9.0 General Discussion

[Edward Wu]

Kinda hoping they buff Demo by launch as that's what I play on my alt Warlock.

[Gorsameth]

No swappable covenants. Tantrums incoming.

Nothing in that dev update is new tho. That's how covenants have worked for a while now.

Their reasoning is pretty bad tho, "define your character and set yourself apart" by making every Holy Paladin Kyrian because it directly complements the main spec gameplay in a fundamental way that isn't even about numbers.

its just dumb.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Nothing in that dev update is new tho. That's how covenants have worked for a while now.

Their reasoning is pretty bad tho, "define your character and set yourself apart" by making every Holy Paladin Kyrian because it directly complements the main spec gameplay in a fundamental way that isn't even about numbers.

its just dumb.

At least they have identified their target demographic and their most stalward defenders: The people that want to be special in an MMO, even if it just means they are bad and it's ideally only a single 25/25/25/25 choice in a playerbase of at least a million players. I fear Blizzard might soon start to sell bridges.

Anyway something more pleasant: Regarding the next afterlirfe short, I wonder if I should wait it out or if I should go to bed.. when did it drop last week?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

At least they have identified their target demographic and their most stalward defenders: The people that want to be special in an MMO, even if it just means they are bad and it's ideally only a single 25/25/25/25 choice in a playerbase of a at least a million upwards. I fear Blizzard might soon start to sell bridges.

Thats...a whole lotta nothing. If Blizz is gonna go this way...well they gonna do it. Interesting to see how it will pan out. Don't think its a matter of demographics, I think they just have that much confidence in themselves(Okay I guess, thank god I'm not a Wow dev cause I think I'd be one that would be saying no). I do wanna know who specifically at Blizz is like "Yeah we can do this mixing player power and fantasy thing here."

[tamarin]

I don't mind the current covenant system design. I'm wary of the balancing. Yes, they say they're going to iterate until the release. But when you realize than there will be only 7 new beta builds from now until release (counting today's build), that doesn't feel like a lot of iterations to balance covenants from their current state.

[Sondrelk]

Thats...a whole lotta nothing. If Blizz is gonna go this way...well they gonna do it. Interesting to see how it will pan out. Don't think its a matter of demographics, I think they just have that much confidence in themselves(Okay I guess, thank god I'm not a Wow dev cause I think I'd be one that would be saying no). I do wanna know who specifically at Blizz is like "Yeah we can do this mixing player power and fantasy thing here."

I don't think it is about confidence, I think it is more about Blizzard being tired of the playerbase not diversifying despite their best attempts at evening the playing field, so they decided to force some diversity to at least attempt to make players comfortable with the idea. It is easy to forget but ever since the talent trees got easier and easier to change, and guides became easier and easier to find the entire playerbase has been effectively homogenized, which does stifle player enjoyment.

So in short: Blizzard is tired of the players not being diverse despite claiming to want to be, so they decided to force it.

[rainhard]

Anyway something more pleasant: Regarding the next afterlirfe short, I wonder if I should wait it out or if I should go to bed.. when did it drop last week?

They seem to drop on thursday at night so i think you can sleep safely for today.

[Adoxe]

At least they have identified their target demographic and their most stalward defenders: The people that want to be special in an MMO, even if it just means they are bad and it's ideally only a single 25/25/25/25 choice in a playerbase of at least a million players. I fear Blizzard might soon start to sell bridges.

Anyway something more pleasant: Regarding the next afterlirfe short, I wonder if I should wait it out or if I should go to bed.. when did it drop last week?

Roughly 21 hours from now

[Cosmic Janitor]

They seem to drop on thursday at night so i think you can sleep safely for today.

Ah okay, I mixed up the date. Sleep it is then .

[Fawkess]

Will there be a new build today?

[Dreen]

Will there be a new build today?

getting more and more unlikely by the minute, probably tomorrow

[Gorsameth]

I don't think it is about confidence, I think it is more about Blizzard being tired of the playerbase not diversifying despite their best attempts at evening the playing field, so they decided to force some diversity to at least attempt to make players comfortable with the idea. It is easy to forget but ever since the talent trees got easier and easier to change, and guides became easier and easier to find the entire playerbase has been effectively homogenized, which does stifle player enjoyment.

So in short: Blizzard is tired of the players not being diverse despite claiming to want to be, so they decided to force it.

That's not a WoW problem, that's a problem with the internet existing. And the solution to it isn't to add more and more fake 'choice'. If anything adding more and more choice can actually have the opposite result.

Take BfA as a great example. You have talents, azerite, essences and corruption. That's a lot of things for a player to figure out his own preferences, so instead you grab a guide that tells you all of them.

I suspect you will reach more diversity with 1 'meaningless choice' then 5 'meaningful' ones. Let warlocks pick between green, purple or red flames (with 0 gameplay effect) and you will have more diversity then with most of the current talent tree. And that is what covenants could have been, cosmetic choices that set players apart. And now it will be mostly about what is the 'best'. Triplely so if any of it synergies with a players class beyond just damage/healing numbers.

[Edward Wu]

I don't like the covenant system whatsoever, and I won't like it even if they make the covenant spells freely swappable.

What they should have done is have a grab-bag of generic Shadowlands effects you picked up while traveling through the zones, and then choosing a covenant tints your spells to look like they are influenced by that covenant.

I don't think they can make covenants actually satisfying unless they redesign it top-down, at best they manage to remove most of the frustration.

[gunner_recall]

I don't like the covenant system whatsoever, and I won't like it even if they make the covenant spells freely swappable.

What they should have done is have a grab-bag of generic Shadowlands effects you picked up while traveling through the zones, and then choosing a covenant tints your spells to look like they are influenced by that covenant.

I don't think they can make covenants actually satisfying unless they redesign it top-down, at best they manage to remove most of the frustration.

I've always thought it would be better if soulbinds/the generic covenant ability were bound to a covenant and then you get the class ability when questing through a zone, like in WoD with garrison abilities.

Don't even have it be a thing in raids.

[FlubberPuddy]

That's not a WoW problem, that's a problem with the internet existing. And the solution to it isn't to add more and more fake 'choice'. If anything adding more and more choice can actually have the opposite result.

Take BfA as a great example. You have talents, azerite, essences and corruption. That's a lot of things for a player to figure out his own preferences, so instead you grab a guide that tells you all of them.

I suspect you will reach more diversity with 1 'meaningless choice' then 5 'meaningful' ones. Let warlocks pick between green, purple or red flames (with 0 gameplay effect) and you will have more diversity then with most of the current talent tree. And that is what covenants could have been, cosmetic choices that set players apart. And now it will be mostly about what is the 'best'. Triplely so if any of it synergies with a players class beyond just damage/healing numbers.

Think his point (which is Blizzard's point really) is that players aren't being diverse from a gameplay standpoint aka 'I follow whatever guide tells me is best'.

Cosmetic diversity isn't an issue to Blizzard because the players already are diverse enough in cosmetics. It's diversity in the gameplay. It's why Ion asked Preach, (rhetorically honestly from tone) "Do you think every Hunter being exactly the same is good?"

And ofc from a competition standpoint Preach's answer makes sense. But I don't think Blizzard cares if PvE players (which is cooperative) compete against each other (ie one rogue 'competing' against another rogue), they more care that PvE content (raids/dungeons) include a diversity of classes (and soon covenants).

Which is why even with World First racing they try to put a stop to strats like 'ok stack this one class' which was most egregious I think with Rogues during Tomb of Sargeras? (I could be misremembering, some Method World First Raid clear had hella rogues!).

Anyways, regardless of whether one thinks it's right or wrong, Sondrelk is right in that's how Blizzard wants players to play their game. The reason so much pushback is happening though is because they've gone soooooo far in the other direction for a very long time that current players are incredibly used to it.

[Throren]

Servers are down lads!

[MadamSerenity]

Some of the beta servers are down. Torghast is still up.

[TheFirstOnes]

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...longer-on-gcd/ 2 new abilities off GCD

Also, this being a late build means a HIGH chance for Login Screen/Music.

[gunner_recall]

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...ges/490709/513
I don't play DK but those changes seem pretty good, especially for unholy.

[tamarin]

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...longer-on-gcd/ 2 new abilities off GCD

Also, this being a late build means a HIGH chance for Login Screen/Music.

this is one of the most ridiculous bit of speculation i've read around here lately. do you really think they are literally holding off the build to insert a bunch of new artwork at the eleventh hour? (especially since this is of absolutely no value in the development process, there is nothing in the game that depends on it and can't be tested without it)

whatever is in the build has already been deployed on an internal branch yesterday, because you don't just pull a build from the daily development branch and deploy it without a minimal amount of qa first, even on a beta server. The delay is more likely because they now have to deploy servers and push builds for two different branches (here's what one of the server devs have to say about it: https://twitter.com/SeTec9/status/1303781195549822976)

as a sidenote lmao @ creating a separate branch to stabilize a pre-patch that will exist only for a few weeks, i've already been working on three branches almost at the same time on our game at work in much less narrow time constraints and it wasn't pleasant and not something we'd do lightly

they're defo in crunch time now. yeah, they're totally going to nail covenant balance in those few remaining weeks while juggling with two dev branches