You cant have both! (Covenants)

Yeah which goes back to my point of said people deluding themselves into think they are smart and good at the game because they follow a guide.

Good players don’t need to follow a guide nor they need to worship a play style and more importantly, they don’t need to tell others how to play the game especially when there is no need weeks after launch since the reason they are still wiping is not the sub optimal build of x

It is similar to the recent example of scripting bursting out to some idiot who read ‘keep immolate up at all times or you are bad’ and thought he knew better to tell a method raider to use immolate when Scripe knew very well immolate was useless at that level of Torghast he was playing when infernal should were up.

That is the difference between good and bad players, good players know what to use and when, bad players worship a guide that told them ‘use x or you are bad’ which of course results in them calling everyone who doesn’t use x bad which I am guessing it happens because they have serious self esteem issues.

If follow the meta build made you a good players you wouldn’t see sub optimal players often perform better

The same can be said by players copying a high level player, it does not work and why I want this class identity thing to succeed in anyway it can. It will allow players to find a class and spec they like and run with it to get good rather than changing all the time because it is FoTM.

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It’s more easy to go on an already explored route than to create your own.
Is your rpg character making a meta choice because he chose to fight with a sword instead of with a shovel? Is it really that bad?

Moreover if I’m an adventurer and I see a dude with a shovel and a dude with a sword, which one would I want in my group?

The thing is this is not a single player rpg, if you want to play with other people they might have different expectations.

You can manage to play with a shovel, but it will be harder. And people might not want you in their group.

That’s exactly my point. Sword would be better if you were in a single player game because then you’re by yourself. You don’t have to rely on others. Will it be harder? Yes, but that’s not what should matter. What matters most is how you want to play your character, what you see yourself as. That’s the RPG element, and that’s why I like them not letting players swap covenants. If they did, it would be flavor of the month style play where “Well, PvP time, swapping to X. Raiding time? Swapping to Y. Mythic+? Time for Z” and that doesn’t give you a good character development, which is what RPGs are all about. “It’s not about the end, but the journey to get to the end” kind of thing.

It’s a bit of everything, good players will still read some kind of guides and/or do their own research with available tools. Reducing it to all players that follow the meta don’t know what they’re doing is a very bias point of view.

So you want people to take the covenants that is best most of the time? Which is the sword? It’s not really that big of difference in the end. That’s still min/maxing. There will be flavors of the month even then.

You’re just trying to give another way of illusion of choice. No matter good players in the current system will have multiple characters, because they can do that in this setting.

They can, and each character will be different. It is different, it has a difference name, could be a different race, different characteristics, different or probably different gear to some degree or another. Different talent combinations could be a thing or might not. If everything was the same and the only difference was covenant, then it’s still different because of that alone.

What I want is people to pick for themselves, not because of numbers, not because of anything but what they truly enjoy and find to be the most awesome. I don’t want them picking cause of what pros say, cause of a guide they read, cause of what their friend says or what any other influence that isn’t just them. Yeah, I get that’s very naive of me, but that’s my ultimate goal is to just have people stop caring entirely for numbers alone, and care about the characters, their choices, their everything entirely. Not saying caring for numbers is bad, just that caring for only numbers is bad.

If you like covenant X cause the ability is cool, sweet! I like that for you. If you like covenant Y cause it does 1 damage more than X, but you like X ability better, be it aesthetically, mechanically, gameplay wise or for any other reason besides numbers, then I want you to pick X instead of Y. The world is not going to fall apart because of it.

This, yes, lazy gamers who dont want to learn will still copy FotM but players who are more invested in their characters and cant simply min max FotM might have to actually start sticking to their class and getting better by learning how to play better.

Honestly it is so utterly absurd that there are people tho tell themselves they are good and got better by following a guide rather than improving their own performance on their class naturally.

There’s not much gear rng next expansion, legendaries recipe will be boa. Everything will be weekly capped. It will be really easy to do alts.

And yes I made 4 trolls dks with nearly the same name as this.
Because they’re just split personnalities of the same character xd

What if a lot of people enjoy doing bigger numbers xd

Yes again, I think it’s just you don’t want people to enjoy things a different way that you are.

Lazy people that read books and learn in schools, how dare they show that knowledge in my face?! How dare a MD not just learn by trying on patients different things himself rather than study?!

Some people do, sure. They live for the competition, and those people will also be the biggest obstacle to this, as nothing matters more to them than the numbers. Not the gameplay, the mechanics, the story, the anything but those numbers. In that case, sorry, but you will be disappointed as, imo, story/RPG > numbers unfortunately.

At best, I would be able to compromise with a once a week or month change where they could swap covenants, and then when they come back again to each one it would take far longer to get back each time to the place they were before.

I know, it’s punishing them for enjoying the numbers game. Unfortunately, with as many of these as I’ve run into, I just don’t know how you could have both as even once a week or month swap kills the choices matter part of it.

I guess a counter to that is “I guess better to have multiple characters then” would be the only thing I could say to those.

Even without FoTM or min maxing, sometimes you are just bad and really need to knuckledown. A paladin I ran with in raids during EP, well part time, for him lol. He was pulling on average half of what our other paladins where doing.

A guide is one thing, getting advice is something else, but actually learning your class and getting the feel for it, like trying to keep as many stacks of Barbed Shot on my hunter. I need to have the timers going and get the feel for how long before it drops, how long before my next shot. Great that a guide can tell you “Watch your stacks”, but you cannot get the feel for it until you are in game and in the middle of it all learning.

Personnaly I think as long as having multiple characters is an easier solution then the compromise is not that valid. I would allow to switch once or twice a day and/or give a way to earn different covenants powers. That’s if they still want to have meaningful power systems attached to them, if they make them all the same it doesn’t matter anymore if they’re lock.

That, Idk as that still is a bit irritating. I understand the mindset behind it, but, I feel like people who swap that often just should not be rewarded for disloyalty. I mean, if you cannot stick to something for at least a week, you’re very, very wishy washy/not committed, especially for a RPG.

The alts thing, yeah I would def make leveling different characters quite a bit of a quick thing, too. I think right now in Shadowlands it’s around 12 hours on average, without xp gear, to go from 1-50. 50-60 I imagine will be around 2-3 hours/level so bout 20-30 hours which is about right for current xpacs.

My only concern is, that if I take a bunch of time, trying to figure out which one is best for me… and then after having picked it Blizzard goes OH BY THE WAY, WE PUT OUT SOME CHANGES IN THE PATCHES. THIS COVENANT WAS TOO STRONG NOW ITS THIS.
Nerfs happen. A lot.
But I’ll sure as heckie be upset if I spend a lot of time trying to pick something that is actually decent and let me get in groups, only to have that changed and leave me SoL.

I’d be honest, I don’t really feel they got the rights to call it in for covenants to be the meaningful choices when races and factions and my CLASS for me are way bigger commitments. If anything, I’d burn them down because we all know they’re just daily quest givers and are gonna be gone by next expansion.

I agree with you to an extent there, as I do not like that one can race/faction/server change or any of that, either. Those are much bigger commitments and I like that they are locked behind money, simply because that actually turns quite a bit of people off having to pay and they just feel they’d rather make a new character instead for free.

The leveling boost really irks me most, though. However, you cannot change your class without rolling a new toon so I will give them that.

That’s just it, though, like…even if they nerf your covenant, it’s not gonna effect so much of your character like everyone thinks it’s going to.

The thing that affects groups the most are: raider io score for mythic+, wclogs for raiding, ilvl of your character and your class perceived by the community.

An exmple is; my Warlock, especially as affliction I get declined 250+ times, literally not even kidding on this, for a mythic+ be it a 10, 2, 12, 13, 6, w.e each time I wanna do these. I also have a very low score, have the worst perceived spec for mythic+, the worst class, anddd so yeah! Understandable with so many declines, but I still get into groups. Does it take a while? Yeah, but, again there’s like 5 strikes against me before I even apply, so it is as expected. Raiding? Instant invites.

Also on that note, though, is I’ve extremely rarely been declined for being Affliction. It was “too low io score” , “you’re a lock and i already got one” “you are ranged” as the main reasons why when I would ask why I got declined. “too low io score” was the most often one used.

Exactly is the difference between understanding why you do something and simply doing it because you know it is how it works.

That does not only affect DPS but it also affects mechanics and how you play the game, an example would be MM sniper testing things to see which mechanics you can outrange and which you cannot.

I still remember in Tomb of Sargeras during the Maiden fight where as MM you could stick to the opposite side of the boss of the big hole in the middle while everyone had to rush to the other side.

Learning your class not only makes you better at DPS it also makes you use your toolkit better, and no guide will give you that level of proficiency in your class, skill is something personal/