Comic fans swear that everything bad is a deviation and everything good, even if it isn't in the comic, is sort of in the comic in another way.
I can only take their word for it. I think deviating from the comic is a great idea because it allows surprise to return. I used to be able to be on these forums and comic fan conjecture was meaningless because it was wrong more often than right. Now it's right a lot, and that's disappointing to me. I keep knowing where they're going now without the love for the original story to make it work.
I read constantly, and as a reader I know that seeing what you read come to life is IMPORTANT. So I can see why they don't want to deviate.
Generally everything I expected to be really bad on screen due to how it is in the comic (governor, michonne, carl's eye loss) has translated well. They were smart enough to tone done how over the top those things are so it would work on screen. I hope that continues to be the case. And I hope they continue to mix it up, because I think that's vital. My sense is that comic fans haven't minded mixing things up as long as the right notes are hit.
Just please oh please don't even try to make
translate. I hate that idea so much.
Honestly though, they can't please everyone. A total 100% deviation would be a bad idea. Bad in the beginning because TWD clearly did something right, so use it. Bad now because it's established that this is basically a retelling of Kirkman's wildly successful tale. I like it best with how it's generally been done. Tone done the too-comic parts, mix up the people in key events, but hit the key events. Going on tangents is good, extra story is good. They just HAVE to write the characters like they're real people and let them develop. Stop rushing the story. Let it move slow, don't time jump. Rushing to Negan, in my view, made this show look like a 'bad guy of the month' kind of show. Like it can't trust the characters to be interesting in their own right.