3 Likes
So heres a fun one, what about talents that aren’t worth using except in certain covenant conditions. For example I play demonology mostly, and I play it at a respectable level. I know what my talents do and what situations they are a dps increase. However many of these talents are not a dps increase because covenants and conduits are in the way. For example my first row of talents I get to choose between two, because one is garbage, the other two are dreadlash and demonic strength.
Demonic strength is target capped and does a fair bit more single target damage, dreadlash is uncapped and functions well with another legendary. However this difference is thrown into chaos by a felgaurd boosting conduit so if I use this conduit it is even harder to swap from demonic strength. Alternatively dreadlash itself does not scale with any conduits, but a later talent in the row is only worth taking in conjunction with dreadlash and this talent does heavily synergize with a conduit, this is looking to be the 9.1 m+ build btw.
The feedback loop being dreadlash makes dreadbite hit everything talent makes dreadbite apply debuff that makes everything hit(so normally just one target but all of them with dreadlash) take 20% more shadowflame damage, and this is further amplified by a conduit that gives dreadstalkers a chance to dreadbite again once again applying said debuff. There is also a legendary mixed into this. However because its tied to the conduit system my choice between TALENT BUILDS is indirectly locked to my soulbinds, meaning that If I want to change talents I have to work around the timegate energy.
Furthermore this dreadstalker build almost enables one of our dead final talents, but only if you are necrolord, so if I were to use that talent its a dps decrease unless I am necrolord. But sure, I guess talents are “opened up” at least in the sense that we have the illusion of choice there, do good damage or never swap. Feels good to not be able to experience warlock gameplay, even though I made a warlock to experience playing a warlock instead of being locked to the meta warlock build or risk timegating myself in a failed experimental build because I wanted to see how my underused talents played out.
True freedom is playing on the ptr where it doesn’t matter, thank you blizzard for making a system that only feels good when you can bypass it.
2 Likes
Oh, don’t you frgging dare try and hide behind roleplayers to justify this crap system. We’re one of the groups hit hardest by this stupid setup, because it forces us to choose between making the Covenant choice that’s right for our character, and the choice that actually affects our gameplay. As an Enhancement shaman, my far and away best Covenant power comes from the Venthyr, but they are the absolute last Covenant that my character belongs in from a thematic or narrative perspective. Instead, I chose the Necrolords purely because I’ve always RPed this character as a Frostwolf who was inspired to become a shaman by Thrall, and Draka is their leader. And for making that RP decision, I’m saddled with a power that’s both less versatile in general and vastly inferior for my spec specifically because we can’t use it efficiently.
What this “put the RPG back in WoW” nonsense always misses is that the point of an RPG is that the RP and the G are supposed to work together to make an experience greater than the sum of their parts. Game mechanics are every bit as much an integral aspect of an RPG as the RP is; both sides are supposed to work together in harmony, which sometimes means getting out of each others’ way. Covenants break that harmony by putting a gun to our heads and forcing us to choose one over the other if we’re not one of the lucky few whose BiS Covenant happens to align with their in-character preference. When the RP and the G are in conflict, the game suffers as a whole because it’s no longer delivering on that greater-than-its-parts experience.
The best pure roleplaying feature Blizzard ever added to this game was transmogrification: a system hailed by roleplayers precisely because it divorced game power from aesthetics, and finally let players choose both independently. These vacuous arguments about how Covenants have to remain “meaningful choices” are direct echoes of the same tired old arguments against player requests for a transmog-esque system back in the day, where spoilsports like you argued that being able to alter the appearance of our gear in order to fulfill our vision of how our characters should look would ruin the “meaningfulness” of the gear that made up the hideous clownsuits we were wearing solely for their stats. The RP and the G were in conflict because game power and character identity were both locked into the same choice. The solution was to split that choice in two, so players could pursue the power that the whole game is built around pursuing without sacrificing their character’s identity. The RPG was enhanced by divorcing those aspects from one another.
And now, once again, we have a system where players are being forced to choose between game power and character identity, breaking the RPG in two as the only way to satisfy both sides of the equation is to be lucky enough for your BiS Covenant to coincidentally also be your in-character preference. And, once again, the solution to mending the RPG is to divorce power from identity and let players embrace both instead of forcing us to sacrifice one.
11 Likes
shed a tear reading this Lokka blast on you beautiful shaman.
2 Likes
I think covenant abilities locking is a very poor example of RPG elements for these reasons:
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If the covenant abilities weren’t locked nobody would complain for lack of RPG element. This should be quite evident.
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It’s only considered an RPG element because Blizzard marketed as such. But from a story standpoint covenant does nothing to impact the overall plot. You are not going to see a different ending to SL based on your covenant. You are not going to go down a different quest path based on your soulbind. And once SL is over guess what, it disappears. It does nothing plot wise, and at best is only a marginally RPG-ish from gameplay standpoint. Which is even worse, because it impacts some players in the negative way while doing next to nothing for the others in terms of gameplay.
I’ve been saying this since beta. WoW encourages players to participate in all game content. And given the nature of most content being competitive in some way (even heroic raid if you can’t kill a boss it’s competitive to you) you CANNOT ask players to be competitive while not giving them the means to prepare themselves. I have to adjust my character for raid because that’s my primary role in the guild. I’d love to participate in PvP, but I refuse to gimp myself and my teammates by going into arenas unprepared. That is my stand. And if Blizzard doesn’t want to allow me that freedom then I will not play the content. It is really very simple.
4 Likes
I am a roleplayer.
I think if I objectively ask myself, would I rather have covenant abilities/systems tied to player power or not - I would say I don’t want them. I think covenants would be significantly more enjoyable without being tied to power.
It feels like characters are put on house arrest as soon as power is linked to a piece of content that is permanent or semi-permanent, which the covenants are supposed to be. When you’re on house arrest, typically the last place you want to be is at home I would imagine lol.
4 Likes
Guess what, so am I. And I still hate it. It does nothing for me as a role player, but as a player who likes to do both PvE and PvP it’s unnecessary and pointless hindrance.
4 Likes
Well, that’s good and all, we all have our own opinions.
That’s clear to see, for them it’s a unnecessary and pointless hindrance and for you it’s a fun and meaningful hindrance. I guess it all comes down to perspective right Yesuna?
1 Like
Yes, actually.
The fundamental problem with Covenants is the same that existed for gear before transmog was a thing.
It creates a conflict between having a cohesive look and character power. For the vast majority of players, this not a conflict that is anywhere near equal, you just need to look at classic to see that in virtually every case, people choose stronger gear over gear that looks cooler.
Which is why Covenants as a “meaningful choice” fail. Nothing the Covenants offer is anywhere near as appealing to the vast majority of players as character power is, which strips almost all choice from the option.
That doesn’t mean that people don’t care about the other things that Covenants offer, it just means that it’s a happy accident when the covenant they care about also happens to line up with the Covenant that is actually good.
But defending Covenants from an RP perspective always seems strange to me considering how contradictory the Covenant lock is to the story itself.
3 Likes
A hindrance is inherently a bad thing.
Not necessarily. It depends on the situation.
Did you not bother to actually read it?
The ‘Private Forum’ started in Mists, but then developers dropped it and started listening to the ‘Influencers’ on a private Discord.
This just reads as a case of angry Mythic raider not being taken seriously, so case in point? Thanks for proving me right.
1 Like
"The first incarnation of the private forums was deleted during Legion.
It was then resurrected (and still exists) with a new crew of feedback givers with some overlap from the old, but continued in the same trend of developers essentially treating feedback givers like trash.
In addition I’m told that there is also an influencers Discord, largely compromising of YouTube content creators and other “prominent” figures in the WoW community. "
Ironic
There are prominent figures of the healing community which still are in these lines of communication with Blizzard today and it’s a pretty well known fact.
I know this must be tough clowning yourself on such a big stage, but maybe take a deep breath before you respond next.
But it clearly states the forums started during Mists of Pandaria. And it lasted up until WoD.
Wow, that whopping span of a few years of developers instantly getting tired of Mythic theorycrafting.
Probably whom are not cutting-edge Mythic raiders.
You keep trying to make yourself more influential than you really are. You’re not a ‘prominent’ figure or a world first raider, so why should people listen to you?
Nice reaching 
. Thank god you’re here to explain what a discord of people you didn’t know about until a few hours ago do.
Where are you reading it stopped in WoD? Would you like to try again?
It clearly says it was a tone change when one of the most beloved figures of Blizzard left the company and It’s not very hard to guess who that was, It never mentioned it died until Legion.
People don’t need to listen to me, I’m just the mouthpiece for stats like https://wowranks.io/stats which showed their vision failed, Covenants failed, People picked covenants overwhelmingly for power.
Would you like to try replying, again?
Since the developers clearly dislike Mythic theorycrafters, it’s not that much of a reach to think that those influencers are not only Mythic raiders.
It was deleted, then restored. Then developers started ignoring it because it sounded like Mythic theorycrafters wanted certain talents to be deliberately stronger to feed the cottage industry of guide makers, and it sounds like they were correct.
Yea, but they don’t have to for lower content, which is where a majority of players are. It only matters for Mythic and M+ 18~, but that’s a small minority.
These last few posts seem like arguing for the sake of it.
Edit: Forgot what thread I was in. Don’t bring me into your revolving door debate, please.