Just as painful as it is now where you need to regrind gear, you dont change covenant so…
what would be temporary? There’s always gonna be tryhards who are gonna level 4 of each or people who cant not play meta.
But many people will be forced to choose based on theme or fun because whatever they choose, they will have some form of weakness, they wont be able to be optimal at everything and that’s the point
that part
they said they have a contingency, I’m betting on it being used
A conversation is typically two people who communicate between themselves in a manner that validates and furthers the conversation. Preach spent the majority of the video talking about himself, while ignoring any perspectives that Ion put forward.
Not that Ion was much better, though it’s telling the host just steamrolls the whole exchange in an effort to force his opinions through. Thank the Profit we ain’t playing Preachs version of WoW. Retail has it issues, sure, but Preach WoW sounds like the most boring video game ever designed.
I’m not a slave to the meta - I just do my own thing.
I’m completely disconnected from any part of the game that cares about min-maxing and I’m not unhappy about it. So I hope the devs aren’t looking at my participation metrics and trying to imagine some way of getting me into a group with Preach, because I just don’t see a world where either of us will be happy about the outcome.
Doubt it ll come anytime soon, maybe at the last patch of the expac which I wouldnt mind then when we spend most of our relevant time locked.
The point of locked covenants would have been taught and I expect a similar system for next expac, that is the direction blizzard is taking and we aint going back to “change everything easily” mode, RPG choices are back uwu
This 100% How many casual players would get interviews? Blizzard’s problem is they think people like Preach speak for the WoW community, when he is in fact a fraction of it.
I’d say 9.0.5 or 9.1
we’ll see
Was impressed with the discussion. It’s the first time when WoW director was discussing the game on equals with the content maker. Usually it’s just QnA.
My favorite moment was when Ion plain asked if Peach thought that the ideal would be to have every hunter to be the same given the most optimal circumstances. It felt like there’s was some revelation was made that moment. I’ll be curious to see if design decisions will be affected by this discussion in the future, or at least they will be open to more discussions like this.
Oh no what Ion show was simple, he show how many raids, many of which are nowhere NEAR world first have very similar set ups, with let’s say 3 hunters and all of them having the same talents, same azerite, same everything, then we have a problem, because in an RPG you are supposed to build your character instead of copy what icy veins tells you.
And therefore he is trying to find way to make us different, corruption without the vendor was their first attempt but failed due to rng, covenants are their 2nd attempt but are not rng which makes the choice far more heavy and it is personal, no rng involved.
First of all, I think having to choose between covenants and have a hard choice that you have to decide between which faction you identify is an interesting RPG component of the game. This is something I agree with Blizzard, we don’t really have much of that anymore.
However, I still do agree with Preach though, for a couple reasons.
I absolutely think players will be excluded from certain types of content depending on covenant abilities. Casual players too. Let’s not pretend the WOW community is something it’s not. Once you start getting beat by players in PVP because they have a better covenant choice, you’re going to feel like an idiot for trying to have fun in the game and picking your flavor cov. Once players find you can trim off x minutes from mythic+ by having a teleport for example, that’s going to be a req. “Make your own key!” Okay, make systems that promote less toxicity too.
I think it’s really lame to use negative consequences vs. a positive to promote a player’s decision. Let’s say I really love my hunter, have been playing it since TBC. New expansion comes out, and my class gets 8 new abilities. I just want to be able play with my class and have my class feel more fleshed out. Now I can’t. I can only pick 2 abilities and get punished for playing with the others. I think that’s lame. It’s not fun. I will already miss out on all the events, the RPG elements, the armor, mounts, etc of the other covenants. I want to be able to play my class and use its abilities. I can switch talents to explore my class at will without punishment. Time grind, in the case of covenants, are a punishment.
So much of your gameplay loop, aesthetic, story, and player power (soulbinds) is tied to covenants, why is it really necessary to gate the abilities? This is my main disconnect with the devs and the origin of the above complaints. There is already so much tied to covenants, is there any real benefit to the “core-RPG” to tie the class abilities too? I wish we could just have some sort of advanced anima talent tree that we could experiment with all the abilities.
The positives: However, I was really heartened by a lot of what Ion said. First, he said the team was exploring ways for players of one covenant to ‘rent’ the abilities of another covenant. This should be a no brainer blizzard, please do this. Let us rent the abilities for like a week or something, not just inside the rogue-lite.
Also, they are revisiting the consumable conduits. Hearing blizzard say they realize this was a mistake and that they are changing this literally brought all my excitement back for this expansion. The icing one the cake was the acknowledgment of major class needs, like with shadow priest.
I agreed with Ion on this fact. It is particularly annoying when you have to go to a certain area to change specs (essences).
That being said…
This is just wrong.
There will be a “correct” covenant per encounter. Period. You will have to just settle on being mediocre if you don’t have it depending on how hard it is to swap.
It will likely settle on something like bis aoe, bis st, bis mobility, bis pvp, etc. Then depending on the encounter you will either have the right one or the bad one.
Not sure how this “choice” is a good feeling for anyone.
Theorycrafting has been around since vanilla. It just didn’t seem as prevalent since everyone was new.
The game has been around for 15 years though now. At this point everyone who plays on any semi-competitive level is all about min/max’ing. Competitive in this sense isn’t just the mythic raid 1%. It includes topping meters on heroic, low 1800 arenas, comparing your own dps to that of your peers (guild, warcraftlogs, whatever).
This illusion that it only impacts the top 1% needs to stop. It impacts everyone.
Oddly enough I had the same thought when I watched the ‘‘discussion’’. (lol)
It only impacts the 1% aka world first and m29s because they are the only people that REQUIRE/NEED to play optimally.
Everyone else doesnt, everyone else needs to learn to play RPGs they way they are meant to be played as Ion has stated.
YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD AT EVERYTHING, YOU HAVE STRENGHTS AND WEAKNESSES
The catering to certain streamers will end up being a mistake in the long run. If you randomly selected people who play this game in many different ways you have diverse opinions.
Most streamers are carrying the same opinions overall which I don’t feel is carried by the whole of the community. Do I enjoy content from streamers? Yes I enjoy differing opinions, but what we have here is streamers presenting their opinions as to whats best for everyone and this game. It’s incredibly arrogant no matter how it’s stated or said.
I will continue to campaign for RPG elements to remain in this game because it is a MMORPG.
I am advocating for a compromise of a stacking buff of some kind for staying loyal to your covenant. If you hop covenants cool, but there needs to be a downside on the RPG side. Remember it seems in the Shadowlands the more you are loyal and do for your covenant the more the covenant grows in power.
The more anima that is fed into the Maw the more powerful the Jailer becomes. It’s only fitting the more we do for our covenant we share in that power as well. If you swap it weakens you with a debuff for a time period.
I am advocating for RPG elements to retain the heart and soul of an MMORPG.
The buff or debuff should be weekly to avoid jumping and swapping between boss encounters.
No. It doesn’t.
EVERYONE WANTS TO PLAY optimally.
MY CLASS ALREADY HAS STRENGTH AND WEAKNESSES RELATIVE TO OTHER CLASSES. WE DO NOT NEED TO BE LOCKED INTO GATED TEMPORARY XPAC POWERS TOO!
Corporate Lawyer Ion absolutely trounced Preach, I’m not sure what you were watching. Ion was incredibly prepared for this conversation and seemed to know going in he would come out on top, which is why he/Blizzard reached to Preach’s camp in the first place.
Preach got one good point in. One. Otherwise, Ion had him absolutely manhandled the entire interview. He brutally beat Preach. Preach was basically on the backfoot the entire interview after Ion boxed him in with questions about how he would like to see World of Warcraft and Preach agreed to a vision that is in direct conflcit with what the core audience, 99.5+% of players, view the game as.
Ion was so far ahead of Preach that Ion literally had to break the flow of the interview before it was over and him a lay-up (just to smack it down) because Preach failed to move the needle so much to actual relevant topics that he might have scored points on.
Preach was absolutely brutally and utterly thrashed. You have to be completely blinded by salt to see anything but the truth of it.
Yes only the 1% NEED/REQUIRE to be optimal because it is a race
want=/=need
In addition a game is not about what YOU WANT, you cant have your cake and eat it too, ion has said:
YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD AT EVERYTHING, YOU HAVE STRENGHTS AND WEAKNESSES
And the more layers they add the better, the more options and builds and rpg elements to combine and play around.
Like it or not, this is the future of WoW, if you want to be optimal at everything you shouldnt play wow
This is a sentiment that is quite tone def to me. Wow players want to play optimally. I think that people need to stop pretending that this is not true. We play a multiplayer RPG, not a single player. Optimization is a major component of all MMORPGs. Stop pretending that wow is a single player game.
I dont yet I do most content people would consider serious and there’s many others like me who dont either, and even more casuals who just dont care much.
I find a build I like, I keep simming choices, talents, corruptions that I like until I find a build that I enjoy that also does somewhat well and isnt too far off from broken meta build that is seen as “optimal”, I will always be sub optimal because I ll never choose dps over fun gameplay.
And I am doing just fine and love the loced covenant system.
Rpg elements are rpg elements whenever online or not, the game has core rpg design which means " YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD AT EVERYTHING, YOU HAVE STRENGHTS AND WEAKNESSES "
Right now everything thinks Venthyr will be the overwhelmingly correct choice because you can’t put a price on the skip feature it gives. Preach did a good job explaining how the necrolord shield ability seems like it might be a reasonable ability, but that because Blizzard can’t (or he doesn’t believe will) balance an encounter with the assumption people have the Necrolord shield that it doesn’t actually become all that much more amazing, especially when considering the teleport can allow you to entirely negate a theoretical mechanic and trivialize something that was supposed to be difficult (or require a more specific raid setup).
If they can make all their abilities feel like there is no right answer then it becomes more what they want, and Preach just has to deal with the fact that the game is being designed in a way that isn’t about the top 1% wanting to have complete and total control over their character. Currently though I don’t know if that’s being accomplished given the weakness of Kyrian and the overwhelming favorability of Venthyr.
I actually did like some of Ion’s reasoning and logic in that if you can swap everything at any given point in time then you remove choice because everyone will want you to update your character as needed and if you don’t then they assume you don’t care or whatever.