No, but Toxic Blade and Crimson vial are not the entirety of the “rogue kit” fuelling the logic behind calling it a “class choice”.
Whereas those two abilities and the binds that don’t link to them very well are the entirety of what are being called a “covenant kit” which is being likened to a “class choice”. Besides Elysian Decree isn’t necessarily an offensive ability, it’s both offensive and defensive given it pops souls. All DH abilities are defensive and offensive because they’ve been made with both specs in mind. So yeah, i would expect if there’s only two “defensive abilities” in a covenant, being peddled to me “like a class” that they would have some kind of interaction that makes them feel like they go together smoothly and belong together.
It’s like grabbing a heap of random abilities and buffs, sticking them together and saying “ta da, it’s a class”.
Blizzard said they “want it to feel like a class decision, like that philosophy”, if that’s their game, I suggest they deal with it accordingly because at the minute it’s just sticking stuff together with no rhyme or reason and saying “therefore it’s meaningful”.
This is what I mean by the conversation becoming circular when counter-arguments are just repeated, especially when it boils down to “this doesn’t work in a different plane of existence (with the toolkit perspective), therefore the comparison is invalid (with the power profile perspective)”.
It’s possibly repeated because blizzard emphasised the angle of them feeling like a class more than a talent.
Talent = power profiling
Class = toolkit
And you say to not look at them like toolkits, but like power profiles. But the idea was they weren’t meant to be just that wasn’t it?
So we’re meant to look at them like power profiles, of which every single instance of which in the game is swappable, but meant to discard that for covenants because? Presumebly because it’s not just about numbers (power profiles) it’s about other stuff too.
But as said, they do that other stuff poorly, so people either look at them like talents and see the way of doing them doesn’t work, or they look at them as toolkits but they don’t seem to offer that either. Which is it?
I think the issue not even blizzard knows. They’re straddling the fence between making them a hard all encompassing choice and a freestyle exercise and the result is we have some stuff that doesn’t feel all encompassing and yet is a semi hard choice, but doesn’t feel immersive or coherent enough to justify that hard choice in the way that classes are.
It’s like taking an essence major, and saying that “picking this is like picking a class” and locking it. But it’s not like picking a class, as you say it’s about power profiles. So why act surprised when people suggest it behaves like power profiles have up to this point (being swappable; essences, talents, az armor).
Calling a duck a chicken doesn’t mean people will stop seeing it as a duck.
That a covenant doesn’t provide a comprehensive toolkit prevents covenant toolkits from being a meaningful candidate for a semi-persistent choice. I am not sure how is this so hard to see.
You want meaningful choices? But a covenant with its two abilities and a random mish-mash of perks in the conduit trees, which are as imbalanced as they are incoherent, is not a meaningful choice. What’s meaningful in choosing a random smattering of buffs and spell adjustments? You know what is a meaningful choice? Picking a covenant for its looks / story / ideology. So let players do that. But do not tie player power there.
Choosing Kyrian because you align with them more than with anyone else on the ideology front is fine. Choosing Kyrian because you “align” with their niche ability is nonsense. And choosing Kyrian because of the ideology and getting limited to the niche ability because the choice is a bundle is stupid. Yet this is what we are going to have. Initially, until they finally bend over, that is.
Want players to get on board with it being a meaningful choice? Then make it one.
2 abilities, some generic passives and a mog set is about as defining as an essence setup, az armor setup and having a weapon mog restricted.
Glyphs, more and more mogs, unique story, lots of unique mounts, unique customisations, passives that don’t feel generic most of the time. Make it a full package.
What we’re being told is a full package, is not a full package, so no wonder people will treat it like a throwaway decision just like all the others.
Mine isnt either, altough i sometimes do come out as more cynical.
Im not trying to convince anyone that my fun>their fun, you can enjoy WoW however you want. The only thing im trying to do is convince people that this system is horrible. If you like locked choices good for you, but if we have a way to grid out the covenants and swap them you can still have your locked choice but the people that dont like it will have their way aswell.
Sry if I am missinterpreting you, but if you mean old talent trees and “locked choices”, players didnt leave because of that. The first recorded declin was in Cataclysm, it wa just a mediocre expansion and couldnt top WotLK, now the bigger decline was in MoP where believe it or not people actually stopped because “hur dur pandas are dumb” also there was a huge content drought at the end, WoD is pretty self explanatory, Legion had some retaintion rate and did stabalize the numbers tough, but in BfA we saw an even bigger decline (by that i mean we saw it ingame) guilds were colapasing left right and center because people were leaving in droves, the problem was borrowed power systems, restrictive ones at that, things that are supposed to be mandatory content (islands and warfronts) but where just timegated, unfun, boring que in and win scenarios.
MoP was the expansion that is really treated as the downfall of wow, however everyone that played it has praysed it for having the ultimate class design in WoWs hystory, also MoP introduced the new talent system, coincidence maybe? Now im not saying the new one is better, but the freedom it brings is far supperior. Instead of borrower power gimmics i would like to see the old an new talent trees working togheter (also class trainers), how it will work is you get to learn and upgrade spells from the old talent system + trainers and the MoP era talent tree will provide only augments (like Flashover and Fire and Brimstone).
Race doesn’t provide a comprehensive toolkit yet it is a meaningful choice.
And do not tie racials to races ?
Yet this is what performance minded players do.
About the idea of it being a bundle : this is already true for races and classes. You have to assign value to the elements comprising the package and choose what package you prefer accordingly.
For example, I don’t identify with the sort of ethical/moral values of a rogue, and I straight up dislike the pirate theme, yet I play outlaw because I love the gameplay. The choice is more meaningful if you are conflicted.
I think I asked you this, but I’ll reiterate : considering these arguments seem anti-race and anti-class, what is your opinion on classes, and races, as a gameplay feature ?
That’s not a bad point, but I think there’s a simple answer as to why the persistent choice of a race works whereas the persistent choice of a covenant does not - races are forever and covenants are for a single expansion / races don’t change and covenants (their abilities) will / most importantly, you pick the race at the same time you pick a class = at the very beginning, and covenants are different. Since you pick a race at the same time you pick a class, that’s a single persistent choice, just with a little structure inside.
My opinion is that classes as hard choices are good, because we do need hard choices indeed - to make people different, but these hard choices need to be rare and made with full information in front of you. As I said previously.
Essences are actually a really good comparison if we are talking power. Ok so you didnt unlock all essences at the same time right, the different soulbind in covenants unlock at different times (not actual levels but to get teh point across Kyrian soulbind 2 unlocks at renown 10 but venthyr lets say soulbind 2 unlocks at level 8). So now imagine that essenses were locked in do you A) lock yourself in to the first one you get and be severally outperformed by those that the first one is actually BiS or B) wait weeks to months to get your BiS one and be on par with the people that have theirs at day 1?
That’s not the end of it either. The problems that I consider the biggest are these: (a) A is best for raids, B is best for PVP, no matter what you pick you are screwed, (b) A is best for raids, you pick it, then they nerf it and best for raids is now B, you are screwed again.
I dont know about other people but how i decide my main is do i like its eastetic, do i like its toolkid and does it perform well (not top but well enought to not be enhancement shaman XD). I do not get this with covenants, the only really interesting spell they offer is decimation bolt, but the maldraxxus soulbinds are laughably bad and contribute almost nothing to my class, and the only aestethic i like is venthyr (i mean it, nercos are meh, but kyrian and Night puke id like to burn to the ground). I have never had this problem with 12 classes and 36 specs but i have it with 4 covenants, its so bizzare.
Also why are we siding with one when the covenants themselves are working togheter and the players character is the chosen one, the Maw walker, we literally save all of their behinds in the leveling XP but sudenly we are less than scum because we like sexy vampire parties and not the gardens of UwU.
Also i would like to point out a thing that I do not like about warlocks (my favorite class) that is really relavent to the covenant system and its flaws. The thing is do not like is that our interupt is tied to a pet, and is semi-unrealiable due to the having travel time (i know it also has range but you do tend to fire your interupt and it not doing anything), and in demonology’s case your toolkid revolves around you using another pet so no interupt at all, now this would not be an issue if Blizzard did not design content with basicly everyone having an interupt, this is the reason why demo is underrepresented, its dmg is actually really good in M+ but the lack of utility makes it dead in the water. Now with covenants we have this exact issue across the spectrum.
Also this XD.
Its not even about beeing optimal at this point, its about soup beeing eaten with a spoon and not a fork. Its also about wanting to experiment with stuff.
I just find the gap between how blizzard are stating it and the reality is too vast to humour their philosophy.
Like, if it actually felt like some vast choice, active abilities balanced with meaningful passives, perhaps some unique gear to balance some of that out, cosmetic stuff, i’d probably buy it into it.
But it is not that, it’s me picking an essence major power and getting anothermajor power (wheter I want it or not) free, and then getting a ton of rather generic essence minor powers, but they all comes as a bundle!
And then i’m being told “this is a major decision, so you can’t change it easily”. It doesn’t feel like a major decision. It feels like every other minor decision i’ve made in the game has simply been stickytaped together and it’s being called major as a result of that, but it lacks the soul to make it feel that way to me. It has all of the character of those minor decisions but i’m being expected to look past that because they come as a bundle.
I just can’t seem to do it. All I see is a lot of inflexible minor decisions packaged together to make it feel really annoying and that I can’t even explore them properly and my takeaway from this is supposed to be “That felt like a really big decision”.
It feels about as major as me realising that in my socketed boots I can’t have a versatility AND a haste gem at the same time and I have to pick. It’s really not a major decision. It’s a limited trivial one.
Races are a cosmetic choice really, only a handfull of people see them as a powergain, even WF raiders no longer see them that way else they would have rolled alliance (i am aware there are also different factors as to why they play horde).
Agree and i do not understand how people fail to see this, but the 3 permanent choice you do are at the start of the game faction, race, class, and now you are asking me to make an even more impactfull one after i have completed 90% of the game. Choosing alliance instead of Horde atm is detramental enough, if blizzard really want to push this choice matters thing and feel good about what you have chosen they should adress faction balance and class balance first, then we can talk about more restrictions.
Marketing mate, Azerite was marketed as this be all and end all solution to tier sets, removing this restriction that you had with locking in 4 slots and never changing them, guess what azerite + the neck locks 4 slots, Essenses- be rewarded for the content you do, i play PvE one of my BiS essenses comes from PvP and PvP players have the majority of theirs come from PvE, aaand corruptions with the “fun and meaningfull way to custumize/build your character”, “Mix and match corruptions”- at the start the drop was so unrealiable that i only got stat procs (not even good stats mind you), also if you got EV,IS or TD you won the game, now its stack %stat amps, really fun and really meaningfull, not to meantion corruption effects are one of the most borring things in the game has ever produced.
Its just marketing, but people are eating it up because Ion said the buzz words “meaningfull choice”, “RPG elements”,“break the meta” and “Sub-classes”. All of a sudden we have people coming in here and complaing “Muh talents arent meaningfull”, “We dont have subclasses in WoW” (but actually we do) and " People will no longer decline me from Mplu because muh choise is locked and I cannot change it". I mean people were defending corruptions before they hit with “you will mix and match” and “interesting gearing system”, they arent defending them anymore.
The best part is this doesn’t solve the restrictive mindset at all - because it’s a mindset!
"People won’t bar me from inv because of lock "
I guess someone has never experienced being barred from inv because of a class then?
The choice being non-reversable at the drop of a hat doesn’t stop people having expectations. It just means they’re going to couple up those expectations because they deem them to matter - it’s more to play around and less freedom to respond to it. People won’t accept a 30% drop in throughput because “if you made the wrong choice it’s hard to go back, np” in the same way groups looking specifically for a prot warrior don’t give me an inv because “you rolled vengeance and I can appreciate you can’t reroll instantly” lol.
This is beside all the comfort and QoL impositions it places on play. I’ve said it several times, i don’t give a toss about the meta. I’ll use community to make and get groups which can dodge any requirements I find get in my way- but the only reason i’ll be doing that is because this approach does exactly nothing to stop the meta despite that being the stated purpose. But it does leave me with a sour taste in my mouth about playing around with builds and specs despite failing to achieve what it apparently was meant to do.
This is even assuming that breaking the meta is necessary, which is a whole other discussion and frankly not even a done deal. My lack of care for it doesn’t mean i believe it’s an invalid way to play, I just won’t sweat over adhering to it. This doesn’t mean I think those players should be impaired in their play- because frankly there are workarounds to avoid the numbskulls who impose meta law in territories it doesn’t belong (like low keys) I should know i’ve been using them in BFA. But to stop those players using it in realms where it has a place to do cutting edge stuff? i just don’t see the need to piss all over that because some people can’t figure out that using a guild/community to get groups allows them to dodge tryharders who think that demanding a prot warrior for a +6 makes them a professional.
Good question, for me i do not care about meta classes or races but i care for meta builds, like i have said multiple times i like all my specs and i dont have a problem switching my builds for a run or two, i mostly play the best performing build for the situation but if im in the outdoors or reclearin i will experiment and have fun with unpopular talents. Imo there should be a meta break, but with balancing stuff out, like i have mentioned ENh Shamans are a joke in SL, doing 40% of the DMG compared to Sub rogues (this has changed to my knoledge but the case is that you can be so underpowered it laughable). Even more restrictions and disbalance willmake things worse, “Oh you are an Enh Shaman and you are using your raiding covenant? See you when you reroll… everything .”.
This i agree with, people wanting 2k io prot warriors and BMs for a +4 is stupid, but covenants will not change this.
I don’t consider what you’re saying there to be meta though.
Meta is very much the top end of theorycrafting. It’s where the game breaks down into math and you look at “the optimal”.
Playing a non-vogue class with a well-performing build I don’t consider to be metagaming. If you were metagaming you wouldn’t be that class.
Where people associate caring about your build/output with metagaming they are strawmanning. As i’ve said previously, to equate caring about output with metagaming is to accuse the warrior who uses AOE abilities in an AOE situation instead of single target ones metagaming, which is obviously absurd.
So where do we draw the line? I’d say the most sensible place to draw the line when something is metagaming is where the choices taken refer explicitly to those calculated to be amongst the top 5-10% in terms of performance when it comes to making free choices, and then optimising those choices for maximum effect.
Picking a B tier class and playing it with the “best build” is not metagaming. Doing it with an S tier class is.
I understand some people will disagree with me but it just makes sense this way. I mean let’s consider the garbage that is BFA sub rogue with it’s craptacular performance. Would we really consider a sub rogue running the best possible build they can to be a metagamer despite the fact they’re consciously running a class that performs at the bottom of the pack? Seems a bit bizarre to me to do that.
If math and stats were all they cared about, they wouldn’t be a sub rogue. Therefore they’re not a metagamer as clearly they have “other concerns” beyond statistical output.
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