Seriously?
Covenants give you an identity and story choice and also give you a gameplay choice? What are you so baffled about?
We are talking about covenants not being a good RPG choice because they alter gameplay much more than they alter identity, I ask you for an example of another choice where this was/is the case, and your answer is the very thing we’re talking about?
Why can’t RPG elements also alter gameplay? Every other RPG does it. People that want meaningful choices got what they wanted and they are now complaining about it. And why does it matter if there was another instance other than covenants that did this?
I think there will still be a proportion of players who choose the covenant for it’s looks, armour etc. If all you are going to do is dabble with low keys and a bit of a normal or heroic raiding then I don’t think it will be the end of the world to be in a sub optimal covenant. For most people one covenant will not be the most optimal in all content either.
The core problem is that a player has become a set of numbers, not a person. With ilvl and addons like rio, it’s become so easy to discriminate between players. The problem with these addons is that nobody would ever disable it, so you will only have more and more people installing it, making it easier and easier to judge players, and thus making players more and more expendable.
The m+ system doesn’t help either. I know fundamentally the timer doesn’t really matter, but that doesn’t change the fact that failing it makes you feel like you failed the run. The infinitely scale-able nature of the system is even worse, because sometimes it feels like a failure to only get a +1 on your key.
Also with m+ you only get 3 (and in Shadowlands 1) item per dungeon, so most players aren’t running the dungeon for the loot. They’re running it for the extrinsic reward. This adds even more frustration.
There’s many aspects which when combined contribute to this culture of expendable players. The dungeon finder itself is a huge contributing factor.
If you remove rio, m+ and the dungeon finder, you’ll be back at square one, where you HAVE TO be a decent person and a player and forge social connections with players, make friends so you have to rely less on pugs, and the RPG aspect will be back. Players won’t be mere numbers anymore and someone’s build won’t matter at all, as long as they can do their job well.
The fact that players are just numbers and the social aspect is deleted from the game is the main problem here. And it can’t get fixed because there’s an infinite amount of players who prefer to be miserable.
Not an example again and no, every RPG doesn’t do it. The problem is when a choice of identity also comes with a pack of abilities and passives effects unrelated to the choice, that the player didn’t even ask for and didn’t even choose for that matter, because the choice didn’t mention that information.
You can scroll a bit up where I explained that the most interesting ability to me is a part of the covenant that is the least appealing to me by a mile.
Imagine you’re playing a ranger class in an RPG game and you’re faced with a choice that will alter the way your character will go, but one that you find boring gives you a really good bow, and the other one that you find really interesting gives you a two handed sword.
I dont think it would be the end of the world for a mythic raider either, i mean who cares if you clear the raid in month 1 or 5 right. The question is will it be fun to know that you are suboptimal due to external sources. I dont have guild to do mythic raids but even in heroic its fun for me to optimize my character and to know that if im not reaching the desired parces its because of my own skill level and not due to fun and exiting systems. I was one of the oh so lucky players that only got vers procs until the corruption vendor was introduced i was immersed while my former guild mates were pushing purple and somethimes orange parces due IS etc. and was stuck at blue. I also do care about character aestetic and story, during legion i had class pride and during BfA i felt like i would sprout roots on that dawm boat. So no it wont be the end of the world but it wont be pleasant either.
Or instead of that you could, you know join a guild. Classic doesnt have IO, M+ nor Dungeon finder and yet people are still “unsocial” and picking the cookie cutter.
That’s not at all how it is. You are upset about it because of the META. In a single player game you don’t have to worry about META.
Why do examples matter, I don’t get it?
I can paint using only black and white, but do I want knowing that there’s millions of colors? I can go mountain biking, but do I want to using a rusty old bike that’s not designed for mountain biking?
Exactly this. Are you purposefully missing the point, or didnt you know that WoW is an MMO?
Is it not?
So now you’re telling me why I’m really upset as if you know better than I do? If I was so worried about meta I wouldn’t push keys as a warlock.
Is that a reason to pack vastly different CLASS abilities with unrelated story choices?
Because people defending this keep claming that this is what RPG is supposed to be, it’s normal, every RPG does it and how covenants are the embodiment of RPG without which the game can’t even fit the genre.
That’s so cap.
No, but I like being good in the content I do.
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That depends on the raid team. Some guilds will always put the team first and priortise progress, they will only take what they deem is good for fights. Some players do not like to be benched for long periods of time or only taken for rekills. Other guilds will take the player not the class.
Personally I prefer the more casual end of mythic raiding where they take it seriously enough that they want to progress but not so much that you’re benched purely for playing certain classes or specs.
And you think that doesnt happen in non-mythic guilds?
I haven’t experience a try hard heroic guild. I can’t imagine needing anything meta for that.
All your base are belong to us. Prepare for assimilation.
Before i start my sad story of heroic vexiona XD, i should clarify that i find heroic to be a joke, however before my guild died they were stuck on vexiona, they did know the tactics but 5 out of 14 people were using the cheapest essenses they could find (im talking crucible of flames arms warrior here) sub optimal corruption levels, suboptimal azerites, with those 5 people even the add phases were going slow. Now im not this 110 parcing god but i do believe my dps is good enough and trust me it was not good enough to carry these people.
Why am i sharing this? To point out that a non meta build character can have a very difficult time doing content. More than half our power right now comes from borrowed power (we went from 10k dps at the start to 100k )and SL isnt looking much different.
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