Based on previous experience, I agree with you. However, sub-optimal dps, healing, and tank specs all get invited and clear Mythic raids, so people will adapt.
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Just to throw my hand into this faeces storm, people who are defending this locked system i have one question, what is the last rpg you played that actually had a lock system where you were locked into a specific choice between player power and think about what you have done about that choice?
To bring up two possible games where this where this happens, i’d like to bring up both dark souls 3 and skyrim since i have a ton of hours in both.
Now for skyrim, there is many options where this happens but one notable one is in the quest ‘i’ll met by the moonlight’. In the quest you are given the option between taking two different options, where you choose between the ring of hircine and the saviours hide. The ring of hircine gives you the ability to constantly transform into a werewolf without incurring the daily lockout where as the saviours hide gives a small resistance to magic damage and poison resistance. Before the 81 level cap was removed, you also had to spec into certain trees to make your build work and if it didn’t include enchanting and you were doing a light armour build, then you wanted to take the saviours hide, because while the bonus is small, magic damage is heavily overtuned in later levels of skyrim and thus any magic resistance is HUGE late game. However if you are doing a werewolf build, you probably want the ring of hircine for the additional transformations per day (to avoid using the wait feature). this puts you in the dilemma of picking between two different items that has been mentioned. And do you know which options players mostly go for in that? the bugged option which gives you both, which is so popular it is mentioned in multiple videos and on the fan wiki of the game. So much for liking to have to choose one right?
Now for dark souls 3, a player is given only a certain amount of materials per run, is limited in weapon options because of clashing character quests or handing in of boss souls and your limited to 5 stat rerolls per play through. For each weapon in dark souls they have different stat scaling, meaning that there is a slight difference in the damage of say a two handed greatsword using a quality build versus using it with a pure strength build versus using it with a dark/lightning elemental gem on some bosses. to compare these builds for the sake of this will be comparing the usage on a fight like dark eater midir versus an arena match versus another player. On midir, because of his high physcial resistance and his weakness to magic damage, of the three mentioned builds the lightning infused one would excel far beyond the other options, however, in player versus player combat, the lightning infused build would be far weaker because players because split damage (especially lightning damage) is really bad in player versus player cause of how resistances work. To deal with this slight difference, i and other people i know have actually rerolled to a faith based build for the midir fight because even though the difference is small it makes it easier. Then we reroll back to the other build once he is defeated, both rerolls are for free but limited per new game (which will never be an active option in wow cause you there is no new game) in most similar scenarios to this however i would just simply have two different characters (which doesn’t work for wow either cause i want to not have to sit in front of my pc all day just to gear two of the same but slightly different characters). Next up is the boss souls, which make you choose between 2 weapons/armour. To get around this you don’t just leave it after new game, you go to new game plus and get the other side that you didn’t pick up. Your not locked into any choice in darksouls as you can always reroll your character without punishment for most playthroughs without incurring a penalty.
Now considering these draw backs and the solutions used in those games, how on earth do they ever apply to wow. To put it bluntly, no player in this game wants to level multiple characters of the same class just so when doing a certain piece of content they are able to perform at their maximum potential. The fact that they are trying to make these abilities interesting means they cannot ever be close to each other in power. From example, the kyrian ability for hunters versus the venthyr ability for hunters. For mythic plus, the resonating arrow is going to be so far ahead of flayed shot because its &*%$ing 30% crit strike chance in aoe, thats huge. Wheres as in arenas resonating arrow is awful as it will just be walked out of so flayed shot is miles better because it actually does something. I would rather have a life, so i don’t have to level 4 hunters just to be competitive in whatever content i’m doing at the time. I probably don’t even have the time in my days to be able to do that consistently, wow is not my job but i still want to be competitive, how can anyone not agree with that? I pay monthly to play this game and i don’t want to be locked into doing one type of content on one character at a level i care about.
tl:dr covenants abilities for talents. apologies for wall of text
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Yes, instead of fixing the system to an very obvious solution everyone is begging for except jaded boomers we’ll force guilds to just work around having half a raid with pvp talents.
Great idea, let’s promote you to lead dev.
How is it jumping the gun?
Divine Toll is obviously tuned around M+ / AoE.
Blessing of Season is obviously tuned around raid.
Ashen Hallow is obviously tuned around stationary fight.
Do you honestly think they will change all 3 of the Covenant abilities?
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I play single-player RPG’s too, and I build my character’s to fit a theme. Usually something akin to a paladin, or a heavy armor wearing battlemage, wielding a sword and slinging magic. Hybrids in most RPGs I play aren’t min/max; they’re inferior to pure magic, melee, or tank builds. But I have fun and beat the game all the same. Obviously the Dark Souls series has caused more grief and frustration, but the reward was worth it in the end. Playing what I wanted, the way I wanted, and persevering through the challenges to get the win the way I wanted to get the win.
I play MMORPG’s the same. Yes, they’re multiplayer and people can be competitive, but they’re still RPG’s. They’re still designed to be beaten with any combination of choices you’ve made for your character. It’s just harder to do so if you’re not min/maxing. But at least you beat the encounter using what you enjoy. That’s not to say that I don’t try and maximize my dps with my given choices by attempting to perfect my rotations and master the encounters, because I do. But I’m not, for example, going to play the frost dk breath spec when it’s not enjoyable, even if it’s parsing the best.
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they’re not RPGS
they’re MMORPGS which are completely different. Don’t conflate the two
and yes frost BoS spec does suckkkk
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There are plenty of guilds that will accept mediocrity, other guilds want to do the best they can with allotted amount of time.
Other guilds are a unit, working together to kill the boss in the most timely manner. I’m sorry you’re unable to see this.
God forbid I’d hear what your thoughts on master looter and loot council is.
Based off what I’m hearing, they’re open to changing it based off of testing. But even if they don’t, how do you know soulbinds and the legendaries aren’t going to balance out those choices? The sentiment is that it’s going to be so complex that players won’t be able to figure out what is best, because there will be so many pros and cons for every choice for it to really matter. That sounds fun to me versus what you all are proposing.
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You cannot be serious with this comment.
See this is the problem that i think you’re not understanding. You think other build will just make you less efficient, like most RPGs sword build vs axe build, or str build vs agi build.
Im fine if Covenant A gave you a dot that does 200 total damage and Covenant B gave you an instant attack that does 150 damage.
But the reality is it doesn’t work like that, its like this:
Covenant A gave you Lava Burst, Covenant B gave you Earthquake, Covenant C gave you PVP trinket, and Covenant D gave you Hearthstone animation.
You can’t balance those 4 abilities with number tuning, its just not possible.
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They’re not completely different. MMORPG’s are RPG’s played in a persistent online world environment. They’re great for people who love RPG’s, but enjoy playing through an RPG with other players. I particularly enjoy small and large group content in MMORPG’s, but that type of content has gotten dull in WoW since Blizzard started homogenizing the classes to try and balance them, and when they started catering to the rush through content mentality. The new expansion isn’t solving the latter, but the former has hope with this new Covenant system.
Hopefully you stop trying to straw man an argument about classes being homogenized. This topic is about giving classes access to 4 abilities instead of 1.
Stop it.
their current plan will be a huge headache and the novelty of “choice” will soon just all but fade away
whilst it sounds kinda interesting I think removing the abilities from it is going to let it swim rather than sink
On the contrary. I can see this and do. More power to you and your ilk. People like you can form and join guilds of like minded people. Both types will clear the hardest of content, and if skill level of the player is equal, you’ll have an easier time in that content. But I don’t want to see a system destroyed for the minority that only raids with the most optimal comps. It takes the fun out of the game for me.
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Nobody is stopping you from picking a covenant and sticking to it on your own accord. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this. Nothing changes for you at all.
I’ve read the abilities for the 4 classes I intend to play. It’s not hard to see which type of content each ability would be best used in. So I do understand what you think I don’t understand. We haven’t seen what the soulbinds and legendaries will bring to balance out those choices. I believe with everything combined, the choice won’t be so easy to make if your choice is based on what’s “optimal.” I’m willing to wait and see what the finished product is, instead of raising hell with only 1/3 of the information. I don’t want to see a good concept destroyed before it’s even had a chance to have it’s day, because the current concept sounds fun compared to what you’re proposing.
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Everything changes for me if what you want takes place. I have extensive experience in the genre when every class had visceral consequences. Consequences serious enough to require you to group with others continuously just to get to max level. Consequences that forced you to group with others to cover your weaknesses in PvP and in raiding. Do you know what happened? People banded together to cover these weaknesses and completed content.
With Covenants, everyone will be in the same boat. Most players play in more than one type of end game content, so everyone who does will understand when their guildies don’t have the most optimal covenant for other types of end game content because they won’t have the most optimal either. So players will accept each other anyways. If things go your way, people will be required to select the right abilities for the content we’re signing up for or we won’t be accepted.
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It’s actually fascinating that you think Blizz could balance 12 class * 3 avg spec * 4 covenant * # of different content.
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Oh no, stopping people taking players who pick objectively bad talents. How dare they
Spoiler: They do that now already.
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It’ll be no worse than how specs are balanced now and all specs are represented in end game content. I don’t expect Covenants will change that. After all, a lack of balance hasn’t stopped any classes or specs from completing the hardest content in each expansion for as long as this game has been around. Even Ret Paladins and Enhancement Shamans raided in Vanilla.
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