Pull the Ripcord / Don't pull the Ripcord in SL

not at all, im basing it off of the fact that the world building doesnt make any sense, the idea that you side with a specific covenant but are still the hero/slave for all the others, the only benefit to picking one is that you gain a system to travel in a zone faster and you get some colorful spells.

if i pick venthyr, the night fae will still expect me to show up and defend them all the time through callings and im still the maw walker/hero for them from the leveling story, they still expect me to do everything for them, but if i try and use their travel network all of a sudden im hated and they cant cooperate with me, but i still need to be there and save them, but they cant help me with it, but i have to save them. it just doesnt make sense. it would be better if there was a way to gain favour with them like say renown with each of them and over time you could gain access to multiple abilities and swap through that,

but no its pick one and be happy with it, and be completely unable to have fun with the 4 CLASS ABILITIES they are adding to the game.

if that was the case then aff lock wouldnt have had the majority of the talents be dead for the majority of bfa, there was basically a single talent set up that was run for everything for the entire expansion and then some small tweaks were made in 8.3

so that type of logic is applied to everything, i have the keymaster achievement and i cant get invited to 10+ pugs because im a warlock, because even though i have the raiderio score and i am clearly more than capable of doing this content im a warlock which is bad in dungeons and therefore im not good enough for them.

the covenent class abilities are designed in the exact same manner that talents are, an earlier example i gave shows 2 of the ones mages have are designed the exact same as 2 talents that other classes have/use to have. and this is why they should be swappable,

would you be okay with them telling you that you had to pick talents at the start of the expansion and then go through a 2 day quest thing in order to swap talents? i wouldnt expect so, because its insane and terrible design and yet for some reason people are set on removing access to other talents for no reason.

covenants should be aesthetic and for story, there is absolutely no reason to be locking so much player power behind them, the story and aesthetics are enough to make it an important choice.

they have failed… miserably…

if they dont want there to be a “correct” choice then why is it that mages are so up in arms about the difference between necrolord and others for arcane, why is it that every DK player i have seen have been saying that you have to take night fae for all 3 specs, why havnt i seen any warlock playing with anything other than necrolord, they have been completely unable to balance any system like this before, so i have absolutely 0 faith in it this time, hence why they themselves put this whole #pulltheripcord thing into the air in an interview. its neccesary and the only good option.

they also said that their main philosophy for shadowlands was player agency and then lock our choices between weekly lockouts and stupid quests, their philosophies dont mean anything at this point.

if they were implementing a system to work like classes why is it only giving 2 spells, im pretty sure there has never been a class that has 2 spells and an armour set, thats why we are saying it isnt like classes, because its completely different and way too bare bones to be implemented as such. this system is more like them implementing classes but once we have our choice of spec we are locked into it unless we go to a class trainer and do some arbitrary 2 day long quest to change spec, which would also be a terrible design decision.

the fact of the matter is that they have made a big mistake, if they were intended them to work like classes and be a choice that is impactful in that respect that locking so much player power behind them and implementing them in a way that they know would make people want to swap and them not allowing them is bad, and they can say as much as they want that they thought it would be fine, they have known for months now its not okay and its a massive problem, and yet they are just ignoring everything and refusing to even comment on it now, or do the right thing and pulltheripcord

No they shouldnt. There is nothing more boring in rpg then everybody running around with same builds. We alredy have this with talents and we dont need another.

But hey maybe next expansion Blizzard will just give you all 1 class skill and you will have no other choice but use that 1 skill. And no matter if you like it or not you will play another several years with it.

but this system being locked will still cause the majority of the playerbase that actually care about player power to still be running the same thing, the face that swapping is an option means there will be an expectation, so them locking it isnt solving this made up issue you and them seem to have, so pullingtheripcord will just stop them from arbitrarily punishing people for actually caring about their characters power, because god forbid we care about characters in an RPG right?

Shaman is one of the weaked class in the game. Despite being so behind others shaman players have no problem finding groups to do content.

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No they wont. Nobady sane will ever bother swap covenats. Or are you telling me that you will go into raid. Kill first boss then go back, grind entire week different covenant then go back and kill second boss? Gl.

no i dont think i will, the more likely situation is people having to level multiple versions of the same class in order to have 1 as each covenant, which is a situation that a lot of top players have already been floating around, which the fact that the system is designed in a way to cause that is terrible design.

Yeah but my point is the differences between classes in terms of power and utility are far greater than the difference between covenants, and on the one hand you have people going “yeah changing classes would be stupid” but on the other going “because of this difference we should be able to swap covenants at will tho”.

eh?

Regarding “imperfect balance thus is a reason for withdrawal” we have fire mages putting out easily over twice (if not more than) the damage of sub rogues. Is a sensible response to that problem “remove classes” or “allow us to change classes” or is it “balance the numbers”?

It’s “balance the numbers” yet again here, when a similar issue is raised hypothetically (we’re not out of beta yet) the “only solution” is to remove the hard choices. Why?

Why are the two things treated with such different mindsets? Is there some kind of wierd premise that “the less power is granted by your hard choice the more it should be flexible”. if so, what premise is that based upon? and why?

The Covenant ability is nothing more than a talent. It is simply not comparable to a flushed out entire kit.
Talents are fun because you can change them.

A sub rogue is a ninja. A Outlaw rogue is a pirate. An Assassin rogue is, well, an assassin.
They offer different fantasies.

The issue with the covenant ability is a Kyrian Sub Rogue is a ninja, and a Night Fae is also a ninja. Yet one is simply out classed based on a decision that they had a few hours to prepare to make.

Another issue is that you are free to make a Mage or you’re free to go Assassination. You’re not free to change Covenants.

The final big issue is that the Sub rogue who captures the Ninja fantasy will have to share the same talent as the Outlaw rogue who is capturing the Pirate fantasy. It gets even worse for multi-role specs such as Shaman and Druid.

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Yeah i can alredy see all those casual players playing and keeping up 4 characters upto speed. Please be atleast bit of realistic. People have barely time to play 1 character.

Yes they are comparable. Its about how you desing system not how many skills you get.

In Shadowlands there is almost no mandatory content.
Also your claim that casuals cant keep up 1 character is just a bogus claim on your part.

I would argue casuals have lots of characters, just none of them are particularly well geared.

The difference is that a sub rogue could just respec combat and be broken op.

Good for them, but this has nothing to do with shamans being good or not.

People today are extremely elitist and if you do not bring the best of the best(AKA the meta) to the table then you will have a harder time to do any type of content. Its just a fact. Theres no denying this.

no one wants to swap covenants.

as a warlock i want to swap between decimating bolt and soul rot, not between necrolord and night fae, there is a massive difference.

the abilities should be a talent row, i want to be a venthyr and have access to the other abilities, so that i can stay as venthyr but use decimating bolt or soul rot like i can swap my talents around.

some of the abilities are not balancable though, take necrolord and venthyr for warlocks, one of them is an anima orb that shoots to the target and explodes, if that was buffed to be usable on ST it would be insane on AoE. and decimating bolt gives you an execute mechanic, which means its very powerful for ST raid encounters and even on AoE too,

there is absolutely no way to balance these two things agaisnt each other, unless you out right make one of them only useful on ST and the other only useful on AoE, and at that point there is even more reason for them to be swappable.

did i say anything about casual players, generally the casual players are the people that are okay with the covenants being locked because it makes zero difference to them either way, its top end players and people that care more about player power that will be more likely to level multiple of the same class.

the fact that anyone is thinking about having to play the same class like 4 times is insane, in the same way it was in legion when they did it there too, its just bad game design and thus should be changed. its the only logical way to solve this.

Yes it has everthing to do with it. If worst class in the game have no problem doing any type of content than covenants will not be problem at all.

I am casual player and i care about power so no this nonsen that casual dont care what they get is completly false. They do care. Only difference is that those players are ok with not being optimal in all situations.

I do not participate in hash-tag wars. But I do preffer player power be in character not in yet another AP grindfesta I have to do whole expansion and some legendary items I must get raid drops for.

Yes it will. But it does not look like you are talking from experience as you have done zero content? 0 mythic + dungeons or raids? You are correct that if you only play this game for LFR then yes you can play whatever you want - because noone will care. However in high end mythics / raids people do and they will not bring something worse over something thats obviously much better.

the fact that you are perfectly okay with the covenants being locked is a prime example of you not caring about player power,

if you actually cared you wouldnt be okay with this because you are loosing to much player power by it being locked.

how about i try and explain this to you one more time so you can ignore me again.

i want to be a venthyr, thats the only covenant i like that much and the only thing i really interested in being, i like how their story is looking, and some of the characters that are being used in their stories, i like the headstone back thing and the other mog options that are available to the venthyr,

but the necrolord ability is way too strong and is designed in a way that it cannot be balanced without making the necrolord ability completely useless. so i have to go necrolord in order to have any decent level of player power meaning that i dont have the oppotunity to make a decision for myself, the game is making the decision for me.

how is that a fair choice, why is it okay for players to not be able to make the choice they want to?

We did occasionally took a melee shaman in raids, but after 1 tier he voluntarily went BM hunter (we did not force him, nor we mocked him in any way for being shaman nor we benched him). he even did half Nyalotha mythic as shaman, but he completely flipped with a good shaman related rant somewhere after vex and by Ilgynoth he was hunter and for few raids he was quite mad about state of shaman.

Our healer shaman is there because we liked link, and she has all heal classes and swaps what we needed or she wanted.

Our 3rd shaman - elemental shaman rolled also hunter… That player just loves to see themselves as somewhere on top dps, and shaman was not enough despite his gold logs.

Yeah obviously people can play weaker specs or whatever, im not saying its impossible but the chances of people letting you into their group / raid will be worse no doubt.