Seeing the Forest for the Talent Trees

[Simca]

"This is the big one, and the truth is it is ultimately correct. You will have fewer choices. But you will have more choices that *matter*"

This simply isn't true. My shaman for example has a bunch of totems I will never use, and a cooldown I've had for years. It's the same for almost all other classes too. None of the choices (with the exception of a few) "matter". TOTALLY dreadful idea. We went from like 60 talent points, to 40 and now 6 ... How is this more choice? Dreadful!

Did you read what he said? He agreed, you are getting less choices. You are getting more that matter.

As an example, it's like if I asked what sport you wanted to play and had you pick from 50 different types and colors of American football. On the other hand, I have you pick between 5 balls that are actually different: soccer, volleyball, etc.

Please show me in the Vanilla, TBC, Wrath, or even Cataclysm talent trees where you have a level of meaningful choice that is even remotely close to the ones shown in the more complete talent trees (not Shaman) like Warlocks, Druids, Priests, etc.

This might be true for DPS, but not at all for healers or tanks. Want more mana as Resto Shaman? Go Telluric Currents and Elemental Precision. Want more mobility? Go for Ancestral Swiftness. There's a lot of movement and no real cookie cutter for us. The new talents for Resto Shaman at least look awful.Sure it'd be cool if we had to choose between those, but when we have to choose between snare protection for self, snare protection for others or silence protection, absolutely none of those have any use for PVE whatsoever.

Shaman are clearly not even started for Mists.

If you're a:
Death Knight
Hunter
Rogue
Shaman
Paladin
Tank (of any class)

I'd definitely wait before making judgement. Your classes/specs are pre-alpha and shouldn't have even been released in the talent calculator in my opinion.

[Deleted]

Interdasting.

Honestly is annoying. Blizzard are trying to get rid of cookie cutter builds. But the problems with maxing is there will be a max, and that will become a cookie cutter. IF you give a choice and one is better for DPS then you choose it, end of and that will happen with this.

Every single player worth there salt will play with the choice that make there character produce the best, that will be the cookie cutter.

Its just an excuse to change and revamp IMO

[Vasz]

So while RIFT gives us a choice of any of the nine trees per class, WoW gives us six choices. If TRION can balance 224 combinations, why can't Blizzard balance 3? Other games on the market are giving more choice, but Blizzard is going backwards (60, 40, 6)

[alabaster jones]

"we tried the talent tree model for seven years. We think it’s fundamentally flawed and unfixable"

but... I'm thinking right now about how I'm going to use my talents in borderlands for my soldier respec, I'm considering how I want to use my talents for my mage in skyrim, I want to try out a different mage build in king's bounty... I want to use a melee dread build in DoW2 campaign next time I play it co-op...........

I like talent trees, I always have.

[Franklinn]

"Leveling is fairly fast and rewarding and you get to see all the content".Who the FUCK ever said that "seeing all the content" or "leveling faster" is what we all want in this game to make it feel rewarding. No one I know. No one on the forums. No one anywhere.

Some people just want to get to end-game and kill stuff. Other people want to take their time to quest through all of the zones, and hey, NO ONE is stopping you from doing that after you hit level 90.

[Simca]

"we tried the talent tree model for seven years. We think it’s fundamentally flawed and unfixable"

but... I'm thinking right now about how I'm going to use my talents in borderlands for my soldier respec, I'm considering how I want to use my talents for my mage in skyrim, I want to try out a different mage build in king's bounty... I want to use a melee dread build in DoW2 campaign next time I play it co-op...........

I like talent trees, I always have.

The problem is that talent trees do not work in World of Warcraft as the level cap expands. They cannot continue to give players more and more and more abilities or everyone will have 120 buttons and it will just be wonky as hell. Same with talents.

See this:

Once upon a time, you got a new talent point every level. That worked okay for a game with 60 levels. It works less well for a game with 90 levels. It probably is totally incomprehensible for a game with 150 levels, should we ever get there.

[voskopoula]

Totally disappointing the way blizzard progresses the whole talent system.. It is going way opposite than other mmorpgs. I want to think for every of the 15+ talents i will put depending role and raid..If they minimize the talents down to 8 then the choices will be to choose on stuff like either full-dps/heal or survivability cc . It is ridiculous, there will be no more theorycrafting on the talent level...why would we bother with talents then? doh

[Guardias]

"In the case of the" NEW "trees, choosing the talent you want from among the talents that don’t interest you isn’t an interesting decision -- it's a multiple choice test..."

Thats my take on GC's first point. He spoke of it about the old trees but it is even more prevalent for the new trees.

[Gurbz]

If TRION can balance 224 combinations

Um...they can't.

[TrilainaBloodwind]

I am a loyal fan of blizzard, and have been since I was a wee level 1 way back in the last few weeks of Vanilla. Since Vanilla, there have been an array of changes that have come to the game over the years. Throughout all these changes, I have been fine and in fact for most of the changes to the abilities, talents, and class designs. As an unholy/Blood Dk, an Enhancement/Restoration Shaman, and a Combat/Assassination Rogue, I have had my classes buffed/nerfed plenty of times, and I'm no stranger to getting a little upset over these changes. Over time, I simply deal with them and move on, learning how to accept the changes over time. I think the message blizzard is trying to send with this total overhaul of the talent design, though, might be a step backwards. The whole point of this new system is that it's taking certain talents that made a certain class' spec unique and purely designed for it and make it readily available to everyone. Further more, the ability players have to benefit from certain talents in their current talent tree selections are currently gone. I'm not opposed to fans giving feedback at all. In fact, if I had a chance to right now, I'd even give blizz a thought or two about these changes. However, I think that as members of the WoW community, we should go ahead and hold all reservations of what we think about the changes until we get a lot closer to the final product. Who knows? There could be a very big overhaul done to what we see right now, and a lot of the abilities that we aren't seeing, or we don't like, will be placed into the game or taken out. Let's just hold off our judgement until it gets closer to the release date. For all we know, we might all be pleasantly surprised.

[Rolly]

Bla bla bla bla bla bla
No matter how much they try they can't hide the fact that they've used the same template for Diablo 3 and WoW.
They can blather on about it all they want but it's obvious as hell this was done with "costs" in mind, not player enjoyment.
This is a perfect example of why Greg Street was hired, not for his game design, but for his ability to pretend a sow's ear is a silk purse.

[Simca]

Totally disappointing the way blizzard progresses the whole talent system.. It is going way opposite than other mmorpgs.

You're comparing them with other MMORPGs that are just launching and aren't running into a talent/spell inflation issue due to the game being running for so long.

I want to think for every of the 15+ talents i will put depending role and raid..

Currently there are around 3 cookie cutter builds for each class and if you don't use them, you're not playing well.

If they minimize the talents down to 8 then the choices will be to choose on stuff like either full-dps/heal or survivability cc .

Have you looked at the new talent trees? The finished ones offer more choice than ever.

It is ridiculous, there will be no more theorycrafting on the talent level...why would we bother with talents then? doh

Because they're critical to your class and the choices will change a lot according to situation. They'll be just as important as always.

No matter how much they try they can't hide the fact that they've used the same template for Diablo 3 and WoW.

What on earth are you talking about? Diablo 3 doesn't even have talents. They have spells and a form of glyph.

They can blather on about it all they want but it's obvious as hell this was done with "costs" in mind, not player enjoyment.

Are you seriously attempting to suggest that adding 2 new talents to each tree (for 5 new levels) would cost them less than redesigning the entire talent system and every spec?

This is a perfect example of why Greg Street was hired, not for his game design, but for his ability to pretend a sow's ear is a silk purse.

These type of posts make my head hurt.

[Pejo]

Um...they can't.

Exactly. I Definately don't know why someone would bother mentioning Rift in the case of balancing trees. One of the most annoying things is having to change your spec weekly as they 'balance' out the specs. If you want to be competitive, you have to learn a new play style every time the talents even slightly change as something else is now max dps spec.

[Biggiej]

"You're wrong, NEXT!" Not exactly a good way to address people imo...sure some statements are bold and blizzard probably wanted to retort in a way to shut them down, but as a player trying to read what blizzard has to say, I get discouraged and disgruntled seeing an employee just shove "You're wrong!" Into someones face. That isn't going to get you subs and people to continue playing imo.

[Vutar]

Hey look, more blizzard arrogance.

[duketillis]

I am slightly amused by the number of comments that say "The theorycrafters will just math out which is the right talent and we'll all just pick that one." But the theorycrafters aren’t agreeing with those comments, because they know they won’t be able to.

Please dont mock us, there are already forums about exact specs players should choose from merely based off of the talent tree. Sure depending on the encounters that come up and the numbers behind the players and the gear will change them. But to say there is no more cookie cutters builds outrageous. There always will be. There is no way to get around them unless no matter what talent you choose from, the dps/healing/threat will always be the same. On elitist jerks for the rogue community they will spend hours on a test dummy just to test out a .05% gain. Compile data and as a community make sure that the current proposed build is correct. Then add changes for each fight, and yes there are already proposed talent builds. So as you would tell us.

You're wrong. Next!

[jumpbeat]

''Instead of having to click Raging Blow, we’ll just give it to you, because frankly if you skip it, you’re making a mistake (or you’re RPing a Fury warrior who has taken too many blows to the head).''

[Kujako]

I am a Druid tank. Getting to "choose" between tree talents, two of which only effect cat form and one that only marginally effects any form other then cat is not a choice that matters.

[Swiftrunner]

"You're wrong, NEXT!" Not exactly a good way to address people imo...sure some statements are bold and blizzard probably wanted to retort in a way to shut them down, but as a player trying to read what blizzard has to say, I get discouraged and disgruntled seeing an employee just shove "You're wrong!" Into someones face. That isn't going to get you subs and people to continue playing imo.

I have to agree with you on that, it may grab people's attention when you write that way, but for all the wrong reasons. I have to wonder if they thought about how the wording might portray them, and skew reactions in a certain way.

[bbr]

Choices are nice though, I kind of like having MANY choices. It allows you to be unique more easily. Like in Diablo 3,. you got a ton of choices for your skills. They claimed something around 4 million options or so. Odd they are decreasing the choices in talents in WoW, while they are expanding it so far and wide in Diablo 3.

Have you looked at the new talent trees? The finished ones offer more choice than ever.

The hybrid trees look far from "choicy". In fact, you barely get any choices at all.
Take druids for example. Then pick balance and tell me where you see choices.
Some talents are very specific to either bear or cat, I reckon priests, paladins, and warriors have a similar issue.

The only ones getting real "choices" are the warlocks, pages and rogues.

I would have kind of hoped that the talen trees at least "change" if you take a different specialization, but they don't