They’re garbage yeah, covenants are actually a joke now.
That’s why I don’t really care about this thread anymore because Blizzard went the other route from pulling the ripcord. They are all stinky now.
Thought so. I have someone in a different thread talking about said ripcord and wanted to do a fact check with someone more familiar with the system
Conduits are quickly becoming as impactful as gems and soulbinds are so hilairously trash now I wish they’d scrape the entire system.
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#Push…Back In…? The Ripcord?
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No just revert the last 2 months of straight nerfs and make covenants swappable, or decouple the power from covenants.
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I feel that come 9.1, most of the systems will be mostly abandoned, just like the bfa systems were .
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Conduits well and truly will become “Put your best two in and forget about them for the rest of the expansion or until they buff/nerf them or you get an upgrate”
What Blizz did was completely opposite of what Ion said the ripcord was (Easily swapping covenants on the fly). We were willing to just settle for separating the player power like class abilities so they could keep their power and making covenants a aesthetic rp choice.
What if they tied covenant abilities to the Legendary crafting system, as in where you would normally craft your supposedly now boring legendaries, you would be able to infuse your legendary with the power of your covenant, i.e. covenant ability, which would then lead to choosing the best legendary bonuses to pair with your chosen covenant ability? Theoretically this would mean that you would be able to craft a legendary with the ability that you want, and then switch to another covenant to craft a legendary with that covenant’s ability. This would allow those who like to have the option of swapping covenant abilities depending on what content they are doing, even if it does take quite a bit of grinding to attain ALL of the covenant abilities. You would of course only be able to have one legendary with a covenant ability equipped at a time, but perhaps further into the expansion you would be able to equip two legendaries at a time, one without an ability or heck, if they decide to let you have two covenant abilities at once that might be interesting. Idk, I haven’t personally played the beta myself, so I’m not sure how the system feels in its current iteration, but I think this could address players concerns over covenant swapping in the long run, while still ensuring players don’t simply steamroll all of the content in a matter of days and run out of things to do. Of course there will be incentive to stick with one Covenant for a longer period of time, most likely mounts and transmogs etc.
They essentially removed the “meaning” from the “meaningful choices” the whole system was designed to provide.
Reminds me more and more of a parent trying to save face by back-peddling to the point of looking like a fool.
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Instead actually reaching a compromise .
I’ve even said something to where they could of separated the class abilities from the covenants and yet still had the power tied to the covenants.
While leveling you learn the ability . Once you leave the zone and go to the next one it goes into a special talent row to be un locked at lvl 60 . Same goes for the rest.
Here is where the power part comes in . Once a main covenant is picked , players are sent to help the other covenants. So why not while in those zones doing wqs there is a passive rep grind that ranks up the spell.
Another thing I would do is make the signature abilities that everyone gets from a covenant a zone only open world ability. That way no one can go we want people to have this ability for dungeons or raids.
TBH, they nerfed the covenant abilities, but the soulbinds are still in a terrible place. They just had to nerf…Pelegos I think his name was? Because his conduit tree was so powerful everyone was taking it.
The covenant abilities may have been nerfed, but we’re forgetting that’s only one element of the systemlands. The ripcord would have also untethered the soulbinds, since you need the soulbinds with their respective covenant ability. Brace yourselves folks, Blizzard has less than a month to balance all of these soulbinds. I suspect we’re going to see another round of nerfs to gut them as well.
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i have to interject.
Imagine a world where the covenant powers had any sort of relevance over the course of the expansion. I give them two avenues:
- An incremental system of progression whereby you slowly build the power of your covenant ability.
- A system whereby you continually farm the item in question based on the patch at hand.
Now, i would argue system 2 is BfA isnt it? You grind x-item. Next patch drops, you grind it again (only 25 Ilvls higher). Correct me if im wrong, but you all kind of hated this, right? You all wanted an end to this? I watch a lot of tali. He’s not ‘true hardcore’ but he flits between both aspects of the game and at least grasps that this isnt a satisfying nor engaging experience. You farm out x-conduit. 9.1 drops, you farm the same item out again for a relative item level boost, whilst simultaneously putting you exactly where you were in terms of player competition (you farmed it, they farmed it, we’re all just doing busy work). Its unsatisfying because youre in the power-progression game system. Which means you arent defeating the game itself, but other players for relevant spots. Its not… good, right (im sure theres a better system available!, right?)
Point 1: Which means over the course of an entire expansion x-spell power marginally increases based on y-time involvement. Those who do the content over a period of time gain the power reward (which is what i think theyre genuinely going for - think of it as the culmination of the legion philosophy over the temporal (gear) azerite power philosophy).
So…
Given theyre probably going with point 1, what happens if they decouple power effects from the conduit system? Initially, arguably little. But over time it will become more entrenched and less capable of decoupling. As the power grows within the system, the conduits reinforcing said power will move center stage.
Now i get it, they could obviously open it up and let players choose. So why dont they? Players would just gravitate over the course of the expansion to a covenant as the power impact increases…
Its a super question. So why didnt they just do this since it makes so much sense?
I mean, they could just stop with borrowed power systems that are supplements to gear progression.
The Covenants and conduits don’t need to be “powered up” or otherwise grinded out. When you played in Wrath, the closest thing to this borrowed power system was the ring of the Ashen Verdict, and I’d hardly call it a borrowed power since it still at the end of the day was just a piece of gear. One solitary piece.
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Honestly - this is the simplest answer and by far the best in my opinion. I’d strip these out almost entirely.
It just seems like somewhere, someone thought aloud: “Oh, here’s a good idea for a super interesting system - you have to choose a group to support in Shadowlands”
Then someone added: “Awesome! And then each group gives you rewards. You can show off being a strong member of that group.”
Then someone said: “You know what? Folks might not put enough stock in appearances. Why not make it so that each group gives you special abilities?”
Then someone acted concerned: “But it’s going to be tough to make each group offer choices that will work for each player spec…” but after hearing a disapproving grunt from the darkness behind, the dev added “Let’s add a way to give them multiple options so they can select one for their favorite spec and be locked into it! And if they want to change they have to grind out any changes!”
Then finally, a cynical dev replied: “And we can call them covenants. Because they’re a promise to players that they’ll be forced to grind continually to stay relevant. And we’ll call the other choices soulbinds, because we’re going to force them into playing only one set of content and one spec or suffer consequences to their very soul.”
That dev was promptly removed, but somewhere a voice chimed in from the darkness: “You know, those names don’t actually sound so bad. And it would be funny too. But just remember, by the time 9.1 rolls out you need to have a new system ready to add another dimension and grind, just to keep people interested.”
A hopelessly idealistic young developer asked: “But couldn’t we keep them interested by adding branching storylines for people to experience instead of tying player power across each content to a choice that they’ll ultimately either sacrifice or change? Yes they’d have to ultimately end at similar points but it could be…” Before the sentence was finished armed guards pulled the dev from the room.
Ion emerged from the shadows, the sinister voice from above, and added: “And make sure that even though the new grinds in 9.1 are necessary, we add more grinds to the strength of the new ‘covenants’ and ‘soulgrinds’ - I mean ‘soulbinds.’ We don’t want to just dismiss their relevance, just add another level of complexity. By the time it is added, we want them to require the use of supercomputers just so they can contribute the most they can to a singular content with the most punishing restrictions to offer similar contributions in any other sort of content. That way, they’ll play more hours and we can keep separating the wheat from the chaff in any area - maybe even entirely preventing them from entering.”
While the other devs cowered in place, one cautiously spoke up: “If the players complain, should we develop a back up plan?”
Thoughtfully, Ion responded: “Yes, we can call it the Ripcord. We’ll suggest that pulling it would be detaching player choices from any sort of permanence. But in reality, we’ll just nerf all the raw numbers into the ground… while still adding enough scaling that as gear improves, they’ll still be a necessity.” Then he laughed and slowly the other devs looked around and nervously began laughing again before he shouted, “Now get to work!”
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Josh is that you ?
#PullTheRipcord
Assuming I’m still around, that would be nice. Maybe the devs could stop wasting $$$ on complicated crap that just fogs up the game?
God this expansion will go down as the one with the most wasted rental systems of all time.
Such a shame.
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SL isn’t even out and people are already starting to see what we warned them about.
#minorvictoryfortheripcordmovement
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