I do agree with you to a certain extent but when Blizzard push competitive elements of the game like MDI then min-maxing will always be a thing.
my way of thinking has always been to better my character and make it the best it can be. I.e. do more healing, take less damage do more dps. Not to a min max level but to the best i can get it for the level i play at.
If i chose the wrong covenant based on aesthetics and theme and then i find out the abilities of that covenant put my character at a disadvantage its more likely to make me feel like ive made a mistake and make gearing feel worthless as i am already at a disadvantage.
On the other side of the coin if i choose based on abilities only then i will feel a bit disappointed that i cant enjoy the look and theme of the covenant that i like the look of.
Because we dont’ play the game the same way. For me fun is getting the maximum potential out of my char. You just wanna clear old raids or you simply don’t care about raiding and pvp at all. Both cases are fine. What is not is that the first category gets gutted if power is linked to covenants, whereas the second category does not see the effect. If Blizzard pulls the rip off, then both categories are not being hindered by such system.
The best option is obviously to make the choice that has 0 negative effects.
That subclass of Venthyr paladin is false, not meaningful. I’m just working with them for a while.
I’m not venthyr, i’m someone who works with them, i’m a blood elf paladin who joined the venthyr covenant, but it doesn’t make me apart of the venthyr race.
If i get bored of them i go ask another covenant to join. It’s now revealed that it’s 8wq’s = 2 days away.
There is no affiliation that i can call myself as one of them that stands under 8 wq’s… let’s get serious here. I’m a freelancer i go where i feel i’m needed or where i want.
This is different from factions btw, i can’t go ask the other faction to join them and abandon my own, i’m a horde retribution paladin and always will be. (paid services are outside of gameplay and do not count as it changes my whole race)
Basically, since we see that it’s 8 wq’s/2days to change the covenant, the whole meaningful choice excuse goes out the window.
At this point it’s just an inconvenience, a time-gated system. It’s not enjoyable.
Ask anyone if they’d be happy having 8 toys in their box and:
they can select only 2 of them and they can switch them only if they clean the house/wash dishes for 2 days
they can select 2 of them at a time and can switch them whenever they want
This is ultimately a game, enjoyment should be the goal, not arbitrary time-gating like this.
That’s like arguing talent builds aren’t real because you can swap them. Of course you can change your subclass. In fact, making permanent decisions isn’t really good for the MMO genre. Imagine if you couldn’t reroll? If you had only one character slot in your account Same with covenants - you have to be able to switch them, because otherwise there’s a risk players may ruin their mains of many years.
What’s your problem with me changing covenants whenever i want?
If i want to use Venthyr for M_, then when i go raiding i want to use Necrolord and then i go Night Fae for dailies.
What exactly is your issue with players playing how they want?
Do you perhaps pay my sub to tell me how i should play the game?
I have a similar ethos to you. So my solution is I pick whichever Covenant I want and “be the best version of that”, so do the best I can with that Cov choice and stop worrying about hypothetical situations where “I could/might be better than I am currently if I had done it differently.” that’s just excessive headspacing to me. I mean I may as well get lost in my head about “why did I not pick a mage instead of a MM hunter? why oh why…” point is I didn’t pick a mage, so why worry about it? I’ll apply the same to the Covenants.
Not to say that’s me dismissing everyone else. They’ll feel how they feel and that is perfectly valid.
My bone of contention is the lack of flexibility regarding respecing and soulbinds within the covenant i’ll choose. At current i’m happy to settle on a covenant and understand it means I can’t be vampire one minute and angels the next. I’m fine with that. What I am less fine with the the soulbinds and conduits being limited in number and tied to cooldowns to reset which means not only am I restricted in which covenant to pick in the first place, i’m restricted in exploring the one I eventually pick. That’s pretty stupid imo.
Talent builds are apart of the sub-class, retribution in this case, not apart of the Paladin Class.
I can switch them to change my play-style within my subclass.
Yeah i hear you. I am actually going to pick my fave covenant based on transmog to be honest. I just hope that doesnt affect my ability to be invited to raids and mythics.
Gear does always equal more dps and skin matters more, i just hoped that the same applies to covenant abilities.
The way that the system is revealed now, there is no renown reset.
Also the way that renown works is that it’s separate for each covenant.
So even if i switch this week and i can grind from renown level 8-10 with Venthyr, then i switch again to Necrolords, i still have to grind 8-10 to bring it to its max.
But there’s nothing shared within the class. So the spec is actually the class. The class is Retribution Paladin and then Paladin is an umbrella for the 3 different Paladin classes. And so now you have the 4 secondary classes which give you some abilities and talent trees to play with, and you get to play around with them for as long as Shadowlands lasts.
Of course, I’ll want subclasses as a permanent addition to the game, but that’s not how WoW works since WoD.
Thing is, we’re the ones deciding that. Don’t get me wrong, I am not blind to the problem that you are stating, but I -am- saying that we make that problem. Blizzard aren’t making that problem. We are as players.
I’ve seen Vote Kicks for “From an RP Realm” (Seen that one a lot actually, the irony being one one occasion they were kicking a higher geared character than anyone else), Vote Kicks for “I hate Vulpera” Because that completely makes sense, and now we’re going to see the reason for Kicks being “Wrong Covenant”
Thats not Blizzard making the problem, thats people just being douchecanoes, and that isn’t a Blizz problem. People just need to give their head a wobble and realise that this isn’t the premier cup, this isn’t the world tournament, no great value and worth goes to the victors, it is a -computer game-. Whenever some idiot acts like an idiot, as if it were life and death and tries to min max their group, they are stopping playing a game. They aren’t playing a game anymore, it is accountancy with pixels.
This is the only kind of RPG environment where it is seen as anything other than ‘Bad play’.
So what if some Covenants perform better against specific dungeon bosses or raid bosses (And don’t say thats not a thing, we’ve seen it in this thread) is that really important? Surely how the player performs is more important, or are we now at the stage in this game where we are saying that our characters just don’t matter and might as well be mathematical algorithms?
Let me flip that back on you. When Streamers and Americans are saying ‘X Covenant is best’ what do you think the Min-Maxers are gonna do ey? Do you think they are going to judge you for playing the Covenant you wanted to, or for which one has the best specs for their particular raid?
Do they pay your sub also?
Your premise is false, you won’t be an angel if you pick kyrian and you won’t be a vampire if you pick venthyr. You’ll be the same race you were “born” with.
If i go join an asian restaurant i’m not asian… i’m just working for them.
You’re a freelancer agent, you affiliate with who you want and can go whatever option you so freely choose in regards to covenants.
The covenants want your help, it’s evident at this point.
You save their collective… bottoms.
The quest to change affiliation is named: Prove your worth.
Seriously? I did [insert spoiler here] to save them, that didn’t prove my worth?
They also send you personally to help other covenants… c’mon.
Any possible lore motivations for restricting switching has been thrown out of the window and together with a Molotov…
Unfortunatley there are some outliers that tell me their approach to the active abilities at least are pretty…off the mark in terms of balance.
The core cov abilities seem fine overall.
The soulbinds seem roughly the same, Venthyr have the crazy haste buff for their DPS, Kyrian get a mastery buff when using their cov ability, which, for specs with a low cd mastery ability, can essentially grant them perma 5% mastery which is pretty strong. Night Fae get increased throughput on high health/low health targets and Necrolords get a small buff when striking a first target on one tree, and a big crit buff every 60 sec on another. They seem about okay across them, though some a definitely better regarding tanking/dpsing/healing, but not hugely.
Then we have class skills, like the infamous warlock’s Decimating Bolt, which makes every other warlock class cov ability look absolutely dismal in comparison. Venthyr rogue’s “poison, with frills” being weaker, and frankly boring compared to every other option…yeah the class skills could use a bit more parity honestly because some of them are a bit mad (how on earth did decimating bolt manage to get designed alongside the others without anyone querying it?)
It was an “off the cuff” informal comment, I don’t literally believe you become an angel upon plediging your affiliations with kyrian hahaha. Just a lazy way of me expressing affiliation to one group or another.
If I wanted to be precise, I wouldn’t have used the words vampire or angel for a start, because they’re not actually angels or vampires are they? At least not technically speaking.
If it’s their raid, they are at liberty to invite whoever they choose. When I make a PUG, I want it to be the best it can be because I personally want the PUG to succeed in overcoming the content. So naturally I’ll pick the stronger players. Other group leaders do the same. This benefits the PUG, but often discriminates against most players.
The Covenant system will just add another layer on top of the class/spec/AOTC/rio, effectively making the group finder a WORSE place than it already is. And this is another factor that makes the current covenant system terrible.
No… the class has base spells shared with all the specs at a baseline.
The specialization additional abilities are shown in the specialization pane in-game, those are usually at least exclusive of 1 spec or shared between 2 of them.
And then there are talents which are different between specs, some more than others.
Yes but that just proves that you’re just one of their errand boys basically…
There is no meaningful choice here.
If you were to become an ascended kyrian because you chose to align with them, physically change your character to look like them through an epic questline, damn… that would have been awesome, that would have been a meaningful choice.
Make it permanent or a really long questline to switch, both would have had my seal of approval.
As it is… it’s really watered down and meaningless.
Mate, fury, arms and prot are 3 separate classes with minimal overlap. I think they only have Throw as an overlapping ability lmao. Same with Prot and Ret, there’s so little overlap. All specs I’ve played play as individual classes.
What you’re not getting is that a subclass is something you choose to attach to your character. Some games do it by allowing you to subclass into another character, usually requiring you to level up that character. For example, if you’re a rogue and want some warrior abilities, you can choose to level up a warrior and get some of its abilities. There’s some limitations of course.
I think in Lineage the subclass system had a specific set of “subclasses”, much like covenants here, but I really don’t remember, I didn’t play much when those came out.
Obviously the best was ArcheAge, where your class was a combination of 3 separate subclasses and you mixed and matched as you please. There’s like 15 subclasses and each combination of 3 has a unique name. It’s a great system, encouraging player choice. Leveling up a subclass took some time, but you could level all of them up on the same character and after you’re done with that, you could switch them at some cost. Your character had its own level, separate from the subclass level, so you could be a max level character running level 1 subclasses, just to level them up. You had finite skill points that you could spend between the 3 classes any way you please. <This is my favorite class system out of any game I’ve played.
Same with covenants - you have to be able to switch them, because otherwise there’s a risk players may ruin their mains of many years.