Will Blizzard nerf your "meaningful choice"?

[Dracullus]

I used to play what you say and I (and plenty of others playing with me) cared about our performance very much. Just because I am not doing progression Mythic raids or pushing for gladiator or no-lifing the game it doesn't mean that I will intentionally handicap myself or that I am completely oblivious to what works or not for my character and type of content that I am doing. Or that I do not care about any of it.

In other words, stop parroting the lie that only the 1% cares about their character's optimisation. It is a disingenuous comment that has nothing to do with reality, as pointed out by plenty of others like myself even on this forums here.

During Legion, did you need to grind artifact power to paragon levels before Trial of Valor, farm M+ until you get your best in slot legendary or switch weapon and start AP/legendary grind from 0 when Blizzard buff other spec?

For sure you didn't need it complete content, because at this level main thing to do is coordination and mechanic execution, above average numbers just makes up for your mistakes. It's cutting edge level (on release) where players needs both perfect execution and maximum possible numbers.

Of course I'm talking about situation when balance will be usual for Blizzard standards (so still far, far away to be optimal for many people), not situation when some Covenant will be so OP that all sites will have to put ALL MAGES COME TO VENTHYR OR YOU WILL BE F*CKED message or something.

[facefist]

You think that everyone who plays the game care about maximum output? You really think that? For real?

I think this summarizes why they should not touch covenant balance after release. Those who don't pick based on output shouldn't care about their covenant being worse, thus there is no reason to punish those who pick solely based on output.

This way both sides get what they want. Others get their "ensured" optimal choice, while others are free to base their choice on other aspects. You don't care for output, don't expect your covenants' output to be increased mid expac. If you do care, then choose accordingly in the beginning.

I would take this as far as making one covenant the most powerful by a clear but small margin, so that it is easy to make your choice if it's purely output you are after.

[Aggrophobic]

Unlikely. Due to commitment nature of covenant and legendaries, what you can expect is that they will try to do vast majority of nerfs and buffs before launch.

Then once we're heroic week they will do their 5% here and there and maybe tone down some combos that go out of hand, but in such manner that they will still remain strong.

Commitment makes it hard for them to make sweeping changes, it will be like in BFA - where if something is getting out of hand they will tap it a bit and do their usual "at this point we'd rather not make drastic changes, because setups are done", just like they did with 8.2 and 8.3.

It's basically going to be Fire Mage or Shadow Priest situation all over again, where they won't be really nerfing them aside from token 5%, even if they seem to snowball hard. Then when 9.1 comes they will do big adjustments with generous heads up.

Yet they've never been able to do this before.
It's a pretty sure bet that they will nerf and overnerf whatever ability is the best when Shadowlands is released.

[Soulwind]

I think this summarizes why they should not touch covenant balance after release. Those who don't pick based on output shouldn't care about their covenant being worse, thus there is no reason to punish those who pick solely based on output.

This way both sides get what they want. Others get their "ensured" optimal choice, while others are free to base their choice on other aspects. You don't care for output, don't expect your covenants' output to be increased mid expac. If you do care, then choose accordingly in the beginning.

But back to reality, these are the guys who try (and fail) to balance visuals, toys and even lore. Of course they're going to change these abilities and traits. Constantly. They may even replace some of the abilities if they don't find a way to balance them, or if people exploit dungeons with them.

Personally, I'm going to choose what I think fits my characters, and try to ignore the noise around it. But even with that approach, I'm afraid that I'll have to consider switching Covenants at some point if my choice becomes a liability.

[dcc626]

Yet they've never been able to do this before.
It's a pretty sure bet that they will nerf and overnerf whatever ability is the best when Shadowlands is released.

more likely, they wont nerf a single thing about covenants after launch, instead they will buff other covenants to similar power levels. this is the one time that they would probably do this.

so people wont be upset about getting nerfed and instead will be angry that other people got things they didnt. further reinforcing the playbases shitty attitude.

[Cosmic Janitor]

The chance is about as high as that a completely broken covenant goes life and it stays broken for a tier or more. It's pretty much a dice roll if Blizzard tries to adjust something, crushes it or completely ignores it...

[Soulwind]

I mean by lore what would be most fitting for my character is to complete one Covenant and then switch to the next because he'd want to help all four of them. Will make no sense since their campaigns are concurrent though. Heck the gameplay fully breaks the lore in this already; you can do Necrolords campaign, switch to Venthyr and essentially travel back in time within the same xpac! Such meaningful RP choice.

I honestly don't know how these ideas get past the first meeting.

In the best, utopian, scenario, it'd be a cute little mechanic that would last an expansion and would just add some flavour to what's essentially the same Artifact system of the last two expansions.

On the other hand, they have to alienate the story, balance hundreds of completely different abilities and traits, and deal with different kinds of players interacting with this system with entirely different expectations.

I'd say the development costs and risks are much, much higher than any benefit they can expect to get out of it.

[Kaver]

My point is simple - absolutely no one other than you will force you to play any covenant.

No it's about if the choice feels good. And for a lot of players in wont.

[SirBeef]

So how likely is it that you will make your "meaningful choice" of choosing a covenant with a strong ability and then Blizzard will just nerf that ability 2 weeks later right before the raid is released?

Is it really a "meaningful choice" if Blizzard can just change the baseline of your choice?

Don't care. Nerfs and buffs have been happening in the game regularly since 2004. If it happens here it will be no different. Also don't care becasue the numbers had nothing to do with what my choices will be per class.

[Kaver]

Yes It will still be a meaningful choice becasue meaningful choice is just a choice with big, long term conseqences. How powerful the ability is doesn't change the fact that there are conseqences of making the choice.

But it's still an important part of the choice. It would also suck if Blizzard changed the transmog of the covenant after you made the choice.

[Kaver]

Why? Just because it's not optimal in X scenario? How can you say what will feel good for anyone other than yourself? You can't.

Because for a lot of people, the power of the ability will play and important part of the "choice". And if Blizzard than change that power they will have change some of the baseline of the choice. And that doesn't feel nice. It's not fun or engaging for those players.

[Apology]

I don't understand the "it only impacts the 1% argument." My endgame was LFR from MoP through to the end of BfA, and I still wanted to play the best I could. It's a personal satisfaction thing, I enjoyed getting the most out of my character even if I didn't 'need' to. I'd be very surprised if a very significant portion of the playerbase echoes that sentiment. I don't plan to do anything particularly hardcore in Shadowlands, but it still feels fucking terrible to know my character is arbitrarily weaker because of my covenant choice.

[Xilurm]

no one is buying that.

OP brings up a good point.

What is choice when decisions made above change what you picked through no power or player agency of your own.

You serious? I couldn't care less about what stats it gives me, simply because I'm not hardcore raider, and even if I was into raiding I doubt I'd ever go beyond HC.

[Kaver]

Covenants are EXACTLY like picking your main spec

The gameplay consequences of picking a spec are much greater than those of picking a covenant.

[Xilurm]

I don't understand the "it only impacts the 1% argument." My endgame was LFR from MoP through to the end of BfA, and I still wanted to play the best I could. It's a personal satisfaction thing, I enjoyed getting the most out of my character even if I didn't 'need' to. I'd be very surprised if a very significant portion of the playerbase echoes that sentiment. I don't plan to do anything particularly hardcore in Shadowlands, but it still feels fucking terrible to know my character is arbitrarily weaker because of my covenant choice.

Lots of people don't even know what it does or even what it is because they: don't follow expansion news, don't look at datamined content, aren't in general part of the very minor community that goes around in forums and what not.

[Kaver]

Don't care. Nerfs and buffs have been happening in the game regularly since 2004. If it happens here it will be no different. Also don't care becasue the numbers had nothing to do with what my choices will be per class.

But it matters for other people. But you don't care about them right?

[Dracullus]

The gameplay consequences of picking a spec are much greater than those of picking a covenant.

Artifact came with extra spell as well, but yeah, it was tied to spec. So we can tell than difference is that instead of 2/3/4 specs we will have 8/12/16 "specs". But mechanism of switching from spec you thought is best to spec that was hotfixed to be best just before raid remains the same.

Also you grind specific covenant once for every spec, looks like grind is minimal compared to AP and you can target your legendaries. So looks like it's still far less works than Legion, but I can't say for sure before I see all details (especially how look switching back to your old covenants, all we know is that your renown/soulbinds/conduits collection stay the same).

Probably many min-maxers will just max out all covenants renown/soulbinds before season end, they just won't have time to do all extra stuff connected to covenants.

[SirBeef]

But it matters for other people. But you don't care about them right?

No. I do not concern myself with what others think. I play the game for my enjoyment. If something gets nerfed, oh well, I'll adjust. I have picked my covenants on how the abilities fit my play-style not how much damage, healing, mitigation, speed, or utility they do or give. So if the numbers go down it's not going to matter to me. And since that is all that matters, my enjoyment, why the fuck should I care how you feel if something gets nerfed?

[Gaidax]

Yet they've never been able to do this before.
It's a pretty sure bet that they will nerf and overnerf whatever ability is the best when Shadowlands is released.

Over 15 years? Yeah, sometimes they did, pretty rarely.

So chances of this here are slim when commitment is involved. They will certainly pat things that go too out of hand, but make sure not to break them once this is live.

[SirBeef]

Again - you're implying covenants other than the best one on paper have no power. You severely overestimate how many people care about min maxing

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If you get satisfaction from min maxing you should be used to have decisions made for you. Why complain now?

Or how much they don't and only care about looks.

They are complaining now, becasue that's all they really love to do.