If you are pro-covenant, read this

Community General Discussion
181

I think this is actually the least likely implementation/result of “the ripcord”. (Disclaimer: I’d like this stuff to be as flexible as possible.)

I made a long post after getting into the Beta a month ago about this already, but it isn’t just the two abilities; everything is interwoven in impossible-to-separate ways. Sing along with me!

:musical_note:
THE ABILITY’S CONNECTED TO THE … SOULBIND
THE SOULBIND’S CONNECTED TO THE … NPC
THE NPC’S CONNECTED TO THE … COVENANT
NOW HEAR THE WORD OF THE MAWWWWWW
:musical_note:

I’m quite familiar with what Timbaeslice and the ripcord contingent want, and after playing the beta, I don’t think you can disconnect them from the covenants at all.

What you could do, however, is allow players to maintain their efforts with all four covenants simultaneously, and share Renown. The “talent row” wouldn’t actually be a choice of abilities, but there could be a spot in Oribos (or another tab in the talent(N) window) where your entire covenant changes, not unlike engaging War mode. It’d switch what your next Covenant Campaign quest was, remember it for each Covenant, etc. No more penalties for “switching” covenants as you’re the Maw Walker; you’re buddies with everyone.

Short of this kind of setup, I’m not sure we’re going to get anything useful.

My forum post from a month ago (for more detail):

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182

Stop with the word salads. Seriously!

You want someone to read that wall of text? Not gonna happen. Make it short, sweet, and to the point. I don’t come to the forums to read novels.

183

Im puzzled why the conduit and covenant swaps are on such a hefty cooldown. I’d be genuinely interested why they chose a time frame that deliberately (and intentionally) lasts over a week. This ties into intentions. And points to that bug bear on ‘blurring the meta’. But why?
The only thing i can honestly think is that they want to stratify the various mini-games in wow and compartmentalise players into their one true activity. So player 1 picks the very best meta for mythic plus, player 2, the very best raid outlay, player 3, the very best RBG meta, player 4, the best 2/3/5 arena comp meta… Player 5… picks something that can do all the stuff they want moderately well, but gimp themsleves a bit (memories of my feral spec in vanilla).

But if they want to play something else, then in two weeks they can? Why? The cynic in me follows the breadcrumb trail… player 1,2,3,4 are all the same person running all the same class and specialising and has to gear up 4 different characters of the same class in one specific area of the game they want to dominate? That cant be it.?

184

(puts on tinfoil hat, stares off into space for a bit)

The Covenant Campaign system is simply reusing the War Campaign tech from BfA. It has that prime spot at the top of your Quest log, is probably slowly unlocked/timegated/extended, etc. It certainly feels a lot like a … faction choice, no? Something semi-permanent, dictating where you stand in endgame, who you interact with, where your garrison table is, etc.

My wild speculation (and I’m not the first to say this) is this is them testing the waters on dissolving the whole Horde/Alliance faction divide when we successfully leave “the afterlife” and come back to Azeroth in two years. Either some big timeskip will happen or we’ll have kumbaya’d ourselves out of the war by highfiving over the corpse of Sylvanas’ character development. I think they want to see if they can breed some kind of new tribalism (other than Horde/Alliance) in the playerbase, and juice them up for picking fresh in the future.

Tangent:

I think most of us are tired of arbitrary gameplay restrictions and would just like to have fun with the game. The biggest MMO competitor to WoW (FF14) lets a single character of any race be all classes and professions simultaneously, has one big linear story questline, and has no restrictions about which fellow players you can team up with. These random race/class/faction restrictions are tired, and they need to get with the times. They’ve been relying on us addicts maintaining our addiction through these boneheaded decisions for too long, and less and less people come back / stick around each time.

Whatever analogy you need: Break that emergency glass, pull that ripcord, etc. Center the game around maximizing player choice and flexibility, and people will cheer.

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185

I love that you didnt just pick a side and dig your heels in. I mean, i disagree on pulling the ripcord (yet!). But agree the game has mistaken the symptom for the cause. I really think this is the last roll of the dice for the meta system (to counter the cyclical subs).
Wow is entering the new reality that its not THE mmo. Theyre trying to pull back old/new players for a boost, but its way past its prime. If this doesnt work (and lets be real, shadowlands looks fun, but its not legion or wotlk in terms of scope), then they need to pick the audience they want to target/keep.

The bottom 15% will always sub because they like the game and just enjoy everything regardless (me). The top 15% will always sub because they want to beat the best mmo on the market for pve. The rest of them though… they need a stratification model that’s fair (top half) or they need catered to (bottom half) so they can flex on me while i pick flowers and poop rainbows.

(sorry, i missed pvpers, but honestly, corruption… covenants… this game kind of hates you).

186

I’ll take “Meaningless Buzzwords” for $400, Alex.

Then don’t.

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187

Pulling the rip cord would have absolutely ZERO effect on you or how you plan to play.

188

That’s literally the only reason anyone likes being covenant locked. They think it “really sticks it to those evil min maxing players”.

Literally. The only reason.

189

No its not. You don’t speak for me.

190

DO ME!!! Do me next! Whats your objections to my points! :slight_smile:

191

How open minded of you.

Getting off is, and has always been an option.

It’s called balancing. More to come before release.

Wow, minus two whole stars because there’s one ability (which you claimed has been nerfed to the ground) that you can’t swap every 10 minutes?

192

Can someone post the ‘I just think it’s neat’ Meme from Marge Simpson for me?

193

I am going to let you in on something the covenent concerns thread is 0.00001% of the games population, And there are well and truly more than 30k people with beta access now.

194

Tell that to my brother, who is as casual as it gets. I could see how overwhelmed he was by all the systems spouted at him within a span of one hour when I let him try a level 60 character on the beta when he came over this weekend. He just didn’t want to play after he’s seen how convoluted it all is.

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195

No wonder your in favor of covenant locking. Your math is atrocious.

196

It’s called “new math” I learned with Common Core. Thanks Obama!

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197

Right now, this game sucks for any new players. Especially TANKS and HEALERS. Sure, pre cath, healers and tanks are easy mode. Cath onward though, the difficulty doesnt so much scale as leapfrog. Around 60, it jumps again (my shammy, who im leveling as a healer exclusively is petrified to log in after a long break and a few levels of world questing just in case she’s missed a jump).
And thats if you dungeon run.

world questing is BORING. My demo warlock (my latest alt) has spent 80 levels doing the same rotation on the same mobs. 1-55 was fine. Levels breezed by. After that though, its kinda awful. I need to run a dungeon, but even as a 15 year experienced vet, im so terrified i’ll be called out for pathetic deeps, i just cant do it. She’s now level 80. Its not any easier.

I remember way back when running wailing caverns towards the end of vanilla and seeing this creep in. Everyone believed that every lowbie was an alt and knew everything about the game. They’d go in hard about mistakes over threat, damage, getting lost, or cc breaking. Like these people were supposed to KNOW all this.

Again, this was all the way back in vanilla. And it still haunts me. I mean, i called them out. Im not a wallflower. But to imagine the experience of a new player, completely lost, spamming a poor rotation. Failing to aoe properly for the ball of death while leveling. Healing said ball of death. TANKING said ball of death whilst the deeps are peeling aggro.

Or resorting to leveling in the worlds most repetitive, boring, dull minimum wage simulator (4xp/minute) … through a series of meaningless, dull, non-engaging and non-progressing HUBS (not storylines, just one hub after the next)…

Im on 100% xp Buff. I cant even get through it! I know where to go. Ive done these quests so many times! Im so bored!

How on earth is a new player supposed to enjoy any of this? If you cant see how detrimental to the longevity of the game this is, no wonder youre arguing about pulling ripcords or ‘opening up the covenants’. The game struggles to bring new people in. Thats why the average age keeps climbing alongside us. Thats why something had to change to the overall experience.

But take hope! Blizzard are digging their heels in for the moment. But im sure you’ll all break them eventually and get what you want. That’s honestly why ive hated even looking at these forums the past couple of months.

198

Look everything aside my wife is a teacher and we’re not in a common core state and thankfully so. Common core is some of the WORST garbage I’ve ever seen. Sorry just had to put that out there lol.

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199

It’s funny if you think that is what I actually said.

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200

Still pro-covenant and being locked into it after choosing. Sorry, not sorry.

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