I am incredibly excited about Shadowlands. Literally every feature I have seen so far looks to be fantastic. I can’t wait to level an alt or maybe more than one for each covenant. It will be great to the core element of an RPG, choice, brought back to the forefront. A choice you can’t easily go back on. And I love it. Thank you Blizz, keep up the great work.
21 Likes
Yes, punishing players for wanting to play the game is excellent design. 10/10.
69 Likes
They weren’t doing bad until they went into further detail regarding the Covenant system and the abilities/conduits tied to them. Now I’m actually a bit worried.
It’s like they said “Alright, players didn’t really care for the Azerite system…How do we make it worse? 
”
28 Likes
Yeah, I too find myself looking forward to Shadowlands.
I have to say though, hasn’t WoW often had big choices presented? Aldor or Scryers back in BC was similar.
I actually find myself not in full agreement w Preacher this time and I appreciate that is players will have to make a choice without being able to make a “save point” and simply change our mind with the breeze. It’s in the grain of the RPG genre.
4 Likes
i agree, i think it’s awesome
4 Likes
Not in the slightest. They didn’t determine your aesthetic for the expac, and the only way they influenced gameplay was an enchant.
17 Likes
naysayers who are not happy with anyhting unless it’s tailor made to make you personally happy, should go somewhere else. We wont miss you at all. bye
1 Like
They still need to go further and make any type of hardcore meta so taxing and ridiculous it will force those people to stop trying to ruin the game for the causals by setting mandatory metas.
3 Likes
I’m giving feedback. Some people enjoy playing multiple specs, not just one. Making it hard to switch roles is objectively bad for the game. Full stop.
26 Likes
People do realise choice can exist without semi-permanently locking people into things, right?
I make a choice when I adjust talents/essences/corruption based on what I’m doing.
9 Likes
Whenever it is easy to change a thing, the community will expect/force players to do it.
I don’t know. I still think tying player power to covenants is a bad decision.
There are aspects of the design starting there and going further with conduits that just seem overly restrictive and punishing.
I feel like Blizzard has gotten comfortable with wasting my time with unnecessary barriers. These barriers tend to feel like a means to inflate time played as its primary purpose.
Not for role play. Not for immersion. Just to make things take longer or to infuse extra steps to make it irritating to get where I am trying to go.
15 Likes
Whenever it is hard to change something the community will expect you to pick the correct thing. So that’s a pretty invalid argument. If I want to dps, but I main tank, yet I’m punished for wanting to play dps, that’s a bad thing.
6 Likes
They’ve made it quite clear for awhile now that it’s all about that time played, and less about having fun.
10 Likes
Will you still like it when Blizzard nerfs your favored covenant into the ground? I bet you’ll be one of the first here to scream at the first nerf to your favored covenant.
13 Likes
Unfortunately, the restrictions with the systems remove a ton of potential choices we could be making.
Instead, we’ll just follow the wowhead/icy veins guide on what to build.
No choices. No experimenting. No strategy. All the fun most of us have with the game, gone.
9 Likes
I haven’t complained about my character getting nerfed in 15 years, I won’t start then.
It’s ok if the RPG style evolves over time to meet the desires of modern players. Especially now that we know the ability and willingness to create legacy servers for these playstyles exists. As for today, I don’t want to be restricted as much as we are. Sandbox mode is gone, rails and locked doors are in.
5 Likes
Unless the “correct thing” is only “correct” for some content.
E.g., ST vs AOE; letting players freely swap talents around for this in the field just meant that there was a hassle of configuration for certain content. Not actual choice.
It’s blizzard’s job to make these things not totally suck when not “optimal”, but in the current environment there is never a reason for them to fix these things, because people just get armtwisted into respeccing. The less that is possible, the more important balance will be, and the more hours it will probably get.
Do you, though? Sounds like you’re just jumping through hoops to make a predetermined selection