It definitely is.
One could argue that you can’t really know how much you’ll like a Shaman until you get to a high enough level and get a feel for how they play.
Very disingenuous! The first time you swap, it’s pretty much instant.
Trying to swap BACK is the only time you need to deal with this 2 week long wait.
It isn’t because you do not get all your class abilities with this current system.
It’s important that you understand that no one is asking for other class abilities. Just their own.
Covenants are random because it was random which spells were assigned to each covenant. I had no choice in the matter that night fae is the best for me. It was randomly decided by Blizzard to be so.
You don’t get to see the other covenant campaigns. At best you go and do some world quests in the other zones as a part of a daily quest to help them out. That’s it. The lore is not the same for all, you get a story questline exlusive to your chosen covenant, but in the long run, it doesn’t have any further effect.
The other covenant campaigns include “go help this covenant and do the same quests that the members of that covenant are doing.” So yes, they are the same.
The only reason I’d swap is for specific content and then I’d swap back so not disingenuous in the slightest. Learn what words means and how simple logic chains work. My primary play is raid but sometimes I like to pvp. If I swap to pvp I am going to want to go back to primary talent for raid.
It definitely is not there is a single class specific ability a single shared utility between a classes and a tree of passives against shared between all classes. It doesn’t change gameplay in any meaningful way outside the level 60 talent.
Right so you want me to make a decision about my character power based on a leveling questline? That’s asinine.
No they are not, they each have exclusive campaigns. You do the same world quests at best. I get that you are opposed to the system, and so am I, but at least don’t spread BS about it.
Congrats there’s a handful of separate quests. Congrats! You now do 30% less damage because you wanted to do those quests and not these quests!
I mean, it’s pretty obvious people aren’t going to see eye-to-eye on this.
At the end of the day, I view my choice of Covenant as a literal lens through which I experience the game. The verisimilitude of an RPG is the #1 most important thing to me.
Can’t change my mind on that.
Peace out!
You can do that without forcing me to have to choose a covenant I hate because it’s objectively the best for me.
I’m just saying how it is, I’m not defending it. I’m correcting your missinformation because you’ve decided to adopt the pro-covenant strategy of spreading BS to make a point.
The only people spreading manure are those comparing a single class ability a shared utility ability and shared passive tree to a class.
And the people who literally lie about whatever they need to at the moment to make any other point besides that. Like saying that all covenants get the exact same quests.
You’re trying way, way too hard to make this a game breaking life decision.
You’re probably wearing a black bandanna mask while writing this and often sign up for Facebook protest but never actually go.
Seriously… chill out Kyle and put in more job applications.
This assumes you know what the GOAL of the changes are. Which very few of us, outside of Blizzard, actually know.
But okay… Not out of spite (weird way to encourage a discussion - im seeing this in all these threads by the way - a complete failure to discuss this system objectively, and instead launch into emotion and special pleading).
I’ve talked a lot about why I like covenants. Ive also acknowledged issues with it and attempted to offer solutions. I even agree that EVENTUALLY (and i mean sooner rather than later) they should be opened up. My own personal time frame is around 9.1.5.
But anyway. Five reasons off the top of my head:
The covenant system is THE meta system in this expansion. I do not want to have to grind up 4 different covenants to stay moderately current. And then i get to do it on my alts. Remember when y’all were complaining about how annoying it is to level alts in BfA and get them raid ready because of all the azerite they needed to farm… Yeah, you’re asking for literally the same thing.
The main intention APPEARS (see above disclaimer on not being privy to Blizzards intentions), to streamline the gameplay experience for new and returning characters (see all the stuff on the front end experience for new players). Opening up the covenant system would be a bewildering and aimless experience for those players. You’d hit end game, you’d be sent into this directionless renown grind. At least Azerite was one rep farm which everything contributed to. A player hitting end game in shadowlands with open covenants would instead be met with 4 rep farms, with objectives all over the place with slow incremental gains. This doesnt even mention the bewildering array of choice on which soulbind, which class ability, which utility, which conduits, where do i get these conduits, legendaries? Which one is impacted the most by my choices? I just want to play the game. I dont want to write a masters thesis on the multiple permutations available to players in shadowlands.
Remember how you were all complaining about having to pay for sim sites because there was too much complication with ‘systems atop systems’. Again, you’re asking for that again. Only way more complex with far more permutations and possibilities.
Which brings us to balancing. If a class is outperforming another class dramatically, then ideally (and hey, im with you, blizzard havent exactly created a perfectly balanced game since… well, ever - maybe by negligence, or even by design (fotm creates re-rolls)), that can be pinpointed quicker and isolated. Open the system up and blam! Every single micro change to balance has huge ramifications on every single player using whatever it was that got changed. And if youre a monk who is seriously underpowered, but because x-soulbind + x-covenant ability + x-covenant-utility + x-class + x-conduit load out + x-spec + x-race + x-legendary +x-trinket creates some massively overpowered spec… then somethings getting nerfed… and that’s going to seriously annoy the people who have all but one, or all but 2, or all but 3 or all but 4 etc —> x+0 of those conditions. The unintended consequences are multiplied the more variables and permutations exist.
So if you think balancing is going to be an issue and nerf bats will be swung with glee, just wait until the covenants are unlocked for the crying, wailing and gnashing of teeth when your moderately performing character gets smashed because of an issue with someone’s broken cumulative load-out.
I like the system. Not gonna lie. I like the fantasy from an RP/story perspective. I like that my alts get to go on their own journey and dont repeat the same path as my main (which they wouldnt do with an open covenant system). I like that torghast rewards me playing on alts with completely unique class experiences. I like that the game wants me to play on alts again and goes out of its way to make it fun, unique and interesting. I also think its a far more elegant solution to the dreaded ‘cyclical subscriber’ (which is why we have had these annoying meta power systems in game since Legion - they’re an attempt to reward time and engagement incentivcising people to keep their subs between major patches with lots of very boring busy work).
I dont want to replay BFA. And this is precisely what you folks are asking for (whilst having also spent the past 2 years campaigning for change). It blows my mind. Systems atop systems; repetitive rep grinding; lots of pointless ‘busy work’; alt unfriendly content. The whole point of shadowlands appears to be to move away from this. Make the game more straightforward and accessible (theory crafters will always theorycraft) to the lay-player. And just make a fun, engaging game. That’s how i see shadowlands to be honest. The only problem is that every time i come to the forums my hype is destroyed by the constant complaining.
Actually, let me come back to why they should open up covenants at 9.1.5.
First, by then almost everyone who wants to play shadowlands will have had their shadowlands on rails experience with the covenants. The new player point (2) is no longer a requirement. Second, the first real balance pass between specs/classes and covenants will have taken place during the course of 9.0-9.1. This wont fix or identify every possible issue, but it will soften the landing, so to speak once the system opens up (point 3 addressed). Third, i’ll have done all 4 of the covenants and likely all 4 of the rep grinds. I’ll have had my lovely alt experience (points 1, 4 and 5).
Finally, it’ll just make the game more interesting to open things up. Blizzard get their goals met (streamline launch attractive to new/returning players), players now get their needs met (nerd out!).
How would you like the system to work? Do you want to merely separate the cosmetic stuff from the class ability, or do you want to be able to use different covenant abilities for different content? (say Kyrian in raids & Venthyr in m+)?
I would like the Covenant abilities to instead be rolled into a new talent row. Then the only difference between the covenants to be purely aesthetic/story/RP.
Ion himself said the goal is to blur the meta. They are so focused on a system that makes a meta impossible that they forgot to actually make the system make sense in the game. And it doesn’t even come close to achieving that goal anyway.
Look at all the work that’s gone into the leveling, ui, character designer, and streamlining of end game. The goal is clearly to open the game up to a new/former audience. Far too many dev hours have been invested in the revamp of stuff none of us long term players really care about for it to be an accident. If we want to level an alt, we go level an alt. If we want an ugly tauren female with 1 of 8 ugly faces, we roll that tauren.
Look also at just how on rails they want the covenant system? Your covenant locks you into this choice of soulbinds, these conduits lay out possibilities with these extra smash attacks/utils (informed and powered by your soulbinds and load outs). You do THIS amount of stuff every week and you get THIS amount of renown. You are done for the week using the covenant system.
Its so… well, i already said it… on rails. And i cant help but believe this is deliberate because they likely got sick of player feedback saying they felt lost leveling and lost at end game. So they made it absolutely clear what a new player had to do for both parts of the game.
They are clearly trying to modernise the game for a new audience and not just us 30-50 somethings who picked the game up when it was the [insert positive superlative…] game on the block. These changes indicate that this game is ATROPHYING. Pay attention! Why would these changes exist if the game was retaining its audience? Why go to the trouble of re-inventing it? Why, if your audience already knows what to expect anyway, go to the trouble of putting it on rails if it didnt HAVE to? These changes arent to SPITE you. They are to keep the game fresh and cater to a potential audience who arent stuck in a 2005 time warp so that you, in 2025 can keep subscribing, keep raiding and keep flexing on the Shadowbabies just as we all did with the wrath babies (who are our current and reigning overlords).
As for blurring the meta. Locking players into something can do that of course (he used the example if i remember of legion legendaries and rng/dr (on second lego dropping) breaking it… Titan forging+socket also does that in a way. I mean, its the meta to have it. But that rng… but we all hate that (well, i dont care tbh, but i dont really play competitively). But i know you all hated it because i read the forums and 40% of my youtube subs are devoted to wow for some reason and they all told me you hate it.
So i suppose they could do it by going all in on RNG on legos and conduits. But to be fair, its a bit of a fools errand. Theres no escaping the meta. Unless you lock players into a 2 week cooldown on soulbind loadouts where they have to chose between their raid or their mythic plus level…
To be honest though… and editing this to say it… these changes exist because wow has had a long standing problem of bringing new players into the game and keeping them. Forget flying, forget ripcords. The people who design this game and have the data are taking a punt. They want to bring in new players to the game to make up for the players leaving the game. They’re literally trying to streamline and make the game more accessible so y’all can still be playing this game with the same budget 5 or 10 years down the line. But the discussion over covenants has proven… you hate change. And maybe, once atvi scales the budget back, and blizzard are forced to cut content and cater to you, you’ll get the game of your dreams. All 450,000 of you.