Respec and Talent Swap Cost Changes, Warcraft Movie TV Spots, Blue Posts, Dragons

[chaud]

Ancient Crafting Calculations - When to use each Recipe

Hearthstone EU Spring Preliminaries Results & Top Decklists, Value Town #71

OCM's Chromie Build, Heroes WTF Moments #50, Heroes Funny & WP Moments #66

Dragons: An Overwatch Animated Short feat. Hanzo and Genji

Legion - Respect Cost Removed
The costs to change specs and talents are changing in the next Legion build:

• Changing specs in Legion will no longer cost gold!
• Changing talents will be free in a city or your Order Hall.
• Changing talents out in the field will require a reagent crafted by Inscription with a cost aimed at groups.
• Currently, talent changes are free and instant out of combat, which isn't restrictive enough.
• In the current build the system that is going away worked like this:
  
  • You could change from any spec to your primary spec for free, with your primary spec set at a class trainer.
  • Your first respec was free, with a cooldown of less than 24 hours to reset the cost to free again.
  • After that, respecs were 19, 39, 58, and capping at 78, with a 24 hour cooldown to drop one cost level each time you changed specs.

We've definitely heard much feedback to this effect, and this is something we'd been discussing quite a bit internally as well over the past couple of weeks. In an upcoming build (hopefully the next one; if not, then the one after), the respec cost is gone, and players can freely switch between all specializations with the normal restrictions of cast-time, needing to be out of combat, and so forth.

Ultimately, the intent behind the respec cost (which isn't really a new concept, dating back to 2004 class trainers) was to help reinforce a bit of spec identity through declaring a "primary" spec to which you could always return for free, and to serve as a mild gold sink. But in practice, changing specialization is a pretty significant transformation in terms of action bars, optimal gear in some cases, artifacts, and so forth, and already not something that people were taking lightly. I suspect the cost will not be missed.

An area that has appeared to need a bit more friction, however, is actually talent changes. Especially with no reagent cost at all now, it can be all too easy to activate AoE talents before larger packs of enemies in a dungeon, and then switch back to single-target talents before a lieutenant or a boss. Or someone might switch to a passive movement-speed talent when traversing an area, and then back to something functional before entering combat. At that point, we're often hardly talking about a meaningful choice at all, but rather a nuisance of extra button-presses or UI navigation before you can use your desired talents.

And so, alongside removing the respec cost, that same upcoming build will also restrict the ability to change talents when away from a safe area (defined as an area that provides the Rested state). We currently plan to give Scribes a recipe to craft a consumable Tome that can be dropped in order to allow all nearby players to retalent freely for a time - particularly useful for group play.

A couple of clarifications, one of which will probably be a relief and the other likely less so: The Inscription consumable as currently planned would be something that anyone could drop, not a profession-requiring item like a Jeeves. But, in terms of the materials required, we're thinking of something that's more aimed at groups, and probably not the sort of thing an individual is likely to carry a stack of and use freely.

This is clearly more restrictive than the way it works in Warlords. Why would we ever add restrictions to something like this? Do we just sit around and amuse ourselves by thinking of things to take away from players? (We don't.)

Ultimately, for a choice to be meaningful there has to be some associated cost or trade-off in the process. Do you want to eat your cake, or do you want to save it for another time? If you could do both, that wouldn't be much of a choice.

When it comes to talents, which serve the primary purpose of customization and differentiation, consider two extremes in terms of how they could be handled. Please, take a moment to think through the following scenarios:

First, what if you could switch talents freely, at any time, including while in combat? You'd effectively no longer have a talent system - you'd have a spellbook with another 21 active and passive abilities in it, with keybinds to swap between them as needed. Every player of a given spec would have identical capabilities, with some cumbersome interface management required to swap among them on the fly.

Second, what if you could literally never switch talents, short of making a brand new character? Choosing a talent would be a far, far weightier choice than any decision you currently make in the game (other than choosing your starting class, I suppose). Some favored cookie-cutter specs would emerge, but with 2187 different permutations of talents, there'd be significantly more variety among players. But some niche talents would likely go almost entirely unused (though players who did choose them would be invaluable when those situations arose). And feeling like you'd made a mistake, and were stuck with one or more talents that you didn't like at all, might completely sour your enjoyment of a character.

Anyway, we are of course doing neither of those things, but there's a full spectrum of choice that lies in between. We've generally moved away from the second scenario and closer to the first over time (years and years back, respecs were so expensive in relative terms that players often waited for class changes to automatically refund their talents rather than spend the gold to move a point around). Other than the combat restrictions, the live game is not terribly far off from the first scenario.

There's still a fair bit of thought that goes into which talents to select for a raid encounter, where you're in combat for several minutes in a row and facing a variety of threats, and you may have to weigh whether you want better AoE damage for minions in the first phase, or better single-target burst later in the fight; whether you want a passive movement-speed increase for higher overall uptime, or an on-demand active movement ability in case you get targeted by a specific troublesome ability; and so forth.

But most other content, whether it's a single quest boss out in the world, or a dungeon that breaks down to a series of sub-1-minute combats, don't offer nearly that much variety. And so you take the AoE talent for the AoE pack, and the single-target talent for the lone boss, to the point that you might as well just have both of them all the time, which might be powerful, but wouldn't be a choice.

I am actually relieved to hear that a scribe is not a necessity. But what I would like to know is if PvP is being kept in mind. For example, I might throw on my PvP gear to do a battleground. Let's say that takes me 15 minutes. After that, I'm being called to a raid. I need to change out my talents - twice because as we all know, there are certain talents that are better for PvP and certain talents that are better for PvE. I'm not really going to use spring blossoms in PvP due to movement but I might in PvE depending on the encounter.
In this case, if you're returning to any safe area (your Class Order Hall, Dalaran, Stormwind, or whatever) in between activities, you could change talents freely with no cooldown, cost, or other restriction. The Inscription consumable would only come into play if you wanted to change talent out on the fly, in the field.

Warcraft Movie TV Spots
Another 3 TV spots were released today!

Warcraft Movie Character Faces
io9 had the chance to go to ILM and talk to them about the CGI. There are lots of interesting details in the article, as well as some nice pictures of the actors and their CGI faces.

Blue Posts

Character Skin Color Options
I've had plenty of friends who would like a more diverse style of skin choices for many races, humans included. I don't see this as far-fetched feedback by any means.

One of the earliest ideas in RPGs was to create a character modeled after yourself in a fantasy world, where you can go on these spectacular adventures that aren't possible in the real world - the current choices can be limiting in this sense in various situations. Many people who are asking for these additions, among others, simply want a more customizable experience, and there is no harm in that.

Anyways, I've passed this feedback along to the Development team. Let's keep the conversation civil and we will keep this thread open for more feedback and discussion! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Tabards in the Wardrobe
Yep, just to confirm that Tabards will be part of the Transmogrification Wardrobe in Legion. Rejoice, such free inventory, much space, amaze! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Legion Beta Server Issues

Dalaran Underbelly Disabled
In order to address issues with Dalaran NPCs suddenly disappearing, we've decided to disable the Underbelly subzone for the time being. Players with characters saved in that zone will be ported out upon initial login. We're currently investigating permanent solutions to dissapearing NPCs and should have the issue resolved in an upcoming patch.

Due to this change, Subtlety Rogue artifact acquisition questlines will be roadblocked for now. If you experience any other roadblocked questlines with this change, please let us know in your comments below.

Thanks for your patience everyone! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

World Server Down
We are working on fixing this right now. Server team is doing battle with an issue impacting Dalaran which is causing it to crash, reboot, crash. Hoping to fix it soon™

Our success in fixing some of the underlying phasing issues seems to uncovered this bug that was previously hidden. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Server Lag
Yes, we are attempting to slay these lag inducing bugs now as well.

Had a quick question if you don't mind Yad, after I finished my Helheim quests on my DH and we got beamed up I dc'ed and cant log back in at all just to that one char. I managed to log in once and my screen is white and it says I'm stunned cant do anything and it dc'ed again. Was wondering if that's happening to everyone or any chance I can get a teleport for my char Laeroth. Thank you!
Happening to many right now. Something else we are working on... It has been a busy day, hehe.

TLDR there are many issues affecting servers which are being fixed right now in parallel. As a result we are frequently restarting servers to pickup changes. Some of these changes are leading to new or previously unknown issues that we then have to fix. Currently playing whack-a-bug. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Phasing Issues
We've had team members looking at the underlying causes of the phasing issues over the weekend and today. The good news is that as we've been digging in to find the root of the problem we've fixed dozens of issues in the system. While we're not confident that we've fixed the root cause once and for all yet we've seen this issue improving throughout the day on the Beta realms from some of the changes we've been making.

We are still on this and it is a very high priority for us and this experience with the launch of Beta has been extremely valuable to us not only for exposing this issue but also the myriad of other load driven problems that have been uncovered thanks to the high volume of players.

We hope to have this resolved soon so people can get back to testing out the content itself rather than being gated by disconnects and phase issues. We've been actively applying fixes for both to the server and clients throughout the day. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Overwatch Short - Dragons
Another Overwatch short has been released! This one looks at the relationship between Hanzo and Genji.

[Isolyphic]

Oh good! Draenei are in the Warcraft Movie afterall.

[grexly75]

Oh good! Draenei are in the Warcraft Movie afterall.

Certainly look a lot different than what most people are used to in the game..

[Terminal Lance]

Overwatch short was awesome. I love Japanese-themed stories.

[MasterHamster]

Excellent example of when what players "wants" (being able to switch talents whenever they want) clashes with what's good for overall gameplay because it encourages making changes to adapt to any situation that will in the end feel frustrating because you'd have to do it constantly.

I'd say changing talents needs some sort of cooldown (30 minutes, charges, 1 minute grace period if you make the wrong switch) while in a dungeon or raid, but it'd need to reset when you reach a boss. Adapting to boss fights is fine I believe, but not feeling like you have to jump constantly between an AoE and ST talent in a Mythic+ dungeon because it happens to alternate between AoE:able trash and big champions or cleave situations. Make a call whether ST or AoE will benefit you the most throughout the run.

So perhaps, you're free to switch talents when you enter a dungeon or raid, then you're on a cooldown and in an hour you can change talents twice (2 charges a 30min), resets when entering a boss room area.

Works for shorter runs, and shouldn't be too cumbersone in 2-3 hour raid nights either. Make your choices from the content ahead and try to anticipate what you need during the time talent switch is on CD.

[Deleted]

Changing talents doesn't need a freaking cooldown or a reagent cost aimed at groups. I don't know what Blizzard is smoking - they are trying to do everything to make this game less fun. The point of the new talent system was it's convenience, but now we've to return to safe points? Wtf

[Frumpy Frumpy Frak]

Khadgar confirmed for comic relief character.

[Igzorn]

Oh good! Draenei are in the Warcraft Movie afterall.

at least that means that they use the newer canon of garona.

[Backjauer]

Being able to change talents so easily did erode part of the rpg feeling. As pointed out when things are that easy to switch it no longer becomes a meaningful choice. With the talent switch cost removed I imagine you could set up an aoe and a single target spec, should you so wish.

[Deleted]

Oh dear, they make changing specs - which most people do infrequently - easier and free, but changing talents, which most people do frequently particularly in raids, more difficult and expensive

The talent tiers - at least for warlocks - are clearly designed to compel talent changes to be far more frequent, because they are more situationally mutually exclusive than ever before.

Many of them are clearly designed to be "you can have an AOE talent, or single target..but not both". The warlock tier talents for mobility or survivability are mutually exclusive, and almost all the single target/aoe enhancing ones are.

It's not good for overall gameplay at all when adapting to different situational requirements becomes frustrating and annoying. Trust me, they aren't going to design raids with less variety between bosses just to save people switching talents. Quite the opposite


This absolutely reeks of the usual cheap trick tactics of associating mat costs with frequent necessities simply to keep people grinding day in day out at the same content just to farm the mats. Or the gold to pay for the reagents

Exactly the same reasons you have flasks and potions. Particularly potions.

So now you will need a "potion" to change talents.

It will be particularly mendacious if there happen to be any classes who don't have their AOE and ST talents in mutually exclusive positions.

Congrats to Blizz on a truly awful idea.

I read the announce and my heart sank.

"An area that has appeared to need a bit more friction, however, is actually talent changes. Especially with no reagent cost at all now, it can be all too easy to activate AoE talents before larger packs of enemies in a dungeon, and then switch back to single-target talents before a lieutenant or a boss. Or someone might switch to a passive movement-speed talent when traversing an area, and then back to something functional before entering combat. At that point, we're often hardly talking about a meaningful choice at all, but rather a nuisance of extra button-presses or UI navigation before you can use your desired talents.
"

Can anyone tell me why being able to adapt to situations as required in a simple and easy way is bad? Wow, how awful, a player who needs to do AOE can activate AOE talents. Let's make that process annoying and frustrating.



I'd guess that outside of progression raiding, most players will simply pick a compromise talent choice and pick a ST talent here, an AOE target there, and accept a "jack of all trades, master of none" approach rather that tit about with having to carry bagfulls of reagents or grind away earning gold to pay for them.

[Nevcairiel]

Changing talents doesn't need a freaking cooldown or a reagent cost aimed at groups. I don't know what Blizzard is smoking - they are trying to do everything to make this game less fun. The point of the new talent system was it's convenience, but now we've to return to safe points? Wtf

Maybe you should read the posts you are responding to, it was explained in full detail why being able to switch all the time basically made the entire system pointless and you might as well give players everything at once. Its not to remove "fun", its to make decisions matter. Respeccing talents every 30 seconds (trash -> boss -> trash -> boss) is not something I would consider fun myself, but some people are weird about what they like, I suppose.

[Deleted]

I can't say I really like these changes to the restrictions. The philosophy also makes me wonder. A spec is supposed to be a significant choice. Making that free is odd. Talents are more finetuning for a spec. With the proposed changes spec identity, one of the pillars of Legion considering the Artifacts, will take a major hit for the pure dps classes.

Honestly I'd rather have it reversed: respecs costing a group token and talents free with current restrictions.

As a raider I just see it as a gold sink either way. You have to optimize for fights anyway so whatever form it takes to change, it will happen for every boss. As a pure dps I can optimize my 3 specs for different scenarios. Switching specs is enough to optimize, the whole point they're seemingly trying to prevent. This restriction will just be a slight frustration for hybrid dps, healers and tanks who are limited to optimization through their talents.

[Deleted]

Omg there are draenei in the movie. Now I'm super excited!

[Mic_128]

Oh dear, they make changing specs - which most people do infrequently - easier and free, but changing talents, which most people do frequently particularly in raids, more difficult and expensive
[/B]

I'm sorry, but as a guy who likes to both DPS and heal (And I'm sure everyone else out there who has a Warrior, Death Knight, Paladin, Druid, Shaman, Monk or Priest) we change specs more than talents. Making a gold cost would make me think twice about offering to change rolls in a raid, as I'm sure a vast many would have as well.

Changing talents on a fight-by-fight basis for min-maxing might be desired, but it's not as big a changer as having to wait an extra half-hour to find a healer because the guy who already changed from heals to DPS doesn't want to have to change back for an hour before 'Bob' comes back. If you have to, either buy the inscription item or just get a summon (Warlock/Summon stone) once you hearth/portal out and change.

[Nevcairiel]

As a pure dps I can optimize my 3 specs for different scenarios. Switching specs is enough to optimize, the whole point they're seemingly trying to prevent. This restriction will just be a slight frustration for hybrid dps, healers and tanks who are limited to optimization through their talents.

Switching specs will be far less effective if you have to level up 3 artifact weapons first. Staying in your current spec and changing a talent to go from ST -> AoE or something is a far easier move, even if you only deliver 99% instead of the potential 100% - assuming you had the Artifact on the same level, which you might not.

Back in the "good old days" you had to go see a trainer to respec. I thought people liked that time.
Going to a major city or using a item doesn't seem impossible, we'll have to see how much these items cost. They could always re-tune the item to be cheap enough to not be too punishing, but still retain a feeling of meaningful decision, and not respeccing between trash and boss etc.

[Deleted]

Maybe you should read the posts you are responding to, it was explained in full detail why being able to switch all the time basically made the entire system pointless and you might as well give players everything at once. Its not to remove "fun", its to make decisions matter. Respeccing talents every 30 seconds (trash -> boss -> trash -> boss) is not something I would consider fun myself, but some people are weird about what they like, I suppose.

Whatever - this and many many other things including the removal of flight didnt need critical second guess since they never had a negative effect in places where it mattered (competitive environment).

- - - Updated - - -

I'm sorry, but as a guy who likes to both DPS and heal (And I'm sure everyone else out there who has a Warrior, Death Knight, Paladin, Druid, Shaman, Monk or Priest) we change specs more than talents. Making a gold cost would make me think twice about offering to change rolls in a raid, as I'm sure a vast many would have as well.

Changing talents on a fight-by-fight basis for min-maxing might be desired, but it's not as big a changer as having to wait an extra half-hour to find a healer because the guy who already changed from heals to DPS doesn't want to have to change back for an hour before 'Bob' comes back. If you have to, either buy the inscription item or just get a summon (Warlock/Summon stone) once you hearth/portal out and change.

LOL, this is the designed goal of the new talent system if you somehow missed the last 2 expansions. Specs are required to change talents on a fight-by-fight basis. If you slack or overall like to gimp your own raid, then you dont have to change your talents, ofc.

[Deleted]

Maybe you should read the posts you are responding to, it was explained in full detail why being able to switch all the time basically made the entire system pointless and you might as well give players everything at once. Its not to remove "fun", its to make decisions matter. Respeccing talents every 30 seconds (trash -> boss -> trash -> boss) is not something I would consider fun myself, but some people are weird about what they like, I suppose.

Because it's even less fun to face a "meaningful decision" which amounts to accepting being crap at some situations and/or carrying a bagful of reagents you have to grind the mats or gold for.

The result will be people will use a talent calculator and stay with a "best all round spec" permanently, or they will accept that maximum performance just means an extra layer of boredom grinding and humping around a bag full of reagents into raids.

I think it's a truly awful idea. And it runs entirely contrary to the years of crap we've had from Blizz about how talents shouldn't be mandatory blah blah blah

This is little different to the sheer tedium warlocks used to have of farming bags full of soulshards before every raid as their abilities burnt them

Either that or pre-raid you will tell your DPS/healers to have a split between them so that half concentrate on say AOE to burn the trash down (then the other half can feel bad during that), whilst the ones that concentrate on ST can make the AOE'ers feel bad on mini-bosses

I must say I had my suspiscions aroused when I saw the talent trees, they are clearly designed to make people want to change talents more often than they do now.

And here we go - attach a grinding requirement to do that. "It keeps world content meaningful" as the Blizz jargon goes.

[Deleted]

You all moaned about respec costs and now u moan about the change to it......your own fault guys.....respec cost was fine tbh. only costing gold if used more than once in 24h. how many times do you change specs??? Now we all suffer with talent changing stuff. Btw im druid before someone says i dont play class with respecs

[Pieterman]

Can anyone tell me why being able to adapt to situations as required in a simple and easy way is bad? Wow, how awful, a player who needs to do AOE can activate AOE talents. Let's make that process annoying and frustrating.

Because it diminished the idea of a talent if you can just toggle them on and off at your leisure. It started with dual spec because people didn't want to spent 5 minutes setting up, and now we're here with the most uninteresting way to do talents ever.

[Nupss]

I don't quite understand how our current dual spec system will be affected by this. Do we retain the ability to only swap between 2 specs or do we have access to all of them without going to a trainer, deleting a spec and picking a new one? (including the hassle of rearranging buttons and such)

Anyway I have a sneaky suspicion warlocks are going to busy bees summoning people back to raids : /