Why can't I get icon badges in Oreo for apps with notifications off?

[Android Central Question]

I hate notifications always popping up on my screen but I love badges on my messaging app icons. Badges are way less distracting and allow me to "pull" my notifications rather than have them "pushed". I used to do this fine on Nougat but the new badges on Oreo force you to have notifications turned on if you want badges. Is there a way to have badges but not notifications? If not, what a narrow-minded design regression.

 

[Ry]

I hate notifications always popping up on my screen but I love badges on my messaging app icons. Badges are way less distracting and allow me to "pull" my notifications rather than have them "pushed". I used to do this fine on Nougat but the new badges on Oreo force you to have notifications turned on if you want badges. Is there a way to have badges but not notifications? If not, what a narrow-minded design regression.

What phone?

What launcher?

 

[OSSFAN]

S7 Edge + Nova. I used to use TouchWiz but the Oreo upgrade with SamsungExperience has a bug where my saved "desktop" was deleted on reboot. So I was "forced" to switch to Nova.