So the entire premise of your argument is to spite people that chase DPS increases. Okay.
What about people that just, you know, want to experience the other abilities and soulbinds across different areas of the game like I said?
Stop whinging about players that are better than you.
You are very caught up in the idea that permanence = meanginful. That is not and never has been true.
The feedback on locked covenants is mountainous - obviously more people dislike it than like it. You see how many people quit? There is no reason to even say you like it other than feigning the importance of permanence (disguised by calling it meaning). It does not at all improve the gameplay experience to keep them locked.
It’s just extremely corny to still be arguing in favor of hurting the gameplay experience so you can tout some garbage about “HOW MEANINGFUL” the 1 in 4 choice is, especially when almost ever class just picks the same covenant as each other anyway.
You are objectively wrong if you don’t think removing restrictions would both increase creativity and enjoyment.
I’ll weigh in again with another example I’m sure nobody in the thread defending covenants has had personal experience dealing with.
One of our shadow priests (now ret paladin) raided as Venthyr which was suboptimal for his damage. The only reason I allowed it is because we are on farm already and we already have the record for the fastest mythic sire Denathrius kill in the entire world. We can get away with it.
This would 100% not fly for a less focused guild. His lost damage could be the difference between a kill or wiping. The only reason he was Venthyr is because it’s essential for PvP, he’s already 2400 but needs the glad wins. He wanted to swap to Night Fae but that would absolutely mean his chances of pushing glad are now significantly (maybe impossible) harder.
Why is this a thing? It’s so absolutely braindead that It’s hard to even understand how a company could greenlight such a stupid idea. Why would you actively discourage people from doing two forms of content?
People keep saying this, yet noone has been able answer why Enhance Shaman play Venthyr which has significantly less output potential than other options.
Which means people either just don’t understand why it is chosen, or even that it is technically not the best pick. However it is a clear example of a spec that has prolifically used a covenant that isn’t BiS simply because of what people have read online.
Hey guys here’s a super niche example where all of the covenant abilities are pretty close, why is everyone picking the only covenant ability that isn’t clunky and scales with Maelstrom to become instant?
I’m really amazed why people would take the absolutely far and away least clunky of all three.
Necrolord - absolutely terrible
Kyrian*(ty Vicesify)- a literal clunky totem with tiny range
Night fae requires channel time.
An instant cast red chain heal/chain lightning
Hmm wonder why crazy why cant anyone answer this!!!
(its answered a thousand times daily in the shaman discord, look harder)
I don’t think you quite understand, I know why Enhance chooses Venthyr, I don’t care about seeing discord. My point is that people were previously unable to answer my question, they would say “everyone has to play BiS” and not actually understand the choices they are making.
I asked the same person 3 times why they chose their covenant as they said they “had to pick it because it was the best”.
They could not answer me why it was the best, in what situation it was the best, etc.
That is the issue.
People are so strongly on one side of the fence without even knowing why they are.
There are absolutely people who have issues with it, like yourself, who play at the top end of content.
However that is not the majority case. The majority is that a bunch of people are complaining about something they know nothing about simply because someone on youtube told them it was bad.
I don’t care about whether covenants stay locked or don’t, but I do care about people making complaints about something they hardly understand because of some social media nonsense they heard.
That is essentially what every Preheat thread it, and most (not all) of the people in this debate are making Preheat arguments.
I understand pretty clearly, you said nobody was able to answer why Enhancement shamans play Venthyr and I told you.
I’d argue people play Venthyr is because discords and Enhancement shamans say it’s the best/least clunky. What more do you want? That’s literally the problem with covenants at a design point. People want to play what is best and 99% of the meaningful choice is beaten by someone joining the class discord and asking what they should play.
Nobody wants to be the hunter that rocks up without using Wild Spirits.
well if they know witch one is the BiS that means they read on wowhead or disc or some other place, I dont think ppl need to know how to fix a engine to drive a car, its good to know but does it realy matter ?
I want to be a venthyr but I only do M+ on my warrior so night fae it is …
Picturing what % of people buy pc parts for their computer and know exactly why certain CPU/GPU is conisdered the ‘best’ for their money. Haavi just out here asking people why do you think that CPU is the best CPU for under $200 exactly huh?
And yet, players asked for smf and 2-hand frost/ enh back. This is a casual game. Always has been.
Most of it’s core design features don’t have a place in a competitive game. If it was designed that way crit wouldn’t exist. Or rng procs. Class, spec, race, profession would all be cosmetic.
There is a compromise in every facet of design between the high, middle and low end players.
The issue with covenants is that they are so shallow. There is no room to really express skill with them so that a player can choose one and find a way to be competitive with a meta choice.
Making them a talent row makes it even less of a choice than it is now.
But people like to change things around aesthetically without feeling punished. What about the rpg that people who like to dps enjoy? Today I cannot get bis gear/covenant traits without giving up my first choice rpg storyline. On top of that the game now hurts you even harder by not playing one covenant. They are punishing players that do not have a fully upgraded covenant hall by giving them less ap. Therefore further hurting people that want to swap around for power differences.
A sad number of talents are doa. They are so low on the totem pole of priorities because they are so easily swappable.
Why? They have done it with stormbolt before. “If the target cannot be distorted, it instead takes bonus dmg.” Scale that number, make it competitive.
In a dream world, they would release more frequent balance updates. But I understand the issues that would cause for players/ guilds during progression. So we compromise by waiting until the tier is over.
Yes, so you agree making them talents would very clearly fix a very serious and obvious issue that people have been talking about since quite literally the moment covenant abilities were announced? Balance doesn’t need to matter if it can be swapped around.
It’s literally the most obvious and easy fix that they could do.
Yes, you’re clearly talking in a dream world because this is the same Blizzard who left Hpal in its state for 3 tiers back to back in BFA and already announced they wouldn’t be doing balance updates mid tier.
Again, something you do not understand is that people don’t “have” to play BIS. BUT, what is more likely when you cannot swap covenants is that people will default to the best rather than experiment or try the ones they might think is cooler because “cool” doesn’t impact actual gameplay. At the end of the day, you’re just pressing the same keybind you set your covenant ability to. And if one does 10% more throughput in most of the content you do, you’re just going to take that one and never consider experimenting because of the restrictions put in place.
if you unlock covenants, people will far more frequently shy away from just auto-selecting the BIS choices.
It is 100% delusional to think otherwise.
Nobody cares which covenant they chose. They just pick the one that best improves the gameplay of their preferred content. Unlocking covenants just allows people to experiment and enjoy more of the game while not pretending there’s this grand allure to selecting a 1/4 choice that everyone else also selects.
It is actually funny that the same 8 people that would be arguing these tired old tropes have been reduced to about 3 but it’s still the same names. All still on alts with no relevant recent achievements.
Almost like they aren’t actually playing the game to know whether or not locked covenants is annoying or not.