Covenants are not Meaningful choice/Talents are

[DemonDays]

People are relying on Blizzard Balance

But is it acceptable to Nerf an Ability after players have already made their choice of covenant cuz of that ability?

Would not that be unfair and pushes you to change which has alot of restrictions ...

Balances should occur before launch ONLY

I'd be more inclined to let Ion have the win here and do Covenants the way he wants to do them if we didn't have history showing us that they're absolutely fucking awful at balancing.

They have a ZERO PERCENT success rate balancing these types of systems. Artifacts, Legiondaries, Azerite, Essences, Corruption etc.


Also - Talents.

Clean your fucking room Blizzard. Balance Talents and then we can talk about your big grand scheme for Covenants balancing. You fuckwits.

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Can't really disagree with the core message of "why are they bothering with gimmicky shit when the core systems still have so many issues?" Every class has at least a few talents that aren't used in ANY content.

That's the core message of the fight against Covenants.


Blizzard has proven time and time again that they are absolutely fucking awful at balance. Not only that - but they also don't seem to give a shit either. Sometimes leaving things in an unbalanced state for years at a time.


This is the same company that can't even be bothered to balance CORE SYSTEMS like Talents that are hard baked into their Class Design. Yet they want us to believe they will balance Covenants and the 3-4 systems that come with them?


What a fucking joke.

[Apphia*]

I wouldn't like being able to switch covenants. But we should be able to collect to other covenant abilities by doing a questline(s) for another covenant. So they act as another talent row or even 2 talent rows one for the signature ability and one for class ability.

Apart from character power I also would hate to miss out on some fun (or not fun) new abilities. So we don't have to switch covenant and make the covenant cosmetic, story, daily etc but just let the players be able to work for the other abilities.

They'd still have to try and balance soulbinds but that should be easier then balancing all the abilities along with them.

[Segus1992]

I am not not being obtuse, i am answering what you said how you said it. the idea that didnt ever have to pick one trait should not be up for discussion? of course you to pik 1 trait remember thunderous blast? for hunters in 8.2 8.3 had to pick dance of death and primal instints, every class every spec had traits they HAD to pick to do well, due to the sheer output of them. how can you possible say thats not up for discussion that you never had to pick 1 trait, that is so demonstrably false and any1 who has played BFA at even a heroic level would know this.

I guess you're simply not understanding the difference then. The reason you took Thunderous Blast was because you had the choice to ignore the shitty ones. If you didn't, there'd be a lot more pressure to balance those options as well. I'm not sure how to explain that in a more clear manner, so if you still don't understand I'm sorry.

to the next point

if as you suggust blizzard takes one of 2 routes, route one being neutering venthyr teleports and interesting abilities like this or route 2, introduce a way to switch covenants easier.

than you are proving my point. it is unbalancable, if you must take something out becuase it cannot be balanced, it is unbalancable, if you have to allow people to switch covenants at will, you do that because they made it unbalancable, i'm not sure what point you think you are making, but your not making it.

Are you just not understanding the words maybe? Yes, the Venthyr teleport is problematic, but to say the SYSTEM is unbalanceable is ridiculous. The teleport OR the other base abilities have to change, that's obvious. But if we can find a happy medium for the base abilities (which are way more problematic than the class ones), the rest of the balancing is a lot easier.

Bottom line: the Covenant abilities do not HAVE to be easily swappable. It's POSSIBLE to strike a balance where they actually do what Blizzard wants.

[Shakou]

its not a dumb thread when people voice concerns of balance.

Nobody said balance isn't a serious concern, but this is not that thread. This is just a dumb thread of the uniformed complaining about things they didn't even really look into.

[Sevarin]

i actually quite love mirror images, its just bad. i was sad when they turned it into a garbage talent from a garbage spell that was hardly a dps increase, but dropped my threat and made it so i could solo some nearly impossible to solo otherwise mobs.

[glowpipe]

How is talents a meaningful choice when it doesn't matter at all what you pick ? you can just go and change talent on a whim. No restrictions what so ever

[Wangming]

That is only true if the things you do in game are either utterly trivial (WQs) or you are just ignorant and don't care about it yourself because you have absolutely no aspirations.

Or your aspiration lie elsewhere? Like for example outside of the game?

But again, you yourself made choices without anyone forcing you to do that, and you are happy with it. So I don't really get what point you are trying to make.

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How is talents a meaningful choice when it doesn't matter at all what you pick ? you can just go and change talent on a whim. No restrictions what so ever

Because dogshit balance changes with every major patch and people at the top of the DPS list want to stay that way so if they can't respec every few months, shit hits the fan.

[rayvio]

talents are purely gameplay. covenants are also a story choice so I'd say that's a lot more meaningful
whether they'll be done well is something I'm less sure of, but hopefully we'll be pleasantly surprised

[Amariw]

The easier it is to change or revert something, the less meaningful it is. So talents are really the exact opposite of meaningful.

quoting this random reply that caught my eye because i feel its a misconception. you CAN have meaningful choice with easily switchable talents, and the OP demonstrates exactly how. Its by having multiple talents in the same row that neither of which is the definitive winner in a given scenario. Its fine if sometimes there's an easy decision, but if at other times the decision isn't easy, there's fun in that. You decide based on your skill, playstyle, preferences and the like, and you give it thought as much as you want to. That's a meaningful choice, BECAUSE you can change it easily the next time you attempt the same challenge. Its meaningful not because you're punished for choosing, but because the choices can all be good in different ways.

Again, this isn't possible to do in ALL scenarios (some talents will be clear cut winners in most arena matches), all it takes is that SOMETIMES the choice isn't clear cut.

How is talents a meaningful choice when it doesn't matter at all what you pick ? you can just go and change talent on a whim. No restrictions what so ever

It matters for that specific fight. If two talents or more are good choice for a specific encounter/pvp fight/m+ round/outdoors, then you have to think which you prefer and why. It's hard to strike that level of balance and i don't expect blizzard to be able to do it on every talent tier, but they can do it on some, and that's enough.

[Cosmic Janitor]

So I don't really get what point you are trying to make.

My point is expressed again in my last paragraph, in case it didn't become clear before: It's dishonest to say it doesn't matter or won't affect anyone besides the high-end. Unless the things you do ingame are absolutely trivial you will find people that care about not being the absolute worst. As much as I sometimes wish the game was SP, it is MP in reality and many people don't just want to be a burden on others.

[Wangming]

My point is expressed again in my last paragraph, in case it didn't become clear before: It's dishonest to say it doesn't matter or won't affect anyone besides the high-end. Unless the things you do ingame are absolutely trivial you will find people that care about not being the absolute worst. As much as I sometimes wish the game was SP, it is MP in reality and many people don't just want to be a burden on others.

Fair enough. My point that it is still a choice those players make and nobody is actually forcing them to do so. It is up to them how close they want to follow the meta if at all. But those who want to be in the top have to follow it to the letter so for them there is no choice and there never was.

[Echocho]

Talents are far from a meaningful choice since you can change them for every single pull. It's the definition of eating your cake and having it too.

[goldlock]

I mean they are a meaningful choice in terms of picking wrong will handicap you... I am not sold on the idea that permanence is needed for a choice to matter but there isn't really any arguing it ISN"T a meaningful choice.

You can argue if it is good for the game or not very easily though.

[Echocho]

I mean they are a meaningful choice in terms of picking wrong will handicap you... I am not sold on the idea that permanence is needed for a choice to matter but there isn't really any arguing it ISN"T a meaningful choice.

You can argue if it is good for the game or not very easily though.

The world first raiders seem to disagree. It seems to me that they only consider a choice meaningful if you can undo it and choose something else 5 minutes later.

[goldlock]

The world first raiders seem to disagree. It seems to me that they only consider a choice meaningful if you can undo it and choose something else 5 minutes later.

I mean the disagreement isn't so much over if it isn't a meaningful choice or not but rather does the system make sense... hurling yourself over a over pass because the closest vending machine is out of a coke zero is a meaningful choice. It doesn't make it a sensible one.

For high end players there won't be much of a choice beyond do I want to succeed in my content or fail at it? Then applying talent points appropriately or covenant or whatever have you.

I would argue this isn't a good system and only handicaps and stifles the game but I won't pretend it isn't a choice.

[MasterOfNone]

Nobody said balance isn't a serious concern, but this is not that thread. This is just a dumb thread of the uniformed complaining about things they didn't even really look into.

balance is 100% relevant to the choices people make. how do you not understand this?

[Th3Scourge]

Why the hell did they not just create a new talent row for this expansion, and just have the covenants provide the generic ability?

Problem fucking solved. Blizzard think they are smarter than they are. This is not going to work, and because of their stubbornness, we'll have to go through this shit for 1-2 patch cycles before they back down and admit they were wrong

Like always

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Oh no, they absolutely are, if only because of how much comes with them.
Really not a logical position to start on.

[God Save The King]

A 'choice' that can be freely changed without penalty and at any time is not a choice. It's more of a checkbox for an encounter, along with eating your food, flasking, popping your augment rune. Talents have no real meaning outside the ~2 rows of utility talents each class has. Even those are trivial choices given how easy they are to change.

In order for a choice to have meaning it needs consequence. It's fine to argue that you want no meaningful choice in WoW outside your class, but to pretend that choices such as spec or gems or enchants or talents are at all meaningful is disingenuous. I'm personally against meaningful choice in the game. I think an MMO where dps meters, logs, raider.io, and other metrics exist cannot have any real meaningful choice and still be successful. If there's any meaning behind a choice, then you are forcing people to potentially pick something suboptimal, especially if you intend to have balance passes at it. That is where the frustration over class balance comes from. People tend not to complain too much about other unbalanced aspects of the game since to correct them is trivial. No one minds that most of the enchants are garbage and there's only one viable option for food & flask. There is some grumbling about talents but that has less to do with choice and more to do with play style (many of the 'fun' talents are suboptimal, as an example).

Make covenants cosmetic, remove any meaning from the choice, and add the power systems into something easy to change like essences.

[Sunslayer]

i feel the problem between players of skill and blizzard, along with casuals. is that they have different meanings for what is a meaningful choice

Camp A, looks at everything and makes a choice based off of informed decisions, from sims and testing and so make a choice for whats good for what content they are doing

Camp B doesnt care about being good, they just want to play whatever they want, however they want and not be penalized for making that choice.

The issue i have between the 2, is blizzard tunes their content around how Camp A plays, but then implements systems based off of camp B's style, which makes camp A suffer.

The reality is camp B doesn't do the same content camp A is doing, so they wont be penalised if they allow choice, but camp A WILL suffer when things are locked behind camp B

Sure camp B may have a harder time trying to pug content, but then again they should. this is an MMO RPG, not a single player RPG. if you choose to be not just be "sub optimal" but to do around 40% less then others, then you dont deserve to be skulldragged through that content by players who are willing to do what is required.

the long and short of it is. if blizzard wish to implement systems around camp B's position, then they need to tune the content to that ideology. you cant tune it to require 100% optimisation and then demand people not be optimised in order to do the content

Wow, exceptionally articulated. I wish Blizzard would realize this. Blizzard can't seem to get out of its own way. WoW was way more popular when things were recognizable and simpler. No, there always so many systems and Blizzard has shown they are not any where near up to the task of balancing all of their systems.
They constantly develope themselves into a corner.