Why do Covenant Abilities/Restrictions remove player agency?

Community General Discussion
61

You’re right, we did ask for more agency. I think you’re conflating the kind of agency we were asking for, though.

I never asked for, nor desired, a choice that would hard dictate my path going forward. I didn’t want to have to choose 1 of 4 paths and never be able to stray from it. That’s not what I wanted when I asked for agency.

I wanted the ability to choose what I do, where I do it, and how I progress. I wanted the ability to always have a choice about that. That’s the kind of agency I wanted. Logging in and deciding that I was going to just blindly do Torghast runs until my eyes bled, opting to go PvP for some gear, or do a few M+. That’s the kind of agency I’m talking about.

A good example of increasing player agency, for example, is the removal of Titanforging. This means that you can target the specific pieces of gear you need. It reduces the randomness of getting “the best” piece, and allows you the agency to decide your own gear progression.

Another example of agency, as many of us have talked about it, is reputation. In the past we’ve had access to tabard, cloth/herb turn ins, as well as daily quests. This creates a system of player agency where they can dictate how they’re going to accomplish a task. Do they want to run dungeons for reputation? Do they want to grind cloth for that rep? Maybe they’re OK just doing the dailies. All are good choices.

Ultimately agency means giving the player control over their direction. It also means allowing them to alter course as they desire. If they suddenly want to start farming dungeons instead of cloth, that’s their choice. That’s agency. If they want to target their chest piece today, instead of their legs, that’s their choice.

Covenants… well they’re kind of player agency. Except they’re a one-time choice. They’re not ongoing player-agency. Once you’ve chosen your covenant you don’t get to change your mind; that’s not ongoing meaningful agency, that’s just a choice with consequences.

So… yeah, we asked for agency. We didn’t ask for something like covenants, though. We asked for options in how we accomplish tasks, and the ability to be able to decide how we do so as we so desire. Covenants are kind of exactly the opposite of that, given that it’s a one-and-done decision that limits your options instead of broadening them, don’t you think?

TL:DR

We wanted player agency as a core concept to how we engage the game. The ability to decide what we do, how we do it, and how we get to the end goal that we want. We wanted to be able to have those options, and choose which ones we liked. Maybe tomorrow we’d choose a different path.

Having multiple routes to take is player agency. Covenants are just a doubling down on the concept of “meaningful choices”, which isn’t the same as what we were asking for.

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62

You had to level each class however, and gear them for the raid, even if you boost 120 of a different class right now, it takes more effort than changing a talent, especially mid raid. Just like picking a class for the first time and choosing to do content with it, if all of a sudden, demon hunters are better than rogues If you want to change to being a demon hunter, you’re going to have to level your demon hunter to the correct level to do the content and gear them. That’s a strong choice to make, and you have to work to get there, if you only have a rogue, and you get told demon hunters are better for this fight, you can’t just logout and switch to a demon hunter, ready to go for that fight, without having put forth the effort to get that demon hunter leveled and geared. Where as with an azerite trait or a talent, you use a book, or hearth to a rest area, and you’re ready to change it right then, no issue and basically no effort at this point.

Set and forget is the mindset people keep trying to argue with and how much easier that makes doing all content because you don’t have to think about changing it, but that’s not inherent difficulty. That just means you know what you have and can use that, but doesn’t give any credit to that the choice you made, won’t be effective in every area. And people are like, being able to choose any power I want at any time for any situation is the REAL, difficult choice, man I’d love to have the pressure of never having to choose again, what luck! That’s like saying how much easier a shooter game is when you can only have one gun you choose in the start of a game compared to the guy who gets every gun and can change them anytime.

The way they’ve put it in, the choice is supposed to matter, and your gameplay going forward is based on that decision or it takes effort to change it , if you decide something else looks like it will work better. I think if they back down and make it a toggle like everything else, that’s when they’ve said, hey, choice doesn’t matter, do whatever you want.

Another example, star wars, if you decide you want to go dark side to lighting some people, and then decide later on, being able to use cure is more to your liking, well you better get to helping some old ladies across the street to get back to the light side because that change isn’t as easy as an off and off switch, and that decision of which party you’re in matters. If you can have every power at once, what’s the point in choosing covenants at all? Some transmog people might wear, but decide to level other alts to get the other ones anyways.Even if they restricted that to only people of that faction could use it, this same batch of arguments would come up because people can’t stick by decisions or choices they make.

63

Lol I don’t revel in other people’s suffering because their covenant doesn’t work in all aspects of the game, I just think, thematically, it’s fine to have a choice that sticks around for a while, even for something as important as powers you get.

64

A lot of us do - and that’s the biggest value the system provides.

65

Right - but you don’t have to relevel and regear that character once you swap to play on another toon.

No one is asking to have all covenant abilities maxed out - we just want to be able to pick up where we left off similar to how classes work.

Oh - my group could really value from a mage right now, no biggie - I’ll jump on my mage and do what’s best for the team without having to relevel and regear it. I can just pick up where I left off.

That’s exactly what people are asking for with covenant abilities - let us work to level each covenant and their abilities, but when the situation arises - let us make a CHOICE about selecting something else that would be more useful for the group.

66

Well said.

The current system pretty much confines choice to a one-time thing and then maximizes the punishment and consequences that come from that choice.

This isn’t agency to many people. Having the ability to choose in an on-going manner is what agency is to many people.

67

I can appreciate that mindset, the way I’ve been reading most of these, sounds like they just want a talent to be switched between pulls, with no effort in obtaining them. Although, I’ll argue that if you can change them as easily as between pulls, it’s still not a real meaningful choice because you don’t have to commit to it. I see it playing out like the essence system where blizzard will give you the first power for free with your chosen covenant and than you’ll have to grind x amount of rep or currency for the other ones and then be able to swap them out like you do talents and azerite now. It’s the most middling approach. I still don’t think it makes much of a choice, but I understand where most people are on the situation. I’ve been in the boat where choosing the most optimal of everything was critical to pushing content. So I see where everyone is coming from, however, trying to convince me that being able to choose any power at any time is a harder decision than knowing that you could be locked into whatever power you chose for a good amount of time is laughable to me.

68

Meaningful in-game.

Consequences, yes. Punishment, no.

Regardless of what light you claim to use the word ‘punishment’ under, the term is inaccurate. There are no punishments inherent in the game, only consequences.

Restrictions would also be accurate.

The argument has zero merit.

69

I would argue that staying committed to one covenant, when you COULD switch, is the harder and more significant choice.

That’s why long-term marriages and committed relationships matter so much more these days compared to historical relationships; back then people didn’t really have a choice.

Now though - you can leave so much easier; which is why staying loyal and committed is that much harder and is seen as such a greater feat than in the past when people were pretty much locked in.

I would prefer they gave “loyalty” benefits to people that make that hard choice - because right now, the people in favor of the current system don’t actually get anything we couldn’t already get from the system being flexible.

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70

I think it’s the reason for so many divorces and people getting married with so little hesitation is because of how easy it is to just switch to another person or get married to someone else again as an option. Whereas, if you knew you had to be married with someone for a while, you’d have be more discerning about that choice than knowing you’ve got the easy escape lever waiting for you to change if you don’t like it next month

71

Right - objectively it would be meaningful to a lot of people in-game.

But having it be punishing the way it is now is subjectively meaningful to us.

It is about the punishment for a bunch of us; in particular when it’s imposed on everyone else, or as many people as possible.

Punishment is subjective I suppose - but as long as people are subjectively taking the system as such, then it’s a positive thing for people on this side.

It would be similar - not not AS accurate; punishment is where the true value is at for us.

If you say so - plenty of others have made the argument; and while I agree with them, I’m still in favor of the current setup because of the punishing nature it has.

72

I guess because some guilds will force people or atleast try to force them to pick a certain coven over there own personal choose.

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73

But it still increases the significance and value that a long-term relationship has today.

Luckily changing covenants wouldn’t have the negative consequences that broken marriages has on the world - it would actually have a positive impact in terms of performance and killing the bad guy of WoW…

74

Maybe they should leave that tryhard guild so they can play the game in peace

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75

Hey i did that a long time ago best thing i ever done going solo is massive amounts of win :slight_smile:.

76

No - they should stay in the guild and keep being punished.

The reason they’re in that kind of guild in the first place is because they have a competitive nature to them.

Having them change how they want to play the game wouldn’t allow them to have choice and would then remove the negative impact the system has on them.

77

There should be a difference between fun game competition and ridiculous tryhardism of having the most mathematically optimal build or else its over.

It is a video game after all.

78

Yes, youll experience each covenant and the powers they offer while doing the story for their respective zones. Once you finish all the story progression and hit max level, youll choose which youre going to stick with and progress.

79

Isn’t that a bit early to choose? The end-game of WoW is nothing like it is when you first hit the level cap.

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80

I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Between the abilities, the soul binds, and the conduit system, the delta between covenants is likely to be pretty small. Bonus, that’s their stated design goal.

For classes, they’ve always said “we want class X to be really good at AoE and class Y to be really good at 2 target spread” and other such nonsense. With this, they are actively trying to balance it.

I’ve never known blizzard to miss on a design goal. I’ve known them to have bonkers AF goals (and certainly unpopular ones) and they’ve muffed player response to some designs, but their stated goals are usually a pretty solid bet.