I mean, this is literally what WoW gives us, patch after patch.
All Arms warriors were stacking Expedient with 3x Test of Might. All Unholy DKs were 3x Festermight. All tanks were stacking Twilight Devastation. All Demon Hunters wanted the Ra-den fist weapon.
And this isn’t unique to Ny’alotha. When you attempt to define a toon through numerical values, expect there to be 1 right answer and many wrong ones.
No, choices shouldn’t be related to power. If you want real choices, people making decisions based on values, based on role playing amusement, you need to decouple the numbers from that decision. It needs to be a decision based on something visual or something visceral.
Did you side with Saurfang or Sylvannas ? That was an RPG choice. It gave you a different set of quests and a different view of the story based on which you made.
It would be better than the current design of Shadowlands where there is a right and a wrong choice. That choice is also supposed to be more than player power, which is the issue.
All he wants is for you to choose your Covenant based on what you like and not what the sims tell you.
For example Night Fae for DK is the best (well it was a few weeks ago, lost track of recent changes). It was the best in every single scenario for all three DK specs.
His frustration comes from complaining about that and then having people tell him that he is ruining the game by wanting everything to be balanced.
If everything performed the same then it’s all about what you enjoy and what clicks with you.
The issue with Covenants is you have to pick your player power, mounts, story, zone, soul binds, and lore all in one decision.
The thing is, min/maxers are a majority of wow players. Most players strive to increase their numbers, their healing, their survival. Rare few just click randomnly and press buttons randomnly.
If you have ever got an item to drop, and you thought “This will increase my DPS!” and then equipped it, congratulations, you too are a min/maxer.
If the game goes through in such an unbalanced state, I wouldn’t even be surprised to see people getting kicked in LFR for having made the wrong covenant choice, the second a boss causes a wipe.
Honestly I agree, but the game has gone too far in the opposite direction for that to be the case these days. Everyone wants to be competitive even if they aren’t doing competitive content, and honestly that is something that has been brought about by the influence of the information age.
When EQ and WoW were first released the amount of available information easily accessible to players was so much considerably lower than it is today. Now we have that information people want to alway be and always take the best.
Personally I disagree. MMOs and the RPG genre in general is all about player agency and being able to create their own unique character with their own unique skills.
RPGs aren’t typically designed in a competitive environment to mimic a sport, that’s simply a modern interpretation of the genre after years of change.
Just look back to Vanilla and TBC, even WotLK.
hahaha, this is not possible: most of the people that do LFR cannot use the extra button on the N’Zoth fight. They don’t even know about the “kick” option.
I disagree. Most RPG games completely dissociate the “player skill” part from the player agency part.
Some of the greatest RPGs of all times don’t even have a real notion of “player skills” and the leveling systems are mostly completely irrelevant. Case in point : Ultima VII. The Avatar doesn’t even have a class in that one (not that the class of the Avatar mattered much in Ultima VI).
D&D is also very anti-numerical in their games. The game is the game. You can run through any of the Goldbox RPGs with any selection of classes you want. Does it help to have a Paladin on the front lines and then 3 mages casting Delayed Blast Fireball at the back ? Sure. Does it change anything in regards to beating Bane ? Nope. You still run through the story as you would regardless of class choices (and yes, Delayed Blast Fireball and Fireball before it are massively overpowered and there’s barely a reason to cast anything else).
Eye of the Beholder, another great TSR series, none of the character “skills” or progression really matter overall. The game is mostly puzzle based and exploration based. All combat can be done in a hit and run fashion. You could make 4 melee mages and win the game because no enemies can hit you when you hit, strafe, hit, backup, hit strafe over and over again.
Final Fantasy IV, VI for SNES, Final Fantasy VII, VIII for PS1, while you might be able to “build combos”, at the end of the day, the game isn’t really about the combat system. The game is about the overarching epic storyline of the underdog that rises to defeat a world ending threat.
I don’t get where this “RPG games need a numerical power system to be an RPG game” thing ever came from.
That’s because rogues already get Sneak Attack which does 10d6 additional damage at max level. And you’re in serious trouble if they took the Assassin archetype for the automatic critical hit. Giving a rogue a +1 dagger is just adding insult to injury. Rogues are just OP.
To be honest I don’t think they have the subs to start SL. People are been driven away in droves with they way they have set up SL. And of course most streamers have to say good things if they always beta invites and be on Blizzards good side. Asmongold I think is the only one willing to tell it how it really is.
“If the game goes through in such an unbalanced state, I wouldn’t even be surprised to see people getting kicked in LFR for having made the wrong covenant choice, the second a boss causes a wipe.”
Love to see actual real data on the propensity of that happening. Those in guilds, which is likely 100% of raiders doing Hardcore and above arent going to experience this IMO. In 16 years I never have.
now Method or world first super hard core folks - sure. heck those folks do raids with 25 monks all wearing the same stuff… those are the 1% and the game should not cater to those folks, just as it should not cater to the super casual.
It’s hard to please everyone and that’s my main point - stop trying. It just creates division or uninteresting gameplay.
I’ve been in leveling dungeons where people wanted to boot because someone wasn’t doing enough dps. There are all walks of life in this game. And most use raiderio, wowhead and icyveins to min/max.
That shouldn’t mean that everyone should have to, and it can be avoided by forming your own groups. But there’s plenty of them out there.
The thing with Covenants is there is this false belief that it cures min/maxing. But it only makes it worse. It’s hilarious.
I agree with some of your points but there needs to be a balance and classes need to feel fun.
I mained an Outlaw Rogue for 1/2 of BFA. I was great for M+ and in raids I did ok single target and some fights had AoE but I was clearly behind the good specs.
That’s fine, but every spec does not have content they are great in and even then there should not be massive gaps between the best and worst spec with both choosing the best talents and other choices for that content.
OH! Is that why all of my guild’s hunters are always on top of the meters? I thought it was just because we were good players. It all makes sense now! (No. I’m not not being serious. I’m kidding. Don’t ban me please!)
Isn’t that OPs argument though? The ability to freely create your character how you want to and still be able to play and succeed at the game.
That’s exactly like Vanilla WoW was. You don’t need 35 Fury Warriors to do Molten Core, you could take Ret Pallies, Surv Hunters etc etc.
That’s what the genre is. The game since progressed from that state into a more competitive version that encouraged specific builds/classes.
Isn’t that what OP is saying though? Characters can be good in certain situations and worse in others, it doesn’t have to be just about numbers and what is numerically superior.
Shaman used to have Poison Cleanse Totem which would be amazing in some modern encounters, but entirely useless in 90% of others.
In today’s game that wouldn’t be allowed to exist because “now we have to take 5 Shaman to ever beat X boss. Shaman is OP”
It’s interesting that you think that wow is about being unique. Can you give an example of a time when that was possible? I don’t think this has been a thing since wrath, with talent trees, and most people weren’t crazy about them.
That requires decoupling your character’s identity from the power systems. Your character should be how you want it to be, in a RPG sense. A brooding veteran Soldier, a cheery overly lucky Kender, a dought eyed innkeeper’s daughter adventuring for the first time, etc…
But everyone ends up saying “Lolret” and putting them in dresses in the back. Because even though Rag still dies, “Rag dying” is not the measure of success in Classic or Vanilla.
No, it’s a complete perversion of the genre to associate player power components and numerical values to a character’s identity. It’s literally warned against in every rulebook for almost every campaign setting.
You’re literally still talking about numbers.
In the RPG sense. A character being “good in certain situations and worse in others” is the thief in your party, stealing an apple in the market and giving it to some orphans as your party walks by and the next day, attempting to pass off false coins to the innkeeper, resulting in your party getting thrown out on the cold streets in the rain.
Since we have plenty of those, that’s not an issue.
It just shouldn’t become part of a Shaman’s identity that he is “The shaman, the guy with the % based clean poison totem we need 5 of”. That’s anti-RPG. That’s the numerical campaign. It’s bad RPGing.
Idk, I feel as though if blizzard focused way more attention on their actual classes than just have us hey here’s a covenant ability you can use for the expansion maybe even spec specific, I’d be much more content than getting soulbinds/conduits/legendaries. The times I’ve enjoyed the game the most the classes themselves were fun to play and that’s all that really mattered, you could throw some gear at me after that as a bonus and I’m good.
Endless grinds for borrowed power are boring. Think upgrading your neck or corruption grinds. If the classes are good and fun to play you don’t need additional systems to cover for them, people will just enjoy playing the game and going after the gear they want and than do activities they find fun with that gear, whether it’s parse/arena/bg etc.
Because of borrowed power you feel like There’s always this large gap between where you are and where you could be. An example I have from mop is I lvld an alt priest and when I got max lvl I went right into arena with full greens and managed 2200 in greens, because my class was good and I was able to use it to the fullest, if you attempt to bring a fresh 120 into arena right now, you get one shot by gushing wounds or bike/dress trinket. You don’t even end up dying to the player, but the borrowed power they have, and damage break downs are almost entirely essences/corruption/trinkets.
To sum, no I don’t think borrowed power is good, your class should be good and as long as that’s done you don’t need the rest (systems on systems to make you “feel complete”)
Just like me. But easy to mistake.