what?
If they were underperforming then, yes, balancing is a good thing. I don’t see your point.
Shhh, don’t try to make sense.
…if they’re underperforming, they probably shouldn’t be nerfed. You should probably read. The skills were unbalanced, prompting Blizzard to smash the nails sticking up over and over and over and over until they did nothing. Covenant abilities are boring, they don’t interact with our specs for the most part, and their output is negligible. Where is the win in this? How does this make anyone happy? The people who wanted impactful abilities don’t get that. The people who wanted meaningful choice don’t really get it. The people who wanted to select covenant abilities based on encounter wouldn’t get it, even if they unlocked covenants right now.
Just…what are you on about? Explain what about these systems don’t belong in a flaming dumpster.
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I’m not the one complaining about the systems, so, realistically I don’t have to defend them. I think they’re fine. You seem to have the issue, the case to be made is yours.
If a gameplay system doesn’t effect the gameplay, do we really need that system? By nerfing everything to the ground we basically got shown, “hey we made some cool things, but we can’t make all of them good so we’ll make them all bad”. Its a disappointing but predictable result, and I can’t say I’m particularly happy about it at present.
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I. Just. Made. The. Case.
They locked covenants, made it so people couldn’t swap. This required them to balance the covenants. They did, YAY! They did this by making all the covenant abilities and soulbinds useless, BOOOO! What else do I need to say? That is my entire case. Are you still having difficulty parsing this? I can beat this paragraph over your head a million times, but I can’t make you understand it. Read it again, and really take your time with it, please.
I read their actions differently. I saw fan backlash over something they had little knowledge, and the backlash was very vocal and mostly idiotic(no offense to anyone). Blizzard held off on making any changes until they probably felt like they were backed into a corner.
Think about retail, it’s far less restrictive than Classic, and Classic is far more popular. Now, it isn’t the restrictive nature that allows for success, but Blizzards original willingness to produce a product that lined up with their goals and visions for a game… Sl no longer does that, and that’s because of fan backlash… over systems people had little to no knowledge regarding.
You could, but I don’t actually value your opinion and I happen to disagree with you. Also, my point was hypothetical, not literal. But thank you for the clarification that I didn’t actually ask for. 
Oh no, you don’t care about my opinion, this is a devastating blow to my entire psyche.
#PullTheRipcord9.1
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The sad dying breath of a dude who knows he has no leg to stand on, and his arguments are invalid, so he starts attempting to make fun of his opponent. It’s okay, we can’t all be winners.
If you want, I can mail you a hanky?
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I actually don’t mind restriction when its done well. However I’d like to highlight the when its done well. I’ve noticed that people tend to get annoyed when their class has an important functionality (read key parts of pve/pvp/aoe/single target) as a choose one type thing. In current wow you have classes that can get away with doing all of these things well without sacrificing everything, and then you sometimes have classes that have to build specifically to do one and only one of these things acceptably if that.
Covenant abilities when they were strong were very much like that, even now at a shadow of their former power its still a thing.
As a side note Its also a weird feeling to see fan backlash blamed for blizzard’s choices since I’ve spent a fair number of hours this beta cycle reading about people complaining about ignored feedback. You might be giving too much credit to general chat just because you are annoyed by seeing certain posts.
My arguments are invalid? Which ones, that I don’t have any issues with SL? Yeah, damn, they’re so invalidated by your earth breaking, ground shaking argument of… well, you didn’t have one, but I’m sure you wanted to make one.
BAHHH SYSTEMS I DON’T LIKE THEREFOR YOUR OPINION INVALIDATED RAHHHH
Keep swinging dude, I’m sure you’ll land a hit one of these days.
#PullTheRipcord9.1
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This could be. I try not to, but I do have a negative confirmation bias.
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It has been said that the devs do not have time to watch videos, and people were asked to put their opinions / comments in the beta forums. Even though I think Preach has some good points, I sincerely hope that the devs aren’t just listening to streamers.
That said, your comment shows the fundamental lack of knowledge on why covenant abilities are an issue that many players share. The problem is not balance, it’s just a side effect of what the real problem is, and that is the fact that the moment you make that decision you are putting yourself at an inferior level in some content, gamemode, or class role. It is true that most covenants are looking pretty close number wise, but that’s just one role. What if you want to tank and heal too? What if you want to PvP and PvE? If your class has a covenant that is the best across the board, consider yourself in heaven, but that is simply not the case for most.
Blizzard needs to find an identity for WoW again. Come up with a design philosophy and “stick to it.” I will say this though, if they force heavy RPG on WoW not many people will stay, because there are simply better RPG games out there.
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Literally this ^
I could care less about what the “meta” decisions are. What I do care about is how fun my character is to play in a given gameplay mode. And right now, no matter what covenant I’m going to pick, I’m going to run across the issue of “Wow this ability is so much less fun than what I could be using if I had picked something else.”
That is not good design. That is not “meaningful choice.” Not once has anyone, Blizzard or otherwise, explained how these “meaningful choices” need to be permanent. Because the reality is that they don’t. A talent is not “meaningless” because you can change it when you’re doing something else. It’s literally the player engaging with the system and gameplay for a more pleasant experience.
This god awful system doesn’t harm the dreaded “1% min/maxers” in the slightest. It hurts me, a casual player who likes to dabble in lots of different things. This restricts me in an unprecedented way and Blizzard should be ashamed of themselves for forcing this tripe through.
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It’s meaningful because when they nerf it you’ll feel that dagger in your gut, whereas if you could swap it wouldn’t sting nearly as bad, as you could just swap your talent. Blizzard playing 4D chess with us mere mortals.
#PullTheRipcord9.1
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pull the rip cord 9.o.5
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I agree, but that’s optimistic. I’m trying to temper my expectations.