The developers of World of Warcraft are slowly providing us with more information about the upcoming expansion Shadowlands. New details about one of the biggest features have now sparked a great discussion.
What feature is it about? It is about the Covenants. Covenants were already introduced at BlizzCon 2019. Now there is new information directly from the developers.
What are Covenants? Covenants are a new endgame feature in the upcoming expansion Shadowlands. They serve as a progress system for players to unlock new abilities and talents.
You have four Covenants available to join while you are exploring the Shadowlands:
- Necrolords – The army of the Shadowlands
- Kyrians – Angelic beings pursuing honorable goals
- Night Fae – Guardians of nature
- Venthyr – A vampiric faction acting as “Punishers of the Unworthy”
New information about Covenants and their abilities
How do Covenants work? Each Covenant is located in a region of the Shadowlands, and while you complete quests there, you can also strengthen your bond with the Covenant. However, the exact details are still pending.
By forming a bond with a Covenant, you gain access to two abilities. One ability is available to every member of the Covenant, regardless of class. The second is class-specific.
What abilities do the Covenants grant? Blizzard has now introduced the general abilities for each Covenant:
- Kyrians: Summon Provost – Summons a Provost who gives you a special drink and grants access to “useful conveniences” once a day.
- Venthyr: Shadow Portal – A type of portal.
- Necrolords: Flesh Shaping – A shield made of flesh and bones that is stronger when cast on a corpse.
- Night Fae: Soul Shape – Transforms you into a fox with increased movement speed. Re-activation teleports you a short distance forward.
Some of the class abilities have also already been introduced. We have shown the complete list in our overview of the Covenants in Shadowlands.
However, the skills are not yet final and are still under development. Currently, Shadowlands is only in the Closed Alpha, to which the first waves of invitations will be sent shortly.
System causes disagreement in the community
The introduction of the new abilities has sparked a discussion among players. It primarily revolves around the fact that the choice of Covenants is only apparent and that the whole system needs revision.
What is the problem with abilities? Players see the issue with the abilities as there is exactly one Covenant per class that everyone must use because it is the best. Otherwise, one is simply not competitive anymore.
Some players oppose this, arguing that it is about freeing oneself from this competitive mindset. It is about making the individually right choice for each player. The reddit user k1dsmoke has a suggestion that has received a lot of positive feedback:
Make it simply a talent tree with four options. Each selection must then be unlocked through Covenant-related content.
What is the problem with the choice? This possibility to switch between Covenants is also widely discussed. One group of players wants the choice to be permanent – then it would have weight. Another wants it to be changeable.
At BlizzCon, Ion Hazzikostas mentioned that a switch should be possible, but it would involve a lot of work. However, players do not believe this is the right way. They argue that this grind is just repeating mistakes from Legion and BfA (legendary items and essences). The user Rhielle has wrote a detailed comment in the English forum about this:
They are taking away people’s ability to change something they might not like. It is not about numbers. It is simply less choice. If you get stuck with something you might later regret, and then just quit entirely because your favorite character has to grind for a long time to get something that suits you better.
And what if Blizzard decides to change the abilities in a patch? […] That person is then stuck in a long grind because Blizzard changed something and that does not make the game fun for the player anymore.
All of this is still based only on the first information we have about Shadowlands. However, it shows that this topic occupies the community greatly. The release of Shadowlands is still a while away, as the new expansion is not expected to come out before October. Until then, there is still plenty of time for players to provide their feedback and process new information. We are excitedly observing the development.
