Preach Interview with Ion Hazzikostas

[Unholyground]

My solution to conduits is allow all spec specific ones to be interchangeable and non spec specific ones get destroyed and give everyone a conduit storage connected to their conduit ui. This is the best middle ground. Maybe call the spec specific ones Living Conduits.

[Tesshin20]

Totally agree. This kind of thing is exactly *why* I don't play Overwatch (or games like it). I have no interest in character builds that have been decided for me. There is, to me, a great deal of satisfaction in performing well with builds and talents all the theorycrafters say are crap.

I totally agree. And we also see it happening all the time that some individuals perform extremely well in something that is percieved as completely unplayable. Community perception is very often wrong.

[Kaver]

Personally I love playing all specs of my class so the idea of “committing” to one spec doesn’t feel good to me personally. I don’t necessarily agree with some of the assumptions they make. But I love how open Blizzard are about their game design this time around.

[Tesshin20]

2 pages, and no personal attacks against Preach, im kinda shocked the haters havnt come out of the woodworks yet.

They have though. Just they are hating against Ion instead :O

[WhiteWolf]

"Did you know I played a mage"
"Perhaps... hmm hmm"

What a weird reaction by this weird man.
Sometimes he doesn't even come across as human.

[Deferionus]

They keep trying to add back the importance of player choices when they removed the core player choices such as the old talent tree and these one off systems keep having as much or worse flaws than the talent system did while not feeling as fun for a player.

[goldentforce]

Maybe. The main issue I have with Ion PoV is that he is trying to make a choice matter in a game where choice has not mattered for a VEEEEERY long time.

The issue I have with Preach's PoV is that if covenants play the way he wants them to play, it becomes just another talent row, which is boring and wrecks the fantasy. (And also the other thing you are quoting me for)

I mean, if everything goes wrong they can let any1 use any abilities, they said it as much, but it just sounds... boring? But it also sounds like the only option that will appease everyone.

The only thing I don't get is this idea that talent row is boring.As long as the choices have circumstances of use and are fun abilities, its great. I love when the best talent switches to another talent I like, keeps the classes feeling fresh and fun. I"m not just targeting it at you but a lot of people are expressing this idea that talents are boring and I don't get it. They customize your classes gameplay and is a meaningful choice because it changes the way you play the game (hopefully) if you switch talents. Thats all i would want of them. Dont get the need of permanence in gameplay.

[Biomega]

Nobody doubts they WANT to make it fair and balanced and just fun to use.

People doubt that they WILL.

Historically, they have not done too well with balance like that - especially when it comes to "utility", which tends to be either overrated (nobody needs it as much as they want output) or cluster together with performance( some people get low utility and low output, and others get high utility and high output).

Is it impossible they'll balance Covenants? Absolutely not. But people are - rightfully - concerned that they won't end up balanced, for all of Blizzard's protestations and promises.

[Lurker1]

honestly dont give a flying fuck about what other people think about my covenant choices. I'm fully doing it based on what appeals to me specifically and not choosing the X is 100% increase vs Y is 98% increase bullshit. That is just absurdity.

Same here man im going purely on looks and rp zero power ftw!

[Tesshin20]

The problem with the way Ion claims to see things is that isn't how the game has been played since basically BC with gem choices or LK and glyphs. Pick an expansion and a system and the players have ALWAYS gravitated to throughput being more important than personal identity. The highest throughput has always won out over personal identity for the VAST majority of players.

They are making a gigantic mistake here and it's a shame to see it unfold in real time. They have gone from if they can't balance it they will scrap it to it's a layer of personal identity and it's staying that way. What a shame.

I wouldnt say VAST. The people opinions you read about on the forums, and see from youtubers and their comment sections etc is a very small part of the entire playerbase.

I see an entirely different sentiment inside the game. The VAST majority of the playerbase do pet battles, transmog farming, mount farming, and the casual mythic+ etc. They don't care about min maxing to the same extent many people on these forums and sites do.

[crakerjack]

I don't understand why someone in their right mind ever would want to have access to absolutely every ability and nullify any aspect of variance. Without the permanent choice, luck or rng everyone will look up the "right" answer and everyone will be basically the same.

Some people are basically asking for stat templates for PVE with the covenants. It didn't work for PVP so it will not work with PVE either.

In the end it doesn't matter what Blizzard do now. People are usually never able to change their minds when they have invested a lot of emotion into their opinions. So no matter what Blizzard do, the naysayers will never get happy with the system no matter what.

I think the best thing the community can do, is to make to take an collective stance against that type of mindset as this "problem" is entirely community made.

I think Ion did really great with his answers and I totally agree with him. And Preach asked some very good questions.

I mean, it's honestly not hard to understand why people are upset about not being able to freely switch between them. Let me start out by saying I don't care if I pick the worst/best covenant for my class/spec, I'm going 100% off of theme and will make do with whatever abilities I get. As someone who is super competitive in almost everything I'm passionate about, I too at first was taken back when they announced switching covenants wouldn't be simple. I like to min/max and make sure I'm able to perform to the best of my abilities. So why are people upset? You have 4 differently themed covenants, but because you care about how you perform, you might have to prioritize covenant abilities over the theme. Maybe you really love Maldraxxus and want to pick it for its theme, but the abilities for your particular class/spec are subpar compared to the other 3. Players then have to choose what's more important, their performance or the theme surrounding their character.

It's not hard to comprehend why people are upset and tbh, it's kind of annoying seeing the whole "WoW is an RPG, why are people freaking out about decision making?" because that aspect hasn't been a thing in WoW. For the first time that I can recollect in 15 years of playing this game, we're now faced with a decision that'll affect how we play shadowlands for 2~ years, if not longer.

Someone doesn't need to be a top 0.01% player to feel affected by these decisions. Have you ever sat down and watched cooed softball? I've played 10+ seasons and I can safely tell you, people are competitive regardless of how far they've made it. I've seen girls/guys ruin their bodies over a casual softball game where there's no money/fame to be earned regardless of the outcome.

So when people try to min/max, what happens when their best overall covenant ability gets nerfed? Now in order to continue min/maxing, they have to switch covenants and grind renown for their new covenant. I fully 100% understand why people are upset and I can relate.

All that being said, I just know I'm setting myself up for a bad time if I try to min/max with covenants. I have blind faith in blizzard that they'll be able to fine tune all the abilities so that even if I choose the worst one for my spec/class, I'm not drastically hindering my performance. I severely doubt people will be hindered from doing the hardest content possible whether it's mythic raiding, high keystones or pushing for gladiator. You might not get r1 or world first, but to insinuate that you won't get into pugs or will be benched because you didn't pick the correct covenant is absolutely 100% wild speculations with a heavy seasoning of bias/emotions.

tl;dr: People have every right to be upset with forced decisions, but I also believe those who think these decisions will impede them from doing the highest difficulty content are delusional.

[Malix Farwin]

Oh boys my covenant ability did 4.8% of my total damage and my friend's covenant ability did 5.0%. GG UNSUB STUPID GAME.

Please stop.

Its not gonna be that way and when they designed talents when they were within 5% of each other people picked what felt better.Two examples both invloving Affliction were in Legion when Contagion was nerfed to be within 5% of Absolute Corruption so people took AC because it felt better. Second example would be when people took Soul Conduit over Soul Effigy when SE had over a 5% damage increase over SC but SC felt better. Want a more recent example is with Shadow Priest and Dark Ascension and Legacy of the Void. DA performs better but LoTV smooths the rotation out and feels better to play.

The problem with Covenants tho is they are not simply a 5% difference and in a lot of Casses cannot be solved with tuning(some being AoE vs. ST while some just have massively better utility).

[Biggles Worth]

I don't understand why someone in their right mind ever would want to have access to absolutely every ability and nullify any aspect of variance.

In BFA I had the ability to farm all sorts of variety and combinations of azerite trait gear. Seeing what combos did what, how they felt, was it fun. I created an arcane missile build that I never saw anyone do ever. It was very fun to theory craft some ideas and it worked out. It completely changed my talents, rotations, how I played the game. Was it the best spec? Doubtful. Was it comparable to other specs? Your god damn right it was and I beat the other mages every time unless they had significantly higher gear.

This was one class, one spec that I had the freedom to try out different things for the fun of it and it was actually viable. Now imagine if I didn't have access to all these traits because in difference covenants or something. I wouldn't be able to do interesting combos and I'd be very one dimensional. Limiting me to what I have access limits build diversity and makes things extremely linear and predictable. I'm not going to have the freedom to try out new things to see if I can create a build. A shame really. The fact that you say having access to all abilities nullifies variance is absurd and ridiculous when locking out players to variety locks you out of variety.

[bledgor]

Try running something above LFR and you may feel differently. These aren't 3% differences, they're up to 30%.

Incidentally the system that sounds "FUCKING ALL CAPS AWFUL" to you is the system that's been in place for the past three expansions. At least.

Hi, mythic raider, don't feel different, nice job trying to be condescending. Also at no point did I say I like the old systems. Also numbers need to be tweaked, if they can get them close (again 3-5) don't care. I also don't get why people that are only negative and never believe that blizzard can get numbers right are still on this forum/playing this game, if you have that little faith leave.

[Kaver]

It's an interesting interview and I think both sides have good points. I think the biggest takeaway here is that Preach speaks for people who want classes (for example, all Hunters of one spec in a raid) to be near-identical and for mechanics/rotation to determine how successful the player is, while Ion wants individual players to have differences beyond that (not RNG based but different abilities and modifiers).

The problem is that Ion’s (Blizzard’s) goal is just not going to happen. Our (the players) behavior works against what they are trying to achieve. They want multiple hunters to all be different from each other by making different choices. But is that going to happen? Probably not. Our behavior through the last 5 years shows one thing clearly: Almost everyone chooses what is best. So they might give us different choices but the reality is that most people will pick the same choice: The best one. This is what frustrates people like Preach. Blizzard are trying to achieve the impossible. Ion can sometimes seem a bit delusional in relation to his goals. Blizzard are trying to achieve something which goes completely again the usual behavior of the players.

[Asheeva]

I wouldnt say VAST. The people opinions you read about on the forums, and see from youtubers and their comment sections etc is a very small part of the entire playerbase.

I see an entirely different sentiment inside the game. The VAST majority of the playerbase do pet battles, transmog farming, mount farming, and the casual mythic+ etc. They don't care about min maxing to the same extent many people on these forums and sites do.

100% agree. This is a case where the loud minority thinks they are the majority. It's basically the top 1% and the wannabe hardcore min-maxing community vs everybody else. And we are talking about players who will have multiple characters anyway even without the covenant system, so they can always pick the best one for the given content.

[Tesshin20]

And even if all covenant abilities were equally balanced then people would still only invite people of a certain covenant because they "heard" it's BiS.

Yep. Doesn't really matter if the difference between the best and worst ability is 2% or 20%. The balance team can't win no matter how much tuning they do.

[Asheeva]

And even if all covenant abilities were equally balanced then people would still only invite people of a certain covenant because they "heard" it's BiS.

Maybe stop playing in an uneducated, toxic environment where you can't enjoy the game the way you want? It's really not that hard of a solution that has nothing to do with Blizzard.

[Tesshin20]

The problem is that Ion’s (Blizzard’s) goal is just not going to happen. Our (the players) behavior works against what they are trying to achieve. They want multiple hunters to all be different from each other by making different choices. But is that going to happen? Probably not. Our behavior through the last 5 years shows one thing clearly: Almost everyone chooses what is best. So they might give us different choices but the reality is that most people will pick the same choice: The best one. This is what frustrates people like Preach. Blizzard are trying to achieve the impossible. Ion can sometimes seem a bit delusional in relation to his goals. Blizzard are trying to achieve something which goes completely again the usual behavior of the players.

You are admitting that this issue is made by the community and at the same time blaming Blizzard for trying to push against it. The alternative would be much worse.

If Blizzard embraced the minority that minmax and streamlined absolutely everything as if it was a competitive PVP game, the game would die.

[Sluvs]

The only thing I don't get is this idea that talent row is boring.As long as the choices have circumstances of use and are fun abilities, its great. I love when the best talent switches to another talent I like, keeps the classes feeling fresh and fun. I"m not just targeting it at you but a lot of people are expressing this idea that talents are boring and I don't get it. They customize your classes gameplay and is a meaningful choice because it changes the way you play the game (hopefully) if you switch talents. Thats all i would want of them. Don;t get the near of performance in gameplay.

Don't worry, I do not feel targeted, in fact I'm glad that the discussion in this thread so far has been relatively civil (for the most part at least). The thing is, these abilities were not designed as talents, and we are probably not taking it with us in the next expansion, and also it kinda ruins the fantasy, which is pretty important in a MMO. I think Talent rows are cool too, but I also think some abilities and concepts cannot be left for talent rows.

I mean, they are bound to get in the way of perfomance and gameplay, I think the current question is:Is fantasy and making your choice matter worth of the sacrifice of perfomance?

The problem that I have with performance oriented views is that when you have a choice between being optimized, and not being optimized, it's not really a choice. Now if you force that choice by making it hard to change covenants you at least at some amount of thought to the process.

What I believe will happen, if the system sticks to what we have right now, is that each raid tier will have a preferred covenant, and the top 1% will change covenant every new raid. Which sounds like a hassle.