As someone who wholly feels like I am able to make character-defining choices within a completely flexible system - myself and many of the people I play with are proof that what you’re saying isn’t objectively true.
It’s just your opinion about what criteria is needed to make choices character-defining.
At any given instance they’re not the same though. When one barbarian chooses x combination of talents and another barbarian chooses y combination of talents - those are 2 different barbarians.
Of course it’s not D3. It’s just an example that illustrates how the 2 different types of design can impact a game.
Concretely, there are 2 different types of choices. One that requires some level of planning and commitment, and one that doesn’t.
It doesn’t matter if we use “character-defining” or some other term. It’s not a semantic difference.
Everybody understands the distinction.
That’s why a certain subset of players are so adamantly against it, and why those players will resort to this BS about punishment and suffering being inflicted upon them.
I was thinking the same thing. People keep saying that having the ability to change your character makes everything the same…but if you’re given the ability to make varying versions of a toon - you’re literally making a different character for each combination possible.
Clearly it wouldn’t change anything about the game if we all played a generic “hero” or “adventurer” with the ability to tank, heal or dps.
Of course we would all have the same abilities, but we wouldn’t all have the same abilities at a given moment.
There’s really no difference between that and having paladins, rogues, mages, druids, etc. in the game, and it really confuses me as to why people are so excited to play new classes like death knight or demon hunter when they are added to the game. There’s really nothing new about them, other characters can already dps and tank, why even bother?
It’s almost like having a distinct character that has different abilities, strengths and weaknesses, as compared to other characters, is actually extremely important, and one of the main reasons that games like WoW are fun.
The only difference is that you take the class choice for granted, you are used to it, while the Covenant choice is new. But it’s the same basic concept.
We don’t actually need classes either. The game would function without them. But it would also be incredibly boring, so it’s better to have them.
Yup basically sums up their whole motivation because they want to punish those minority min-maxer who were rude to them once and they don’t care if that affects other players who are just asking for a better gameplay experience, those players are just collateral damage their opinions are not important. When there’s a chance for revenge you just need to take it amirite teeheehee.
Having that restriction at the class level is fine - it would be better if we could switch classes more freely, but it fine as is.
The issue is that now the covenant restrictions compound on top of the class restrictions. Having classes provide diversity is more than enough - especially with the unpruning that they’re doing. The negativity associated with the additional layer covenants puts in the game is completely avoidable.
One issue I have with the being able to swap anytime you want to fit the situation, it will become expected of everyone to swap based on the situation. Even if a certain covenants abilities to fit your playstyle, you will still be expected to swap to that covenant and learn to play that way for that situation. Then you do something else, guess what, swap covenants and learn that playstyle because it’s expected of you. What about weekly mythic plus affixes, are you going to be expected to change weekly based on affixes.
Other problem is, soulbinds are tied to the covenant system, if Blizz allows you to swap at the drop of a hat, does that mean Blizz will have to completely rework the soulbind system thus it takes more time and resources, or do they just half-*** it and we wind up with another azerite system.
In practice I don’t see this being an issue. In levels of content where switching things around would matter, the players are already communicating and strategizing about what would be best for the group.
For example - our token guild boomie always asks “do you guys want me to get treants?” There’s no expectation from the group - there’s a desire to help the group from his end.
In terms of damage - we communicate and strategize in a similar fashion splitting up any difference between aoe and st based on the group composition, the weekly affixes (tyrannical vs fort primarily), and just player desire (sometimes some of us just wanna try something different). A lot of us enjoy this particular aspect of the game and being able to make adjustments for all of the variety offered even within 1 single type of content (M+).
In short - there is no expectation, there’s already a desire.
For pugs 1 of 2 things generally happens -
1 - we adjust to the player we picked up. So if they’re using gear with ST corruptions, we’ll adjust around them if we need to supplement some aoe dps.
2 - we remove them. So if they’re an arcane mage or survival hunter and we’re trying to do a heroic raid speed run, we just won’t bother with them. Covenants just adds an additional layer to discriminate against. So I think there’s a hunter covenant ability that allows them to attack through LoS - if there’s a dungeon where LoS’ing a pack or 2 of mobs around a corner while the hunter focus fires down one particular caster that’s really annoying - and this is a huge part of the dungeon route - then groups will just invite hunters and remove them if they’re not a part of the covenant with that ability. If players could switch abilities - it would at least give some hunters the opportunity to change. But if they can’t, then they’ll just get removed. Personally I’d rather have the choice to change.
This type of choice should and does exist. Tactical choices that can be adjusted on the fly to fit the encounter or type of content. Right now they are provided by talents, essences and certain gearing choices (like trinkets and azerite traits).
This is positive because I have some choices and adjustments to make before a raid or dungeon run.
Having said that, players have also argued that these systems are pointless and don’t need to exist. Generally for one of 3 reasons: (1) the meta tells you what to take, so it doesn’t really matter, (2) it’s impossible to balance them or (3) swapping talents according to the needs of an encounter can start to get annoying, particularly when it’s something repetitive like single target versus aoe.
All of those points are sort of valid to an extent, and they are part of why it is difficult to design talents that work and provide engaging choices. But it’s still the wrong response to abandon the concept because not having any choices is worse than the meta influencing those choices, some imbalances existing, some predictable swapping, etc.
In Shadowlands, soulbinds will be a tactical choice, from what I understand.
What can be said about tactical choices can also be said about character-defining choices. Yes, it’s a challenge to implement them, but it’s still good to have some choices of this type in the game.
I think these kinds of choices that are more permanent aren’t good - but that’s just my take. I don’t think there’s one clear answer or argument that “proves” good/bad/valid/etc. for the system.
Especially when, as others have noted, the ability to make a choice permanent can be given to the player as an option rather than forced on all players.
It would be different if players literally had a pop-up window come up each time they’re about to go into combat asking them to make a selection - yeah that would be completely annoying.
But a system where change is possible would still allow players that think permanent choices are valuable to make those choices. Nothing is forcing them to change.
Well, what I’m picking up is that the way sounds and abilities go, you could have say, your bis ability for PvP, but all the soulbinds will be trash for PvP.
Understood, and it’s a valid take, but my point is simply that there’s nothing inherently wrong with having both types of choices in the game.
We already have both: classes and talents (along with related stuff).
Covenants also have both: the core Covenant abilities and soulbinds.
Covenants are new, so i can understand having some concerns about them, but they also look really cool, and there’s no reason why they can’t provide some choices that require commitment and some that are tactical.
It’s the overall package offered by the Covenant that matters, as far as balance is concerned.
If I can walk into a dungeon and perform well with a couple of different Covenants, it doesn’t matter if it’s because of the active ability of one Covenant and the soulbinds of the other.
Agree on the overall package idea. However, in a game with so many things to do/play, and their variable nature - not only do I think it’s impossible for Blizzard to balance them, I think it’s unfair to expect them to specifically because it’s impossible.
A more talent row approach would alleviate the pressure of needing to balance.
My other concern on the Soulbind side of things was that changing things there was going to require consumables. Hopefully they back off of that approach.
As long as I’m able to swap covenant abilities out(like essences and azerite traits) so I can do the content I want to do I am 100% fine with being stuck in a covenant the entire xpac.
I tend to agree that soulbinds should be flexible, like talents. Maybe a consumable outside of a rest area, though it should be cheap.
“Balance” is never perfect in these games. It’s always an ongoing process. There are going to be specs at the bottom and specs at the top. There will be a meta that recommends this or that.
As far as the new Shadowlands features are concerned, the relevant question, it seems to me, would be something like: is this feature going to make things a lot worse than they otherwise would be?
That’s the understandable concern. I don’t see much reason to think that balance with Covenants will be worse than balance without them, and the idea is very cool, so that makes it worth implementing.
The overall package offered by the Covenants can then be tuned within a reasonable range (which is all that “balance” ever is in these games anyway).
I also think that reducing grinds and RNG would make sense, which seems to be happening, at least to some extent. If I can keep my main character optimal for my preferred level of content without spending all my time in the game doing that, and I can work on alts fairly easily, then that would make the Covenant system significantly more attractive, imho.
If it’s not cumbersome to have multiple active alts, then having a variety of choices and progression paths becomes more enjoyable.