The simplest fix, and to me the most fun, would be to have all covenants getting access to all the abilities but giving them all skins/ animations that natch the aesthetic theme of their respective covenant.
This way balance isn’t really an issue and the problem created by crossing story/rp with power/ gameplay goes away.
I don’t even see this as a problem. It’s fine for players to want to be optimal for their preferred type of content, but cosmetics have nothing to do with that.
When it becomes, “This feature must be changed because I want to be optimal and have my favorite mog at the same time,” that’s not a reasonable request anymore.
That has nothing to do with balance, and players can make other choices on alts. Collecting the appearances is something players will be doing, just as we did with artifact appearances.
A more significant point would be a particular Covenant offering an ability that is great for dungeons, while another offers an ability that is great for raids, to take an example. Most players are doing both, so I could see that being a genuine issue and source of frustration.
But some problem existing initially is not going to break the game. Legendary items were very badly designed and were an understandable source of frustration early in Legion, but those issues were smoothed out over the course of the expansion.
My impression is that this is the primary driver of a lot of the discontent with system. It certainly is for me.
Especially for players that are willing to tank/heal for their guilds raid progression, but that also like to pvp as dps.
That’s probably the most extreme, but it can still be a huge issue within a dps spec/class. The dh pvp ability is amazing for arena- but I just can’t really see it ever being on par with the raid/m+ oriented abilities.
In general, players that want to play all aspects of the game as best as possible for their guild, dungeon groups, and arena partners get downward pressure put on them when they’re just trying to be a team player.
To a point, yes. But there is a question of degree.
If it’s really about a dps main having a healing spec that can help for dungeon or raid progression (just to take an example), then that spec doesn’t have to be absolutely optimal. It already isn’t, most likely.
Yes, of course, players who are legitimately pushing bleeding edge content will care more about small advantages, and the devs should avoid creating situations that make those players’ lives miserable (like absurd amounts of grinding, or whatever). But those players are also choosing to focus on pushing content, so it’s always going to be more demanding.
And that simply doesn’t apply to the vast majority of players, nor even the majority of dedicated players.
I’ve seen other people that are admitted rp casual players stating that a flexible system wouldn’t impact them. Their option to choose one covenant and/ or ability is still there.
So having a flexible system would address the competitive players that partake in multiple forms of content, while also allowing the role playing aspect of choosing once and staying with that for the expansion.
That’s why the restrictions are needless. The players that value the restrictions can still self impose them even when others can choose not to.
It’s similar to flying and transmog for various people that dislike them - so they just don’t use them; and at the same time, they don’t at all advocate for their removal because they recognize that other orobator benefit from the system. As long as they have the choice to opt out, they’re ok with it.
The biggest proponents of the current system appear to be those that specifically want to impose their way of paying on others, especially when it’s a negative thing for the other players.
The issue with this point of view is the same that it has always been, namely that it dilutes the game’s design in the name of convenience.
It’s the same type of argument that led to class homogenization, removal of buffs, downplaying of class utility, removal of profession perks, and so on.
Players complain about the “dumbing down” of the game, boring classes, loss of utility, etc., all the time, but this has happened partially because a subset of dedicated players simply cannot stand the idea of somebody else having a small advantage in any situation, even when that small advantage isn’t determining success.
Players tend not to see how the two things are related, but they complain about both. Basically, if my spec has an impactful ability that not all specs have, then there is chance that this will inconvenience someone who is not playing that spec.
Attempting to eliminate all those scenarios is a big part what leads to homogenization and “dumbing down.”
I guess I just don’t feel like it dilutes the game.
I also don’t complain about class homogenization. I’ve never really understood those that made it out it be a big deal.
The most I’ve ever had issues with were the Gcd changes.
Well, different players have different priorities. Which is fine in itself, obviously.
However, the same question/issue came up when Ghostcrawler was the lead systems designer, but applied to specs and classes. He tended to talk a bit more about these issues from the dev perspective.
Anyway, to summarize: should all tank specs essentially be the same, but with different spell animations? Or should they have strengths and weakness according to the situation and type of content?
Many players have made the same argument for specs that you are making for Covenants, namely that the difference should just be animations, not power or effectiveness in a given situation.
Thankfully, for specs and classes, the devs have never quite caved in to that extent, but it is essentially the only way to make everything the same in all situations.
I tend to think of the example of profession perks that existed in the Lich King era, basically each profession provided a little bonus. But the extra socket provided by blacksmithing was slightly less powerful than the special gem available to jewelcrafters, so all perks had to be removed. That was essentially what happened.
The profession perks are a particularly silly example, because the differences were so small, but that mentality hurts the game. It leaves no room for anything interesting.
I don’t mind tanks being different - because if you level and gear one, you can pickup where you left off should you need that tank class in the future.
That’s how I think Covenant Abilities would be ideal - if you still had to earn each of them, but could then switch them around and pick up where you left off. If future tiers/seasons create upgrades for them - then we’d have to earn each of those upgrades for each of them - kind of the way essences work now.
But the idea being that you don’t have to start from scratch when you want to change an ability; just like you don’t have to relevel a character from level 1 when you switch toons.
I guess I feel like keeping those barriers at the class/spec level is enough.
When successful MMORPGs already do well without those barriers - adding more barriers within WoW just pushes players to those other games.
This is my biggest thing on why I don’t get people saying they are forced to play suboptimally or forced into one role.
I have a friend who’s been complaining about being forced to choose between raiding or pvp, when he does both. I ask if he has engineering as one of his professions. He says no. I point out that he is then playing sub-optimal for pvp, in which he replied he doesn’t care since he wants herbs and alchemy for money.
Engineering has pretty much been the PvP profession since vanilla wow. Sure it isn’t as good now as it used to be but it’s still the best. The gadgets and extra utility it gives you can help in battle or allow you to do stupid things that end up turning the tide in your favor.
I just view covenants as a sub-class. You get three talent trees and two abilities from them. Will blizzard be able to balance them? nah. It’s been years and classes themselves haven’t been balanced. Will people create issues if you don’t have an X-Y-Z combo? Yeah but that isn’t a design problem, that’s a social engineering problem that the players themselves create.
Absolutely none. There is literally nothing positive about the implementation of Covenants as they stand.
The only real defense for them is because
they are negative, which is a pretty good indication they shouldn’t happen.
Sadly, that seems to be the case.
Which is a shame. Those kinds of barriers are what I dislike most in these kinds of games; as a player who started WoW in Vanilla, I really liked Legion and how it started to at least tear down the role restrictions within a class.
BfA went back on that by charging to respec azerite armor.
Shadowlands is now, as you’ve put it, putting in a sub-class with restrictions and barriers. Not something I’m interested in.
Well said lol!
The idea of covenants is that you should thematically decide how you want to experience shadowlands content. its a noble goal. The tunning knobs they have that we are aware of are
With that said blizzard has front loaded the choice of covenant on the active ability as not much is know about the other two. Also given blizzards track record on balance no one is convinced they can balance them.
I honestly dont even think it’s fair to expect Blizzard to balance all of them. There’s too many moving parts across so many classes and specs.
But allowing each of the abilities to be freely accessible bypasses the need for balancing while still allowing the RP Casuals to stick to one choice and also allowing the try-hards the ability to optimize.
The only people left out are the sadistic players that just want to push pain onto as many other players as possible.
This should be in shadowlands discussion.
Ion fielded this question, they said “it doesn’t feel right for your nightfae covenant to be using plague abilities”, (if that one is the best).
I would prefer the classes to be “complete” and power to come exclusively from the soulbinds or just disable active abilities in instances.
Good thinking - I’ll put the OP over there.
EDIT: Just tried - I can’t post in Alpha forums.
If they just made each set of abilities have their own aesthetics that matched the covenant theme - that would be addressed.