This is the best suggestion as to how having powers not be tied to covenant could’ve worked without ruining the feeling of it.
And I completely agree on the story part. I started out as Venthyr on this mage, then made a BM hunter and put her into Ardenweald, then made a Spriest and put him into Maldraxxus in case I ever want to try to heal, then made a DH and put her into Bastion… (and a lock who I will eventually move into Revendreth as well cause I really don’t understand Kyrian lock).
I suspect I’ll only get the story of the Shadowlands fully whenever I’m done with the campaign on my DH and it’s kind of weird. I thought they don’t really want us to play alts but it feels like having the different covenants add only puzzle pieces to the story feels like that’s incentivizing having alts. Sure you can go through all stories on your main but tbh at this point it’d feel weird for me to not have mirrors of torment.
It’s definitely difficult to balance when you have ~3 specs for each class (minus dh and druid but still an average of 3) and 3 different types of endgame content (PvP, M+, and Raiding) that all call for different strengths in your character. Blood DK for M+ in Venthyr makes perfect sense but strictly thematically, all Blood DKs should have Venthyr as BiS… I think you could also make a point for Unholy possibly fitting into Venthyr but it just fits better into Necrolord and then Frost could fit into either of them (I’d probably prefer Venthyr)… But if they did that they’d have the same division of specs into two covenants we have with mages right now. I think it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to balance with specs and different endgame content.
-which is the best argument as to why power shouldn’t have been tied to them. A Kyrian lock just feels wrong. So does a Kyrian DH…
Yeah this wouldn’t be a bad idea, you would have 4 times the content and way more mobility around the world as each reputation would have opened portas l, fast travels as you rep up. We would also be able to pick the cosmetics pieces we liked from each faction as well.
I don’t think putting content behind the factions and then locking each character away from 75% of that content is a good idea. The fact that content is locked behind the covenants, and time gated, is a big reason why Shadowlands feels devoid of any content at all.
Edit: It makes absolutely no sense lorewise, either.
I like the vision of the covenant system. Blizzard wanted us to pick one and have that covenant’s theme shown in our characters. It accomplished it in part, I think. It reminds me of past divisions this game had. Goblin vs. gnome engineering. Bloodsail vs booty bay rep. Aldor vs scrycers.
But the way it was done was imperfect, I think. Tying cooldown abilities makes people chase meta. Some players like to be immersive/soft RP while still pushing high content, so this ruins the feeling for a lot of us. I also don’t like how they made faction rep feel so hollow. You never feel like you’re progressing, but this has been a problem with rep since legion at least.
But I like the direction they went with covenants more than not.
My issue with covenants is that they don’t represent a great number of people of Azeroth. For how often we are told certain classes don’t fit various races due to cultural differences, locking us into covenants that don’t represent our race feels out of place. It’s just one of the many aspects that keep me away from Shadowlands. After getting past the main story in BfA I enjoyed the expansion and found it engaging with the zone quests and overall feel of everything. Shadowlands just feels so meh.
I’m lucky because my main is a druid so thematically and power all fit in the same covenant. And since this is my main all my alts are just going with whatever feels best just so I can unlock all the covenant perks, mounts, pet, transmog and see all the content. One necro DH, one kyrian paladin and one venthyr warlock.
But for so many they are choosing what they don’t want because it gives the best numbers for the content they are doing and it’s not like it’s a small percentage different, add the wrong spec and covenant and all of a sudden people are not even being accepted to even attempt the content, it’s just been such a massive failure.
I have some similar in my first batch of characters, but with a flip. Main here is Necro Forsaken Demon Warlock, Kyrian Blood Elf Ret Paladin, Venthyr Blood Elf DH, and while I have a Dwarf Shaman currently in Ardenweald, I have a Resto Druid hot on their heels, heading for that locale, who I want to do the campaign on.
Increasingly since Legion they have tried to push players to restrict their gameplay by making it harder to maintain multiple specs and now to play multiple content. It’s as though they think forcing such restrictions on players somehow makes them “meaningful choices” to those players.
It’s as though they believe that arbitrary external restrictions are the heart and soul of the genre.
I think this has a lot to do with their spread sheet mentality of the more you make players think they need to do and do over multiple toons the more they will be in game.
Problem is players are not numbers on a spread sheet that fall under the see if it works on paper then it will work in practical applications. We are people that play to have fun , do adventures , see the entire story . Yes a lot of people may be playing the expansion but a lot are not because of the lack of adventure and the stories being gated to a per toon level .
Covenants would of been fine if they did have us pick one but allowed the abilities for our classes to work with the soul binds of a chosen covenant and if they would of allowed us to see the complete stories of the covenants. This is especially true of 9.0/9.0.5 , because it would of given us a lot more content to do over the period of time . Instead we get a short campaign then a bunch of chores to hold us over until 9.1 which like I said has gotten a lot of people to not want to play .
I’ll be honest I’m mainly buying my 2 months of game time for in here and the PTR until 9.1
… they are though. Like… yeah, that’s how it works. That’s really, really, really how it works. I play a Druid, I am a Druid, I do Druid things, that makes my character a Druid and not, say, a Warrior.
Role-playing game. You take on a role. One role is different from another role.
I’m more than willing to agree with someone saying the balance of the Covenants is flawed and Blizzard bit off more than they could chew, but the idea that somehow Covenants were a violation of what the game should be, instead of actually leaning into the strength of an RPG… that I can’t agree with at all.
Wow devs should focus on what they are good at raids + dungeons. This content has always been good and I’d like more of it and let stuff that exists around it like choreghast, maw dailies, renown, etc
I also think wow pvp can be great and is worth the effort to make better and polish.
j/k good thoughts ,bub.