I don’t want to bore all of my readers with a SSDD post about how the Covenant System is bad and we should make changes here and there to fix the game.
Look, I’ll try and make this rather short. But hit that like button if what you’re about to read is resonating with you.
I am watching people quit this game every other day because of this system. People who I enjoy playing with are walking away because they are doing 20 or 25% damage less than other covenants because they “picked wrong”, or “don’t want to grind renown again”. Lord only knows how many hours it took Blizzard to design this, and it’s crazy to think how much time they spend week in and week out trying to balance it. It’s not worth it. This is the definition of sunk cost.
I don’t care how this is fixed, to be honest. The only thing I care about is that it’s fixed. I won’t be playing this game any longer if my guild breaks up.
I will just make a quick suggestion as to how I think it could be fixed and hope that something is done. Pull the rip cord. Please…
Just get rid of the restriction to join only one covenant… You complete the story line on one faction, it’s completed on all. The weekly quests would be shared. Your “Covenant” abilities are determined by which soulbind you currently have selected. When you change soulbind your covenant abilities change to the respective covenant soulbind you are choosing. You can set your soulbinds up at all 4 covenant zones. Renown is shared among all covenants. If you make these changes, all the other systems you have in place, despite being bad or annoying, won’t be nearly as frustrating to deal with as is this one major restriction of only being a part of one covenant at a time.
Please don’t flame or troll my post please. I love this game and have literally cried multiple times this tier from the fact that it’s so obviously not what it used to be. I have been duped into spending more money than a subscription to play the game. I feel wronged in how much time I have spent keeping my character up to current week in and week out. I feel like I’m wasting my time. And now I am watching my friends quit. I assume others are watching their friends quit. Blizzard, please abandon this system. Please.
It’s not because they don’t have the resource to change it. It’s because they think it’s working as intended. The heart and soul of the genre is apparently pointless arbitrary restrictions that the playerbase will be forced to work around in order to get any enjoyment out of the game.
covenants has been blizzards worst system combined with some next level hubris when it comes to feedback.
this game deserves to die with people like the current team at the top. They could have had something like horde/alliance pride but they refused to listen to any of the feedback and now the game is burning over their own choices.
They should of blown up the Covenant system, Soulbind system and Conduits a long long time ago when in Alpha all the players said these systems are extremely bad. Blizz ignored it because their Alphas aren’t true testing Alphas because they refuse to throw out systems if they are bad. Not sure why we even have Alphas or even Betas. I mean none of this should of made it past Alpha.
You would know this how? Secret agent dev? If they could fix it that easily they would unless it was detrimental to them monetarily. It’s not a tuning pass. Even if it was by that logic all classes in pvp and pve would be balanced.
Truth is the only easy way to balance covenants is to blow them up like op said. Gut the abilities and leave only the cosmetics. That would make this already crappy expac even worse removing content and the only thing making it rather unique.
It seems likely though they’ve coded a complete sugar show with how phasing/covenants/campaign works that simple changes drastically affect gameplay in unknown ways.
All I know is, there has to be A way.
Even if that way is say- Granting everyone maxed renown and just calling it a day. Granting people maxed renown when they join a new covenant, and allowing people to switch covenants at will. Giving people all followers on the mission table at maxed level, whenever you join a new covenant. Unlocking all anima powers when you join a new covenant.
I don’t care if the only way to fix the game is to dismantle every progression oriented system within covenants. The game is borderline unplayable right now if you pick the wrong covenant. The community is too hardcore and the game is too hard.
All the abilities and player power should have been centralized in Oribos. Where you could pick the one you think is fun or the meta, what ever suits your fancy.
None of the abilities that do damage or improve your toon should have even been connected to covenants.
I would much rather use bonespike as my extra ability, imo it’s the most fun ability of the rogue choices, but i just cant see spending anymore time in Maldraxxus than i absolutely have to.
The covenants should have been transmogs, mounts, and story only.
They are not going to change this now.
It would have been infinitely better if we could just… do the all the campaigns to unlock the options and abilities, then had an NPC to pick which abilities we wanted to run with that. Like, fine. Let the completionist who wants all the options gobble down 240 renown or whatever. It’s a free country. But like a lot of people would probably max out 2 for their main end game and their side piece. Like raid as night fae, pvp as venthyr. Or raid as necro and m+ as kyrian. Etc. etc. it didn’t need to be swappable with a tome, but it needed to be open to earn.
Covenants as an RPG aspect was a sound idea. I get why they thought it would be fun. Here’s where the entire concept fell flat on its face: player abilities and power should never have been tied to covenants. They should have be solely cosmetic and nothing else. Had they made this one change, SL would not have crashed and burned like it has.
