We ve been seeing Blizzard heading into a more RPG heavy direction with hard to change covenants, Torghast and systems in Shadowlands but I feel that their latest stream confirmed it completely.
There was no mention of covenant backtracking like some wannabe elites hoped, Blizzard and Ion remain steadfast and are designing the game around them being a choice you wont be allowed to switch back and forth like talents so it seems clear thankfully that covenants will remain a meaningful choice well after launch.
More importantly their focus on the stream was on new systems, not raid or m+ design, not Torghast or class design, things that are mainly sought after by more competitive or content oriented people like me but this category also includes a big wannabe elitist group.
The above were completely ignored, what we instead got was systems like the different RPG minigames covenants offer that might give useful rewards, systems like the new battle mission table, covenant rep grind or the Maw which is just a more thematic focused experience. All these are part of RPG experiences, not everything in the game exists to give you performance boosts or huge gear boosts or challenge you, many systems in single player RPGs exist for fun, to show you something about the game and world and might have a small reward but the reward is not the point for them.
The devs CHOSE to focus more on these RPG elements instead of obsessing over tryhard demands like covenants being talents, heavy class and encounter balance and numbers in general, they chose to spend time creating fun mini games and mini encounters instead of tryhard content.
At the end of the day, whenever you like it or not this game is an RPG, if you want to pick a loadout and jump in fights and “win” there are far more fitting game than an RPG where you are supposed to build a character for a journey and explore the world which includes some challenges but challenges are not the center of it.
The epeen crowd clearly doesnt like that since the only thing they care about if beating things so they can feel better about themselves by beating a video game made to be won, and to them I clearly point out that the design of WoW is going heavily on an RPG direction instead of focusing on epeen contests.
Hate to break it to you Ralph, even though I myself play solo, this isn’t a single player game. Single player systems don’t necessarily work in multiplayer games.
I prefer the heavy RPG experience - I’m a roleplayer.
But when there are cosmetic rewards attached to ladders and content where you do need to min-max to have a decent chance of completing it, or joining a group, people can point out that imbalances exist and probably shouldn’t exist.
This is a group game.
Your choices matter to the groups that exist, and people do not want to take people who intentionally make themselves weaker.
blah blah make your own group blah blah lfr
Yet the design direction of the game with the support of the Lead dev makes me a lot more confident in said RPG elements in an mmo than some random forum person.
Ion is clearly pushing for a more RPG heavy design and that is pretty great.
And that problem could suddenly be fixed if the community stopped being morons that dont invite X “bad” class for a m+3, this toxic attitude shouldnt be allowed to keep going yet it does, so you cant whine at blizzard if you dont do anything to fight it.
Blizzard successfully balanced the game so all specs can do mythic raids and m15s, and that is what matters, after that it is epeen mode that isnt relevant and wont ever be balanced.
People have been intentionally making themselves weaker since Vanilla. In Vanilla prot paladins are seen as a weaker version of a warrior. But in dungeons they excel in AOE tanking, so folks will take prot paladins to dungeons but not raids because they are pretty bad in the raiding environment.
So they are good at one thing and bad at another thing.
Homogenizing the game threatens the game. Making everyone the same, because “balance” leads to boring game play.
If you intend to be competitive at all you are going to pick the one that gives you the most DPS. Period. There is no two ways about it. If the system goes live as it is right now, they are going to (like they said they would if the system turned out to be trash) backtrack and let you freely swap between them after enough player backlash.
It would be great to have more RPG-like mechanics such as covenants being hard to swap between, but the playerbase is going to make that hell. You know that. WoW is not a singleplayer game. Whether you think high end content is “tryhard” or not, it is a facet of the game that a lot of people participate in. People want to be competitive, and I think that if Blizzard makes that hell competitive players are going to leave the game.
I know that you would probably say something like “good riddance” to that, but Blizz isn’t going to when they see the money start to dwindle. Mark my words. They are going to fix the covenant system, or they are going to give up and let players do what they want (as they should).
Moreover, people freely swapping between covenants doesn’t hurt you.
I don’t like RTS games, FPS games, or MOBAs. I like Actionrpg MMOs. Minmaxing exists in RPGs too. You know that right? It is something that a lot of RPGs cater to. From WoW to Skyrim.
Most people enjoy competing with their guildies. Especially DPS players. And if a covenant is the difference between being on the top of the meters, or benched (especially in mythic, but even a lot of heroic guilds) the covenant with the best sims is going to start looking really pretty.
This is all coming from an roleplayer, by the way. I absolutely adore the Necrolords. They are my favorite by far, and I really want to play them, but I would be a lot happier if Ardenweald or Bastion giving me more DPS didn’t force me to take that covenant instead. Again, you might tell me to go play another game, but I don’t want to, and I guarantee you a hell of a lot of people agree that this system is flawed.