What's the point of talent trees?

[Exodeus]

The talents system needs more choices imo, and the main issue is not balance at all the talents should be there for fun to be able to change things up with your prefered spec.
So long as there is one build that competes in the high end of the meters things are fine, and if ppl dont like a certain talent that is part of the best blizzard will usually change it so that a more liked option is viable.

The talent system is not an illusion of choice as many will argue, because it is choice and me and many many others have often performed well with non cookie cutter builds despite what theory crafters say is the best.

I was sad to see the old talents go no because i had much more choice for raids, there were always builds that were the best, but because you could make brokenly good hybrid builds for soloing and pvp.

[Kokolums]

Talent trees never worked in wow because bosses are scripted encounters. They never change. If their abilities randomized EVERY pull, the most efficient talents would be unknowable.

[Deleted]

I'd like to see talents that were utility rather than throughput. Displacer Beast vs Wild Charge is a good example of this imo.

[Deleted]

So what's the point of talents? What direction do you think they are heading to regarding talents? Do you expect the current 3-talents per row will last seeing that artifact have a built-in old talent tree inside? Will we go back to the old talents were you could build hybrid? Or will we lose talents entirely?

The current "3-talents per row" system is an illusion of choice. There will always be a "Cookie cutter" build no matter what system is in place. Specially in PvE.

I can tell you for 99% sure that the old system was removed because of hybrid talent trees and the problems it gave for game balancing, constant patching and an entire team just to constantly balance it.
If you look closely to the evolution of the talent trees in each expansion, all the changes were made to completely remove from the game hybrid talent trees.
It's as obvious as 2+2=4
Why? Because the first change (in Cataclysm) was to be mandatory to reach the end of a talent tree and only then you could go to another tree. OBVIOUSLY a decision to end hybrid talents.

So yes, Blizzard lied to us by saying "the change was to end cookie cutter builds". THAT IS BULLSHIT. The change was to end hybrid talents and remove all the work Blizzard had to do to balance them.

PS: Hybrid talents is what gives fun to a MMORPG, specially in PvP where utility is better than damage everytime. The removal of freedom in talents only made the game worse and MUCH LESS of a RPG.

[Deleted]

there will always be a cookie cutter build, which is why the newer talent system failed hardcore.
old talent system was just better and i think a lot of people felt the beauty again of leveling up their artifact weapon.

[Vorecien]

The old system was too complicated. In Wrath of the Lich King, we had access to 71 talent points, each class had over 80 talents, and there were a myriad of ways for a player to spend their talent points and build their character's specialization.

Yes, we lost the golden age of hybrid builds at the end of Cataclysm, well technically at the end of The Burning Crusade, but it didn't feel right to offer 100+ talent points to a player to build specs in this fashion. (We all remember the shockadin or swift moonkin builds.)

If we step into Cataclysm, Blizzard knew that something HAD to change. We saw what we dub as pruning, occur. Blizzard had two big problems with the system from Wrath and before: balance and new players. Rather than giving us 5 more talent points, the trees were pruned to 31-point trees with seven tiers, which was their size during Vanilla. The difference, though, is that you chose a spec, and then had to dedicate 31 talent points to the spec before you could branch out to the others.

Blizzard's entire design to talent trees is derived off of the mentality of "creating meaningful decisions". Whether or not we have a "best" talent for raid encounters or whatever, then selecting that talent is still dubbed as a "meaningful" decision. The problem we saw with Cataclysm, though, was the uprising of "cookie cutter" builds -- they were more common than ever before. It didn't work. Not to mention, this new talent system design killed hybrid builds for good.

Now, at the 2011 BlizzCon, Blizzard announced the new talent system that would arrive with Mists of Pandaria. They were no longer in a "tree" format, they were now going to be a "table" or "tier" concept -- with 3 choices per tier. Blizzard expanded on the defaults of choosing a spec, offering players more abilities and passives simply for selecting a Frost mage spec, Beast Mastery hunter spec, or Feral druid spec. The goal of the new system was to remove illusion of choice and cookie cutter builds.

Ultimately, we've come full circle with the talent system. Blizzard deems the current system a "success", and many players, including myself, agree. During Warlords of Draenor, the system was enhanced -- talents were shown based on your spec. The problem most people have today is do these talents really feel like choices? Talent selections are temporary, but were they ever supposed to be more final? Honestly, I think swapping talents around to be better in content isn't an abnormal thing to have in a game. I believe most people are just too nostalgic for the older system.

[dextersmith]

It was supposed to be for customization and character growth but Blizzard didn't like the customization of hybrid specs the first system allowed due to balance, yet they didn't like cookie cutter builds either. Growth is hardly noticeable with 1 talent per 15 levels. And they complain that players can't make up their minds.

[Swalload]

This is not a thread to discuss where the actual talent system or the former one is better, I prefer the actual one, but that's just my humble opinion. The idea behind the actual one was so that player could get rid of cookie cutter builds and pick whatever style or talent they liked and the difference would be minimal. It's not.

100% wrong and was clearly stated in blue posts when the big change happened. It was to get rid of a bunch of very boring talents like 5% flat dmg that was actually 5 points investment (1% per points). These boring flat talents got baked into the specs at this time.
The idea of offering more build options was there but it wasn't the main goal at all, they know that they won't balance things correctly, they know people will find the optimal build and use it. Some specs right now have more than 1 viable option but it's very situational and it's not many specs.

[dextersmith]

It's also hard to get excited to cast 1 specific spell 0.1 second faster or have it do 1% more damage after all that grinding. It's not noticeable outside a spreadsheet.

[Deleted]

100% wrong and was clearly stated in blue posts when the big change happened. It was to get rid of a bunch of very boring talents like 5% flat dmg that was actually 5 points investment (1% per points).

Don't believe all the crap Blizzard sells you on blue posts. If the true reason for the change was the "boring talents" then why not just remove all the "boring talents" and replace them with meaningfull ones?
The true reason for the change was to stop once and for all the "hybrid talents" and all the work they gave to balance the game.

The first change in Cataclysm was pretty obvious to why they did it. They just had to come up with some bull@#%& to tell us.

[Swalload]

Don't believe all the crap Blizzard sells you on blue posts. If the true reason for the change was the "boring talents" then why not just remove all the "boring talents" and replace them with meaningfull ones?
The true reason for the change was to stop once and for all the "hybrid talents" and all the work they gave to balance the game.

The first change in Cataclysm was pretty obvious to why they did it. They just had to come up with some bull@#%& to tell us.

Everything is a conspiracy, everyone is evil, the world is against me, they are all liars!

[Deleted]

Everything is a conspiracy, everyone is evil, the world is against me, they are all liars!

LoL excuse me for having a rational brain.
Care to explain why the change in Cataclysm of mandatory spending all points in one tree and only then spending the rest on another?

This must be a complete mistery to you then. Why did they do that? Humm...hard to say why.

[dextersmith]

Overall system is fine. Blizzard just aren't able to create interesting talents and balance them.
If you don't have to swap talents on different types of encounters - it's class design flaw and poor job by developer, not a bad system.

They did it so well for D2 though.

[Deleted]

To put talents in the trees

[TehTemplar]

As a fury warrior in raiding I swap only 1 talent between all bosses.

It's kinda sad.

They need to rebalance talents to make them relevant in different situations to actually make sense of swapping them.

As it stands its pure garbage.

[Deleted]

To put talents in the trees

Yes, it was an attempt to prevent us from doing something else.
And that "else" is "putting points in other trees AKA "hybrid talents".

[Swalload]

LoL excuse me for having a rational brain.
Care to explain why the change in Cataclysm of mandatory spending all points in one tree and only then spending the rest on another?

This must be a complete mistery to you then. Why did they do that? Humm...hard to say why.

It's called iteration, they tried something, it sucked and didn't do what they were aiming for, they redesigned it.

[dextersmith]

Don't believe all the crap Blizzard sells you on blue posts. If the true reason for the change was the "boring talents" then why not just remove all the "boring talents" and replace them with meaningfull ones?
The true reason for the change was to stop once and for all the "hybrid talents" and all the work they gave to balance the game.

The first change in Cataclysm was pretty obvious to why they did it. They just had to come up with some bull@#%& to tell us.

They even stated that was one of the main reasons for the change. Did people really buy into the "concentrated coolness" propaganda?

[melodramocracy]

The talent system as a whole is outdated.

In the current version of the game, absolutely it is. Actual character building has never been this games strong point though.

[Deleted]

They even stated that was one of the main reasons for the change. Did people really buy into the "concentrated coolness" propaganda?

Oh, they said that was one of the reasons? I didn't know.
I'm sorry but this topic "triggers" me so much. I used to love hybrid talent trees. It made me feel different from everyone else and amazing at PvP. It was one of the best times i have ever had with WoW. Once they removed hybrid trees on Cataclysm i was so pissed.