Sorry what? You’re making stuff up here bud.
If they were to abandon everything else right now and focus strictly on balancing covenants every second of every day, they wouldn’t be able to come close balancing across then across multiple specs, roles, dungeons, raids and PvP. Just not possible.
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You understand Blizzard doesn’t have just one guy working on classes right?
Yes. With many teams of people, just by the way the covenants are designed they are impossible to balance. A lot are dmg… some are utility… How do you balance utility against dmg? How do you balance the same utility vs dmg across a tank and a dps? And if one is really good are you just gonna make its soulbinds dog poop?
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No, I’ve never said there’s potential with covenant abilities. Quite the opposite actually.
I’d rather not have some sloppy seconds coding for some sloppy, poorly thought out borrowed power abilities, thanks. I don’t see any positives with these things, only negatives. If one of the abilities ends up being so fun and interesting for the class, it’s something that should be baseline and gained through leveling up in the first place. Or a talent, don’t get me started on how many terrible or dead talents there are across the classes.
It’s become clear that the people that cling so fiercely to this imaginary idea of covenant abilities providing some sort of super meaningful rpg choice, do so out of a desire to spite the people that would be greatly negatively affected by them. I have no sympathy for these people.
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Some major tin foil hat theory going on here. It might be the people that cling to the rpg choice want just that… an rpg choice. Sure there are likely some people that wish ill will on others (this applies to people on both sides) but the majority fight passionately for what they believe is best for the game (or them).
Okay, Karen. It’s not like even if Blizzard could make every talent appealing, you and the other Karens would stop complaining.
If numbers are the problem, then nerf the numbers. Don’t completely gut an entire expansion because your numbers on a spreadsheet aren’t more impressive than the next persons.
We want WoW to be more of an RPG than a MOBA. Everything in this game has been ripped out and replaced to be so streamlined for min/maxers that it’s now illegal to have RPG in WoW anymore.
And I have no sympathy for overly-competitive people who would destroy everything in the game for the sake of numbers on a spread sheet.
Part of me wishes Blizzard would re-install the old threat generation thresholds just so the rest of the community can see the ‘skilled’ players scream and pout for something easier.
They won’t, just by looking at what the powers are, it’s pretty clear there’s going to be winners and losers.
Hopefully, when Ion said he’d abandon it and allow free-switching if it didn’t work, he didn’t mean after the last patch.
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I rest my case.
I think it’s pretty comical that you have no clue that there are people like this that would go out of their way to create a negative experience for other people, just because they personally have some perceived grievance with them.
They don’t understand that more than one type of person plays this game and that compromises can be reached between the various types of people.
There’s no reason the system HAS to be so negative for the people that do care about their performance while also enjoying rpgs. But these people don’t care, they just want their “enemies” to suffer.
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Well, you know what assumptions do? I think you know. Say it with me now, they make a… out of you and me 
And so I’m here to tell you that you are mistaken, and are applying a label to me that doesn’t fit. I do not want imbalance. I’m saying there’s a chance at balance and if it works it could be great. But if it doesn’t they’ll scrap it and open up the abilities to everyone. It’s a win-win situation. If they don’t scrap it after it’s fully implemented and not working properly, then the masses will go nuts and they’ll be forced to cave.
Pot meet Kettle.
Irony meet stupidity.
Keep trying, Karen.
Perhaps you should avoid your own assumptions, as I wasn’t referring to you.
Does it matter? You’re pinning a label on anyone who wants to see if Covenant abilities can be balanced.
Also you did refer to me.
I didn’t mention a word about people that thought they could be balanced in that post, so no.
The only part of my post that directly had anything to do with you was the first part where I denied your putting words in my mouth. The second part was my opinion on Blizzard’s fall-back plan, along with my personal grievances about borrowed power systems in general and how they should be addressed better.
The third part had nothing to do with you, unless I’m mistaken and you’re one of those people…in which case it did, sure.
There really isn’t though, unless they make all abilities and all legendaries do basically the same thing, which is boring. I’d rather be able to choose a fun ability without it determining my questlines and aesthetics rather than having them watered down to the point of not mattering. That said, there are some abilities that are CCs, and there are some that are pure damage. There is no chance at balance for that much of a difference.
Tbh though, my problem with them isn’t strictly balance. I don’t pvp. What if the aesthetic I want has a pvp ability that does little to nothing in pve? That means I effectively have a useless ability. I could have the most OP pve soul binds in the game, but if i have a useless ability, it still feels bad.
On one hand, choice is nice. On the other hand, this is an MMO, not a single player game. As someone who derps around in (or intends to derp around in, once the semester is over…) multiple areas of the game, this does not seem like a good idea.
Say there’s a skill that’s nice in mythic dungeons and raids, but horrid in pvp. There’s another skill that is the opposite. Things will be fine in mythic/raids, but in pvp if I pick the first one I’m suddenly missing a chunk of power that my class was designed around having - and my opponents will probably have it. Or they might not and the situation could be reversed.
And to top it off, the skills are attached to lore, so I have some RP choices to make as well. No matter what i pick, my gameplay is negatively impacted somewhere. At this point why doesn’t Blizz just design classes to function on their own in the first place? I’m so tired of parts of my class being sliced off so that what was removed can be given back during ‘progression’ and I have to choose between one chunk of something previously removed and another chunk that was also removed beforehand.
My class should be functional baseline. I’m not fond of my effectiveness and enjoyment of different parts of the game being tied to some lore choice, either.
TLDR - as someone who cares both about effectiveness, class design/fun, lore/RP, pve and pvp, it really feels like blizz is shooting themselves in the foot here, and then giving the players the ‘choice’ of shooting themselves in the left foot or the right foot.
That said, credit where credit is due. THis is still a huge improvement over BFA, and I have seen a few skills that look overall useful - whether that was intentional, though, I can’t say xD And the whole…soulbinds thing. I’m content to complain a little now and then see how it plays out, but I think it’s important blizz be aware of this.
Let me spell it out for you since you keep bringing up the same tired arguments and not even reading anything I, or almost anyone else in this thread is saying:
I don’t want them to remove covenant abilities.
I don’t want to make it easy to swap covenant abilities.
I want to choose the covenants that are most appealing to me, on that character and know that that decision does not negatively impact my chance of success in my preferred form of content.
There’s two very easy ways to accomplish this.
Option 1: You remove the abilities from rated PvP and Mythic raid content. It’s a dumb cop-out, but it solves the problem in content that actually matters. For a vast majority of players, and probably yourself included, this has no impact on you. It makes raiders and competitive PvPers happy, even if we miss out on some fun.
Option 2: The ability is chosen separately from the rest of the covenant system. Lore-wise, you are granted the ability by an envoy looking to later recruit you into their covenant (whether you ever commit to it or not). It can be just as difficult to change as your actual covenant. What matters is that the player power choice is separate from the HUGE amount of other, non-player power content associated with covenants. This way, they keep the system in its entirety but separate the decision of prioritizing cosmetics over player power, which is not a decision that is appropriate to give to players in an MMORPG.
obviously soulbinds get the same treatment
I am someone defending the notion of covenant abilities in the belief there could be balance. You said that it’s “apparent” that all people who defend this are doing it for the reason you listed. And in a direct response to me… yeah. No. You directed that at me.
Heard of Soulbinds? I’ve mentioned them like 10 times now.
As for Legendaries? They’re not limited by Covenant. I don’t know where you got that from.