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I disagree and have done so in most of the threads made actually.
I don’t think the system is perfect but in the end it is creating an ability for a character to specialise in a manner which may (or might not) increase their ability to do the content they would like to play.
At the higher end like M+20s or the last few bosses of mythic your convenant may end up being a limiting factor in your progression. But a more limiting factor is likely to be your class or spec as there are functionally only a few who are viable at the top end anyway (of 36 specs probably 14 are worth bringing to top end progression early in a tier). Obviously as gear improves the number of viable classes goes up (as more people can clear the content) but the top end also narrows down to a smaller list (+26 starts to become alot more specific on classes).
As Preach himself has said in multiple videos the covenant system will not effect the average player simply because the content they do does not require that level of optimisation.
None of the above is a reason for the development team to change the currently planned system. As the majority of players will engage with the system how it is intended.
The problem being that your talking about tiny numbers in all these surveys and posts, the game has more than 1.4million active 120s in the US/OCE region 3.5k 120s is not enough people to make major design changes.
I do agree some people will be negatively affected by the convenant system as it exists, but I also disagree that design decisions should be made by the loudest voices on the forums.
Blizzard reacts when people don’t engage with the systems the posts on here about essences did nothing them noticing in the data the most alts were 120 with no essences and minimal current content played caused the change in that system.
They have data and metrics that allow them to determine if a system is working or not and until it goes live they are unable to watch these metrics to determine what the silent majority of players think of the system.
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How I feel about covenants, yes I’m the bad guy and Ion is Neo. xd
It’s more a funny link than a truth. Just having fun over here.
Their metrics in BFA have given us the impression that their metrics mean little to jack of all. Point in case, in Beta we said Azerite Traits were a bad idea. Even when we only had two weeks of it. We called Azerite Essences and their acquisition bad despite how easy some were obtained. Which they eventually fixed (Thankfully). Using the idea of metrics against fun because the majority of people haven’t been able to test it isn’t a bad thought but it’s far from being a better representation of productive design.
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The average player will want to have fun.
And being limited with extra locks like covenants is not that much fun.
That’s how it will affect them first at minimum, and that’s thinking they will be balanced.
What happens if like in the beta they aren’t balanced at all.
Up to 20%+ difference from using the right covenant.
It’s more than the top and bottom class dps difference most of the time.
So it’s already shaky on the balance.
I get wanting to specialize, but that’s what learning to play your specs for me mean and most players could do that instead and have room to learn before claiming there’s no way they can specialize.
Tiny numbers made changes happen before, it would be untrue to say they haven’t change corruptions or added azerith vendors not because of player feedback.
Tiny numbers here are having a real impact.
Blizzard doesn’t know what’s fun, making a system that people participate in doesn’t mean it works. See islands and warfronts, it just means that the rewards are good enough. How can they say that covenants work? Everyone WILL have to join them. So what they’ll wait people leave pissed because of covenants?
Covenants that add to the gcd problems, conduit weekly locks, aoe cap, etc.
It’s an unecessary problem they create for not much gains.
#pulltheripcord.
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The problem with complaints in beta is that the player base there is too small and not representative of the full population of WoW, and so the complaints accurate or inaccurate cannot be used to inform the design decisions.
As the opinions of 4-8k people shouldnt be sufficient to change game for the player base as a whole.
It is actually a flaw in the beta system because the sample of users is not representative of the population feedback in most cases cannot be taken on board. The exceptions to this things like raid testing (the players selected for this are representative of the high end raiding population and thus their opinions would be valid for the majority of high end raiders).
The problem being that the core player base who pays the bills at Blizzard dont actually play betas as it is not worth their time.
So we shouldn’t take the amount of people as a possible sample size in representation toward the players that will put in the time and effort to sim and go through the ordeal understanding if a system works. That seems counter productive toward the end goal.
The last time Blizzard had an open beta for everyone was MoP, and there were still systems in that which failed because the casual player base didn’t care and didn’t want to fully help flesh out systems. So now we’re at an impasse. Either we take the system and use it on the general public to gain information which they have to play through by letting them play it in beta and giving feedback. Except they could not play the beta if they are invited and only do small things and then log off and never test anything. Leaving the broken system still broken.
Also the way that we understand that convenants are bad when they are tied to player power is because we use them in high end testing. Raid testing, mythic plus testing. The only one I haven’t seen thus far is pvp testing.
The problem being that core players don’t play betas… So we should have a broken system because those that want the system to stay don’t want to take the time to help developers adjust the system that will be apart of their experience for the next two years? That makes absolutely no sense in any manner.
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If that was really true then they would always make universal polls. But you can do polls effectively with reduced size of population when it’s done in the right way.
Sir, I don’t play overwatch, I play WoW.
Thing is they are in there testing all this stuff out . I would basically equate those people as a focus group that a company uses to test out a product that is either new or a product that is being updated . They may not be the entire wow community but like any focus group they can get a base idea on what the over all community might think based on the information being given to them by the beta testers .
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Overwatch with Raids is further down, I promise.
You know Overwatch has a meta since season 1?
Source: Solo queue grandmaster in Overwatch.
I’m not really a fan of these kinds of posts, because it seems like people want games made by committee instead of letting the developers do their jobs. There’s a lot of classic games that would have been ruined if the “community” were to insist on it being made to appease their ideas of what a game should be instead of the developers.
That’s not to say that devs are infallible, but this kind of melodrama about every. single. issue. in gaming is leading to a very poisonous type of communication.
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I am not saying I am the average player but I personally will have fun with covenants the way they are at the moment I have actually done a first pass on main and alts to pick covenants and legendary powers I want to focus on for them all.
My main will actually be using a pvp covenant even though I don’t currently pvp much but the aesthetic appeals to me for him. I do not see any issues in me clearing the same level of content I have completed so far (AOTC and some mythic bosses) even with a convenant that is not designed explicitly for that content.
I think the 1 week conduit locks are more likely to effect the average player experience especially if they get an upgrade and can’t equip it for a week. I personally think it should be a 24hr lock not 1 week but Blizzard will look at the data of people holding upgraded conduits because they can’t use them incase they get another upgrade tomorrow and relax these at some point.
Once again all those complaint threads ran for weeks about X doesnt work, until Blizzards data said these systems were not functioning as intended they were not changed and much like covenants they had the backup plan in place as they released systems.
The problem becomes that regardless of what changes someone will be unhappy (change is bad) and as such people have to ignore negative comments about a system till it is live and functional.
It is also why Preach is very clear in his streams that this won’t hurt most people but for the top end some tweaks would be appreciated to make their life easier. That being said if they need to do a grind to swap covenants they would do it in a heartbeat at that tier.
I also dislike people saying casuals won’t like this or the top end won’t across all of these categories is the full set of personality types. There will be casuals that hate this, and CE players that like it.
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Is it melodrama when its a core mechanic about the upcoming future of the game we all enjoy? I don’t see trying to stop a potential detriment from community outcry as melodrama. It’s just feedback on something that we’ve listened, we’ve tried it out and its not a good system. But having the opinion is fine, I just want the discussion to be had. I’ll still play at start if its implemented but if the system sucks I’d want blizz to pull the cord sooner rather than later.
I disagree about that if anything. I believe covenants systems will affect everyone and that Shadowlands launch will be a hard wake up for a lot of players when they will have to use those systems.
Yea that’s not what I am saying. I’m saying that everyone has a reason to dislike them. Sure some people will like them, but I feel those people would most often be fine either way. Those that are not fine if they would be gone are mostly spiteful to min/maxers.
We’re free to give feedback as you are. If I thought there was no reason to post on the forums I wouldn’t be. I think there’s enough feedback that a compromise should happen on launch already, not that we should have to wait. We had changes happening for less.
It’s a dev committee btw that decide how the game goes xd…
There’s a lot of game that would never have gotten better without their community feedback.
Like FF14.
That’s what forums are for, feedback. If you don’t like it don’t read it.
I think it comes down to a difference of opinion. There’s nothing I can say that’s going to convince people to give it a try. I’ve seen this before with things like proving grounds. Certain people just don’t want certain elements in the game and they will fight it no matter what. There’s no compromise short of gutting the system as it was intended.
That, to me, is unfortunate, because the forums are always inundated by a few certain people making it seem like a bigger issue than it really is.
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Not going to post on my max level, trackable retail character. I’m tired of getting death threats in-game from you ripcord pullers.
I know you’re not referring to me, but it isn’t about whether it’s a massive issue or not. I’d just prefer to have the ability to experiment with my builds without incurring a weeks long ‘cooldown’ to get back into whichever I determine to be the best.
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