Preach Interview with Ion Hazzikostas

[Good ol Stroggylos]

Well I don't really mind the covenants. Seem like an extra talent tree that we will have to work on during the expansion. It really is an impact full choice and tbh ions examples of spec/artifact progress/leggos in Legion is downplaying the impact this time around.
I also suspect that if balancing the already existing specs out is a handful then trying to balance God knows how many iterations of specs/covenants/soulbinds/conduits/leggos out is going to be even more difficult even if they reduce rng to an absolute minimum (I firmly believe that this is the reason behind removing rng and not player agency etc). Pvp is going to be quite hectic not to mention raid design and tuning.

[Demeisen]

Yes in the end maybe blizz falls flat on their face and balancing everything to do with covenants will fail- but I would rather give blizzard the ability to try first.

Honestly, I'm tried of giving Blizzard the benefit of a doubt after (i) legiondaries, (ii) azerite traits, (iii) essences, (iv) corruptions, (v) an inability to create meaningful choices in talent tiers for the last X expansions. As it is, this'll be the first expansion I haven't prepurchased since TBC.

[ClassicPeon]

Honestly, I'm tried of giving Blizzard the benefit of a doubt after (i) legiondaries, (ii) azerite traits, (iii) essences, (iv) corruptions, (v) an inability to create meaningful choices in talent tiers for the last X expansions. As it is, this'll be the first expansion I haven't prepurchased since TBC.

I mean no offence but it seems like half the people on this forum has said this about every expansion since tbc

[Demeisen]

I mean no offence but it seems like half the people on this forum has said this about every expansion since tbc

Frankly, I regret purchasing BFA at all.

[Kinjin]

Blizzard very will knows they have a complete failure rate of ever balancing a single part of this game in it's entire history. You are completely wasting your time trying to have logical point based arguments about this. Blizzard doesn't care. All of this is a side show to distract you and make you believe they are trying. It's not meant to improve the game. It's PR. It's likely going to be released exactly as it is now. After most people pick the same covenant, they will nerf it causing people to follow "the best" for whatever type of game play they engage in. Rinse and Repeat. After they lose enough subs or enough time goes by, they will give you some table scraps and make it a little less painful. Rinse and repeat until the last patch where they give you what they should have on expansion release. This is on purpose for engagement metrics. Then they will start release alpha for the next expansion and say something like "mistakes were made". Then they will promise they are listening for reals this time, double pinky swear.

This is to get as much play time from as many players as possible for as long as possible, as that's how they quantify the success of their game. Blizzard is not trying to make the game fun. All they are really trying to figure out is how bad to bend you over and fuck you without losing your subscription. It's kind of baffling that people still believe the obviously hollow PR even now. They have already said in multiple interviews "We hear you, but fuck you, we will do what we want regardless". Some people just never catch on, even after a decade. Sad really.

[ClassicPeon]

Frankly, I regret purchasing BFA at all.

Not sure i regret it. Played a little near the end at least.

[Eapoe]

I mean no offence but it seems like half the people on this forum has said this about every expansion since tbc

I still play and enjoy the game, but I have zero faith that Blizzard can balance anything.
1). There’s the issue that they’ve never been able to balance anything prior. From specs within classes, to the classes themselves, onward to things like tier sets and legendaries being amazing for some classes but “meh” for others (like the ring and cloak procs from WoD, MoP, and even the cloak from BfA).
2). Blizz flat out stated they unbalance things to keep the game fresh and different. They admitted it when it came to being questioned about Warlocks during Cataclysm.
Now, the counter to that is that since I’ve come to this realization and made my peace with it, I have enjoyed the game much more.

My own 2 cents about covenants for the min/max players is to pick the covenant that is best for AoE/m+. Two reasons:
1). Even if you’re in a guild there are people who will pug these. Picking the covenant for that means you’re in a good spot.
2). It will still be a good covenant on AoE/Cleave fights, where Blizzard has a track record for really only designing 1-2 fights as completely single target in raids.

[ClassicPeon]

I still play and enjoy the game, but I have zero faith that Blizzard can balance anything.
1). There’s the issue that they’ve never been able to balance anything prior. From specs within classes, to the classes themselves, onward to things like tier sets and legendaries being amazing for some classes but “meh” for others (like the ring and cloak procs from WoD, MoP, and even the cloak from BfA).
2). Blizz flat out stated they unbalance things to keep the game fresh and different. They admitted it when it came to being questioned about Warlocks during Cataclysm.
Now, the counter to that is that since I’ve come to this realization and made my peace with it, I have enjoyed the game much more.

My own 2 cents about covenants for the min/max players is to pick the covenant that is best for AoE/m+. Two reasons:
1). Even if you’re in a guild there are people who will pug these. Picking the covenant for that means you’re in a good spot.
2). It will still be a good covenant on AoE/Cleave fights, where Blizzard has a track record for really only designing 1-2 fights as completely single target in raids.

OK so

1. You cant 100% balance wow. Everyone knows that. Its impossible. Balance has never been perfect but for 99,9% of people its been fine.
2. You dont believe that to be the truth. At least i hope so.

And yeah picking the best covenant ability for cleave fights is a safe bet for far most people. They arent doing with the covenant abilities though. And tuning hasnt even started yet

[Ragedaug]

Interview starts at 42:00 minutes.

[Ragedaug]

I always get annoyed with false dichotomies, which Blizzard does a lot, Ion in particular.

Players: "We like to be able to make changes with minimal consequence"
Ion: "You already switch talents from fight to fight, we don't want you to do that with covenants"

It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Make it so you can't change specs & covenants while you are dungeon group. Basically to say, if anyone in your group is in a dungeon, you can't make the change. Or put a cooldown on it. Talents & Covenants have a 24 hour cooldown when you change them before you can change them again.

I'm not saying either of those are great solutions, I'm just saying they are solutions, and if Blizzard tried, or were open to feedback, they could ask for suggestions to allow change to be possible, while not having to worry about the abilities being changed from fight to fight.

[Eapoe]

OK so

1. You cant 100% balance wow. Everyone knows that. Its impossible. Balance has never been perfect but for 99,9% of people its been fine.
2. You dont believe that to be the truth. At least i hope so.

And yeah picking the best covenant ability for cleave fights is a safe bet for far most people. They arent doing with the covenant abilities though. And tuning hasnt even started yet

They flat out said in response to a Warlock spec getting nerfed “It had its time. Time to use this spec instead.” Something along those lines. They straight up stated they nerfed it because everyone was using it while ignoring the other specs.

Tuning or not, there’s specific covenants that have AoE or ST abilities. So unless they nerf one into oblivion then it won’t change which ones are best for what from the information we’ve seen.

[Fkiolaris]

Frankly, I regret purchasing BFA at all.

I didn't buy it at all. I saw the clusterfuck in terms of class design that was in Beta and stayed out. If Shadowlands launches in a similar manner, it's game over for retail for me.

[Nite92]

You think it's a problem. But chances are your actual skill level will mean the differences between Covenants will be negligible as you wouldn't put them to the same use an actual top player would.

Damn, that argument again. The desire to have an optimal character is quite widespread and not restricted to 99% parsers.
If I play with my 1k mythic guild, having specific covenants could have easily been the difference between CE and no CE. Just the teleport alone...

[Babadoo]

Ion is a stubborn cuck. He knows the system will fail but still just goes with his shitty design. Worst fucking dev ever.

[Razorice]

At this point I'm not even triggered by covenants.
I'm going to try out SL on release and if the game is still as shit as it was in BfA That's it with retail for me.

[Lulbalance]

WoW trolling because they can, they're the only real game in town. For now.

Until the people whining about the game's issue put their money behind their words, you get what you get.

[Vrinara]

I haven't watched it, but I do think Ion cares about the game. We put so much pressure on him, and wasn't there people making forum posts asking him to step down? Tweets aswell? Because of how bad BFA was? I honestly wouldn't be blaming Blizz or him. Blame Activation.

[iosdeveloper]

yet another "oops, we decided to change some stuff after you pre-purchased"

Ion, if you go with permanent covenants - you should remove covenant dps spells, make movement utilities equally useful in pve AND pvp -> it's harder, costs more and generates players that chose vampire theme and don't get invited

[Mmid]

Personally I would like to see NO power abilities being locked behind unchangeable choices, and while he is correct that this choice isn't as heavy as comitting to ONE spec for an entire expansion like Legion, it is still not good game design for players like me and many others.

That said, I can understand WHY they are introducing Covenants anyway, because there are alot of players who do not care about that 1% damage gain, and the system besides the power choices is pretty cool. Also, props to Ion for actually accepting to be interviewed when he KNOWS that he will be hammered with rough questions and criticism on the topic, not only from Preach but other interviewers as well. He could just have said "no thanks, I'll pass".

Guess I will just have to accept and suffer through choosing the wrong covenant for that 1% power, and hopefully the rest of the expansion is enjoyable. Legion was, besides legendaries and having to play one spec for 2 years, a great expansion.

[Zorachus]

Why do we need things like Covenants in the game anyways? I don't want Azerite gear, or Essences, and holy hell no Corruption gear, and no Artifact weapons or Legion legendaries, etc...

Why can't WoW just go back to MoP style of gearing? You want better gear, you need to run Raids, LFR gets ya the basic easy stuff, Normal better, Heroic good gear, and Mythic the top of the line gear. And then the casual players have dungeon runs to gear up, which should give you good gear, but not great Raid like gear. And that's it, that's how you get the better gear, besides the lower iLvl stuff from questing and simple tasks to do in the world.

No more AP grind, or Azerite grind, or having to farm for this or that, with a weekly lockout. Stop all of that stuff.