all.
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Because this is an MMO, at the end of the day it can’t be looked at through a single player lens. There are no save points, there is no easy way to take things back in an MMO that impact player power. If I accidentally press the wrong button on a screen that just pops up without any real information when I hit 60… I can massively hurt myself unintentionally. MMOs have design restrictions that single player games with save points don’t. This is a flagrant violation of those design principles.
Pretty much everything I sad above and then one further note: the issues are mechanical not balance. Thus even though the borrowed power could be ‘impactful’ without harming balance that’s impossible due to the mechanical differences that in many cases make some covenants completely and utterly mechanically irrelevant.
whats the assumption? you can swap covenants, and it’s easier than rerolling for those who care so much about being top dps, I never said it was you
I am not saying it isn’t the case, but why shouldn’t it affect gameplay? if all the new expansion offers is a transmog set and some quests that tell me the story about said covenant, the choice is meaningless and people will lose interest, what sane demon hunter would even look at the night fae without " the hunt " ?
because it’s a choice, and it makes sense, it’s not a new talent or a new spell your trainer sells you, it should be something important, not a new talent that you can just swap at an inn
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If you go to wowprogress .com, you’ll see that there are over 2000 guilds that are currently 12/12 mythic Ny’alotha. If you look for guilds that have any amount of mythic Ny’alotha, then you’re looking at over 10k guilds. So that accounts for, at the bare minimum, 200k players. That 200k is pretending that those guilds don’t have extras that they swap in based on attendance, or that there aren’t a vast amount of players out there in non-mythic raiding guilds that pug into mythic groups.
This also doesn’t take into account the large number of players who push keys.
And then we also need to factor in the people who do high end pvp, because this would impact them as well.
On top of all of that, this is pretending that the substantial damage difference doesn’t impact players doing slightly lower level content. These differences would definitely be felt in heroic raiding as well, and could present a barrier for some.
Based on the current leveling time… this may not actually be the case as we’re learning more about the covenant switch process… particularly if you’re returning to a covenant prior.
At this point it’s better to maintain covenant identity. Because when you let people switch freely between these covenants, you get this scenario:
24 days into Shadowlands
Forum Poster 76: Why min maxing is bad for the game and covenants make it worse.
Even then with covenants locked you come to this same exact scenario.
So one forum poster complaining about min maxing is a worse scenario than thousands of people literally starting a movement?
Yes, because it’s not just one forum poster, many of the same posts will appear throughout the expansion.
What I’m trying to say is sit down, stop complaining. After all, you’re playing WoW where the motto is: You will enjoy the game more if you dont think about it.
I’m sorry, have you been watching the forums lately? There are dozens of pull the ripcord posts and even dozens more were removed. And also, every feedback and criticism isn’t “complaining”. People have serious issues with this system, so we won’t just sit back and keep quiet like you want us to.
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The posts will appear regardless. Making covenants more restrictive can’t stop min/maxing. Nothing can as long as there are multiple choices. The best option is to detach gameplay from covenants so covenant choice actually means something, and people can have the gameplay they want.
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Idk, I think learning how to do better and up my dps is one of the more enjoyable parts of the game. If I wanted to just mindlessly press buttons and not think about it, I would probably clear through the raid once and then unsubscribe until the next one.