Anyone who thinks they will balance Covenants is dreaming.

[DemonDays]

The whole system hinges on them balancing them. Something that Ion keeps claiming he will do.


You want to sit there and tell me Ion and his team cares?

The team that brought you Legendaries and refused to fix their RNG acquisition until the expansion was over? The same team that spent 2 years attempting to balance them?

This is the same team that released Azerite in it's laughably broken state. With minimal testing? The same team who brought the release of BfA forward a month?

The same team that said they "heard" your feedback on Titanforging and RNG and then added Corruption in as a follow up system?



This is the same team that has a ZERO PERCENT success rate on balancing these types of systems - Artifacts, Legiondaries, Azerite, Essences and Corruption.


How long before Ion admits defeat and lets us swap them? 9.2? 9.3? Or shall we just wait for 9.3.5 like Legion and BfA?

[MrLachyG]

I mean Ion has already said that if they can't balance them then they will just allow people to freely swap. Personally I reckon they should just make it that when you hit exalted with the faction you can access their ability via a talent row choice or something.

also, technically they can balance them. all they have to do is make them do the same base damage. if they are going to try and balance them when you take into account secondary stats then yeah that's a bit harder but I don't think they should balance them around secondary stats

[Uko]

The plan has been to lock you in then loosen up down the line they just thought they could get away with holding out on it longer than the first patch lol.

[Azerate]

Isn't this a carbon copy of your old thread on the exact same issue?

We get it, you're sceptical. Now we wait and see, no need to remind us what you think on weekly basis

[Rayzen17]

They have a chance to balance the covenants though... the same chance i have to bring about WORLD PEACE.

Just give me your energy!

Also... #PullTheRipCord

They'll probably add some annoying mechanic to switch conduits in 9.1

In 9.2 we'll work on gaining higher renown for the covenants which will allow us to freely switch covenants. Though this will be gated until...

9.3 we finally can switch covenants + here is the next annoying system, you now have to make legendary items (omg) for your Soulbinds to increase their power, gl.

[Ryzek]

I have no faith that they will balance the covenants so I'm going to choose mine based on looks and call it a day.

[DemonDays]

The plan has been to lock you in then loosen up down the line they just thought they could get away with holding out on it longer than the first patch lol.

As with every expansion related borrowed power system.

---> Release obviously broken system designed to keep you subbed and grinding.

---> Release obvious "fix" in last patch of expansion to rapturous applause from fanboys.

- - - Updated - - -

I mean Ion has already said that if they can't balance them then they will just allow people to freely swap. Personally I reckon they should just make it that when you hit exalted with the faction you can access their ability via a talent row choice or something.

also, technically they can balance them. all they have to do is make them do the same base damage. if they are going to try and balance them when you take into account secondary stats then yeah that's a bit harder but I don't think they should balance them around secondary stats

Make them do the same base damage? Some are DoTs. Some are buffs. Some are clearly PvP abilities.

Have you seen how many moving knobs these systems have?


So when will Ion admit defeat? 9.3.5?

[Rayzen17]

From the conduit poll, here are the results: 1019 votes

Question: Should Conduits have a week timer, lower or none for changing them?

A) One week cooldown is fine ==> 34.9%
B) Less than a week would be fine. ==> 12.6%
C) Changing without a cooldown would be fine. ==> 52.5%

As you can see, the results show that the majority are against constraints such as these.
I'm willing to bet another poll for Covenants would bring about similar numbers.

People may think that 1019 votes, doesn't tell much, but it's a good sample (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sample) for what the playerbase is like.
As such, this doesn't look good for Ion if more than half don't like the new systems restrictions.

[Sunslayer]

Isn't this a carbon copy of your old thread on the exact same issue?

We get it, you're sceptical. Now we wait and see, no need to remind us what you think on weekly basis

How can anyone believe Blizzard can balance these Covenants? Look at their track record for the last 4-5 years. They were never good at balancing anything but this new team of Devs doesn't even try. How many balancing patches did BfA have? 1 or 2?

[Volatilis]

How can anyone believe Blizzard can balance these Covenants? Look at their track record for the last 4-5 years. They were never good at balancing anything but this new team of Devs doesn't even try. How many balancing patches did BfA have? 1 or 2?

I had also noticed they did very minor class balancing during BFA. Leaving massive outliners at the top and bottom for entire patch cycles

[DemonDays]

How can anyone believe Blizzard can balance these Covenants? Look at their track record for the last 4-5 years. They were never good at balancing anything but this new team of Devs doesn't even try. How many balancing patches did BfA have? 1 or 2?

Casual reminder.

We just went an entire TWO YEAR expansion cycle without a single tuning pass to under or over performing talents.

Talents were not touched for the entirety of BfA. That's an integral part of the base class design and they couldn't be bothered touching it for an entire expansion.


Can someone please point me towards some evidence of this development team giving a shit?

- - - Updated - - -

I had also noticed they did very minor class balancing during BFA. Leaving massive outliners at the top and bottom for entire patch cycles

Entire expansion cycles*

[Elbob]

Casual reminder.

We just went an entire TWO YEAR expansion cycle without a single tuning pass to under or over performing talents.

Talents were not touched for the entirety of BfA. That's an integral part of the base class design and they couldn't be bothered touching it for an entire expansion.


Can someone please point me towards some evidence of this development team giving a shit?

- - - Updated - - -



Entire expansion cycles*

flat out untrue from just this patch (8.3)
High Tolerance now increases effectiveness of Stagger by 5% (was 8%).

Developers’ note: Brewmaster’s extremely high effective health against Physical damage meant that they are rarely in danger against spike damage that threatens other tanks. This should still be a strength of Brewmaster, but not by such a wide margin.

[Toybox]

It's simply not possible to balance them. Looking at the Warrior ones, it's going to be damn near possible to make you feel like your choice isn't vastly inferior to another choice in certain content.

[october breeze]

If the new WoW team is to put two 10 kg's on a weighing scale, they will put both on one side and give the other one a 3% haste increase proc for 10 sec and call it a day!

[DemonDays]

It's simply not possible to balance them. Looking at the Warrior ones, it's going to be damn near possible to make you feel like your choice isn't vastly inferior to another choice in certain content.

Exactly.

They can't even balance Talents and they want to "take a stab" at these.

[Alanar]

We know the past and we know Blizzard never learns from their mistakes, so the only outcome is to throw it on.. we have learned alot . People gave up.. asking.

Its Dodgeballblizz.inc.co

[WowIsDead64]

The whole system hinges on them balancing them. Something that Ion keeps claiming he will do.


You want to sit there and tell me Ion and his team cares?

The team that brought you Legendaries and refused to fix their RNG acquisition until the expansion was over? The same team that spent 2 years attempting to balance them?

This is the same team that released Azerite in it's laughably broken state. With minimal testing? The same team who brought the release of BfA forward a month?

The same team that said they "heard" your feedback on Titanforging and RNG and then added Corruption in as a follow up system?



This is the same team that has a ZERO PERCENT success rate on balancing these types of systems - Artifacts, Legiondaries, Azerite, Essences and Corruption.


How long before Ion admits defeat and lets us swap them? 9.2? 9.3? Or shall we just wait for 9.3.5 like Legion and BfA?

This happens every time, so I really don't understand, why players still believe, that after 15 years of development Blizzard admit their faults and learn from them. Real reason, why such faults happen again, again and again - they're intentional design. Blizzard create fuss around such system, hardcores grind all required RNG stuff, then they nerf it and promise, that they'll never do it again. But they do.

But my opinion about Covenants is still neutral. While I think, that all problems in MMOs come from mixing visual choice with power choice (I wanted to play Shaman back in WotLK, but it was complete shit, so I should have played Paladin, as others did), Covenant choice wouldn't be critical for me, if I would play SL, cuz I'm casual and don't care about min-maxing. I would: 1) Choose Covenant with visual style I like on all my characters 2) Choose different Covenant on every character in order to get all tranmogs. Problem with transmogs - same, we had back in Legion with Order Hall class sets. Being unable to use them on alts after obtaining them devalues them, as account wide rewards are the most valuable ones for me.

[Shinrael]

I mean Ion has already said that if they can't balance them then they will just allow people to freely swap. Personally I reckon they should just make it that when you hit exalted with the faction you can access their ability via a talent row choice or something.

also, technically they can balance them. all they have to do is make them do the same base damage. if they are going to try and balance them when you take into account secondary stats then yeah that's a bit harder but I don't think they should balance them around secondary stats

You can't "Balance" two abilities that do different things. It has nothing to do with the damage they do. An AoE ability cannot be balanced against a ST ability because how good one does depends entirely on the situation.

That said, I like there being an irreversible choice in the game. Making such hard decisions is fun and immersive for me.

[deenman]

they HAVE to balance it,this isnt like some legenderies....they are investing a lot of time and development in pretty fleshed out factions that they simply cant afford for all but ONE to be ghost towns

[Super Kami Dende]

Who care if they balance them. Games are meant to be fun. Not Spreadsheets.