Post so nice I wish I could like it twice.
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Don’t bother with that one they will twist what you are saying just to derail what you are talking about so it fits their narrative .
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Yeah this seems to be a pretty common tactic with people trying to defend covenants, they’ll quote a very small part of your post and zone in on it and not address the rest of it which usually is filled with pretty strong evidence that covenants are not a good thing for the game.
Covenants being locked feels bad, and like
said this is true. It actively discourages you to try out new things. If everyone tells you something is bad, the mythic raiders and the arena stars say something is bad but you’re kind of curious. The amount of hassle required is straight up not worth it to find out yourself that … yep, it’s bad.
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I was fine with the “meaningful choice” but it should only be relevant to RPG, Trasmog, storyline, etc.
As soon as it becomes relevant to your gameplay, being whatever you do in the game, all choice is removed.
RPG choices that affect gameplay choices will lose every time. The end result is a reduction in content.
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It would be if my argument against Covenants related to balance. I don’t think balance is in a terrible spot (in Mythic Raids at least, PvP and M+ is a different convo and I’d need different stats to analyze them).
In fact, my argument is the opposite. I pointed out that some Covenants actually have very small disparities between them but because the system handcuffs you into one or the other, it overwhelmingly rewards picking the strongest generic option.
If the ripcord is pulled, you wouldn’t see splits like 80/10/6/5 like Affliction is. People still wouldn’t play Venthyr Aff, but they’d play a lot more Kyrian and come next patch probably a solid amount of Necro too.
What is the goal then?
Is 91/6/1/1 (Balance Druids) the goal?
Is 87/7/3/2 (Fire Mage) the goal?
Is 85/13/1/1 (Holy Paladin) the goal?
Is 80/10/6/5 (Aff Lock) the goal?
There are 36 specs in the game. Of those 36 specs only 6 specs do not have an outright majority of players (50%+) playing one Covenant.
If the goal isn’t to have people playing every Covenant, why offer the choice? Just assign Druids to Night Fae and be done with it. Why do Combinations like Venthyr Resto Druid (1%) or Necrolord Holy Paladin (0.6%) even exist?
Blizzard nerfed Demonology Warlock because they wanted to make less people mad that Warlocks had Meta taken away from them to be given to Demon Hunters.
Blizzard have always had “superior metrics” but as evidenced by Blizzard constantly going back on unpopular decisions that doesn’t always result in superior decisions, you only need to look at literally the first post in this thread for that.
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Blizzard went in and manually tweaked Convoke, Abom Limb, Divine Toll, and a few other Covenant abilities so that for certain classes that had a strong thematic to one specific Covenant, the most appropriate/obvious Covenant theme for a class was the strongest option, so that these classes did not feel torn between choosing what felt right and what felt powerful. So I would say yeah, on some level this was the goal for Druid.
Tin foil hat nonsense, lol. You have a number of fair and rational arguments, but this is just nonsense.
1k likes? Of a population of 7 million players? I’m totally blown away by the supposed unpopularity of Covenants.
Shadowlands had one of the best launches of any expansion as well as a pretty solid post-launch for the first few months. And blah blah blah “everyone stayed home because of COVID”, but there were plenty of other games that didn’t see the numbers WoW did.
Wow this might be the biggest reach in the entire thread, that is incredibly impressive in a thread with over 12,000 replies. You think Blizzard made Night Fae overpowered for Affliction warlock because it makes sense too?
Can you seriously take your time and read the full quote before you try to make a bad faith response?
He’s referring the part in the original post highlighting all the times they’ve cited copious amount of feedback for a change.
God get real with these replies man.
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It’s not a reach, we literally have a quote from Ion saying as much.
A implies B does not mean B implies A. That’s not how logic works.
To which I ask, why bother offering the choice of Venthyr Druids if Blizzard wanted us to just play Night Fae? At that point it’s just a lazy version of order halls since you don’t have to bother designing unique ones for most classes.
And that theory ignores that there are plenty of polarized choices out there with no major thematical ties to the specific covenant, Aff Warlocks (80% NF), Fire Mages (87% NF), Vengeance DH (78% Kyrian), Enhancement Shamans (78% Venthyr).
Tin foil hat nonsense would be making the claim that Blizzard changed Demo to erase Xelnath’s legacy.
The MoP/WoD iteration of Demo that revolved around meta dancing was very well received by the Warlock community.
I was more referring to Blizzard changing systems that for a long time were unpopular “due to player feedback”.
Blizzard have made enough blunders and recognized those actions as blunders by changing them for me to give them the benefit of the doubt in assuming any system they’ve designed is statistical gold despite my dislike of it.
Especially when the statistics show that regardless of what content people play at, basically every single spec in the game trends towards “just play whatever is bis lmao”.
Hell, Blizzard had to walk back a decision they were statistically informed on when it turned out that they just ignored those statistics and did whatever they wanted with TBC clone costs. And that happened literally within the past 24 hours.
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The sad thing is, I wonder how many of those Venthyr Resto Druids and Necrolord Holy Paladins are just folks playing those covenants so they can acquire transmogs. A few folks mentioned making 4 of a class just so they can get transmogs.
At this point (well, it was before this point, but regardless) I don’t trust Blizzard anymore to handle balancing well whenever they add complications to the base system.
They have a difficult enough time handling balance between specs across the main types of content (M+, Raids, PVP) and rightfully so. There are plenty of different encounters types and balancing everyone for all of it is pretty tough.
The problem is when they start adding in extra aspects on top, it becomes a nightmarish mess. Balancing conduits, soulbinds, covenants, and legendary items on top of everything else is just stupid. It’s not even necessarily impossible (ultra-homogenization is the simplest way) but it becomes a huge drain on resources.
They have to spend the time balancing a number of extra options (on top of the ones they already have). Then they have to spend time dealing with how that scales as gear improves and new types of trinkets/procs/etc are included. Then they have to spend time dealing with how specific encounter mechanics will play into it, as well as older systems/mechanics/trinkets that may be abuseable. In some cases, they “break” the base specs, so that they “need” other aspects provided elsewhere to perform (which then requires further tweaking when these systems are removed later). In a lot of cases, it just ends up spectacularly “imbalanced” (such as the Druid ratio in Night Fae). All of which is then pushed into their code.
They are literally creating their own increased workload! Somewhere there has to be a person saying, “Hey folks, do you notice that you’re just spinning in circles here?” It’s also creating the worst condition for training new folks. You have to be brought up to speed on a code-base that is a giant mess of systems tacked onto each other.
The end result is that they can’t deliver nearly as much of what used to be considered “content” (quests, dungeons, raids, battlegrounds, arenas) because of resources used handling the first part. This means delaying delivery and/or delivering less of what used to be considered “content” (I say that because some people consider adding 3 new layers of soulbinds content).
Covenants are not much of a choice when you basically “have” to select an option because of large power discrepancies. But I don’t even understand why they have to be a choice and/or why they even had to be included.
I’d have gladly taken maybe a couple more dungeons, maybe a small raid, maybe another battleground, better balance in classes across content, Torghast that was better designed/more fun/more rewarding, better QOL instead of intentionally stalling the game, and maybe some more questing.
And you know what? I’d take some of that in exchange for getting rid of the entire covenant system. We get a talent row only useable in Shadowlands, and we can play with all the fun buildings in all the zones.
Instead? We’re getting changes to conduit energy. We’re getting Choregast that will now be timed, scored, and rated, to determine whether we can advance and what rewards we get. We’re getting covenant legendaries. We’re getting “solutions” to issues we’ve pointed out - that are in the POLAR OPPOSITE DIRECTION OF WHAT WE SAID THE PROBLEM IS! It’s like they hold the player base in such disdain that their reaction to our complaints is to say, “Ha, you don’t like it? We’ll make it worse so you wish you had it so good.”
//QOL is the way they make it seem like we have more to do because it takes longer to do anything. I don’t necessarily include delaying flying (though the Maw mounting thing was a bit extreme) or even removing the flight master whistle (though I think it was stupid). I do include anima items being forced to turn in at your sanctuary (they even have a “use” description on the item, but you can only “use” it at the sanctuary). I do include designing the four zones to be so far apart you can’t fly to them. I do include forcing you to go to your covenant to pick up “callings.” I do include making those Ve’nari conduit upgrades unique so you have to pick up one, go to your covenant, then go back, pick up another. I do include the extreme anima disparity. I do include the gear issues. All of this is designed to make you play longer to accomplish the same tasks.
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965 people agree with this idea.
You have a voice… but all are the insanely small minority.
No changes it is.
It’s less Blizzard wanted us to play Night Fae, and more “A lot of people will want to play Night Fae Druid, and will be royally pissed if the most appropriate option to play is not something you can pick and feel comfortable raiding, PvP’ing, or M+'ing with”. Ion literally joked about “Fairy Death Knights” in an interview for instance in a case of why they’ve gone in and tweaked some of them. They didn’t want to encourage people to play obvious flavor mismatches by allowing them to be BIS.
Not all classes have as obvious of a match as Night Fae Druid, Necrolord DK, and Kyrian Paladin. Like, who should Shaman pair with? There’s no one fit, so it doesn’t make sense to encourage one over others. Just let things happen naturally and see what happens.
People stopped playing it when it wasn’t OP anymore, when it was nerfed after Highmaul, so the idea that people played it because they liked it doesn’t add up. They played it because it was OP, regardless of tastes.
It’s easy to say something was a blunder when enough time has passed and it earns you good will at no cost. But you look at something like Pathfinder, that people claim was a blunder, that people claim that Blizzard has said was a blunder… and yet they keep doing Pathfinder. They change the way they do it slightly, but they’re more than happy with the end result. It’s very easy for Blizzard to say something was a blunder and for you to misunderstand what their intent in saying that is.
They received more data… and then they changed their mind before the thing went live.
And as you said, it happened within a 24 hour window. If they can pivot that fast based on new data, and you look at the current situation and their refuse to pivotal, one can imply that the data suggests that Blizzard is on the right course. Because if they received actual mass outcry, and not 6000 posts from Timbaeslice, then they’d likely be able to quickly change direction. The fact that they had a ripcord in case of emergency, and more recently cut the ripcord so that it couldn’t be pulled… that indicates that they know they’re on the right path.
Which is a problem they designed themselves into by tying character power to Covenants.
“You can pick whatever Covenant you want, but there are very clear best and worst Covenants for almost every spec in the game” isn’t exactly a great way to sell a feature that you advertise as a “meaningful choice”.
Again, you’re ignoring the first half of my point, which is that DESPITE there being no class/spec thematic attached to covenants for those classes, those specs are still massively polarized.
Hell, Necrolord Unholy DK’s and Kyrian Paladins (all three specs) aren’t as polarized towards their respective Covenants as much as Fire Mage is, which just picks NF because NF is the best.
The most popular spec is always played because it’s OP.
Or do you think that all the people who really enjoyed BM Hunter in Nyalotha now MM because of the gameplay?
But again. Put yourself in Blizzards shoes. You have the awareness to understand that popularity of any given class or spec is influenced by it’s power. Why would you not apply the same logic to Covenants?
I reiterate my previous point of that’s a TERRIBLE way to design a feature you’ve advertised as a “meaningful choice”.
Except Blizzard don’t do that for features that are unpopular that they think are worth it.
Pathfinder is a great example of that.
I’m pointing purely towards examples where they’ve said “yeah, we screwed up, you guys were right”, or in PR Speak…“Due to feedback we’ve received”
What is their intent? Do they make problems within the game purely to fix them later for good PR?
No, you misinterpreted what I wrote. I said that the change had happened within the past 24 hours.
Blizzard sent out the surveys in late March/early April and IIRC announced the cloning cost about 2 weeks ago (though I don’t follow TBC news too closely, so it might have been earlier?)
So they sat on the survey data for a month, came up with the price point of $35 and then had to reduce that by over half (to $15) because they’d wildly misjudged the cost that the playerbase would pay.
That doesn’t paint the picture of an organization that is competent with statistics.
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Only an insane minority of people view these forums. I get laughed at by most mythic raiders for bothering to even post on here.
Seems to be a common theme with the replies recently from them with misreading or misinterpreting quotes. Quite annoying really.
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A week ago, May 6. I was mistaken, I thought this happened Monday. I guess it didn’t “make the rounds” until Monday, Asmongold and Bellular and all of them piled on with videos released Monday/Tuesday.
Point is, you release some info EOD Thursday, you don’t get feedback until Monday/Tuesday, and then Thursday EOD you have a prepared press statement announcing a change. That’s a pretty dang fast pivot.
You’re not helping your case trying to build the image that you’re a"man of the people" in that case, if you don’t even adequately represent your own slice of the player pie (which is itself a very small minority).
967 likes! we are all agree here my boy
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Okay you need to stop replying because this is the fourth quote you’ve done where you’ve misunderstood what I’ve been saying or Awkward has been saying.
I get laughed at for coming here because the average discussion on here is about sexual identity of NPCs, petitions to bring allied races to the game or people pretending they know content they don’t know.
You’re actually a very frustrating addition to this thread, I’d appreciate if you took time to read the quote and understand the context or just don’t reply. You’re either doing it maliciously to fit your narrative and score a gotcha or you’re doing it unwillingly in which case I’d appreciate you just leave.
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I disagree. It’s sort of a balance issue, then again it is not. Let me explain.
When people talk about balance it’s often referred as balance between classes and specs. But with covenant abilities they are NOT balanced even within a spec itself, let along class or role. For example, you’d never see a necrolord fire mage, and the reason is obvious. So how do you expect to balance between necrolord fire mage to night fae boomkin, when you can’t even balance between necrolord fire mage to night fae fire mage? And I am not saying they should be balanced, they should not, because it’s obvious that some covenant abilities were designed with different goal in mind. Some are good for single target, some good for AoE, some with utilities, some with synergy, and some even useless. And if that’s the case, shouldn’t the end result be to let players adapt what they want to do according to situations? Because the entire game isn’t about single target or AoE or utilities, andyou can’t just lock abilities out arbitrarily.
I’ve said this many times. If Blizzard wants me to gimp myself in some content I’ll choose to not do it. I am not the best players, but I know that if I am going into a group content with the goal to at least be somewhat successful I should at the very least be prepared and not drag my teammates down.
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Didn’t Ion admit there is no ripcord? I agree with you and everyone not happy with what we’re given.
They made it seem like there was a ripcord, and then they said it was a lie.
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He did go back and say that - but that’s a lie.
The ripcord exists - the ability to swap covenants exists. The quests just need to be removed along with their “fill the bar” components, and the 2 week time-gate also removed.
Bingo bango - ripcord pulled. The ability to actually make meaningful choices can then commence.
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