I don’t think it’d help to timegate covenant/honor gear, but the transition between that and M+ could certainly be a lot smoother, because it’s currently very jarring.
A great start in the right direction is for Blizzard to stop with this borrowed power mess. It feels terrible to lose something each expansion because what we gain in the next might not (more commonly will not) make up for what we lost. Legion to BfA felt horrific, and BfA to Shadowlands had a similar feeling. Losing the abilities we got this expansion will be just as bad.
I also strongly believe that we need a new director. Just because a chef can make a 5 star meal doesn’t mean he can captain a ship; Ion is a fantastic game designer, but his philosophies are very disconnected from a large part of the player base. The most recent interview with Preach illustrated that very well. There’s such little open dialogue between developers and players, and the fact they almost never take feedback to heart and just stick to their guns. Lately I’ve been looking at how other games and their developers work with their players, and the difference is stunning. Blizzard’s communication, or lack there of, is inexcusably bad. Going months with nothing about future content only to far later on blame it on COVID, ignoring the fact that other games were developed from home yet had a better release cadence, is not appropriate.
Blizzard is suffering from a deep set illness of hubris. And while I am finding enjoyment in Shadowlands, it would be foolish and blind if me to not acknowledge the serious problems that WoW is suffering from, and it has only gotten worse. There needs to be a very dramatic overhaul of the development team, the leadership, the project management, and above all else communication, otherwise they’re going to keep coming off as one of the worst development teams (which many people are continuing to point out). It’s a pretty general consensus and meme at this point that Blizzard’s standard response is “We hear your complaints and are discussing this internally but don’t plan on doing anything.”
Another point of issue I have is, with all of these systems, it feels like we’re stuck in beta/early access until the final patch when Blizzard realizes their mistakes, addresses the most common issues and concerns, and finally adds in fixes that were sorely needed at the start. They’re releasing a half finished game and finishing it while dragging the player base along by the hand. The time gating is because they aren’t delivering content very quickly, and instead are focused on slowing players down so they have time to finish the game.
I can enjoy the game, but I can also heavily critique it. And there will be a time where my enjoyment dries up and I do choose to move on. I think Shadowlands started very well but Blizzard irreparably damaged the expansion due to lack of communication and a truly reprehensible take on the systems in the game. It’s a shame as I was excited for this expansion, too. I do hope it improves for others, but I get the feeling it won’t.
Sorry for the long rant, just been really eating away at me.
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If the devs could hear ONE piece of your post, I wish it was this. Go back to real WoW. Millions of players don’t like whatever this WoW-like thing is the current team has designed. Move all the cynical, egotistical leadership to phone games. Put people in charge who have PEOPLE SKILLS and get that fun has to be front and center.
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You are absolutely right and I created the thread with that knowledge. I literally remember threads in TBC talking about how it ruined the game.
But if the end of the world gets predicted long enough, eventually it’s going to be right.
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Dreamhaven will save us all 
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Brevity is the soul of wit.
Yes, WoW will end eventually no matter what.
Just like every other video game in existence.
Hardly a hot take.
Thinking about this more, a great start would be to better align item ilvls across content boundaries — if you start M+ at 197 for example you’re not going to get upgrades until you’re doing +7, which is going to give a lot of players the idea that they should skip straight to +7, which of course isn’t going to work but will fill LFD with people trying to skip nonetheless and make life worse for everybody.
And the worst part is, that after the issues are “fixed” they scrap the entire thing and completely start over. And learn nothing from the past iterations.
I know a lot of people will roll their eyes about FFXIV.
But just look at the interactions from Yoshi P with the community at large. And the guy has certainly screwed up stuff, not trying to paint him as the second coming of jesus. But the overall impression is that the dude cares about his game and wants people to be having fun. And people respond to that, and feel like they are being listened too. I personally think hes one of the best game devs in the business right now. Look at the crap pile he turned around
Then you look at Ion, its literally a night and day difference with his interactions and dialogue. (when you get them at all, another stark difference between the two)
He may be able to make a good raid, but hes not the person to be steering the ship for a good healthy community. And I’m sorry, but this is an essential skill for any long term social online game
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You don’t even need to look that far.
People complained about Overwatch, Hell they still complain about Overwatch. But just look at the general community consensus regarding Jeff Kaplan. His departure was sad for a lot of people, and in general even if the game was in a certain state, Jeff’s honest feedback and developer updates were there and people actually liked seeing it.
Ion does none of this. They promise better communication and never deliver, and I don’t know if it’s a lawyer thing or a personal thing, but Ion doesn’t seem to like being told that he might be wrong about something. I again bring up that Preach interview, some of his answers actually had me face palming. I don’t know who they’re designing the game for exactly, but it doesn’t have a good general consensus in almost every space of the internet.
Like I said in my own statement: just because a five star chef can cook a fantastic meal doesn’t mean he’s qualified to steer a ship. Ion is a great encounter designer, and the raids he is involved in are some of the best in the game. But the rest of his input and directional steering is bad. The game can’t play like how a boss is designed.
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I am not the most articulate person in the world and I really think I have great ideas and am by in large correct in what I posted. I felt it was too important to not add one more little voice here, incoherent and babbling as I can be at times. Too many thoughts to organize well 
Thanks for reading though.
I can’t stand FF14 for any number of irrelevant reasons but I keep up with the MMO space at large, and what I wouldn’t give for WoW devs to have a tenth of the communication and listening ability that FF14 devs have…
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Well, at expansion launch the covalent gear was time gated so players were doing dungeons without it, and then gradually getting better covenant pieces.
But, the playerbase tends to hate time gated, especially for alts, so there is no timegate anymore.
Also, many players don’t wait to fill 9 slots at 197 with covenant gear before starting in low dungeons and normal raids, so that initial expansion progression path is still available.
I don’t think trying to re-establish it by harder timegating the gear, or worse making it have lower item level to make low keys attractive, is a good idea.
Sure, but then you’re that dirty old guy holding the sign on the corner next to the liquor store that reads, “The end is nigh!”. And nobody’s listening because for them, the world keeps on spinning and there’s no use in worrying about what catastrophe might happen.
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Borrowed power is killing the game in my opinion.
How many resources is it sucking up every single major patch only for it to be essentially removed in the next expansion?
Designing specs to purposefully have holes filled by borrowed power isn’t doing the game’s long term health any favors.
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I would love to hear any ideas you have for smoothly transitioning the masses into M+ (not just at launch, but at any point in time) then, because it’s pretty messy as is and absolutely needs attention in some way or another. It’s way too easy for the lower rungs of M+ to be seen as pointless busywork.
Id love to see a poll done by blizzard asking “would you rather a new system or more dungeons?”
Id be shocked if it wasn’t 90%+ wanting more dungeons.
It’s like they are obsessed with leaving their mark on the industry by being known as the guys who came up with that system that all the other games copy. Stop it. Just stop it.
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Not even just FF14. I’ve kind of just been browsing game forums in general and after spending years playing WoW, I’m genuinely surprised to find how many other games have developers who genuinely care about feedback. Sure, you have some horrible ones (for a good laugh, Day of Dragons is a prime example of a horrible developer) but others, such as Indie developers like Scott Cawthon to slightly bigger studios like Behaviour Interactive to, as was pointed out, the developers on Final Fantasy 14, they all communicate and talk to their fans. It’s inexcusable for Blizzard to be this bad at communication.
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I don’t think these 2 things really share resources.
A better question would be:
Would you rather see specs reworked or new systems.
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Happens only with the JP community.
And the meme in the JP community is that Yoshi only listens to NA. Even in FF14 – people have expressed at different points in the game their disappointment in development that has not been addressed.