No. I’m going to choose the one that gives us the best odds of getting that dungeon done, it probably won’t be the highest simming one because it’s unlikely to be overall damage that’s going to be problematic.
At which point that’s however many options and no raidbots or whatever telling me what to use. It’s my knowledge of my class and the situation I’m going to be facing.
By “sim”, I specifically mean whatever “gets the job done” the best, not just from a numerical standpoint.
Except surely understanding what would ‘get the job done’ in a given situation should be a thing you can be rewarded for, no?
“Right we need X thing but sadly I can’t provide that because I wanted to be a vampire”.
I think it’s safe to say that the real question right now is more “should the consequential choice of covenants be limited to cosmetics and theme, or should the consequential choice also affect my characters performance?”
You’re dodging my original assertation.
There’s no choice by having access to everything, because by virtue of having everything, you’ll be able to choose the best ability for each type of content you want to do, however the community goes about deciding that ‘best’ ability. By being forced into a singular covenant, you naturally can’t do that.
I mean honestly it unfortunately comes down to the fact that most players will just icy veins it anyway.
The exact same thing you said people were saying about the Azerit gear. People hated it long before BFA came out and pointed out the problems with it. It took blizz un till Naz’jatar to somewhat “fix” it, but it still is a bad system.
Are we just suppose to not complain at all and go through the exact same roller coaster again and again?
If you define a choice as something you cannot change then no. I don’t want choices in my combat gameplay.
And I’ve come to realize that this should be acted on. Seeing as we’ve gotten some nice, clear communication today to start this Alpha test off, and the fact that we’re getting template characters to test the end-game and the fact that they’ve confirmed that the test is now a larger window, let’s hope that we get this fine-tuned and fixed.
Personally, I’d like it if they added a quest where you sneak off from your Covenant and replace your class ability by doing a questline with a different Covenant. You’d keep everything else w/ your loyal Covenant, you’d just get the class ability of your choice.
Bam. Player agency + removing the issue of min/maxing w/ this system.
Can the playerbase complain about anything else?
The % of throughput for most players is irrelevant barring pushing the very top ends of content. God forbid if Method has to jump through hoops to swap covenants because someone can milk .05% dps more from swapping. The game shouldn’t be catered to the elitists.
People are complaining about the class choices, but what about the faction choices in themselves?
There are four abilities tied to the Coven that are generic abilities yes, but still there.
Necrolords seem to be the best for tanking but for Death knights if you wanna tank, it seems like Necrolord’s class exclusive is weaker.
The WoW community is too deep into the Sim or bust. If this came out in TBC or Wrath, I felt it would have had a better reception. As It was near the end of Wrath to the start of Cata that Sim or bust / gear score happened to catch on in mass.
While this is horrifically flimsy from a lore pov (Especially if covenants are at war with eachother though we don’t know yet) is the sort of thing I’d want.
I don’t want to be unreasonably locked into one option, but I also don’t see why I should be able to swap at will either. Make me spend time doing something, make me have to think about if the thing I’m going to do is worth the effort of making the change.
Just please don’t lock me in and make me do everything again to change it.
They want choice, they just don’t want those choices to be heavily penalized as “unoptimal” and someone to say trolololol Ardenweald covenenant, GTFO, LF Venthyr Covenant rogue for Shadowlands raid 1.
I mean you aren’t wrong but look at all the stuff about racials and this and that.
Matters to literally 5% of the game and yet people constantly and consistently complain about it over and over.
Honestly consequential choices like this a less centred around elitists and more around the average person as the choice shouldn’t be driven by numbers. Yet they will all feel the need to be X faction despite Y faction looking cooler because they needed that 70 dps because apparently that is what is between them being in LFR and being a member of Limit lol.
Sure. Let’s take three of your talents away and change them into something you decide you don’t like, then tell you that in order to change them, you need to do a really long, annoying grind to get ones you do like and are better for the content you play.
Cut the snark.
They don’t seem to be at war w/ each other. One key giveaway is that Maldraxxus provides military for the entire Shadowlands. This also seems very similar to gathering forces from each zone, just like in the Broken Isles, so that we can go to the Maw and take on the Jailer.
Yeah, honestly though. The way they described it at BlizzCon seemed pretty brutal and punishing to me.
I don’t think the covenant abilities will be game-breaking. You could probably ignore them entirely if you wanted to.
Just have to trust they will be balanced.
But ya, clearly this is the reason why you don’t listen to the community.
They did everything possible to listen to the community in the last year and people keep finding new things to not like.
Its a shame, but as long as they actually commit to an idea and make it work good out of the gate, it will be fine.
The only issue here is balance, other than indecisive players.
Ok I think I’ve found how I wanna word it.
I don’t mind going somewhere out in the sticks.
I don’t mind spending an hour or so doing a quest chain.
I don’t mind having to pay gold up to a point.
Just please, please don’t take away my progression if I want to change ability. Don’t make me re unlock something, don’t take away my anima or whatever that I spent into tree points.
Keep it thematic, keep it consequential, but also keep it rewarding. And it’s not rewarding to have your progress repeatedly knocked back.
Thing is, there will never be “balance”. One combination will always be Simmed out to be better and thus people will complain.