The Rpg decisions will hardly effect the Peak players of wow . The underlings will obviously complain of anything and move on to the next season.
The peak players of WoW? Yeah of course not. Those players will just make tons of alts for each of the classes they play. Which I personally think is excessive to have to do in order to get past the restriction.
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RP is optional
It should always take a back seat to game mechanics
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You also want to tell me that you don’t want to trust in their balancing because it’s historically not been good, but I’m apparently supposed to trust in their ability to add proper RPG elements to classes.
Which also has a terrible track record considering they spent years systematically ripping them out of the game.
It has nothing to do with “they got something and I didn’t” but rather that the system in place you want will hurt my gameplay in certain areas if I don’t choose to to play in the same way the min/maxers do.
There’s a reason I brought up PvP specifically, because it’s inherently competitive.
You can’t seriously tell me that +30% crit and ignoring LoS will have zero effect on my gameplay on my Hunter, even in casual PvP.
Sure I can “still score kills” but like I said: You could give everybody on the enemy team +25% damage and I’d still be able to score kills.
but I would still be having less fun. The game would be less enjoyable for me.
and when the response to that is “Well those things don’t matter at your level of play!” then yeah, I get some second class citizen vibes from that.
Intentional or not, you’re basically telling me my opinion doesn’t matter and I’m crappy for having it in the first place.
Taking away the RPG elements is different than them never being able to balance them properly. The direction of balancing just hasn’t been working so they need to change it in my opinion.
You don’t need to min/max in order to clear Heroic Raids, do your weekly key or do casual PvP. That’s the point I’m making. These decisions won’t really begin to matter until you hit that a certain level of difficulty which is Mythic Raiding, High keys and Glad level of PvP.
I’m saying it’s crappy to sideline min max players solely because they’re min max players. Which seems to be the crux of most players arguments who are for the system. A lot of players want to push the RP narrative but then put aside that RP shouldn’t be harmful to the gameplay experience. Which in higher difficulties, performance plays a serious part in peoples enjoyment.
There aren’t going to be a lot of players who partake in Mythic Raiding that are going to be gunho about being at a disadvantage solely because they also enjoy PvP. The vice versa is true as well.
It’s also crappy to tell one side, “tough” when it’s only seeking for compromise in this RP decision that doesn’t hurt their performance. Which the response is “deal with it” when it’s already being talked about to be a problem. It was front and center in Sloots QnA stream with Ion and they’ve already talked about removing the restrictions.
Based on the feedback, I don’t think it’ll make it past the first early patches of SL. Players will want choice to optimize themselves and then there’ll be no RP associated with it at all. Hence my post about preserving the RP portion for casuals while breaking the chains for more hardcore players.
If it opens up, you lose nothing. You only gain. But seeing others gain for some reason is a problem. Instead of being progressive and wanting to be supportive of our fellow players, we create a divide where it’s better to tackle them to the ground and “stick it to them”. This self destructive nature doesn’t help grow the game but helps in it’s decline.
Compromise. That’s all I’m looking for here.
I’ve also said that my enjoyment of the game would be hurt by your idea in areas of the game that are inherently competitive, and you repeatedly respond by trying to tell me that it doesn’t matter at my level of play.
but apparently I’m the one being crappy for wanting something that would hurt somebody else’s enjoyment of the game.
I guess my enjoyment just doesn’t matter as much as the min/maxer’s does then.
Compromise involves both sides giving up something.
What you’re looking for is for the min/maxers to get everything they want and to convince the other side they simply shouldn’t care about what they’ve lost.
If you have ever told people they needed to expect group content to be in a MMo as that is the MMo part of the MMoRPG. You have no room to complain about RPG being put into it. That is the RPG part of MMoRPG.
That said this idea is in a good place, but it is bad. You are effectively giving a way to reset your covenant but saying you have to do this super hard content to do it. While I think no reset at all should be possible, if there is one it should be accessible to all classes of player skill and not just the leet.
People need to stop putting weight on the MMO and the RPG
They have to live symbiotically
The thing is, and I may have missed it in the MLA paper that you and I have typed out here, that you haven’t explained why it would hurt your gameplay. Where in you sitting down and step into Raiding, M+ or PvP is your experience being stunted by someone who plays the game at the highest difficulties?
What’s lost on the min/max players is the initial start of the Mythic progression, pushing keys and pushing rating. Players would have to figure out which Covenant they’re playing with until they reach the breakpoint which then they’d be set free to make their decisions on what they want to utilize.
While players who aren’t interested in that level of play can keep the RPG elements they want to abide by and remain loyal to whatever Covenant they choose.
One side misses out in the early game and has to put in work to earn the ability to swap without the consequences.
While the other keeps their RP elements but at the same time have to abide by the consequence system set forth by the RPG choice they’ve made.
Because in something that is inherently competitive like PvP, it matters if everybody else can switch to the optimal setup on a whim.
It’d be like having an optional +25% damage bonus. Sure I could not take it and still get kills and do the content, but it would be a lot less fun to be significantly disadvantaged.
This goes regardless of if you’re playing at a casual level or a high level.
I want the choice to be interesting, not to be “do I want to be disadvantaged or not?”.
This is barely giving anything up though considering it will be a rather short time before they have everything maxed out, just like with AP. Especially since we’re talking about min/maxers here. They’ll have those Covenants maxed out as soon as the timegating allows it.
So the min/maxers “give up” a very small thing they’ll completely negate and I give up something for the entire expansion?
Doesn’t sound like the fairest of trades here.
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I’ve already explained to you the consequences this would have on the community. You just refuse to acknowledge them. Mythic+, Ranked Arena Teams, and Raiders of all skill levels, including low keys, low arena rating, and Normal/Heroic Raiders would be forced to complete this hoop you’re proposing we jump through, in order to be able to change our covenant.
Keep in mind I am talking about PUGs here, which most players play in:
Mythic+ players already filter based off of raiderio score, ilvl, and the usefulness of their class at low keys. What makes you think they won’t require x, y, or z covenant as well?
Most Normal and Heroic Raid groups require the achievement as proof that you’ve completed the raid, an ilvl that is higher than the raid loot is, and are filtered out by how good their spec is performing for that raid. What makes you think they won’t require you to have the “correct” covenant for the raid?
Arena players filter each other out based on ilvl, rating, and spec. What makes you think they won’t add covenant to that as well?
Fact is, if you give players a means of differentiating themselves from each other, many will go with the most optimal or “best” route. That’s because they’re min/maxers. They then force that mentality on anyone they let into their groups. So covenant choice becomes a non-choice after that feature is unlocked, because between two players, the group leader will pick the player with the better covenant, or who could theoretically pull more weight in an activity.
While the above is true, the thinking is flawed, and has always been flawed in the community. It’s flawed because players don’t play their class perfectly, all classes max potential isn’t equal even if they did play them perfectly; and most people are using SIMs to tell them what stats to prioritize and gear to wear, even though those stat weights don’t mean anything unless you play an encounter out exactly the way the SIM did. If you don’t, you’ll probably get better results with different stat weight combinations, and gear.
I see what you’re trying to do Jalen, and on paper it seems logical, but I think you’d just be creating a whole host of additional problems.
At the end of the day, we’re talking about two differing types of players. Those who put gameplay ahead of the RPG aspect, and those who put the RPG aspect ahead of gameplay. The former group focuses primarily during their play time on improving their character and improving their in game ability. It doesn’t really matter if they’re pushing mythic progression… What matters is why they’re playing the game. There are people out there who progress through normal and heroic, who also prioritize gameplay ahead of the RPG. Whether due to time constraints, disabilities, or simply just not being very good at video games… they don’t have to be at the end tier of progression to have this mentality. Telling those players that they’re just going to have to accept that they may be 10% behind their peers (and no… I don’t think those are exaggerated numbers using essences as an example of a similar gameplay mechanic)… that’s going to be a tough pill to swallow.
In the most extreme of cases… players may literally run 2-4 copies of the same class, just so they can be competitive (and again… we’re not talking 0.5-1% differences… 10% is what I’m speculating based on essences) in the game modes they enjoy.
This is going to be yet ANOTHER case of… “We tried something new, and it didn’t work, and in patch 9.2 we’re going to throw on a band-aid, and in patch 9.3 we’re going to nuke from orbit our original concept.”
As for the latter group. I’m not sure you realize how much of a difference 10% output makes during a fight. That’s not the difference between a kill and a wipe… that’s the difference between a kill and us deciding that we literally cannot progress on this boss without more gear.
You cannot demand that choices be barred from players and have them be so meaningful as to actively gimp our characters if incorrectly utilized, while they simultaneously put out content that nearly straight up requires 1-2% optimizations to complete.
Edit: Also… to those claiming that these won’t be necessary to complete all content in shadowlands. Are you from the future? How in the world can you make such a claim…
Oh, I agree. Having to level and then maintain 4 of the same class is beyond annoying. But how else do we prepare and have the ability to use each covenant for raids, pvp, m+, etc?
This is the key part in my eyes.
If this was vanilla where dungeons and raids had one mode with boring mechanics - this wouldn’t matter.
But heroic (early on) and mythic raiding is turned so precisely that 1-2% matters a lot. Especially across 20 players.
They either have to make the content easier to account for 5-10%drops in performance or reduce an already small number of players that can compete that high end content.
What makes you think they won’t do that if they are hard as heck to reset? Right now I’m kind of hoping tanks for M+ and Raids have different tiers again so I can still to one for raids and one for M+ even if I dislike that it’s the least painful route for me.
I think part of what some people enjoy is specifically when others’ gameplay is infringed upon.
I’m all for a more fluid/flexible system - but I don’t plan on changing because I play with more of an RP mindset.
My choice and decision to stick with one covenant, and the associated RP gameplay experience wouldn’t be impacted if others could swap.
Literally, NOTHING, would be different - but that’s only because I don’t care what others do with their characters. ONLY IF I was to start concerning myself with what others could/couldn’t do would my enjoyment of the game be altered.
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You’re going to have to point out where I stated that Covenant choices won’t be necessary to complete all content in Shadowlands because I have no recollection of saying that. I do however remember saying that the choice is much more dire in higher end content like Mythic Progression, High Rated Arena as well as High keys.
I think that Heroic claim is a bit questionable, mainly because those choices become much harder when they create end bosses that are actually close to that Mythic level. I’m primarily looking at the Fallen Avatar and KJ level of difficulty. Which very well can happen in SL and if it does then I’d agree with you.
My suggestion comes from the want to retain the RPG element of choice within the content that I personally don’t believe is very hard on a choice like this. Because you know what’s going to happen, we all know what’s going to happen.
^ Yeah. Pretty much that. The way it currently is won’t last because it puts us smack dab at the beginning of both Legion and BFA where we’re creating an unnecessary wall that competes with gameplay.
And I’ve said this too, but I think these type of restrictions only work in a setting like Classic because the game is built a bit more around said RPG elements. Like for instance Fire Mages not being able to do anything in Molten Core and BWL. If they brought something like that back in todays WoW, players would be up in arms. Even simply locking talents like they did with the previous iteration of the talent trees would have people up in arms.
I actually liked someone elses suggestion earlier of removing the restrictions but rewarding players who remained loyal to their Covenants.
It was also built in a world where the hardest content in the game… could be completed by level 55’s… Not perfectly optimized max level toons.
Oh yeah of course you can now. Back then it was impossible though. Even then it still retained RPG elements and players had to abide by a lot of rules if they wanted to complete the raids. Now, when the raid drops there aren’t any attunements, no resistances to grab or even certain specializations that aren’t rendered useless in certain raids.
It’s part of why I dislike adding in something like this. Because they haven’t really incorporated RPG elements into classes for quite some time so it just doesn’t fit the current setting of WoW.
you mean like survival hunters, arcane mages, and sub rogues?