Well, how would you feel if you could just go talk to a rogue trainer or something, and just swap classes, for free, no restriction?
You’re a druid right now, you have no interest in leveling a new character, but you want to play a paladin. So you go & talk to a paladin trainer & suddenly all of your gear is swapped to appropriate plate gear. You’re feral? You’re now ret at the press of a button. I feel like that would be really, really dumb & unsatisfactory. That’s how I feel about specs now, switching from a healer, to tank, to dps, to caster with no effort. And that’s what I’m worried about covenants being. Covenants arent specs, they arent artifacts weapons. They have their own gear sets, their own talents, and their own abilities just like a class does. I don’t think you should be able to swap classes freely, and I don’t think you should be able to swap covenants or specs easily. If you could become a paladin with the press of button, then you aren’t a druid anymore. Just like you aren’t resto anymore, or a feral anymore, or a balance druid anymore. You’re just a druid. Then, you’re just ‘a character’. Nothing matters.
i mean, swapping classes like that is pretty much final fantasy. its a cool concept, but its not WOW. if they decided to add that to the game then so be it? less restriction i guess. im not advocating that should happen either. i understand how you see covenants. still not a fan, but i get it.
edit: im fine with just being a druid. thats how i identify. im a jack of all trades. thats why i play druid.
That’s what I’m saying though, why would you feel like that’s not WoW, but swapping covenants is? Covenants arent an arbitrary spec choice that you change based on circumstance. It’s a subclass. What you want to change freely are your soul binds, which you’ll be able to do. Covenants are class, Soul Binds are talents. When you decide to be a warrior, you cant be a healer, unless you do the work to level a healer. If you pick maldraxxus, you’re good at aoe, unless you decide to do the work to level up venthyr to have better single target.
eh, i see the covenants as a group of people i join to help them out with whatever problems they have. they provide me with additional power to succeed in my adventure. i dont see them as a seperate class.
That’s what a class is, a group of people with shared ideals* (generally, lore given. Tauren pally’s & human pally’s are different.) When you’re a human paladin, youre an archaic member of the Order of the Silverhand, you help out at Northshire Abbey, get promoted to a deputy when you arrive in Goldshire, then you get promoted to ‘Detective’*(effectively, but nowhere in the game does it say this, although humans are officially drafted into the stormwind military.) then you just go about by yourself, picking & choosing what cases you decide to take. Eventually you hit level 40 to go on a quest for your order to retrieve your holy steed, so on & so forth.
tbh, we’re going in circles here. let me ask you. what if the dev’s choice in narrative was to have covenants obtained and the abilities and such swappable at will? would you be on the forums opposing their decision? or would you even care?
let me just say, i have come to terms the current restrictions imposed on classes and such. i know i cant just be a warrior with a click of a button. im fine with that. im not interested in having another layer added to it. you are. thats cool.
I would be wholly against it, the same way I was against dual spec, and the same way I was against LFD and I was against the talent changes in mop & removing artifacts after legion. Which is weird, cause I’m not generally an anti-change conservative person. I just want them game to be an rpg, and I want things to make sense. If I’m a ret paladin, I’m a ret paladin, if I have obtained a legendary artifact weapon, that should be my weapon, I shouldnt throw it away. If I choose to be a member of the Venthyr, I’m a member of the Venthyr, and I don’t change to Kyrian because I need the kyrian ability to fight x boss. Heroes don’t say “Well, I’m a pacifist but my party needs me to kill the big bad, so I can do that this time.” Like Aang in ATLA, He’s a pacifist, and he stays a pacifist. He grows his power, and he changes, but he doesnt just randomly pick & choose his morales based on circumstance. If he was Kyrian, he’d be a kyrian through it all. Because it’s his identity.
idk, how hard did we get bonked on the head and how many timed during the expansion? we were bound to forget something. ;D
bright side, the bonk also reminded us how to do old things.
guess they could say only shadowland mounts can fly in the shadowlands if they wanted RP elements. how many people jumped into the shadowlands with their mounts out (none, its a no mount zone when you enter)
or maybe there is no air in the shadowlands. there is mana instead. you breath mana. mounts cant glide on mana unless the are feed something.
there are a number of ways to do it if they wanted.
game play mechanics don’t have to fit the RPG narrative, but in another world it could have. just got to balance the two.
the stories are laid out like a dungeon, so flying and skipping things kind of makes it harder to pull off. but once its done there isn’t the need to keep pushing that part of the RPG limitation. better to allow flying from there.
gotcha. our opinions differ i guess because ive really only played bfa. ive had a sub since wod, but just jumped on from time to time. i like how free the game is now. i can see why you appreciate more linear paths and restrictions.
edit: i keep editing these lol. tbh, if i didnt spend 80 percent of my time doing the end game content i wouldnt care less if i could swap covenants. i could get down with why i choose a certain covenant. why i should be loyal to them. maybe we’ll start to see more robust questlines? stories that take a great deal of time to get through, and then a patch comes that continues the story before we get bored? i can dig that.
I appreciate that man, and I understand where youre coming from that a free & open game is generally a good thing. I just need to vent sometimes which is why I dont post often unless it’s something I really care about, which has gotten me banned from these forums in the past. My main issue, I think, is that the game has changed so radically in the last 10 years from what I originally signed up for, that what people want, to change talents & specs & covenants so easily, they already got what they wanted. LFD was added, dual spec was added, dungeons were made easier. That’s not the game I originally signed up for 13 years ago. They got what they wanted, I want 1 bone thrown my way & everyone else has to deal with it for once. We get covenants for 1 expansion. LFD & LFR & Free talent/spec changes are going to be in the game forever. I want 1 bone. That’s it.
What was the RPG reason warlocks forgot how to use metamorphosis? Oh how shamans forgot how to bind elementals?
Demon Hunters got added, and it was their ability since Illidan learned it after popping his skull of gul’dan trinket in wc3. But warlocks needed a cool, powerful ability so it was a welfare talent given to them. Shaman were a victim of ‘fun pruning’ like eyes of the beast.
I’m interested to see how covenants and borrowed power work in SL. Certain classes feel incomplete without their borrowed power.
Seeing the demon hunter nerfs got me thinking about how crappy it would be to rank up all your soul binds in a covenant, only to have blizz nerf your class or covenant, and make your character feel unplayable.
Sure you can always switch covenants and re rank all your soul binds, but I just don’t think it’s a good idea to have those abilities tied to covenants. It’d be crappy to see a bunch of people get screwed cuz their covenant got nerfed to the ground. Whether it was cuz they chose their covenants cuz they liked the aesthetic, or they picked their covenant because they thought their covenant abilities were fun
I know they want us to see their way first, so I’m gonna give it a chance.
thats got to be frustrating, but this post right here helps me understand. its going to be very hard for people to understand this side of it though. after listening to Ion, and putting it with your post. i get it now. im not the kind of person that wants to stomp on other peoples enjoyment. i can get down with the covenant restrictions.
i just really needed to understand why people wanted it this way 
I don’t know, man. That sucks when nerfs happen & things get obliterated, but if you main 1 or 3 classes, and all of them get nerfed to the ground, or were never playable, what do you do about that? You make a new character, or you change specs. Covenants arent specs, they’re classes. When your class gets nerfed, you just change specs or switch to a new class. We’re not even talking abou tan entire toolkit, we’re talking about 2 abilities & like 3 soulbind/talents. They wont break the game, theyre just there to build the world & create meaningful context.
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Honestly, I would rather they start now. I can agree the acquisition of such things and the likelihood they are ‘borrowed’ rather then permanent is an issue.
I would like to see more things that revolve around character building with long term gains. Think for example of Warlock Green Fire - although cosmetic it is something many people value after earning it. I think in classic the equivalent would be ritual of doom.
Not all Warlocks have Ritual of Doom and they must earn the ability, whether through a drop or a scenario. This is good - even simple things such as convenience features could be good, IE: two charges on 1 hour cooldown for a warlock to summon an Allie directly to them without assistance.
I would rather have it that we earn abilities and synergies each expansion. Some cosmetic, some limited choice talents (this or that), some utility/convenience and others just flat out abilities. Different set bonuses and itemization adding onto them. Potentially with the option for professions to do the same (Earning the ability to add a Set Word to crafted gear, etc).
I think this is a good start, not perfectly implemented. But I want to feel that direct character growth. I want to do something someone else cannot because of my build and because of quests i’ve done, etc.
You’re not wrong, I guess it’ll depend on how long it takes to actually get into a covenant, and if switching covenants will affect pathfinder progress/completion, how will the rep grinds will be affected by switching.
I guess for me, I’m kinda looking at it how I do not mind grinding the cape quest/essences for my alts(just in the sense of the grinding ranks), but if I had to go back and do it on a character that I’ve already unlocked them on, I might not like that haha. I’m still gonna give it a chance, and I do need to do more reading into what all is tied into it. I’m probably over thinking it
This is how I feel about the artifacts, we never should have lost them. Once you have something like the Scythe of Elune, you don’t just throw it away. That’s now apart of your character since you’re the ‘Champion of Azeroth’ the Hero. Heroes don’t generally replace their weapons. They become Legendary through use. Ashbringer wasnt legendary for no reason, it was legendary because it was crafted by Legendary people for other Legendary Heroes. Now we’re supposed to be that Legendary hero who grows the story of the weapon. From Alexandros, to Tirion, to Us. Long term Horizontal progression is something a game as old as WoW needs at this point.
Agreed. At the very least they could of had the power ‘consumed’ by the champion or something along those lines. Which would retain the mechanics without the need for the weapon directly. Then later on allow it to be a choice as bloat takes place (IE: take this mechanic or this one, but not all) - but allow it to remain as a viable character path.
So you are against classes that can multi roll then why do you play a class that can ?