so you just leave 12 soulbinds, 8 abilities, and however many legendaries floating out there that used to have stories and connections. you’re basically asking for a full redesign, it’s not going to happen.
Honestly, I’d also be completely fine if they made Alchemy Healing Pots a viable replacement for Healthstones, kinda like how you can make Scrolls if you don’t have a Mage, Priest or Warrior, or Drums if you don’t have a Bloodlust.
It wouldn’t be a full redesign. It’d be simply decoupling the current system from the factions.
Whether they allow you the flexibility of complete customization, (i.e. Necro Class ability, Night Fae generic ability, and I dunno, Venthyr passives), or they just give you a couple different presets to switch behind, the idea that the current system cannot exist outside the proposed faction lock on Covenants is silly.
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This argument and way of thinking has so many flaws to it.
1 - you can’t simply sim what’s best for tons of variations in compositions for PvP/M+ across the many different kinds of routes/pulls possible and executed. Your team of players would have to discuss and pick what they “think” will be best - not what, will for sure (based on some sim) be the “best” option.
2 - The ability to choose something new and different for the sake of something refreshing isn’t something you can sim for. Like right now - the Iris Essence may not be “best” for a raid boss or M+, but some players are just tired of what they normally use and wanna give it a shot to feel like Goku out of DBZ.
3 - The “meta” only applies to a minority of the player base. For the rest of the players - the ability to choose freely adds player agency, it doesn’t remove it.
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Because it’s ingrained fully into the story, it can’t be easily decoupled from it.
How does the story break if I choose Venthyr as my story covenant, but have Necrolord abilities?
Wait, so in if you are competing with/ winning against the top 200 rogues in the world… that makes you one of the top 200 rogues in the one world.
Who knew.
Because you get your abilities through doing those stories. You learn about your soulbinds through those covenants.
It might PHYSICALLY work but it’ll be messy AF. Better to just allow easy switching of covenants if it comes down to that.
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I don’t see how it’s a bigger challenge when it takes away the amount of thinking and strategizing you’ll have to make over an expansion - not to mention knowing and understanding how best to use each of those abilities.
Not only does it become a set-it and forget-it choice, but it puts people in a tunnel where the challenge and diversity of the game is diminished.
If that’s what you value- you can still achieve that if the system is flexible. Just don’t change your selection.
Other people don’t have to be subjected to the same restrictions in order for you to get your subjective value from a choice rooted in “loyalty” or "commitment - it’s subjective afterall. The main subjective value for imposing the restrictions on others, based on many other threads, is the enjoyment of seeing others punished with the wide-spread consequences of the current approach.
This I fully agree with
Do a major/minor like essences. Major would be what it is now, and minor would be you can use a smaller version depending on what is needed.
And then make everything else tons and tons of cosmetics.
It’d be just as easy to say “here’s your covenants for this zone” and then unlock full customizability at max level.
You’re not expected to devote yourself entirely to Ravendreth as a zone simply because you chose Venthyr. You gotta go to the other regions as well.
I’d be perfectly okay with easy switching of Covenants FWIW, full customization is my personal ideal, not what I expect to go live.
So, like he said, make it not an rpg…
While leveling yes. But once you hit max level and actually start working on these things you are devoted to that zone and that covenant.
Like I said, while physically possible it would be messy AF and better to just make it an easy switch if it comes to that. Though I’d prefer it be left alone.
You could give a pop-up for those abilities if they’re needed for some specific mechanic, like how I can pull out my Heart of Azeroth to give some Elementals the big succ.
But I agree in that it would be messier. I think it’s possible, though I think easy switching between the covenants for the sake of abilities is a perfectly acceptable solution to my main issue with Covenants.
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I’ve already made a post outlining this - but as an RP/Casual player as well, I can’t find any benefit to forcing this system and it’s consequences onto others.
Like you said:
We can still achieve that benefit within a flexible system - we would just choose to never switch once we’ve made our choice.
I don’t need to punish others in order to get this benefit.
Just like I prefer to use ground mounts everywhere possible - but I certainly don’t want flying removed for the rest of the players that enjoy flying.
The RP benefit I value is still achieved within a flexible system without needing to put the negative restraints on others.
That’s why I feel like the system is punitive with no good reason.
The better way to approach this would be to offer some kind of loyalty benefit for players that stick with a covenant week to week that applies more to the RP aspect of the game - like profession materials, or extra xmog skins, or titles.
RP/Casual players, like myself, would benefit from those rewards for being loyal and the try-hards could still play the game they want. Everyone would get a benefit and no one would have to feel like they’re being punished for wanting to play the game the way they want - all while still having to deal with the consequences involved with the choices you make, except they’re just at the content level, not across your entire character.
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Ok, shadowlands appears to be a calling card to their past. They’re taking away titanforging and random RNG gear. They’re taking away the AP grind. They’re bringing back old abilities for the class and not the spec. And they’re going to bring back the Scryer/Aldor system, turn it up to 11 and make it a campaign with cooler stuff.
I know people don’t like to talk about this, but have you guys seen Warcraft Logs recently? I just checked and it’s pretty shocking to see the difference.
Currently within the last two weeks, there were 4,110,214 parses for the latest World of Warcraft BFA raid. The breakdown in stats is:
655,654 for mythic content
2,954,650 for heroic content
500,000 ish for normal.
For World of Warcraft Classic Blackwing Layer, there were 8,485,511 parses. Double that of the current BFA raid.
So yes… it would make plenty of sense for Blizzard to try and bring the game back, by making choices matter because according to the community that logs their raids and likes to analyze their raid data, there are more of them in Classic.
Players like Ralph, Argorwal, and myself have already shared that we are in favor of this system precisely for this reason.
Honestly - I was happy enough that the people wanting to play well for their groups/friends/raids were going to get shafted with this system.
But it got even better when some of the more casual players started voicing their concerns as well.
They realized that they don’t actually get any benefit from the system that they couldn’t get without it - and they felt bad for others.
So double the benefit for us.
The current system magnifies the punishment/consequences on a player, the more they want to play the game - by reducing overall choice.
The best part - their addiction to the game will have them continue to pay Blizzard their subscription.
It’s quite a thing to see.
That’s because Blackwing Lair requires you to simply have a pulse to complete it. Current Mythic raids are the hardest they have ever been.
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I’m saying there are more folks there. It would make sense for Blizzard to try and bring customers over to have an interest in both products. That’s why they share a subscription.
Also I listed all BFA raiding logs. Not just mythic. How about the normal and heroic versions? Still less players.
What is wrong with trying to bring back older players? People always complain that we don’t see sub numbers anymore, “because the game failed after WotLK.” Yet they don’t want to try and go back to some of the more successful systems that made WotLK the most played WoW expansion. Which Blizzard is doing right now… by bringing back abilities…
That’s because Blizzard has been doing everything they can the last couple expansions to screw over raiders, screw over guilds, and make guilds and raiding as unappealing as possible.
More restrictions.
More hand-tying.
Fewer and worse rewards.
More chores to do outside of raid you MUST do in order to be effective.
If you want to have a discussion about how Blizzard should stop discouraging people from doing raids, that’s a conversation I’m happy to have. But it has nothing to do with covenants.