Shadowlands Delayed -- What should be changed?

[Mightytasty]

Look, it might be a reason, but it's not the major reason for the delay, you can count on that. If it was only about some raid bosses, they wouldn't delay the launch. Per what beta testers are reporting, there are a lot other major issues. Like class abilities that just don't work or don't work properly, bugged quests that can stop character progress, because the questing is linear in shadowlands, etc. With such things being at a broken or bugged state, releasing would be like shooting yourself on the foot.

Having said that, when there are bugs that prevent character progression or playing your class, it's out of place imo to believe that covenant outrage or a couple of raid bosses are the major reasons for delaying Shadowlands.

About balance, I am pretty sure they haven't reached the point to get seriously involved with balancing classes. I mean, if you have classes with abilities that just don't work and covenant abilities that are not set somewhat in stone yet, it's not really worth it to put serious resources into balancing classes. You can just do some rough balance. Anything more would probably end up being a waste of resources, because after those abilities start working and those covenant abilities are finalized, you'd have to balance again and probably a lot of the balancing work done in earlier stages would be scrapped.

So, imho, the logical thing to do is fix major issues, especially those that block character progression, fix class abilities, somewhat finalize the nature of covenant abilities, then balance classes and covenant abilities. Then fix everything else.

I am not saying that having a covenant ability do 1/3 of your damage or having classes do 70% more than other classes are not serious issues, I am just saying that them being involved with fixing other major issues (broken quests, broken class abilities, etc) is the cause of such major imbalances.

Finally, I believe it will be hard to even fix major issues and balance classes till December, so I wouldn't expect any reworks at this stage.

I didnt say the delay was because of the raid bosses (maybe you meant to replay to that other guy?). It's because the classes are broken.

[kaminaris]

I mean in the past yes... so is a broken mess of poorly thought out interconnected systems though. Unless they actually grit their teeth and hashtag pull the rip cord it is going to take considerable time. Unless they utterly crush conduits at the very least.

Shadowlands is like the tale of Icarus. Blizzard tried to soar above min maxing only for their balance to be so terrible they crashed into the sea.

Nah, that is irrelevant. Just bugs are time consuming and hopefully they will keep all the system.

[Krakan]

Nah, that is irrelevant. Just bugs are time consuming and hopefully they will keep all the system.

Flat percentage gains are not bugs. I am not talking about abilities but conduits.

[Enitzu]

Sorry, but this is not broken and you shouldn't consider it as broken. Not ideal, but not broken. Broken is if something bugs and you can't progress. And it's pretty much linear leveling this time around, so you can't just ignore that bugged quest, if it stops your story progress, and go quest in some other zone. Few days ago I "heard" that there are some quests that can bug out like this, but don't know details.

True. I should correct my statement. It's not the oridinary leveling path. At no point in any expansion launch have you ever needed to loremaster the expansion to hit level cap. Yet so far, SL can't reach cap even with loremaster. While it's not 'broken', it's not correct.

I also heard rumors about progression quests in a couple zones that supposedly bug out. Can't confirm though

[Sezh]

Surely not, because after the first few months they will discover that one class is OP as hell and out comes the nerfs. No point delaying it until we've at least proven the unbalance ourselves

Surely yes. People don't seem to understand the scale of imbalance on the beta prior to the decision to postpone. People think other tiers where one class was a few percentages above the last was horrible balance. Here we had classes and covenant abilities outperforming others by as much as 100%. They postponed partly for balancing reasons.

[orsraunia]

Surely yes. People don't seem to understand the scale of imbalance on the beta prior to the decision to postpone. People think other tiers where one class was a few percentages above the last was horrible balance. Here we had classes and covenant abilities outperforming others by as much as 100%. They postponed partly for balancing reasons.

We are all saying mostly the same thing, just in other words. All these issues we are describing (major imbalances, broken quests, broken class abilities, etc.) indicate the same thing --> Game is not finished and wouldn't be finished by Oct 27.

So, even when Bliz is saying that they delayed because they needed extra time to polish the game, the feedback indicates that they mostly needed time to finish it. Having said that, I don't have high hopes about getting a polished game if it releases in 2020, but maybe (and hopefully) I am wrong.

I am not trying to be negative, just realistic. In my own opinion, Blizzard delaying Shadowlands doesn't have to do with them going back to being the "old" blizzard of higher quality standards, but because the expansion will not be ready for release by Oct 27 not even by the lower quality standards of "nowadays" Blizzard.

So, I don't think it's about them making the right decision, one worthy of high praise, but it's about them making the only reasonable decision. So, still a good decision, but nothing worthy of high praise imo. Just a *nod* and an *ok* is a sufficient response to them delaying the game.

[kaminaris]

Flat percentage gains are not bugs. I am not talking about abilities but conduits.

Flat percentage gains are numbers, can be changed quite easily compared to finding and fixing bugs. It's literally irrelevant.

[Nyel]

By broken leveling do you mean too fast or too slow or? Because is it is stupid fast say a few 2-4 hours I am all for that.

Broken in the sense of you're not getting to 60 with the main quest. You constantly have to do side quests as well, the problem here is, if you don't do this from the start you can't go back to earlier side quests because they've become grey and don't offer xp anymore. You're getting to around 57-58 and then you have to do open side quests (if there are any left), grind mobs or dungeons.

[Nevcairiel]

Broken in the sense of you're not getting to 60 with the main quest. You constantly have to do side quests as well, the problem here is, if you don't do this from the start you can't go back to earlier side quests because they've become grey and don't offer xp anymore. You're getting to around 57-58 and then you have to do open side quests (if there are any left), grind mobs or dungeons.

Doing only the "main" quests would never have gotten you to max level in any other expansion either (at least pre-scaling). The only difference is that these so-called main quests are now marked as such, so people can actually differentiate. Don't skip a bunch of quests the game offers you. Your goal is to level, not to finish the story as fast as possible.

[Krakan]

Flat percentage gains are numbers, can be changed quite easily compared to finding and fixing bugs. It's literally irrelevant.

Except they can't because changing them for one spec changes them for 36 others.

I can get not wanting to understand the systems and treating the game as a single player experience but please stop sprouting nonsense on systems you clearly dont understand.

[kaminaris]

Except they can't because changing them for one spec changes them for 36 others.

I can get not wanting to understand the systems and treating the game as a single player experience but please stop sprouting nonsense on systems you clearly dont understand.

Dude, have you actually done the math? You accuse me of not understanding obvious systems that are absolutely irrelevant when it comes to delay of SL while you don't understand the nature of those system at all?

I repeat, balance of those systems would absolutely fucking not cause a delay in release. Because no matter how complex those math equations would be, blizzard doesn't ever care that much about balance. So stop dreaming.

General issues and bugs are what caused delay. Period.

[Krakan]

Dude, have you actually done the math? You accuse me of not understanding obvious systems that are absolutely irrelevant when it comes to delay of SL while you don't understand the nature of those system at all?

I repeat, balance of those systems would absolutely fucking not cause a delay in release. Because no matter how complex those math equations would be, blizzard doesn't ever care that much about balance. So stop dreaming.

General issues and bugs are what caused delay. Period.

Balancing the systems was the given reason for the delay in the post from blizzard announcing the delay.

[orsraunia]

Balancing the systems was the given reason for the delay in the post from blizzard announcing the delay.

Yeah, because they'd love to say "we have to delay the game, because some things are still broken or unfinished". That would inspire great confidence.

Anyway, what beta testers are reporting tells a different story, than what Bliz is saying. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle, maybe not... Makes little difference in the end anyway, game is delayed and that's that.

[Krakan]

Yeah, because they'd love to say "we have to delay the game, because some things are still broken or unfinished". That would inspire great confidence.

Anyway, what beta testers are reporting tells a different story, than what Bliz is saying. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle, maybe not... Makes little difference in the end anyway, game is delayed and that's that.

I mean I don't really get the point of the new systems.

Conduits are glyphs. They are passive modifications on existing abilities and your not going to change them barring a few specific examples were one needs X amount of stats to be good. Why have them in the game at all?

I admit I miss pre legion wow were if you wanted to experience the game on a different class you just had to gear that class up not grind twenty plus hours of trivial content to then gear up like we have now.

It feels like these systems are designed around slowing down the top 50 guilds in the world rather then offering a positive experience for anyone else.

My biggest gripe with covenants and the systems behind them in general is that I don't want to cripple my character in different aspects of the game to feel special in one. Right now if you want to push ce and glad you need two characters. You simply wont get both on one without a hard carry.

[Caerrona]

Yeah, because they'd love to say "we have to delay the game, because some things are still broken or unfinished". That would inspire great confidence.

Anyway, what beta testers are reporting tells a different story, than what Bliz is saying. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle, maybe not... Makes little difference in the end anyway, game is delayed and that's that.

Can't speak for the leveling as I have no idea but since the wipe I have encountered a total of 1 bug on 12 characters I have made (chick in the maw phases out and you just run out and back in to fix it.)

Mw Monk-nf/kyrian/venthyr
Disc - kyrian/nf/venthyr
R shaman - venthyr/kyrian/necro
R druid - nf/kyrian/venthyr

No problems with covenant quests that previously had issues. No problems with dungeons that previously had issues. No problems with wq/events that previously had issues.

Beta forums seem calmed down on the omg sky is falling aswell. I do believe as blizzard stated they did the wipe cuz most peoples characters were stuck broken.

Couple fights in the raid are giving them issues and some classes are out of whack. Seems (to me) like its balancing/tuning/maw shit.

[orsraunia]

I mean I don't really get the point of the new systems.

Conduits are glyphs. They are passive modifications on existing abilities and your not going to change them barring a few specific examples were one needs X amount of stats to be good. Why have them in the game at all?

I admit I miss pre legion wow were if you wanted to experience the game on a different class you just had to gear that class up not grind twenty plus hours of trivial content to then gear up like we have now.

It feels like these systems are designed around slowing down the top 50 guilds in the world rather then offering a positive experience for anyone else.

My biggest gripe with covenants and the systems behind them in general is that I don't want to cripple my character in different aspects of the game to feel special in one. Right now if you want to push ce and glad you need two characters. You simply wont get both on one without a hard carry.

I believe they wanted to force characters to feel "different", on an attempt to alleviate some people's whining about all characters of a given class feeling exactly the same. Then they got overwhelmed with negative feedback from players, because this is a game and ofc having a fun experience is way more important than characters feeling different... So, they are somewhere in the middle now. Like with moving from 1w CD on conduits to this new system, of having like 7 conduit changes per week, which is rather pointless tbh, because it accomplishes nothing, and thus I expect them to cave in and totally remove the CD of conduits in the future. Which will be a good thing.

Even changing covenants once per week is pointless imo. Since it's not like a 2-3w CD, it's pointless imo. And because removing the CD altogether would be a joke in the case of covenants, I believe the best thing would be to decouple covenant class abilities from covenants and just leave the single covenant ability. Will they do it? Who knows...

Can't speak for the leveling as I have no idea but since the wipe I have encountered a total of 1 bug on 12 characters I have made (chick in the maw phases out and you just run out and back in to fix it.)

Mw Monk-nf/kyrian/venthyr
Disc - kyrian/nf/venthyr
R shaman - venthyr/kyrian/necro
R druid - nf/kyrian/venthyr

No problems with covenant quests that previously had issues. No problems with dungeons that previously had issues. No problems with wq/events that previously had issues.

Beta forums seem calmed down on the omg sky is falling aswell. I do believe as blizzard stated they did the wipe cuz most peoples characters were stuck broken.

Couple fights in the raid are giving them issues and some classes are out of whack. Seems (to me) like its balancing/tuning/maw shit.

That's good news. What about class abilities that weren't working, like warrior's massacre and enough monk abilities, per what people in beta were reporting?

[Caerrona]

I believe they wanted to force characters to feel "different", on an attempt to alleviate some people's whining about all characters of a given class feeling exactly the same. Then they got overwhelmed with negative feedback from players, because this is a game and ofc having a fun experience is way more important than characters feeling different... So, they are somewhere in the middle now. Like with moving from 1w CD on conduits to this new system, of having like 7 conduit changes per week, which is rather pointless tbh, because it accomplishes nothing, and thus I expect them to cave in and totally remove the CD of conduits in the future.

Even changing covenants once per week is pointless imo. Since they didn't enforce a bigger CD, 1 week is pointless. And because removing the CD altogether would be a joke, I believe the best thing would be to decouple class abilities from covenants. Will they do it? Who knows...



That's good news. What about class abilities that weren't working, like warrior's massacre and enough monk abilities, per what people in beta were reporting?

No clue about warrior and ww as i know they had previous issues. I mained a monk from half way through mop-to end of wod and not once have I swapped to ww so I cant comment on that lol but mw is fine I know that.

I really think a lot of people don't know why they did the wipe and still assume its still this giant explosion of bugs. When it was just broken shit getting layered ontop of eachother. Like there was a bug with a kyrian soulbind that was fixed a couple days after it showed up and people were complaining about it up until the wipe (there character was busted.)

I know some things are still not working correctly (as it is still beta) but in general (from what I have seen testing covenants/dungeons and quests. Was at 12+ days /played before wipe. Probably closer to 20 now.) Its 100x better.

[orsraunia]

I know some things are still not working correctly (as it is still beta) but in general (from what I have seen testing covenants/dungeons and quests. Was at 12+ days /played before wipe. Probably closer to 20 now.) Its 100x better.

So, it's rather possible we get a 2020 launch that is not a shitshow. That's good news.

Now, if they can decide to care less about saving face and more about building a fun game, that would be great. Like removing conduit CD totally and decoupling class abilities from covenants, so it's easier to balance and less of a hassle to play...

It will still be a meaningful choice, it will just not affect player power so much.

[Caerrona]

So, it's rather possible we get a 2020 launch that is not a shitshow. That's good news.

Now, if they can decide to care less about saving face and more about building a fun game, that would be great. Like removing conduit CD totally and decoupling class abilities from covenants, so it's easier to balance and less of a hassle to play...

I understand the logic for covenant abilities and they are even going as far as obliterating them all to make it feel less "bad" for people that have issues with it. (I do not)

But the conduit lock has no logic behind it (the charges are better) but all they needed to do is have 1 intersection and make it a potency (so you can put your covenant one there and take different paths)

As an example

Trait trait
Conduit conduit
Conduit (potency)
Trait trait
Conduit conduit
Trait

Obviously there 3 choices and whatever, it was quick as i am at work. But atleast this would make it so there is never more than one intersection and it only be a potency. To alleviate "some" of the issues. Like i said you could slap your covenant one in there and it would work for all 3 specs. Conduits should be unlocked though.

[Krakan]

I believe they wanted to force characters to feel "different", on an attempt to alleviate some people's whining about all characters of a given class feeling exactly the same. Then they got overwhelmed with negative feedback from players, because this is a game and ofc having a fun experience is way more important than characters feeling different... So, they are somewhere in the middle now. Like with moving from 1w CD on conduits to this new system, of having like 7 conduit changes per week, which is rather pointless tbh, because it accomplishes nothing, and thus I expect them to cave in and totally remove the CD of conduits in the future. Which will be a good thing.

Even changing covenants once per week is pointless imo. Since it's not like a 2-3w CD, it's pointless imo. And because removing the CD altogether would be a joke in the case of covenants, I believe the best thing would be to decouple covenant class abilities from covenants and just leave the single covenant ability. Will they do it? Who knows...



That's good news. What about class abilities that weren't working, like warrior's massacre and enough monk abilities, per what people in beta were reporting?

I don't really know what drives blizzard decision making if I'm honest. In interviews they said they want characters to feel more unique but the examples they used for how they achieved that in the past were all fairly difficult to obtain extremely powerful trinkets and weapons.

You can't really sub out a powerful reward obtained from deterministic content with simple base line passives. The two have drastically different effects.

Overall I'm annoyed by the new systems as I enjoy being highly competitive in both pve and pvp and now plan to run 2 of the same class in each to accomplish that. I'm just going to look at sims to pick my bis covenant and conduits for each type of content like the other 90% of wow players will do ( honestly even in classic and tbc people all picked the same talents barring maybe 2-3 utility points)

It's going to be a set it and forget I'm more disappointed so much time was wasted on such a poorly conceived system. Imagine how many resources could of been saved if covenants were only cosmetic?