Seeing the Forest for the Talent Trees

[Deleted]

A long list of answers, each one of them completely BS if you ask me. How expected.

It's just sad how badly this shows that Blizzard simply doesn't even care about its playerbase enough anymore to even listen to them. Instead, whenever anybody makes a point that's actually decent, built up from actual evidence even, they still just assume that he's only a part of the "vocal minority".

I'm just going to say right now that Blizzard will be in for a surprise. With talents like these, dungeons and raids are going to have to be easy as shit if we even want to stand a chance at survival. And I guarantee that not just the "vocal minority" will dislike that enough to just leave after a while.

---------- Post added 2011-12-09 at 06:39 AM ----------

Honestly, some of the answers Blizzard gave are...

Pure gold.

Someone moaning about something stupid? Call them out on it! I'm pleased they didn't just ignore the question, and just pointed out how silly it was to even ask it (or indeed, state it as fact).

Here's a fact: regardless of what Blizzard do, people will complain. If they do something new, go back to something old, or keep things as they are, people will whine and cry and winge endlessly.

Better to call them out on it rather then pander to it. Blizzard may not always make the best choices, but overall their products are of high quality which is reflected on the fact they have huge numbers of fans and subscribers. And no, don't point out a decline in subs - even with them they still blow their competition out of the water, meaning if they are bad then whatever company you support is worse.

More then half of the current subscribers are no longer there because of the content, but because they have in-game friends that they don't want to leave.

They may put up with a lot. But will their friends do so as well? That's a risk Blizzard has not given even a single thought, and it makes for a very unstable platform that they're building MoP on.

[slayton]

More then half of the current subscribers are no longer there because of the content, but because they have in-game friends that they don't want to leave.

Did you know 94% of all statistics are made up on the spot..?

[Gothicshark]

God Dang Ghost Crawler Don't you guys get it? Back in Vanilla and BC I could build a true Hybrid spec, I could make myself completely different than the next guy. I could Build a Warlock tank. With the idea that you are avoiding 'theory crafting' you are making it so we don't want to play anymore. This is one of the reasons why WOW is failing. Instead you respond to legitimate worries about your direction with rude comments. There is no reason to treat your long term loyal customers with "You’re wrong. Next!". I am a huge WOW-fan, and I want to continue playing this game. Yet every-time I turn around these days you give people reasons to leave, and very few reasons to stay. ((re-post of what I typed on the official thread.))

[WrathDksCataFrostPandaFtl]

you should all know by now that blizzard will do whatever the fuck they want to, regardless of feedback. ask ret paladins who've been unhappy since launch about their spec problems, and how they have been ignored for the ENTIRETY of the expansion. we wanted less RNG, and got band-aids instead. when the customers are unhappy, do they care? no, they go ahead with their vision of what the spec should be like. 6 talent points when many talent points are pvp related, means things will be more cookie cutter than you think. IMHO, pre-cata talent trees were best. you had many options.

also, it's absolutely amazing greg street manages to keep a job after he screws up time and time again.

"dungeons are hard" GC, who then decides it's ok to make MoP 5-mans WOTLK difficulty (not an assumption, their own words).

if you think wow is in decline, look no further than this fool as to why some things arent as good as they could be.

This, a million times. What ignorant ass___s. What retards. Seriously.

See this shit? http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html

It's all a lie. For PR purposes only.

---------- Post added 2011-12-09 at 12:04 AM ----------

I've been saying the same thing for months. Bookmarked this and added it to my list so maybe people will listen now that it has blue text. Well and the dev team presents their arguments in a more coherent and easier to follow fashion.

(If by coherent you mean a smarmy, holier than thou way, sure, I'll give you that one.

And even though house is more than popular, being a complete douchebag to your customers is so juvenile that it's almost not worth talking about to someone who believes otherwise, but I'll humor your ignorance just this once.)

"anymore" indicates that there was a time WoW PvP was ever remotely close to balanced. Vanilla and TBC PvP balance was beyond awful. Wrath was alright in certain seasons (not the first few).

(If you really think it was unbalanced, than you obviously played a ret paladin in BC. To say it was more awful than Cata, is a little further than ridiculous. I wonder why MLG dropped WoW since it was so awesome in your view... Even at the end of Wrath it wasn't balanced, Shadowmourne, ICC trinkets > PvP equivalents, are you trolling bro? If not, you obviously had never played past 1800. )

You must not read the forums often. Go look on the Bluetracker, there are like 3 threads in the last month about it alone. There are threads all the time on the official forums from the casual playerbase who like seeing all the content and leveling faster
.

Wow, 3 threads is srs bsns man. Out of 10 million people. 3 is literally so many. Really.

[chrisisvacant]

God Dang Ghost Crawler Don't you guys get it? Back in Vanilla and BC I could build a true Hybrid spec, I could make myself completely different than the next guy. I could Build a Warlock tank. With the idea that you are avoiding 'theory crafting' you are making it so we don't want to play anymore. This is one of the reasons why WOW is failing. Instead you respond to legitimate worries about your direction with rude comments. There is no reason to treat your long term loyal customers with "You’re wrong. Next!". I am a huge WOW-fan, and I want to continue playing this game. Yet every-time I turn around these days you give people reasons to leave, and very few reasons to stay. ((re-post of what I typed on the official thread.))

Uhh, barring some exceptions (enhancement tanks come to mind), specs in Vanilla were still cookie cutter. Each spec had a laid out path to go down. Just because you can't spec wrong on purpose and do terrible DPS in raids and dungeons (while proclaiming its your 15 bucks to do so) doesn't mean they are doing it wrong. YOU were doing it wrong.

[PizzaSHARK]

Did you know 94% of all statistics are made up on the spot..?

Don't be an idiot, it's actually only 77% that are made up on the spot.

I'm a big fan of the redesigned talent system. Really looking forward to being in the beta.

[Deleted]

You know, life's much easier when you just concentrate on wether you like it or not and accordingly play it or not. If I had the time and money to, Id love to try Mists of Pandaria,because I left out cataclysm, it would really be a totally new feeling and game.

[Deleted]

Did you know 94% of all statistics are made up on the spot..?

Perhaps. but there is no way that you can convince me that over 9 million people still play WoW for its content. I even find 5 million hard to believe, considering its quality these days.

After all, I myself am still playing just because of my friends. I mean, I don't have time to raid through other means then LFR, nor do I have any interest whatsoever in PvP. I only come online to have fun with my friends.
I'm not saying everybody is just like me in that regard, but I would not be surprised if the majority is this way, if not at least half of the current playerbase.

[Deleted]

Great, now i know im not going to buy next expansion either.

[Cathbadh]

The problem I have with this and with the answers is, of all of the complaints I've heard from players, big talent trees was never one of them. With the frequent comments that limited resources lead to certain things not being fixed or to art being recycled, why waste any resources on the one thing players don't seem to have a problem with? Add one more level and a few more points, and/or unlock the trees to re-allow hybrid builds and call it a day and move on to a bigger issue.

[Tydrane]

You're wrong. Next!

Not that I have a particularly strong opinion on the new talent build system - I actually think it looks pretty good, and I like that it gives the player accessibility to some of the cooler talents from ALL trees available to that class; this is exactly the kind of lofty, ivory-tower-esque arrogance and condescension that pushed me away from the game. Everyone who has worked in a service industry knows the customer isn't always right, but the customer always deserves to be treated with respect, not imperious contempt.

[Oldbugga]

Remember Szun Tzu and the art of deflection of criticism.....

Always blame the complainers
Always trivialise their complaints
Always belittle their value
Always espouse superior intellect/knowledge
Always dismiss their data as inferior
Never admit a mistake...ever....despite overwhelming data...see previous point
Always give the impression of listening

there are more......but....we AWAYS give them another chance don't we?

[Cereal Killer]

God, did that Blizzard post seem arrogant as shit to anyone else? I feel like I am being talked down to as a child would.....

[Oldbugga]

My last few posts have sounded harsh and they should be...they are all directed at accountability...accountability of the devs to live up to their promises/rhetoric/propaganda rather than just to deflect legitimate concerns of the players. To date we have been hoodwinked/cajoled/mislead/misdirected on the basis that "we will all suck it up anyway"....and we do. I hope performance criteria for the devs reflects this.

Edit: In case anyone is considering my commitment to this game...yes I signed up to the 12 month thingy. It is just the Devs MUST start delivering what they promised....no "buts"....no "it is important that...therefore"....no "but players changed this or that"...deliver what they say.....we are not interested in their promotion "gunpowder"...just deliverables.

[Gilian]

Did you know 94% of all statistics are made up on the spot..?

He didn't use statistics.

I quit because my guild quit and all my friends were already gone. I had no desire to find a new guild or to try to build up something new. If content was really good I would have stayed for the content but it wasn't. The only thing that I liked doing was progress with a guild through hardmodes and get realm firsts or maybe even better. The raids aren't that much fun to do in easy mode, it's boring. Gear also means nothing anymore so going for that special piece of gear to show off... no more.

The only reason they make these talent trees is because they want accessibility because they think that's what keeps people playing. That is true for short term bad/new players. But I like to figure out things. Who cares if I don't have the perfect build right from the start. The only time this became a problem was in WotLK when there was no progression anymore except for the last raid. Everyone skipped everything and never actually learned and experienced people had to suffer from new players mistakes.
The rest of the talent trees was just fine, no one complained about 'cookie cutter builds'. It was fun to play with builds. Choosing between survival or extra healing/dps or changing things up for PvP.

Accessibility and easy is the way they are going. So if you don't like it quit, they are not going to change. It will destroy what the game used to be, it already did. And people who liked this type of game will only stay because of guilds or friends.
This game is now awesome for casual players. But from my experience casual gamers don't play games for a long time. They will also do LFR and finish the new content within a week then wait for the next patch and cancel their subscription.

No offense to anyone. The game just changed so much. It's not for long term players anymore (the game itself not the social aspects).

---------- Post added 2011-12-09 at 10:05 AM ----------

Uhh, barring some exceptions (enhancement tanks come to mind), specs in Vanilla were still cookie cutter. Each spec had a laid out path to go down. Just because you can't spec wrong on purpose and do terrible DPS in raids and dungeons (while proclaiming its your 15 bucks to do so) doesn't mean they are doing it wrong. YOU were doing it wrong.

The fun is in figuring it out yourself. When everything gets handed out to you it gets boring really fast.

[prwraith]

Number ten hits the nail on the head, not what the blue said, but the title of point 10.

[Gilian]

Perhaps. but there is no way that you can convince me that over 9 million people still play WoW for its content. I even find 5 million hard to believe, considering its quality these days.

After all, I myself am still playing just because of my friends. I mean, I don't have time to raid through other means then LFR, nor do I have any interest whatsoever in PvP. I only come online to have fun with my friends.
I'm not saying everybody is just like me in that regard, but I would not be surprised if the majority is this way, if not at least half of the current playerbase.

I wouldn't be either. When everything is handed to you and you don't have to figure out things yourself a game becomes boring really fast. And now with LFR it's becoming even easier to see content. When a game becomes boring to you you either quit or you have fun with friends.
Dumbing down the game will make it more boring and people will eventually quit. But yes they do attract new players this way and some will stay longer because it is less frustrating but they will also quit faster because there is less to look forward to. As soon as they become experienced it gets boring.

[Oldbugga]

The issue is that the Devs should tell the marketing people to %^$* off. I really believe that if the devs had an honest straight forward shot at the expansion we would get a great expansion. They DO know what we want...they are just not allowed to expend what is needed to give it to us and the bean counters want more money from everything anyway. They are in between the proverbial rock and a hard place....but we still pay the subs.

[runeb1980@hotmail.com]

Blizzard's arrogance is palpable. As is their unwillingness to accept criticism. They change talents completely for every expansion, and each time defend it adamently. In the expansion after MOP, they'll defend going back to a proper tree of some sort.

[Oldbugga]

I think we have all noticed a subtle change in the development process and culture recently from one of player focus to financial (Blizz's) focus. Nothing wrong with that by the way...maybe we just have to realise that and the implications for the game...we think it is OUR game....obviously not. i like to think our comments may make a marginal difference and I will continue to post in-principle opinions.....but I fear that it won't make any difference in the long run.