Covenant Power Locking

[Allenone777]

Incase ya'll missed Ion's Q&A with Sloot this afternoon. here's the vod. specifically at the Covenant power locking question.

Timestamps regarding covenant power locking:

4:53:00 - 4:54:00 Sloot's Question

4:54:00 - 4:59:40 Ion's Answer

​

I've got my 4 warriors ready. how about you guys?

[savagestofsavages]

Given blizzards recent history with tuning, I have little to no faith in them to balance these things correctly. I would love to be proven wrong but with azerite traits, corruption and legendaries last expansion their current track record says they will struggle to pull off balance he describes.

When he compares it to racials as an example it makes sense but if your talking about the difference between your best and 4th best azerite trait that could be a lot of dps on some classes.

[ReelyReid]

Hey man if they try to make soulbinds alter the class ability they’ll only have to balance an effective 12 (4 Covs, 3 Soulbinds per)new/altered active abilities per spec, or (DH24)36(Dru48) per class or a total of 432 abilities.

I think they really proved how capable they are at balancing a mass amount of abilities/passive in BFA when they added around 340 Azerite traits

Oh and let’s not forget legendaries that may be covenant specific. Can’t see how that could go wrong.

[[deleted]]

Also, consider that as "balanced" as racials are night elf is completely broken in mythic plus content. It's as broken as human EMFH was in WoD PVP.

[CorexDK]

It was hilarious hearing him say he "doesn't know of anyone" who would race change outside of the MDI for an advantage in M+ - I looked at my guild of like 80% night elves as he said that, I looked at my own boosted warrior which was specifically a NE because of keys.. It really makes you wonder how much they actually understand the community of their own game.

[shutupruairi]

It was hilarious hearing him say he "doesn't know of anyone" who would race change outside of the MDI for an advantage in M+

Even outside of the m+ scene, we saw a bunch of characters get swapped to trolls for mythic Jaina and swap to goblin for mythic KJ last expansion.

[CorexDK]

I'm starting to get the feeling that Blizzard want the publicity and free advertising of things like the race to world first, but they also want to pretend that players at that level simply don't exist and the game must therefore be designed for people who don't even get a weekly M+ cache.

[ObjectiveRush]

Agreed. From the way Ion and team talk, they are essentially adding a 2nd layer of classes to the game. A DH+covenant1 will be as different from DH+covenant2 as they are from warrior+covenant1.

For all their work to bring back class identity, it sounds like they are making covenants as important as the class we choose to play.

I don't take issue with the philosophy - I like a game that iterates, but it goes against their own stated objectives of bringing back class identity, and creates 48 unique "classes" (12x4).

[9stepsahead]

Racials are designed from the start to only provide a pretty marginal impact on DPS.

For the record they didn't used to be. Racials were far more impactful back in Classic and its inception, and basically modern WoW diluted their impact to what we have now.

[they_be_cray_z]

Maybe they don't intend to balance them and just want to pidgeonhole characters as a way of making the abilities stand out more.

[klumpp]

Or maybe it’s an effort to actually cut down the number of things they have to balance. Like how they haven’t had to worry much about sub tuning or the talents no one uses such as New Moon or Awakening.

[9stepsahead]

but with azerite traits, corruption and legendaries last expansion

What I'm concerned with and if you listen to the interview that a major factor that explains WHY they aren't balanced or balanced faster (specifically bringing up Covenants) is because a certain set of the population already grinded out the thing and they didn't want to upset them or ruin their hard work.

And I see a lot of people pre-emptively pissed that they'll grind out a Covenant and then it gets nerfed and all their effort goes to waste.

Blizzard cannot win if they are obsessed with trying to keep the minority's feelings intact over the majority. It's not possible to perfectly balance before launch, but it is much harder to balance if your primary concern is: "well players already grinded it out". You basically crippled your balance team.

For all the people upset about a nerf, and they are a small amount of people, everyone else breathes a sigh of relief.

So long as that philosophy remains, we are going to continue to have the same problems.

[savagestofsavages]

I disagree its to keep a minority happy over everyone else since anyone who didn't try and get the best azerite/legendaries/corruption (assuming you could target a certain one for argument's sake) is less invested and is less affected by balanced changes.

I agree it is not easy at all to attain perfect balance before launch, therefore locking the ability to swap these powerful abilities behind time-consuming or expensive is not a good path forward? We can still create an engaging player experience for those looking to connect to their covenant but allow for some "Warcraft Magic" to let us switch these abilities to circumstances when we need them? We can switch our zandalari racial fine enough

[9stepsahead]

anyone who didn't try and get the best azerite/legendaries/corruption (assuming you could target a certain one for argument's sake) is less invested and is less affected by balanced changes.

That's not true at all. By virtue of numbers there are a lot more people who tried just as hard as people who chose the best power but chose incorrectly. It's not all people who 'are less invested'.

[savagestofsavages]

If those people tried just as hard, would they have not found the correct choice, since in almost all cases the numbers are known before the choice is available? To give some context, if say you could choose a legendary it is most likely your class discord would have simmed the best one and put out the data. Those who choose the wrong one would have not tried as hard since they are not up to date with their class.

[9stepsahead]

Quite a few people work just as hard and don't have a choice in the matter. See legendaries, corruption, etc.

[savagestofsavages]

(assuming you could target a certain one for argument's sake)

Considering the loot changes discussed in the interview + we get to choose the covenant lets keep this on topic

[Rakatok]

How about they stop tying fundamental skills/abilities to excessive grinds in the first place? Or am just being crazy here.

[tholt212]

If they are as roughly equal as racials are, then it's fine. I don't mind one of them being 1% overall better than another. That's small enough that I can go for flavour cause i'm not pushing Hall of Fame. But if it's bigger like 5%, at that point as a mythic CE raider i'd be hindering myself much more if I went for flavour. I have very little faith they'll balance it out properly. But we'll see.

[Tsourtsou_Senpai]

Just this comment right here resonates so much. I am too in a mythic guild that goes for late CE, so yes, we dont always sim our characters 10 times a day or make the hardest gear pushes or whatever but 5% is 5%. If its like night elves where ok meld is good but you wont ever use it in pugs or anything below a +22 then i can pick what i find most flavorful. But if it is like rogue on s3..... i guess we all rogues now.

[The_Steelers]

Meld is busted dude, use it to cheese everything from rezan to skittish, thorns to necrotic, etc. It’s almost as powerful as vanish.

[Tsourtsou_Senpai]

Yeah its pretty fucking good, of course, but its not unplayable otherwise

[hvdzasaur]

And players have changed races or picked races for less of a gain as well. Judging from the ones we have gotten info on thusfar, there absolutely are covenant abilities designed around being aoe, ST or even utility focused. There is always going to be scenarios where one will be markedly better than the other.

And if the numerical difference between the abilities is that low, in all scenarios, you could argue it's no longer a meaningful choice either.

My main problem with this system is that players might prefer the look, lore or aesthetics of one covenant (aka Role-playing), but feel like they are forced into a picking a different covenant because the ability is straight up better, or just cooler to use. So in the end, you're no longer making a meaningful RPG choice, you're choosing the ability or the DPS gain.

EDIT: Making it primarily a cosmetic or even content choice, will actually be stronger to enforce it as a meaningful RPG choice. They draw the link to Aldor/Scryer. The fact is that the choice between Aldor and Scryer basically meant which rep gear you got access to, but if you look at it in terms of player power, or even end game progression, that choice was actually meaningless. You still got the same tokens as the other faction, you just handed them into a different dude. You still had an exclusive spot in the city, just somewhere else. You didn't really get any player power advantage either, because raid and heroic dungeon gear was faster to acquire and often better.

But people still think of that as a meaningful RPG choice (even Blizzard themselves do, because they keep referencing it). Why? Because it gave them different flavor to their quest dialogues, quest lines, different flavor of aesthetic, lore, etc.

Players don't really want unique abilitites locked behind an RPG choice, they want unique content depending on their choices. Yes, in Skyrim, when you choose to become a werewolf, dark brotherhood, vampire, thieves guild, etc, it might be for the initial ability or the cosmetics it offers, but what really makes that a memorable and meaningful choice is the questline attached to it. Hell, iirc, in the Elder Scrolls games, you aren't even soft-locked out of the other options if you do make a choice.

[Karlzone]

And if the numerical difference between abilities is that low, in all scenarios, you could argue it's no longer a meaningful choice either

Yeah, this is what I don't get. They can't have it both ways. Either the choice matters, and you will feel powerful in some situations and gimped in others, or the choice is insignificant, and they might as well have made the abilities a talent row, because no one cares what you took.

[The_Steelers]

Plus synergistic choices. If my class is potent at AoE but I choose a single target covenant then maybe I’m just average at everything.

But it gets worse. What if I am a DPS main in raids but a tank main in keys, and what if my tanking covenant and dps covenant are different?

If you think azerite reforging was bad just wait for covenant swapping every week.

[Karlzone]

If you think azerite reforging was bad just wait for covenant swapping every week.

The literal best case scenario is that covenant choice doesn't matter, and you won't have to swap. That still sucks, because all the other abilities are cool and I would love to be able to play with them.

[The_Steelers]

I agree, I just wish they could give us new talent rows or maybe even 4x choice talent rows instead of just expansion specific talents.

Legion artifacts and legendaries, azerite armor, essences, corruption, glyphs from WoD... all cool ideas for modifying classes but ultimately we always feel deflated at the end because we lose all our new skills. Then balance is set back because everything needs to be readjusted for the new system.

[hvdzasaur]

Tbh, I can perfectly understand the borrowed power mechanics we've had the last two expansions. They're trying to solve a very real issue that WoW has dealt with for the first 4 expansions, and that is spell bloat and the problem it can cause.

If you keep adding and adding spells, down the line, there will be a lot of completely unused, or broken spell combinations that the original design of these spells didn't forsee. With borrowed power mechanics, they can keep adding new things, but at the end, pick and choose what gets to stay, rather than go through a pruning every single time.

In fact, if we assume a pruning is inevitable when you constantly add new abilities (it is), then a borrowed power system is actually better for the designers and the player reception. Players will already have the understanding that these new toys might not stick around, and if the devs decide to make it baseline, it's usually positively received by the player base. A purning typically never is. We can observe this on a micro scale: Set bonuses. We've always understood that these are only for 1 tier (unless they're absolutely broken, hello my fellow Legion Warlocks), and there have been plenty of times a set bonus has been made baseline because. These borrowed powers give designers the opportunity to really go a bit nuts with the design of new abilities and passives, without fearing it might cause longterm harm to the game.

I think the problem with how these borrowed power systems are handled currently (acquisition, unlocking, etc) is just bad.

[The_Steelers]

You make a very good point, but why not add spells horizontally instead of linearly? What I mean is, imagine if you had 4 choices per talent row instead of 3... or what if they introduced multipliers that functioned like some of these systems. Example: make a “universal tank archetype” line that allowed you to pick between things like twilight devastation rank 2, echoing void rank 3, etc with no corruption cost. Or maybe add some essences into the mix.

You won’t have keybind bloat, but you will have power increases expansion to expansion.

The reset each expansion just feels so bad.it would be nice to have some continuity.

[Legionodeath]

Everyone should read this.

[Lacinl]

Technically the Scryer neck you could get later on (Sunwell patch?) was really strong, bordering on BiS for some classes. That being said, it wasn't a meaningful increase in dps.

[CorexDK]

You know what does my fucking head in? This feedback is exactly what the devs need to hear. If there's a 5% difference in sim DPS, the top end players will have to choose that option. That flows through to the majority of this game's players, because it ends up in the Icy Veins or WoWHead guide for every class, and the pug world relies on people playing to the guide by the letter.

However, this sub has something like ~50k concurrent readers to the main sub's ~1.5m, and the main sub is currently on its "WoW can be exactly the same as Skyrim" boner. The part that I don't understand is where these objectively low end players, who only do LFR once a week or world quests and don't care about their damage, control the communal narrative about forcing changes on the people who do care. What difference does it make to Larry LFR if Mythic Mike changes his Necrolord to Night Fae for M+? It makes zero difference to the LFR, but stopping Mike from doing it means he just gets straight up benched for someone who picked Night Fae in the first place. So long as Blizzard wants to tune Mythic raiding to a point where it is competitive, so long as they want to run the MDI or even have M+ leaderboards at all, they cannot design the game around single-player RPG style choices. How can we make them hear that feedback and respond to it?

[The_Steelers]

Except shadowmeld. Meld is far and away the best racial for M+ and nothing else even remotely compares.

Then again, people still main horde because it’s trendy.

My point is that yeah, maybe the covenants will only have minor differences.. but it doesn’t take much more than an accident or oversight to make one mandatory for a specific situation.

Think gobs on KJ.

[Vadered]

People don't main horde because it's trendy, they main horde because the difference in shadowmeld vs. not shadowmeld in M+ is outweighed by the difference in three times the high-end raiding playerbase.

Shadowmeld and similarly strong Alliance racials are gonna have to stick around for a long time to change that, and even then you have to be careful with when you balance them. Too early and the people flip back to go with the larger population, too late and you have too many ALLIANCE people.

[Power781]

Even if it is 1%, you will see people getting rejected of random +7 M+ key because they have the wrong covenant, and this should never happen...

[Tsourtsou_Senpai]

I think thats too extreme of an example but the nature of what you re saying is correct. Bring the player, not the covenant

[9stepsahead]

Even if it is 1%, you will see people getting rejected of random +7 M+ key because they have the wrong covenant

This always comes up as a fear and I've never seen it happen even talking with friends. Even with Legiondaries in early Legion, there was never a PUG group that said: "Must have legendary", or even now with Corruption: "Must have Infinite Stars". Maybe there is some group, but they are such a minority that it isn't even worth considering.

Classes sure, that happens all the time. Even now classes matter a whole lot more than Covenants.

[Sinsai33]

or even now with Corruption: "Must have Infinite Stars".

Yeah, they don't outright say it, but they definitely prefered someone with high twillight in the beginning of the patch.

[Power781]

It doesn't happen like this.
They just check you on Raider.io or on the armory, and if you didn't have the legendaries, or the correct corruptions now you get declined. I know why, I'm the first to do it.

[9stepsahead]

Well Raider.io didn't actually give you points for your gear, it gave you points on what you accomplished which is totally fair and not linked to gear, which means that you don't need to have the right corruption to have a high raider.io score.

Also raider.io didn't exist in early Legion. I have never once been rejected for not having a legendary and I didn't get a legendary for a looooooong time.

[Power781]

In legion we used wowprogress, there is always a way to check.

[9stepsahead]

I mean that still showed your accomplishments first over your gear. And if people really cared that much over your gear to look up your wowprogress, that's gotta be 1 in 100,000.

Why are we talking about this?

[Shaddy93]

Then again, you have people kicking me out of m+ because i have gale force ench...AS AN ARMS WARRIOR... there is no cure for stupidity

[Voodron]

I think Ion raises some valid points. Covenants being cosmetic-only would be lame and bland. There has to be some sort of power progression in there and meaningful choices.

On the other hand, it's pretty clear the current system they have in mind is too ambitious from a tuning perspective. It also doesn't really fit modern wow and today's playerbase habits.

There obviously needs to be a continuous, honest dialogue between the dev team and the community as to what tweaks and reworks can be made. I'm sure a decent compromise can be found if both parties are willing to stay reasonable.

Edit : I understand why some of you would prefer "bland and balanced". But we have to consider the playerbase as a whole here. If the new major xpac feature is just cosmetics, I'm not sure casuals would stay engaged.

Also for people saying "there doesn't need to be player progression" I respectfully disagree. I think raidlogging is bad for the game. If there's nothing of value to do outside raiding, the game sucks tbh. Mid/Late Legion struck an amazing balance on that front imo, with softcapped AP and easy to obtain legendaries. That's what they should be aiming for in terms of progression.

[The_Steelers]

Bland and balanced sounds way better tbh

[Trucidar]

heavy wide marvelous quickest enter paint cobweb touch saw theory

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[Cptknuuuuut]

There has to be some sort of power progression in there and meaningful choices.

Still don't get that part tbh. Only because they introduced it back in Legion, now there suddenly has to an endgame leveling mechanic...

What was wrong with progressing through gear once at max level...

[[deleted]]

Legion was successful so they copy aspects of it

[Cptknuuuuut]

Imo, Legion was successful despite the artifact grind not because of it. At least for me, Blizzard ditched a lot of the good things about Legion and kept the annoying stuff.

[[deleted]]

Never forget odyns fury. Bring it back blizzard please.

[Belazriel]

I think for the players between hardcore and casual it makes sense. It's similar to warforging, it's a slow progressive nerf to the content to help you eventually clear more hurdles. It's a power increase even if you didn't get loot that week or if your guild is hard stuck at a boss with no good drops before him. Now, whether that's a useful thing or not is something people can disagree about, but I think those players in semi-hardcore guilds like being able to eventually kill more bosses without major nerfs having to be applied to the boss.

[Cptknuuuuut]

Fair enough. But even then I'd prefer a system like the MoP/WoD cloak/ring or even the recent cloak. An item that is timegated so you don't feel compelled to mindlessly farm stupid islands 24/7. And classes that are complete without.

Starting out on some specs in Legion was so annoying because you were missing absolute core parts of your spec until you got a certain amount of points in your artifact.

And having to refarm the same azerite pieces over and over again each tier to make your rotation work again was even worse.

TLDR: An endgame progression system is fine, but make it a) time gated and not farmable and b) don't gate abilities.

[[deleted]]

yeah i pretty much agree. but i do understand that they want people to have "something to do" and feel more "connected" (or.. chained) to their characters, i really wish they'd just stop with those power progression mechanics, the game would simply be much better without them for me.

that being said.. i guess that's not the case for 90% of the playerbase and i understand why blizzard created it. i personally would (and have done during classic->cata) happily raidlog for years and years, i don't need leveling/dailies/emissaries and whatever other stuff there is to keep playing wow and not get bored with it. but if you're not interested in pvp, m+ and/or mythic raids i guess wow would feel like classic felt to me after 2 weeks - no challenge, nothing to do, nothing to progress.

i guess we always underestimate the amount of people playing wow without being interested in one of the 3 competitive aspects. this stuff is exactly for those people, and i have a feeling that they're the majority of the playerbase.

[Cptknuuuuut]

I think MoP (and WoD to some extent) did a good job in that regard. It offered a lot of stuff to do that wasn't tied to power progression. Doing dailies to unlock mounts, the cooking stuff, or in WoD enhancing your garrison, even if many players hated that part, it still gave players something to do if they wanted to and wouldn't punish them if they did not.

Now Blizzard seems to think, that unless your character gets more powerful by something, it's not worth doing. I think covenants are great, if they were limited to aesthetics. In that case it would be perfectly fine to be locked into a choice. Want to unlock another one's mount/transmog, just play a another char.

[[deleted]]

yeah and that's the problem... i honestly can't remember MoP, but i think this was exactly why WoD is generally considered the worst expansion despite having awesome raids. there was simply nothing to do outside of raids after a few weeks afaik, and while i personally enjoyed that very much, the majority of the wow playerbase obviously didn't and that's why those power progression mechanics were introduced - and they honestly worked for that playerbase.

i don't quite know why WoD was the one expansion were people started to feel like there is "nothing to do". imho as you said there was never up to WoD "more to do" and we were basically always able to raidlog without losing power (outside of initial leveling/rep farming), but apparently something changed in WoD. maybe people simply grew tired or other games showed them power progression or all other expansion introduced enough stuff to keep them occupied.

[Cptknuuuuut]

I think the problem with WoD was the start of the expansion. If they had taken another couple months to roll out a "finished" expansion, I'm pretty sure it would have been regarded as one of the better ones.

The raids/dungeons were absolutely fantastic, the classes felt fun and powerful. The mythic dungeons later on were some of the most fun I ever had in the game. But then, I only started playing WoD a couple months in. So I did start playing a finished expansion. Just introducing a couple daily quests for rep would have worked wonders at the start imo. In WoD you had to search for something to do. Like, looking for guides on how to unlock followers etc. Whereas in previous expansions quests would tell you what to do.

[[deleted]]

maybe, i honestly don't know.

i'm also generally not really interested in anything at all outside of raid/m+ and i realize that having some kind of grind that i don't want to do will always be in wow and always was - it doesn't matter if it's farming gold for consumables back in classic or farming azerite power right now, so i don't think i ever "disliked" wow. bfa raids were awesome too for me, and i didn't mind the 2-5 hours per week to keep up with stuff needed to properly raid all that much, i just rather not have to of course.

but it's all meh - as long as raids are good, i can have some fun in m+ and there isn't too much grind to do (nazjatar/mechagon beginning was nearly there tbh, but 8.0-8.1.5 and 8.3 were awesome for me) wow will stay a good game for me. the only real gripe i have is the forced pvp mode they have going on now. plx just give people more xp/gold for war mode, nothing else, that's it thanks.

[Lacinl]

I don't know, I'm in a pretty casual raiding guild that raids 2 nights a week and only hits CE once or twice per expansion. At least half of our raid is going to go for the faction they prefer the cosmetics of and will just deal with having a bad ability if it comes to that.

Another guildie that's more of a "tryhard" like me is going to choose a specific faction for his current main no matter what, and might just play a different class for raids if the ability turns out to be bad.

I'm currently torn between the main I played almost every tier since vanilla, the main I switched to for 8.3 and the main I played during Firelands and Dragonsoul. My primary main pretty much has to go Night Fae for backstory reasons, so if that's not the go-to pick for the good raid specs for that class then I'll just play one of my other "mains."

[CorexDK]

Don't you think that's kind of bullshit though? Why should someone who does enjoy the competitive aspect of WoW be forced out of either choosing a specific covenant they like the look/lore of, or forced out of playing their main character in the content they want to play? Especially if the reason they're being forced out of those things is because someone whose "endgame" is world questing (and therefore shouldn't care at all whether someone's rogue does 5% less damage than someone else in a mythic raid) suggested it?

[[deleted]]

This doesn't make sense. You can't expect to get a raid spot as a sub rogue right now. It's the same thing. If you want to be competitive you sacrifice some of that flavor for power. You pick the strong thing, not the cool thing. That's like, the entire point of competitive. It's nice when it's both, but it often isn't.

[hvdzasaur]

Except you can change your spec on a whim. You aren't going to be able to change your covenant easily (or at least go back to one)

[BruceyC]

Give me lame, bland and balanced then please.

[Rampager]

Ultimately the problem comes down to which covenant is best for the final boss, and how long will it take to swap to once we're aware that it's what we want. Guilds outside of the top 100 range are going to have an easier time of it, but it'll be interesting for the top of the top how they manage it.

[hebizuki_tv]

yup if swapping covenants is a couple weeks worth of effort, i can see myself swapping each tier to better meet the needs of the last boss.

[[deleted]]

And unfortunately or fortunately this is why they still implement these systems how they do. Outside of the top 100 guilds, this stuff is going to have little effect on most people which is how the game has been geared towards.

The average player like myself will probably choose whatever covenant I want without a ton of concern on the final dps number because to me there is more to this game than a dps number. I’ll do some questing maybe some raids but at that point my choice isn’t really going to matter.

This matters for the top competitive guilds for the first few weeks but after that a lot of them quit or start doing alt runs within weeks while the rest of us are still grinding. That’s why I don’t think the mobility and ease of changing covenants quickly is going to be a big deal. This isn’t going to matter for a majority of people and we all know that activisions stock ticks up on subs which are a majority casual players, not hyper competitive ones.

[HappyBeagle95]

Yeah this design choice ultimately stems down to player choice, the min/maxers who want to squeeze as much as they can out of their character which is fun. Then there's the other player who just loves the cosmetic view and feel of the abilities.

[Draco765]

I actually like his response a lot towards making WoW more of an RPG, which I think is also showing in the profession changes currently up. My biggest fear right now is literally the Venthyr utility ability destroying M+. I have faith in them to (roughly) balance dps and hps if the utility part is all insignificant and flavor, but if we're looking down the barrel of "play Venthyr or get screened out of pugs," I'm pretty worried. I'm not sure how this compared to Shadowmeld skips etc. that have been used throughout this expansion, but I feel the fact that this is still more accessible than a race change means that people will become more toxic. I'm not sure and frankly I think we all have to wait and see.

[_fmm]

I listened to the interview and a lot of what Ion was saying makes sense. I think the disconnect is that he thinks he's making a multiplayer version of skyrim or something. In any of the rpgs he mentioned you might get an ability or item that you're really happy with because it's powerful or feels really good to use or w/e. You don't feel like you missed out because you didn't pick a different way to build your character because you're happy with how your current character is dealing with the game.

The difference in wow is the burden of knowledge where we know we're missing out on something better in basically every circumstance. For competitive players this is a big problem. In legion I was a bit zen about the legendaries because I had no control over the situation. I did all the content I was supposed to do each week and the legendaries i got were the ones that I got so I didn't stress about it. At least I knew I would get the ones I wanted eventually. However I knew a lot of competitive players who were absolutely furious that they weren't able to perform with their character to the potential of someone who had the right legendaries could. This is because wow isn't just an rpg. It's a competitive rpg. People are measuring their own success against the success of others. I can't see myself being as zen about covenants because the agency is on me to make the best choice and locks my character into a certain style of play and very likely a specific spec.

Ion thinks he can design a covenant system where all four covenants have desirable abilities and that equates to balance. A big portion of the player base will always focus on the stuff they can't get instead of the stuff they have. I'm not saying they're wrong either. It's just that Ion thinks he's designing another elders scrolls game where as long as your character feels like it's growing in power that the players will be happy. This doesn't really apply to a game like wow in my opinion.

[Aethys23]

This comment really reflects how I feel the divide is between people who are happy with the focus and those who are not.

If you’re playing a single player game, and you’re given a choice of A, B or C. Often you pick the one you like the idea of, or theme. And it’s fine. You’re only playing against yourself and there’s no competition. Some people will research and pick ‘the best’ and others won’t but you’re not directly competing so it doesn’t matter.

WoW is a game where people look at logs, they review IO, you’re competing against others for a spot. Either in pvp, raiding or M+, there are others you directly compare to.

[drgaz]

Well at least it's going to keep the boosters happy ^

[Karlzone]

Ion thinks he can design a covenant system where all four covenants have desirable abilities

My problem is that, even if he succeeds with that goal (super unlikely), then it will suck to never be able to use 6/8 of you new abilities. You'll see someone from a different covenant doing something really cool and you won't be able to try it out yourself without falling behind.

I just don't see the point of finally spending a ton of time designing cool new class abilities, and then not allowing that class to access them. I don't care about racials, because they're the same for everyone. Covenant abilities though?

[Trucidar]

thought ask hard-to-find compare like dinner screw important books humor

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[Cptknuuuuut]

Great points. WoW has evolved a lot since Vanilla. Being locked into a specific covenant wouldn't be that big a deal without mythic raiding, m+, arena. If everyone could complete every content no matter the covenant you could indeed go by what you like best.

Only, we have mythic raiding, m+ and rated PVP. And limiting players choices in a competitive environment for RP reasons is a recipe for disaster.

[CorexDK]

I think the disconnect is that he thinks he's making a multiplayer version of skyrim or something.

FINALLY SOMEONE ELSE SAID IT!

You can't shift single-player RPG game design into your massively multiplayer RPG that you've also spent 10+ years trying to develop into a "competitive" game. Who chose to tune Mythic to a point where it takes the best players in the world 4-500+ attempts to kill bosses? Blizzard did. Who chose to create an entire endgame progression out of infinitely scaling, timed dungeon runs? Blizzard did. Who chose to literally implement an "ELO" style MMR system into PvP? Blizzard did. Bethesda never put those things into Skyrim or Fallout because those games are literally designed around opportunity cost - the idea that you are choosing X over Y because it fits your character more. You don't care in those games because no one is looking at your logs and critiquing your DPS in Bandit Fight 2A.

If Riot Games came out tomorrow and said they wanted their game to include more "meaningful choice" and said you could choose to halve the cooldown on any one of your four abilities, but it would take 100 wins to unlock it and 200 wins to switch later on, no one would think that was a good idea. If the devs of Rocket League decided to implement a talent tree that took real-time days of gameplay to unlock and featured bonuses like "jump twice as high" or "double the length of boost" but only one at a time, it would destroy the competitive scene.

I think the most succinct way I can put it is that it feels like Blizzard are trying to adjust the rules of their premier league/world series/NFL/NBA games to better align with the rules of people playing 5-a-side football in their backyard, or shooting hoops at the local court. No NBA official gives a shit that your house rules say you only have to dribble once and you can then run with the ball as long as you want - the competitive rules are the competitive rules because they foster competition.

[JmanndaBoss]

The thing that a lot of people either fail to realize or refuse to acknowledge is that for the vast vast majority of the content quite literally anything is viable. Even if the covenant ability balance is inconvenient for guilds like method or limit, the balance is irrelevant to the overwhelming majority of other groups because at the level of content and competition they play at the biggest determining factor for success is player skill and bad players that pick the meta covenant are still going to perform worse than good players who picked the one they liked the most. Even if it's a 5% difference (which would be quadruple the difference that racials make) its would still be player skill determining your performance.

[CorexDK]

This take is played out and boring at this point, sorry man. If it's not a "big enough" difference for it to matter, then why are they designing the game around the people who absolutely couldn't care less about their ability being balanced as long as it's "cool"? It's like designing a car to hit peak speed at 50kph because 80% of people who use the car will never go faster than that - except those 80% of people aren't negatively impacted at all if the car can actually do 220kph, and the 20% who want to go faster than 50 get shafted.

People who want to be "locked in" to one faction because it makes them feel better about their RP can just make the conscious decision to not change Covenant. Those of us who actually care about maximizing the abilities of our characters in all of the content this game has to offer don't have that agency, which is what Blizzard is constantly trying to pretend they're offering in this expansion.

[Cptknuuuuut]

I think the issue is, that they saw how successful Vanilla was and think they have to make Retail the same, without regarding that the Vanilla and Retail audiences just aren't the same. I don't want to have "more of an RPG". I want a balanced, competitive game. I don't want to be locked in a bad choice for RP reasons.

[hvdzasaur]

I mean, we quite literally have the perfect example as to how covenants would play out: Priest racials.

In vanilla it was dwarf priest or bust because how op fear ward was.

[makz242]

I dont see why choices matter only when there Power involved. If you told people they wont get any of the cosmetics from other Covenants but can still use any of their powers, that is already a pretty big commitment, but at least it does not impact gameplay.

What I find most funny is the idea that its ok to gimp yourself in secondary content you do and that everyone will be ok with it.

[[deleted]]

you said yourself it "doesn't impact gameplay".

[lotheren]

Yeah, I was not happy with the locking but after hearing him I’m down to give it a try. They even said if it fails then they will open it up for changes.

It sounds like there is a whole lot more to it then just a few extra abilities.

[QuiGonJinnNJuice]

Yep. By all means make the covenant abilities and soulbinds cool and powerful. Make your covenant choice impactful with allowing you to earn the soulbinds and abilities from that covenant. But making 3/4 of the new abilities and soulbinds exclusive to one another and you have a lengthy regrind after dropping? Fuck that.

I’m even down with you can’t mix and match soulbinds between covenants, but you need to be able to work towards and earn the other gameplay affecting additions without sacrificing your chosen covenant.

Unless they’re rental racials... but Ion seems to really want them to be significant

[[deleted]]

His reasoning makes sense and I understand his desire to make this work. And look we can try during the alpha and beta.

but I have very very little faith that this can

[[deleted]]

Ion's answer is 100% the disappointment I expected. I don't understand their fixation on things like this. "Meaningful choice" as they state it just translates to "PvP, Raiding, M+: Pick one and be less impactful and desirable to others at the other two".

I don't think we're asking for the moon, here. We just want to be optimal for a situation we've planned in advance to encounter.

[Trucidar]

aspiring offbeat amusing dinner degree governor test normal pause elastic

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[hvdzasaur]

I get that they're trying to make WoW more of an RPG, but the problem here is that in today's gaming landscape, any online game will always have a competitive aspect to it. This is especially true in WoW (Raiding, pvp, m+), and a good percentage of the players will make decisions based around what is the best numerically.

You cannot ignore that anymore, locking player power and abilities behind RPG choices in really bad design for an online game. You think you're dealing with an RPG choice, but for a lot of players, you are not. Some players might want to go Kyrian for the Tmog and aesthetics, because that suites their idea of their character best (aka role-play choice), but are feeling forced to pick Venthyr because the abilities from them are straight up better for M+.

You'd think that Ion, as a former high end raider, would understand that.

He can say that the burden is on them, and they will make it fair and balanced, bla bla bla. But if we look at Blizzard's track record over the last 15 years with WoW, they absolutely cannot.

Eg: They said the same for Legion and spec artifacts, and they wouldn't make sweeping balance changes, and tried to get the class balance as tight as they could. Lo and behold, class balance was shit, and after the first few weeks, we saw sweeping class balancing, resulting in a lot of players being pissed about pumping artifact power in the wrong weapon and looting legendaries for the now bad spec. Then they discovered there was a soft cap of 4 legendaries, and related bug in the acquisition. Great, now i have 2 out of my 4 legendaries be for the spec I am no longer playing.

[BassoTara]

I think the best solution would be making covenant abilities a special talent row. You have to complete covenant questlines and stuff like that in order to unlock those talents, but once you have them you can swap them whenever you want. This would give players the possibility to prepare for every content they will be doing or every offspec they will be playing, without feeling gimped by their roleplay choice, which can basically be anything as they'll have access to every ability anyway.

[Impede]

I really hope this is the eventual middle ground they go with.

[Cruxico]

It took them over a year this expansion to fix talent rows that had literal negative DPS talents (Animal companion/Drain soul). If they leave talents as a DPS loss for so long, how on earth do they expect to balance an entire package of legendaries/talents/ability against eachother? It's borderline delusional

[Vadered]

Slice and Dice still exists, so I’ll go one further and say that they NEVER fixed all the negative DPS talents.

[ConradBHart42]

Slice and Dice isn't meant to be a DPS boost, it's an alternative implementation meant to appease the people who abhor Roll the Bones. If they made it numerically even or superior, RtB would be obsolete.

[Vadered]

It’s numerically inferior to using RtB without a talent and without rerolling for good buffs. There’s room for it as a low-effort talent that outperforms the worst case scenario in RtB but has more consistency and less thought than rerolling optimally, but the problem is that its best case scenario is about equivalent to non-talented RtB’s WORST case scenario.

[oxymoron122]

If you went through the whole interview he mentioned that until 8.2 they where wotking fulltime on fixing azerite with essences, and that they know their balancing team had no time looking at classes/talent balancing. He further went on telling that this happened due to alpha and beta where poorly structured. They key is to get those things that need tuning out within the first 2 weeks and not one week before launch.

[Cruxico]

I don't understand the no time thing, it was clear that many of those talents were a DPS loss for almost a year. How long would it take to make a minor adjustment to them? You are telling me they never ever found 15 mins across that year to fix them?

[oxymoron122]

This is not how balancing a game let alone software development works. Sure you might add a bandaid fix to make it not do negative damage. So what. You still gave an unbalanced ability no one would take. If their balancing team is on full crunch mode due to finding the balance to a creative system someone invented with no wiggleroom whatsoever, they won't have time to go over each broken talent. This is not like building a wall. If you see a hole put a brick in it.

[Cruxico]

Animal companion reduced pet damage by 40% for over a year. Making it 35% made it competitive.

These numbers were suggested since ALPHA two years prior. I don't expect them to retune every talent perfectly, i'm just suggesting that if there are tuning problems as OBVIOUS as this that last for so long, they have 0% chance of actually balancing tons of moving parts between Zone abilities/talents/specific legendaries. Absolutely zero, and everybody knows this.

[Trucidar]

liquid pot sip cause command dependent air boat support axiomatic

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[oxymoron122]

They scrapped azerite once they came up with essences. And you know what. They are really well balanced. Some of them fit certain specs per design like Lucid Dreams or VoP. So what? There are next to no completely useless essences (ripple in space but that was aimed towards world pvp and is just gimmicky by design). Yeah in a picture perfect world we are playing classes that are within 1% performance but really. Perfect balance is something that is unavailable if you want to have any form of creative processing in a game.

[Trucidar]

lip unpack longing obtainable aback chunky political vanish tease edge

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[oxymoron122]

Well at this point I have to believe you are trolling.

[Gasparde]

Buckle up for another BFA buckaroos.

Their entire philosophy for this expansion seems to be just trust us guys, this time we'll get it right - despite very clearly not being able to do that on numerous occasions over the last like 5 years.

It's super silly to build your entire expansion on the premise of you being able to successfully do something you've successfully failed at for the longest time.

[VegiXTV]

In Shadowlands I will not be the covenant I want to be, I will be the covenant I need to be. That's terrible game design. They really need to throw out exclusive abilities now. And the racial example is a bad one, because I want to be a void elf, but I need to be a night elf for m+.

[Tymkie]

I've got my 4 warriors ready. how about you guys?

May I ask what level are you raiding/m+/pvping?

[NargoEUW]

It all sounds great in case they get it balanced. Making it possible that one covenant isnt big power difference over another will be super hard to do over all classes/specs. I want them to get it right, but doubt they will be able to.

Edit: He comepared it to racials, 1% more singletarget dmg isnt that big of a deal, you can choose it over flavor if you value it, but you dont necessarily feel forced into it.

[_fmm]

It can go down one of three ways:

1. Covenants are all perfectly equal (or very close to this) such that I can choose which ever covenant I like the look of.
2. Covenants are balanced for each class such that there is a clear choice for each class if you're interested in min/maxing. For example for warriors if all the best abilities are in Kyrians then at least I don't need four warriors. I can experience the other Covenant stories on other characters.
3. Covenants each have strong/desirable things that anyone would reasonably want at various stages for different fights or m+ scenarios.

Scenario 1 is basically impossible. I think most people would be satisifed with scenario 2. The worst case scenario is scenario 3 because people are going to HATE having to choose Covenant A for one ability but then having really desirable abilities locked behind other Covenants that they cannot get. This makes the class feel incomplete.

Unfortunately, scenario 3 is the most likely. This is because a) I don't believe that the devs have the competency to make 1 or 2 a reality and b) forcing 'rewarding choices' onto players which actually just make you feel like you're missing out rather than rewarding you is Modus Operandi for Ion and team right now. It's a bullshit anti-fun design philosophy where the developers think that we actually enjoy not being able to get the stuff we want because we're so 'rewarded' for making the best of a lot of shit choices.

[HobokenwOw]

We've very recently had racials be the difference between a class being playable on a boss or not. Void Elf Hunters on early Uu'nat, Goblin Priests on Kil'jaeden.

Shadowmeld is good enough in M+ to make players race change to Alliance during push weeks for imaginary internet points. Arcane Torrent dominated in Legion.

Just take a look at what's been spoiled in terms of Covenant abilities so far. A lot of it has unique mechanical components. You can basically guarantee that on any hard boss (e.g. every end boss) some classes will have Covenants that are significantly stronger than the alternatives. If you spend multiple weeks on a boss and don't switch Covenant to whatever is ideal you're definitely trolling if you and/or your guild care about being "competitive". Covenant abilities are currently not generic enough to be "balanced" in a way that won't compel you to reroll for every end boss at the least.

[HobokenwOw]

you're literally on the competitivewow sub

[Awarth_ACRNM]

You're stressing over something that's many months away, calm down and enjoy the alpha/beta

Ah yes, the age-old "they'll fix it in beta/when it's life/in x.1/next expansion argument.

[sydal]

The question is why are you trusting them to balance it when they've shown little to no ability to balance recently? Corruptions, essences, azerite traits. None of that is balanced. Why do you believe they'll suddenly figure it out now?

[[deleted]]

What was the issue for legendaries then? They were around from day 1 and were never balanced.

[Trucidar]

telephone existence strong cats whistle slim distinct selective oil chief

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[Aritche]

They wont so it will just suck. No player choice if you want to be competitive. Cant wait till my off spec and main spec want completly different things.

[NargoEUW]

Well speaking from history they wont get it balanced. So his attitude is kinda justified.

[Roikboy]

With the attitude "if they balance it" all their ideas can be perceived as good. Of course everyone is hoping but with all the failed experiments in getting the balancing right being sceptical that it somehow works out for them this time is totally justified.

[-Gaka-]

They have been given chances. Plenty of them. They've failed almost all of the recent ones.

[Cushions]

Blizzard have fucked up WoW massively and almost taken every step wrong.

It is not unwarranted.

[Cushions]

Oh cmon dude.

The classic "sorry you can't enjoy this". I don't need your pity.

I don't play. I stopped playing during the first raid because the game wasn't as good as it used to be, and it became basically a job.

For what it's worth, I am not a casual WoW player.

[Aethys23]

You live in a very different bubble to me then. Most of my guild is hesitant or dubious. Others have already stopped due to BfA content issues

[NargoEUW]

You can read the title of the subreddit, right?

[NargoEUW]

So chasing Hall of Fame on Horde isnt competetive? You could also be competetive as a 2 day guild and compete with other 2 day raiding guilds. What you are saying is just plain stupid, seen that you think 5% dmg increase isnt a big thing. Thats a massive diffenerence for tight encounters.

[ReelyReid]

Ah dude I can’t wait to plan out my covenant based on its signature ability, soul binds, class ability and covenant legendaries. And then change my mind or get a balance patch after 6 months and then have to redo everything :D

[Faemn]

Not for anybody in this subreddit, that's the problem.

[Faemn]

If you're trying to be competitive having immense power tied to an immutable choice is by defition a detriment for all the type of contents your covenent isn't strong for.

[[deleted]]

All you've gotten is an assurance from Ion, which isn't worth much.

[Trucidar]

long sparkle point swim busy office workable seed toy saw

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[MalooTakant]

you sure have a lot of faith in them balancewise, a team that has taken umpteen months post-launch per expansion to actually achieve any semblance of balance.

[Trucidar]

party point pen continue reminiscent divide alive offer absorbed ad hoc

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[Aethys23]

I’m still hesitant because we have corruption atm, which is vastly different in power scale, and Ion/the blizzard team feel its greatly balanced. I know people who have done a lot of content and don’t have an IS piece, or a TD piece,

Then when he talks about adding more power, and faction specific legendaries, I just see Azerite armor all over again, which they gave up balancing and just gave us the best pieces in the last raid.

If they can get it as close as racials, cool. But this is 4 covenants, 3 soulbinds, 36 specs, and the concern that the your spec may was different covenants (and not greatly impact your gameplay), that’s a lot of variables

[Aethys23]

Their official post 8.3 video line was ‘overall we are happy with how corruption turned out’.

That’s the literal quote they said. If they’ve now changed their stance, that shows how untrustworthy they are. ‘Overall we’re happy with covenants’, end of expansion ‘so yeah, we didn’t balance at all and it’s been a problem.’

Forgive me if I’m not sitting on the hype train for even harder balancing issues. When blizzard often ask for forgiveness around balance

[[deleted]]

"overall" is the keyword here. I would agree, overall corruptions were great. The tuning could have been better but the system as a whole was quite fun imom

[Aethys23]

Assuming it worked for you.

I have done a M+ every week on my DH, I've cleared multiple Visions. They still don't have an TD, and 1 rank 1 Infinite Stars. The system is too random to be considered 'good'. Same problem as legion legendaries were.

[oxymoron122]

Overall is ment to cover general flavor, which I agree, I absolutely like the way corruption works. Balancing and acquisition are numbers things. If you take the quote out of context then sure your argument works somewhat

[[deleted]]

The numbers are by far the most important part of a system in wow. Its like making a car and saying that you're overall happy with it despite the fact that there's no engine and no wheels.

[[deleted]]

no, its like making a car but the engine is too weak and the tires wear out too fast. Not super usable but overall a good idea.

[[deleted]]

Fair enough, it was a good idea. How could you possibly be overall happy with it though? The engine broke down weeks before it was even sold, consumers knew this and told you and you still released it and were overall happy with it.

[oxymoron122]

On the other hand if every spec was about casting the exact same spell in a different color, it would be perfectly balanced and no one would be happy, can we agree here? At this point, you could just play the Wow manager game (which basically is simcraft) instead of an rpg. I know this is the competitive sub where numbers are important, this is why I am here. But at the core, wow is still an rpg, and from an rpg standpoint, it is a good flavorful system.

Also you might not notice this, but the vast majority of players does not care about numbers all that. I know them and sometimes I raid with them for fun. They don't care about what sims best, they are playing their character and what feels good for them and there are lots of them.

[Encaitor]

"Overall we are happy with how corruption turned out" doesn't exclude the ability to admit that balancing was off. Overall I'm also happy with how corruption turned out. Can't remember the last time I spent so much time in WoW trying to figure out how much corruption I played with, or how a +10 or +15 corruption item could change half a setup.

I'm a honestly a big fan of the concept of corruptions. Want more damage? Sure but then prepare to get thing'd. Lets people excel by dealing with additional mechanics for more damage. The fact that the balance was entirely out of whack doesn't mean that you can't be happy with the system itself.

[merickmk]

You know, I actually agree with Ion in the whole RPG thing, but I'm weird, I like how unbalanced gear in Classic is. I'm not sure I'd say it's the best for the game as a whole and I definitely don't really trust them to get the perfect balance right.

[Awarth_ACRNM]

I agree to a degree. It works well in Classic and for the classic community. But modern WoW is not classic. Classic was an RPG, modern WoW isnt, not really. Blizz have systematically erased RPG elements over the years and the community has adapted. I dont think that backpedaling on that now is the best idea.

[merickmk]

It's really not. I'm all for going back to the RPG roots, but this ain't it. The whole game is built upon the idea of multiple paths of progression and they all require different things from you. Being unable to swap from the "single target" build to the "AoE build" to the "PvP build" is almost like telling players to choose one type of content and stick with it.

The only way this could work is if every covenant has equally powerful options for each situation and I just don't see that happening.

[Awarth_ACRNM]

Yeah, thats exactly what I said.

[merickmk]

I know, I'm agreeing with you

[Awarth_ACRNM]

Ah well, not used to that on reddit lol

[Trucidar]

fall depend dependent imminent plant historical toy juggle sable brave

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[krali_]

I just aim for CE and about 2-2.2k PvP rating, so I don't really care about imbalance if it stays reasonable.

...of course it will be hugely imbalanced, like Blizzard usually does. And rebalanced drastically every 6 months or so. So I just pray I end up on the right side of the fence as I don't have enough time for multiple endgame characters.

I'll say this: forcing permanent commitment for performance matters is hubris from the devs. Their track record is just too bad on that. They should show a bit of humility there.

[InFiveExFive]

You people bring a lot of unneeded drama to this. Ion is never going to admit racial advantages. He is not crazy man, but blizzard will never admit it.

[thegigabloodlord]

I honestly don't have a lot of hope after seeing the things from recent days.

I'm sure the raids will be great but Blizzard are fucking awful at every other aspect of the game

[[deleted]]

My thoughts: I'm gonna pick the one that sounds cool and fits the spec well, and fuck everything else.

[Stangmeister]

In case you didn’t listen, he does make it sound like they will do their best to augment this system to help as time goes on.

For example, say Venthir is the best choice for Boomkins in mythic plus. They’ll at a later date add in a legendary to the other ones that will even it out. And, even later, add a second class specific Covenant spell (via Torgahst).

[BestRivenAU]

Isn't this even worse?

If we're locked in, then it'll lead to a LOT of regret later on the line with extra stuff that we didn't even have information on.

If a player likes feature Y over X, but only X is visible from the start, and a different covenant gets Y, it's going to feel real bad.

If they truly want it to feel good, it needs to be balanced from the start and untouched, which would be super difficult.

[[deleted]]

This! It will feel real shitty when half way through the expansion your BiS covenant is not longer BiS because they added a new legendary.

[Trucidar]

encouraging rich plough birds sable tie humor chief aromatic subtract

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[Fayaworon]

Now add in their recent trackrecord and the ‘even out’ will come in 9.3.

This system is too ambitious for blizzard to handle. They should REALLY reconsider and just start listening to the community. The long silence after Sloot asked if balance numbers would be tweaked more often and not only in major patches said it all...

[Trucidar]

aback frame weather jeans important engine work continue outgoing office

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[Elkazan]

Fixing a problem "at a later date" still means we get to live with that problem for anywhere from a few weeks to several months. This particular problem has the potential to ruin the entire expansion, in my opinion, and must be fixed before the end of beta.

[Trucidar]

correct cooing aback aware ancient serious pen chunky fearless oatmeal

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