I agree with you but the dev team has made it clear they do not agree with us. I lost all connection to my character and this game after this nonsense from the devs. Im no longer playing the game and waiting for my sub to expire. They have made it clear they do not care for our thoughts here and will accept all consequences that this may produce. I finally went to ffxiv and the devs show an appreciation for their fans and players that is unrivaled and makes me feel like that is my new home. Covenants could have been my home but the devs decided to make player power the main point of covenants. Which just ended up reducing my class lore and fun with my sub specs. The game actively is encouraging me to gimp myself for one spec and everything just feels bad.
How can the covenants feel like home if its only a home for 1/3 of my specs. Not the character. The character is not relevant anymore. Its just the covenant and the best spec of my class that matters. That does not feel like home.
This is another thing.
What if I don’t WANT my character to identify as a fairy or vampire or zombie or angel? It’s a rogue from Azeroth. The Order Hall had pirates, SI7, and assassins. Those are relatable to my WARCRAFT character. Those make sense. Those aren’t an option lol…
Its sad that instead of expanding on systems we love they just toss them out and make new systems / covenants / covenant halls that just suck the life out of the game. I remember when we started the xpac so many alliance were upset that the horde were in ardenwald and we even got voicelines from alliance leaders distaste for us being there. The devs knew what they were doing and knew that all this would make us uncomfortable. They read all the feedback during alpha, beta and the ripcord thread with over 12K comments and 1k likes. They just do not agree and/or care.
Introduce systems they know are bad. Introduce patches that fix the systems to give people the impression that there’s a reason to resub each patch.
Look at essences in BFA.
Revered/story locked essences that were amazing for most classes/specs? With quests that give 75 rep? Anyone who has played the game knows that is terrible. Blizzard knew that it was terrible.
So what did they do? They announced that they LISTENED TO THE PLAYERS, and GAVE US WHAT WE WANTED… Made the unlock required honored and then announced that they LISTENED TO THE PLAYERS, and GAVE US WHAT WE WANTED AGAIN!!! Made the unlock account wide through the corruption vendor.
They already knew it was going to have those problems. They intentionally shipped it in a bad shape so they could claim to have listened to feedback later.
Not buying it anymore. Morgan Day also told the players that they are not holding back to make the game better. Their dev philosophy is what it is. Ion also said that the ripcord does not exist after saying that it does. They have no plans to change the game and everything they said points to nothing changing. These devs are liars and conartists. I dont have any faith for them and am no longer holding my breath
I want to as well. But I don’t need the system to force all players into doing this for me to make that decision on my own.
Making covenants freely swappable takes nothing away from me, and forcing others to play how I like actually adds negativity to my gameplay because I know others are being punished when I don’t actually get any tangible benefit.
Just like how people can stay in relationships on their own accord, when they don’t have to. Just like how people can use hand tools and straight edge razors when everyone else can use power tools and disposable razors. Just like how people can grow their own fruits and vegetables when others don’t have to. The decision to restrict ourselves isn’t less meaningful because others can freely take a different path - it’s actually MORE meaningful.
You could actually impose that on yourself without having the system do it for you. Choose your first covenant and lock yourself in that one off your own volition.
That’s because you don’t play the game in a way that the “consequences” actually hurt how you play. The choices are inconsequential to you. The “choices” you make don’t impact your ability to buy 7/10 mythic.
It’s honestly such a bad trope when people clamor for meaningful choices and consequences when none of those choices change their ability to play or do certain things because they don’t play the game in a way where that’s even possible.
It’s like legacy farmers complaining that people min/max. Like of course min/maxing doesn’t matter to you wtf lmao
Wait what class is this? I thought the covenents were meant to be at most like 5% of our total DPS anyway?
What the actual hell is wrong with the balance. “Oh don’t worry we’ll balance the covenants so the power won’t matter” said Blizzard, not that a single person actually thought they could keep that promise.
If only there hadn’t been a mass upvoted beta/ reddit thread based around a spreadsheet that claimed 60% of specs were going kyrian. That got kyrian nerfed by 10-12%…
Also, 110% agree OP. I was super excited for the covenants and being able to progress through each covenant, but once I realized the restrictions that were being put in place all those hopes went out the window because I didn’t want to have to make the choice between gameplay and aesthetic.
I went Kyrian with my priest because it matched my holy theme. I love Bastion, and I love the Elyssian hold so much. After about 3 months tough and trying to do PvP, I eventually had to go venthyr because mindgames is just so much more powerful in PvP and just in general content. I hate to say I really like the change, because mindgames is just so much more useful even in PvE content (I would go entire bosses without using BotA that’s how much i disliked the spell).
I should be able to be Kyrian because I love the zone RP wise (which has nothing to do with gameplay) but also pick mind games because that’s the spell I want to use while playing the game. It sucks this is how it turned out because it really could’ve been amazing, but I guess its just classic Blizz.