It won’t be harder, you’ll just take the best.
It’s like not playing a dwarf priest on Classic, you can but it’s bad so most people won’t do it.
It’s lazy design in my opinion.
People have different gear loadouts in bFA (even more with corruptions), that is still happening before with resist gear.
Inspect character gear. Refer to comment above towards another poster where I mention doing Mythic raiding as a DK. Ponder how I’m doing Mythic at 445 or whatever ilvl this Paladin has.
So yeah. “Dis my alt”, unironically.
How exactly would the abilities arbitrarily assigned to Covenants being decoupled from them hurt you? I’m even an advocate of permanently locking a Covenant choice if abilities are isolated from the Covenant system.
Somehow, you typed that out and thought two things-
Are you okay there?
Not by choice. Only by RNG. Everyone wants the same loadout as every other X spec Y class. This is true in Classic as well for the most part. The difference is you are forced to make selections and in general stick with it rather than swapping here there and everywhere just because for this boss a different talent is better.
Yes so basicly, most people will never use bad covenants and will choose the one that works best most of the time. That is what this is heading out to be. It doesn’t make the game better imo. You’re still min/maxing, it’s just a more lazy way to do it.
Remember ret paladin in Classic, that’s how bad some covenant abilities are atm. Defending the system in it’s current form for me is not doable. Yes there could be a way maybe to make it work but what they’re doing isn’t the way.
That’s a natural consequence of development. There’s a reason Classic is incredibly easy by today’s standards, and it’s not all just “oh its on 1.12 so ez mode”. The average player has gotten better or has more experience gaming. Period.
That Blizzard introduced the current talent system, which is theoretically solid, and botched it with bad talent balance doesn’t change that it has potential. Even without Corruptions people still had alternative gearing for different content and builds.
I was talking to you. You quoted me.
What makes you think I was following what you were saying to other people? I couldn’t care less 
You have literally 0 cutting edge achivements.
Just because you’re casually raiding mythic at the end of an expansion doesn’t give you credence to anything you are advocating for.
AOTC isn’t top end game content either.
I said it down below. About bringing back diversity and non-homogenization back to the game.
I really hate repeating myself…
Why do you feel its appropriate to have player power freely interchange able but segregate and limit rewards and story?
If we can change our covenant abilities, why can’t we wear whatever transmog we want too and play through all of their stories on one character? And have the soulbinds of every covenant too because those are tied to the abilities a lot of the times?
The fact that you want one thing for the system changed and LOCKING everything else speaks VOLUMES of how much you do not understand how the system is intended to work in the first place.
Right. That’s usually the retort of someone who has been shut down and doesn’t have a proper response. Happens a lot of the forums. We know this “dog backed into a corner” response of yours.
Likely because many of these “Competent players” keep trying to warp the game to suit them.
So who’s definition of fun do we side with? Probably the one that makes blizzard the most money. Guess which one that is?
False dilemma. There are many more options.
I mean you’re right. For me tmog restrictions don’t make sense. Moreover with that yeti pajamas they added.
Their stories are a bit exclusive a bit how class halls were, it’s just a matter that a lot of the stories were written with you doing something else at the time. Basicly venthyr are working on something while necrolords are working on something else. They could have included them to let you do them all at the same time, but that’s not how it’s written.
Soulbinds make some sense to be binded/locked, but to be fair that’s already a strech in my book how that work, I’ll let them win that one because of “magic”.
But Covenants abilities are not shown as exclusives. You get them all while leveling and are given no reason to lose them. Moreover covenants keep working together, so it would make sense that atleast all abilities are playable with. Moreover when you consider that gameplay wise this would make Shadowlands a lot more fun.
To state the obvious, mmorpg are work based. You play more and play more content you get rewarded. It’s a capitalist scheme to make it so players feel incentivized to play more. As wow isn’t an hardcore game, there are many ways to earn good rewards and easier ways to see most of the story. The compromise for me is good enough. While covenants design atm offer no compromise.
I am excluded by pro gamers. I am angert! 
K.
11/12m, and though I don’t currently have CE for this first tier I’ve raided Mythic due to Isaias hitting my state hard, we’re rekilling N’zoth. Did all the prog and everything, and my guild (thankfully) got it down, even if the timing was unfortunate for me.
Did I say that?
I thought the express intent of Covenants was to provide a meaningful story choice. So you’re now implying the entire meaning of the choice is an ability?
See, I thought locking the choice in and making it hurt (or impossible) was what you thought was good. So what exactly do you think is good, then? I don’t have a problem with Covenants being completely unlocked, either.
Having you equate my viewpoint with an extreme fascist group is extraordinarily strange.
You know what? You apparently don’t know a whole lot, nor do you seem to care to.
This statement is just wrong. Those who choose the efficiency find their fun in beating the hardest content in the game in the most efficient way possible.
You may not find it fun but stop saying people who want to be as efficient as possible are sacrificing fun when they’re not. Just cause you don’t find it fun doesn’t mean no one finds it fun.
I mean, I understand why they are locked behind things. But we can not sit here and say that:
We should unlock all abilities tied to covenants to make Zoumz happy because that matters!
And in the same breath say:
BUT we should keep transmog and story and everything else locked behind covenants because…that makes sense. Just the abilities dont! Nope! Who cares if this would make other people happy!
And lets be real here Zoumz…the only reason you get to have and play around with the covenant abilities while leveling up is so you can test them before making the actual choice. Its been marketed and stated that way many times.
If they didn’t have that people would be even more mad.
But if it makes you happy, they could get rid of that and then when making a covenant choice they should give you a little scenario where you test the ability in a few different situations so you can decide what one you like the best. If that helps your narrative.
This would imply that somehow locking Covenant abilities will impact casual player retention or enjoyment. For most casuals this will just be another system. Covenants being more flexible would have no negative impact on average players. It would be positive, actually. So…
There are many options overall, just not in the case of the individual I replied to.
I mean that’s what this all about having fun right? xd
They do, and I don’t really care since I have the beta I have tested them all.
At the same time they have compromised always in the past.
They removed a lot of the restrictions on tmog, if anything they should do it more. People want also events gear to be tmogable all year around like bunny ears xd And I would be all for that.
So why shouldn’t they do it for covenants when it’s not only “Zoumz” but over 3.5k+ people that liked a post on the beta telling them the concept and design was wrong.
If anything for me just to advertise my concept a bit I would prefer Dual Classing and more classes. That would be way more fun for me than any covenants.
You’re wrong, there is no debate. Frankly, your subjective stance on maximizing output on a video game isn’t a good framework for a debate.
If I offer you a free computer and give you a choice between a 5k high end system and two dells from a decade ago, are you going to pick either of the Dell machines? Of course not, don’t be ridiculous.
If you’re pushing 20s and you have a choice between picking the best class in the game for your composition, or one of the worst classes in the game, why would anyone pick the worst one? Why should they risk their ability to make the timer?
Pretending that issues that affect the high-end group of players won’t affect the lower end players is strictly false, the only difference is it matters less for them - but it does impact them, make no mistake.
You also haven’t cleared any raid boss for the entire expansion outside of LFR. Why would your opinion on what’s necessary hold any weight?
We can both speculate and neither of us actually knows. They do, and i’m sure they will choose well.
You hurt my head with your cherry picking and or your willful ignorance. I wont say you don’t know how to read because that would just be rude…
The covenants do provide a meaningful choice as an entire package.
Picking which covenant transmog you want more with literally nothing else tied to it isn’t a meaningful choice. Come on now…
How would you feel if Blizzard said “WELL, we decided to let everyone have every transmog set and rewards from the covenants! BUT we’re still keeping abilities locked!”
I mean, according to your logic that would be good since it benefits a lot of people!
Its a slippery slope. You can’t gate the enjoyment of one style of player.
Everyone “suffers” from making this meaningful choice. Its not just people wanting their abilities.
I want the Kyrian ability, but I want the Venthyr transmog, but I want the Necrolord mount, but I want the Night fae farming simulator.
BUT instead of crying about it, i’ll suck it up and make my choice.
I didn’t “equate” anything. I made a simple comparison of the way you think to that of fascists. Take that how you will.
I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t believe it. Maybe reread what you previous typed?
AGAIN, i’m the one who doesn’t know anything.
If I don’t know anything, why do you always try and talk to me? Its weird dude.
Like…EVERY THREAD.
LOL
Personal relationships. If duder x is your buddy, then for a TON of people. Having him along would be more fun than not.
As for the antisocial pugger crowd. Clearly they have chosen ego over social. And that fine. Except the part where nobody actually cares about some achievement in a video game. Especially not their so called “friends” whom they pointedly told they are not good enough to play with.
I’d much rather do deadmines and have a beer with some friends, then drool over my IO score and have no friends because I alienated them all.
Your talking cutting-edge content, where efficiency overrides everything else. The problem arises when that ‘fun’ efficiency bleeds down into lower keys.
Which is why I always support guild play over pug balance.
Not to the point where they can’t clear a heroic or a +15. The exaggeration from people who drone about their parses and efficiency is deafening.