It’s not just controversial mechanics like covenants that people have complained about in Alpha and Beta that don’t get fixed until later in the expansion… class abilities and talents get complained about as well… just look at Legion for an example… people pointed out every single issue with Demonology Warlock as early as it was available in beta, and Blizzard flat out ignored every last one of them. We went the entire expansion with a spec that was hardly playable, and Blizzards response was a literal joke “we don’t want you to play Demonology”… when they did fix everything for BfA prepatch, they addressed every last issue with demonology that was REPORTED IN LEGION BETA… that’s not the only time they have done stuff like that either, every expansion something like that is reported and ignored until later after release, and every time it costs blizzard subscriptions that they could have saved if they just took the testers reports seriously from the start.
Maybe if Blizzard was actually receptive to feedback, people would do what it’s meant for.
I don’t disagree. I can write literal forum capped posts on things I want to see changed and explaining my logic as to why. I’m 100% completely convinced my logic is sound and would be amazing.
But at the end of the day it’s just feedback. Players can and should feel free to give their suggestions and feedback but they need to stop short when it comes to expecting Blizzard to actually act on it. Ultimately, it is up to Blizzard leadership to lead and guide the game where it is going to go and up to us as players if it continues to be a product worthy of our purchase and subscription.
So you think that covenants were a smashing success and led to a dramatic increase in players enjoying the game and inviting their friends to play? Or something like that?
All the dire warnings of the doomsayers during Shadowlands alpha, beta, and PTR came true. The overwhelming majority of players who started the expansion have left. This expansion has been a disaster, not because of the fact that they ignored what testers were saying (though they did), but because planners didn’t care what paying customers were willing to pay for, and bull-headedly pushed out an expansion full of “features” they knew in advance players were going to hate.
Blizzard is entirely responsible for what went wrong with this expansion. Planning to fix something in a year or two if too many players quit over it is a piss-poor business strategy. Your defense of the indefensible by trying to foist responsibility onto players is misplaced.
Indeed. Blizzard has their own agenda when it comes to offering the beta test, and many players have their own when it comes to participating. That’s just how it is.
Exactly. I’m not going to go fully down-in-the-weeds for this type of thing - I’m there to pop in, check some things out, maybe give a bit of feedback on DESIGN issues when it comes to classes and content (as that’s the area they typically need the most external guidance on), and then get the heck out of there. I’m not really interested in grimy grunt work and mostly hop over those hurdles just to get to the point that I want to get to on the beta.
I think Blizzard has a critical problem of being a waning game but still wanting to think they’re a game for everyone. They aren’t and nobody is getting, imo, a fully satisfactory experience. Covenants were a great idea and a chance at putting this community back in its place and realizing you don’t need to be min maxed for every little thing you’re doing or you’re worthless garbage otherwise…a stance I imagine they even knew was doomed to fail.
From a narrative standpoint, I was fine with how covenants played out. The Shadowlands was being strangled by an anima drought and we had to pledge which covenant, all of which had a desperate need, was the one that we chose to help and dedicate our resources to. Players were free to switch at the small cost of having to re-earn the faith/trust of the covenant they abandoned if/when they chose to return until we finally “solved” the anima drought and moved on to stopping the Jailer and reuniting the covenants where then it makes sense we’d be more free to swap around to them freely.
The entirety of content, including high end content, is/was doable with people of any given spec and covenant choice. I wouldn’t have tied player power to covenants as an expansion feature, but I didn’t lose any sleep with how they did it either. I rather they at least try new things than just regurgitate a repeat formula with new skins and better stats attached.
Basically this. I saw something about who they allow into alpha in fine print somewhere and it said like, “potential testers, streamers, WoW content creators, etc.” Paraphrasing, but something along those lines. They want exposure more than testing. There’s going to be bugs every time, regardless anyway. Might as well get the word out.
Come see our bugs! 
You can do all of that while also enjoying the preview of content.
Lord knows, I have spam used that report bug function in the betas I have been in, going back to Cata, on top of posting in the beta forum. This time in Alpha, I did so as well.
You play, you find bugs, you report them.
… It is also fun to engage in shenanigans, when the devs pop up in betas. Sometimes the shenanigans are on their end, sometimes they are on the players end.
… I may or may not have switched to prot spec during Legion beta, when the raid test they were going to do went weird. They were having us all meet in Dalaran, and then eventually announced it would not be happening. Sooooo… switch to prot, and pulled ALL the demons that were still in Dal to the center where everyone was, right before the server went down so they could fix things.
… I may or may not have done that. 
DF is super safe and boring, which is kind of alright as they try to find their footing again, but I’ll probably get bored if the expansion after DF is another DF. I want WoW to be exciting and do different things, introduce cool new things to be excited about.
I’m already bored on the Beta. There’s just nothing to DO. I really pity world content only people. Y’all are gonna be so bored in a month unless Blizz is holding back some kind dam of content.
World content people are gonna get HELLA bored unless they enjoy the Renown grinds. Which, y’know, some people might. Who knows?
This is only because they refuse to accept that serving the playerbase involves respecting players and giving them what they want to pay for. They’ve failed at this regardless of what demographic they wish to serve.
Trying to put your customer base “in their place” by implementing “features” intended to punish them for wanting what they want and having fun the way they want to is punishing them for spending money on what is an entertainment product. You don’t treat customers like that if you want to keep them paying. You don’t change the menu in a restaurant to teach your customers a lesson in humility if you want to stay in business.
I think they should stop experimenting on the playerbase, since all their “experiments” have resulted in a massive loss of paying customers.
Even the people treating it like a glorified preview are useful. They’ll catch content bugs.
Not to mention how Blizz treated Beta feed back in SL and BfA does it even matter if players just play it?
Again, this comes down to WHICH players? Resolve this scenario for me as Blizzard
- I hate PvP. I don’t want to see a single dev minute spent addressing or implementing any new PvP content/issues.
- I hate PvE. I don’t want to see a single dev minute spent addressing or implementing any new PvE content/issues.
Both customers have perfectly viable feedback yet diametrically opposed wants. One or even both customers will be left unsatisfied by your choice.
Its good for both, yeah.
Im glad I made it to the beta…now I know I’ll buy the expansion. the SL beta was bad enough that I just didnt bother much. I reported a few bugs I saw, but it wasnt enough to keep me wanting to bother with it.
DF is entirely different. The casual game is pretty fun so far, and I have reported a couple dozen bugs
It’s always that way. Blizz is even turning it into a promo thing to hype up DF.
You’ve got the ones testing and sending in reports. Then you got the ones just doing nothing but checking out what is around.
Unfortunately when it goes live, more people will play and more things will be caught that is impossible to find with smaller internal testers.
Long story short; it is how it is, don’t expect a polished product… and don’t expect most people to go in and ‘‘work’’ hard in testing everything. Never was that way, never will be.
Beta is for when you can’t sleep so you just wander around the map and look for ways to break the game
This is why they don’t send out a lot of Alpha keys to non popular streamers etc. So many complain when they don’t get invites but I am glad they don’t because of exactly what you are saying. They just want to play the game etc. They don’t actually test it to try and break it like top raiding guilds do and why they get these invites.
Beta though, I feel Blizzard treats it more like stress testing for the public since we all know most of those who play beta are only there to just play the new content like they would if it was live.
I wish Blizzard would only also invite those who do serious testing by going over past reports these people have sent in because it shows they are actually testing and not just playing the new game.
There ya go, sport.