For anyone looking for the answer to the posed thread idea, here's what Ion said; it's pretty standard and expected, but it's the best answer you'll get that everyone has been saying.
Bay & Preach Talk To | Ion Hazzikostas & Steve Aguilar | WoW SHADOWLANDS | BlizzCon 2019
"Easier said than done." Basically, time will tell if they balance all the perks of a Convenant well enough.
Well since you so rudely came in when a discussion was being held between me and someone else ABOUT class talents, then quoted me obviously towards your context which wasn’t being discussed at that time, then yes. I can see how you would be confused. Try in the future to make a point on your own and not piggy back a conversation that you clearly have no background or knowledge of.*hint* this suggestion makes you look less stupid.
You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about me, but lets go ahead and assume I didn't have friends to do this content with. And lets also not try and shift the whole argument by inciting class imbalance as your goalpost, because that was never the argument here, and ultimately is another discussion above this subset.
It is still a dumb system to lockout mechanics under a choice that cannot be reversed easily. Cosmetic rewards are one thing, locking an entire tree of systems behind it is another. There will be optimal choices and entirely suboptimal ones. Depending on the Balance of those systems (and there's not a chance in hell Blizzard will balance this system to the point where its all fairly optimal), one covenant will most invariably be the best one to choose for a lot of classes, which ultimately nullifys the value of the other three. Choosing a covenant because your class is better suited to one over the other is not choice, and thus fails in the design goals Blizzard wants with this system. A choice that boils down to one option to play decently is not a choice or option at all. This isn't even considering that hybrid classes will most likely have more than one Covenant that will be optimal for tanking and healing, and punishes them for just existing at that point.
And you can argue all you want that its player choice to play with a handicap or not. No sane person would argue that its OK to play badly unless they were ignorant of what they could do with better optimization and will ultimately bench that person if it suits them; and considering this is a social game, they will have to get along with other people outside their group of friends and be judged accordingly if they want to do content above LFR. Casual or not, I wouldn't consider being a social leper "player choice" just because you could theoretically do just fine despite handicapping yourself.
If one mage takes a suboptimal covenant for his spec and another took the optimal one, the optimal mage is going to be chosen first every time. People bitching about Vanilla Ret Paladins in the Classic forum is another microcosm that further proves that mindset is prevalent in modern WoW. Gimping yourself for the sake of "choice" is not a choice at all unless you full well understand you will not be accepted anywhere in end game content.
The easiest solution would be to tie the cosmetic rewards to the Covenant, but have the skills be unlockable regardless of choice with only one covenant's skill system active at a time. <- that is a simple fix that removes the problem of the system altogether, and would outright prevent discriminatory behavior that constantly plagues this game's core systems; but you would rather insist on defending a broken concept that ultimately will have a different result when put in an active environment, so this discussion has ended.
EDIT: and I get that Ion thinks he is going to be able to design this system to be fair all around, I highly doubt his team will.
Last edited by Lothaeryn; 2019-11-05 at 03:35 AM.
Fod Sparta los wuth, ahrk okaaz gekenlok kruziik himdah, dinok fent kos rozol do daan wah jer do Samos. Ahrk haar do Heracles fent motaad, fah strunmah vonun fent yolein ko yol.
Apparently he's a sheep that has to do what all the min/maxers do. I have no intention to pick what is best according to some site or guide. I'll gor for the coolest looking armor or the ability I think is the coolest. If that happens to be the mathematical best skill so be it.
This is all you really needed to say because this cynicism is the real reason you have no faith in the system. And that's fine, you have a reason to be cynical given Blizzard's track record. But everything else you've said about Covenants is just a wordy extrapolation of this core issue you seem to have with Blizzard.
Now, here's where I get labeled a "corporate bootlicker," or a "shill" or a "Blizzard apologist," but: Having seen an interview where a developer addressed this exact concern with a reasonable response that we cannot yet fully evaluate since the system itself is still in its infancy... I'm gonna say the jury's out til we know more.
We really should see how things play out before we start inventing solutions to problems that don't yet exist.
That depends on your definition entirely of the word 'shine'. Is a 1% increase 'outshining' the other too much for you? What about 5%? And at a certain point you have to also be switching to each spec that's the most powerful, because worrying about what covenant is stronger won't be nearly the power gap that switching to the latest OP spec will garner you. So if you're not switching spec each patch, then play the covenant you want to play.
My major concern is not with how well the system will work, of that I have no doubt Blizzard will make it work in some fashion, albeit how balanced it will be is still to be seen. My major concern is how the playerbase will utilize this system, systems like these generally get quantified to hell and back and most just get discriminatory about it immediately. Causing all sorts of problems in the social aspects of the game; creating a system that will invariably promote toxic behavior in the playerbase should be avoided at all costs.
Citing one's criticism of the concept design early is the only way one can hopefully convince developers to consider these pitfalls in design. Right now the expansion is likely in the alpha stage of development where the systems are being ironed out fully. That Ion is aware of the actual problems with the design philosophy so far is a very good sign that they are aware of the issue, but the actual results yet remain to be seen on whether or not they will succeed in weeding out that problem in optimization.
One can only hope, but expect to be disappointed all the same.
Fod Sparta los wuth, ahrk okaaz gekenlok kruziik himdah, dinok fent kos rozol do daan wah jer do Samos. Ahrk haar do Heracles fent motaad, fah strunmah vonun fent yolein ko yol.
IDK man, people like to crap on Ion but he gives very detailed answers usually, is pretty straight forward, and pretty open to criticism and shortcomings. In the video he's willing to admit mistakes and hone up to stuff.
That being said, balance has never been amazing and it's probably better to fix something then let it fester, even if you make some people mad. I think they need to be more willing to fix things for the greater good, even if it pisses some people off. Like if one Covenant ability is just way too much better, I'd hope they'd either nerf it or bring the others up to speed very quickly. But eh, it's probably going to be fine (lul).
Ion goes more into his thoughts via parsing and stuff at 22:55. They clearly understand people will always min-max and you can't really balance everything perfectly, but you can come close enough where it won't matter THAT much, especially regarding intuitive gameplay.
I will pick the coolest transmog im happy barely being top 500 only 0 need for min maxing outside of the normal things.
Jokes on you, my raid guild fell apart so I'll just take whichever one has the best cosmetics.
Currently playing Borderlands 1 remaster. Amped for Borderlands 3.
Add me on the PSN for jolly-cooperation @ PuppetShoJustice
If it's armor you're after, could always do that on alt.
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Ion seems like the type of person that, if he really wanted to, could give very detailed answers. I'm on the fence with him myself.
One would think they would balance them out, pros and cons for choosing either. Not just be like *hey..this one is OP and the other sux balls* They clearly should have thought out the covenant system better imho, with a checks and balance system for both. Having one better than the other seems kinda stupid.
The hunter hoe with the least beloe.
there's a REALLY simple solution that would fix this as well as fix being pigeon holed into certain dps talents. BUFF EVERY OTHER SUBPAR CHOICE A LITTLE BIT EACH WEEK UNTIL THEY ARE EQUAL! seriously, is it that hard to buff a freaking talent that hasn't been used in literally 4 years so it's competitive? i'm talking about the lvl 100 talent for beast mastery that summons a snake turret.
I didn’t assume any thing about you your personal play is Irrelevant to me, you brought up the low end of the community that play causally and just follow some one else.
And if you didn’t want to discuss class/race/spec imbalance then you shouldn’t have replied to my post comparing those to what ever kind of imbalance this might have I’m not shifting to what ever goalpost you want.
If more people worried about getting their rotation perfect and less about a .005% dps increase perhaps this conversation would matter. Most people can't execute their rotation well enough for this to really matter.