Vohrr
3 years ago
Can't use my Covenant Ability outside of the Shadowlands

Why on earth is this a thing? Covenants are supposed to be WoW’s version of subclasses right? That is what we heard from panels and have read in blue posts and articles, these are supposed to be defining parts of our character. And now I’m being told it only defines me when I’m in 5 zones of the game? I’ve been on beta for 10 minutes and already I’ve encountered 3 problems that are going to waste even more dev time fixing:

  • Every beta build I do my testing at the orgrimmar target dummies. Can’t use my covenant ability there

  • Couldn’t use my Cov. abilities at the runecarver or even in TORGAST lol

  • Going to assume since it doesnt allow it in torgast that Battlegrounds and Arenas are also probably a no go as well.

I just have to ask why? Whats the point? Why waste the dev time to add this restriction that competely goes against all of your stated design intent with meaningful, impactful choice that defines our character only to go 'oh wait, but only while you’re in zone XYZ. Just bewildering

Watcher
3 years ago
Can't use my Covenant Ability outside of the Shadowlands

We’ll be reverting this change in next week’s update. It’s something we were on the fence about internally, and seeing the range of reactions has been helpful in making it clear that it wasn’t the right move.

We explored adding this restriction partly for world-fantasy reasons (I mean, it’s a bit weird seeing someone’s summoned swolekin just hanging out in the Orgrimmar AH), but mainly as an exploration of how to make expansion-specific systems feel more grounded in their expansion from the outset. Covenants are the centerpiece of Shadowlands, but when the following expansion comes out (yes, there will be one), we know we’ll need to ensure that a returning player doesn’t need to go back and do the full covenant progression in order to be complete and competitive. And when that time comes, it won’t feel great to lose something that will have come to feel like a part of your character.

That led us to this experiment of just establishing these powers as inherently tied to the Shadowlands, so that nothing would technically change when the time comes for players to move on to the next chapter in their journey. But reducing that feeling of loss a couple of years from now isn’t worth the expense of a weaker sense of connection to your covenants in the meantime, along with feeling like a part of your character is missing when you’re running legacy content. The feedback around this change makes that clear.

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