Shadowlands is really looking good so far, but the covenant problem gets more concerning the closer we move to Shadowlands.
Blizzard seems absolutely convinced that people should take character power penalties for choosing a covenant they like, but I don’t understand why?
Why can’t they just let us have fun, choose the covenants we want and choose the abilities we want (let us switch them with some cooldown, currency or whatever). Why does there have to be such a huge downside to Shadowlands? Why not remove that downside and make it an upside?
Why not listen to feedback?
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Technically, we’ll all be dead upon our arrival in the Shadowlands.
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Did they already answer this question? I want to know what do they think about that. Are they concerned?
It’ll likely be a repeat of Azerite system.
Everyone who plays the game can see the impending trainwreck but Blizzard is going to insist that they know what the playerbase wants better than the players do and we’re all just getting hysterical over nothing.
I like RP flavoring as much as the next guy but it doesn’t take a scientist to recognize that the WoW playerbase plays for efficiency first and foremost, not RP.
The fact that they seem to expect players just to pick whatever they like for the sake of variety just shows they are kind of out of touch.
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well i think that we need to give them some more time, we do still have at least 3-4 months of beta after all, they might find a way to make it work, its very possible and ion did state clearly that if they cant that there is a big red button option of just let the players choose,
i personally dont think there is a way that it could work out, but if they think that they can figure it out im willing to let them try, so long as they are not too stubborn and when they realise that it wont work they pull the plug before the expansion launches, rather than waiting for 9.1
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Well, I’ll pick whichever Covenant I like the most.
I’ve never been one for min-maxing my characters anyway.
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I just hope the bunch of new systems aren’t too grindy or I’ll get bored really quickly and only play for a handful of months.
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They have their reasons. Covenant is like a class. You can’t change a class between pulls. So you can’t change covenant. That’s their vision. If this wouldn’t work out well, they’ll allow for easier switching.
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Because part of the feedback they receive is that the abilities and player power give more weight to this decision and is a good addition to the game ?
You don’t like it, shocker. But talking about “not listening to feedback” is missing the point here. They already did and if yesterday’s Ion interview is to be believed they still do.
Won’t bother finding the right timestamp but here’s the latest input we have about their stance on this subject.
Edit :
So far we’re talking about a weekly torghast run (no entrance requirement unlike visions) and a weekly “collect anima” quest, which could either be obtained from your favourite content (Both legion and BFA gave AP from raids, pvp or dungeons and they claimed this weekly goal would be easily reached) or perhaps only open world only but that’s imo unlikely
Gotta get early in the xpack the recipe you need for your favourite legendary (raids are confirmed so far but I doubt they are the only source for legendaries. PvP, dungeons and perhaps open world should also reward them imo but not yet implemented in the beta) and you’re good to go.
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Apparently those systems are not grindy at all, so there are chances you’ll enjoy it. Though I assume that nolifers will whine about “nothing to do” and developers will add another infinite farm eventually.
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I will most likely be picking necrolord for the class ability because I find it to be most useful overal in what I do. Except I absolutely hate the aesthetics and what they are. I’d much rather pick venthyr for that, but I hate their ability. These are my two choices since kyrian and night fae don’t interest me in either. So my two choices are hate the gameplay and love the aesthetics or hate the aesthetics and love the gameplay. I’ll be choosing necrolord because I value the fun of my class over aesthetics, but this choice should never be put upon anybody in a video game. These choices should be different, but none of them should be wrong. I am choosing between two wrong options.
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this is pretty much it, unless they let you freely switch in raid, and not having to go to the covenant for it, I realy hope they keep it so you cant change, becuse the most annoying thing is having to wait for half the raid, or your self having to go change for one boss and then back, that would just be realy bad.
I hope they just turn it off for end game content instead of making it swapable
At the moment with how its looking and you want to collect the armour transmogs you are going to have to lvl 16 characters 4x cloth, 4x plate, 4x mail & 4x Leather…
To me that’s an awful lot why not let the characters just experience the full amount of all covenents if they want that way we would only have to lvl and maintain 4 characters, THAT’s my biggest concern x.x
yeah thats sounds like a great idea remove all of the end game content that keeps most of the player base playing, that would definately help the sub numbers,
everyone seems to think that they are doing everything they can to keep people playing as much as possible and make them keep paying their subs, do you think that removing the endgame content from the game would fulfil that
Just remove covenant abilities, have them be a purely cosmetic reputation.
Enough with the rental powers, i dont want an artifact, or a necklace, or a legendary cloak, or a power amulet.
No rental powers, no rental abilities, no empowering gear by grinding a currency, no nothing. Just let us play our characters.
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I quite like the permanency of the choice.
Like race or class, those are meaningful choices to me. They feel personal and driven by identity.
My talent choices? Not so much. Those are often changed based on circumstance.
I think the challenge with the Covenant choice is that it’s a package choice.
You’re trying to compare apples to oranges. Do I want the cool transmogrification set from the Kyrian, or do I want the useful ability from the Night Fae? That’s a difficult choice.
But once you commit to a Covenant, then it’s a meaningful decision. It’ll shape your game experience, and rather than the character just being a character, it’ll be your character, because you’ll have committed to something which will be different from what some other players choose to commit to.
Less similarity, more individuality.
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i didnt realise that end game content was dependant on those extras.
I thought they could balance around not using them.
Guess I was wrong because Barry said so.
Not like in PvP they changed abilities before or anything.
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not at all, all of the endgame content is balanced around the fact that people will have access to the “BiS” covenants and soulbinds/conduits, and legendaries, as it has been forever,
take BFA for example, ny’alotha was balanced around guilds spending hundreds of millions of gold on corruption gear in order to get every little bit of damage out of their classes, if they hadnt spent that gold they would have taken weeks longer to clear it, because they would be reliant on a purely RNG system to get to best gear
even back in WoD guilds were transferring characters to other servers and clearing out auction houses of mats and the black market auction house of gear
but if they turned it off before launch they could still balance it around not having them.
So nothing really changes for end game.
