Seeing the Forest for the Talent Trees

[Gilian]

Its actually spot on. Your irrational hatred or anger doesn't qualify as fact nor does it disqualify my analogy. Your lack of understanding of the current trees and the future ones is also not my responsibility.

We have no choice now if we want to compete at a reasonable level. That means there's no real options now. Saying there is, is well, a lie. Come MoP we will have some actual choices to make. Just like my analogy, those choices will be dependent on what we want to accomplish.

I have made pretty good arguments and then you come with some stupid analogy or whatever. Like a kick to the nuts is the same as choosing a talent.

It's not all about competing at end game content. But at least now you don't have to press some buttons that feel like getting kicked in the nuts and you don't have to think about them either you just press 6 random buttons and you end up with exactly the same as when you would 'choose'.
The choices don't depend on what you want to accomplish. In tier 4 you get three choices that all result in the same DPS increase and have no other impact on a boss fight. Tier 3 you can choose from three healing talents that will all result in the same HPS increase and won't bring anything to a boss fight because there are 24 or 9 other classes that already bring talents and skills that will do the job. And have fun choosing from three different snares you are never going to use in PvE since in a raid you already have 100 snare possibilities.

The thing that previous talent trees provided was that you had to figure it out yourself which is fun. Maybe thinking is not fun for you so then MoP talents are obviously much better.

---------- Post added 2011-12-11 at 11:32 AM ----------

Except that he is not telling people their opinion is wrong. He is telling them that their stated reason for forming that opinion is wrong. He is further explaining why it is wrong. Just because you don't like the answer doesn't make him an asshole. He used reasoning and logic, and explained the design team's decisions clearly. The response from you and others like you boils down to "Well you suck!"

And if some of the language was a little bit harsh, well to that I say they need to go farther. Handling this community with gloves for 7 years has led to a bunch of people thinking that $15 a month entitles them to hurl shit at the people providing the product. Quite frankly a lot of people need to have some sense slapped into them so that they realize that the developers who have been paid to do this job every day for years might know a little better what is good for their product that some whiny idiot on a forum.

They have made a lot of changes I have not liked. If they ever make a change I dislike enough, I will stop giving them my $15. Which is the only choice you really have.

That's why they are losing subs? Because they are always right and people on a forum don't know shit.

---------- Post added 2011-12-11 at 11:44 AM ----------

There are no more then 1-4 choices now. That averages a choice every 30 levels. With every new character I start leveling, the first thing I do is read the Elitist Jerks page on the class/spec I'm playing, then I google search the spec to verify the consensus on what is available on EJ. Your choice are pick your own sub-optional talents that will cause you to under perform or choose to follow the cookie cutter.

I'll try to make a little better analogy to one posted earlier. In Cataclysm the choices are:

1) $100
2) $75
3) $25 a period for 3 period
4) $50
5) $15 a period for 3 period

Seems like a lot of choices, but I personally see only 1 correct answer there.

When you are a new player do you want 3 choices every 15 levels or do you want 15 choices every level? Do you want the cookie cutter build right away or do you want to figure it out yourself? New players don't think: "I need the best build for end game content right now".

And what all the experienced players get now is the cookie cutter build they already had but now without pressing buttons. Yay!

All that Blizzard wants is to make the game easier and more accessible because THEY think that's the way to go since half TBC and they went crazy since WotLK. Now they are losing subs but I guess that's because "the lore sucks" or whatever reason. But it's probably because the game becomes boring real fast because everything is handed to you like you are retarded and can't figure things out yourself.

[horix]

Ugh.. have been playing since 2005, only have 2 alerts, and could not stomach leveling another.. it took me 5 years to get my first alt.....

I enjoy the end game content, leveling was fun the first time around. Why not add another "Bind on account" item. 10k valor points = skip 10 levels on one of your other alts. ?

Instead of people selling the BOE valor items, it gives them something to do... invest in an alt at half the play time!

I have made pretty good arguments and then you come with some stupid analogy or whatever. Like a kick to the nuts is the same as choosing a talent.

It's not all about competing at end game content. But at least now you don't have to press some buttons that feel like getting kicked in the nuts and you don't have to think about them either you just press 6 random buttons and you end up with exactly the same as when you would 'choose'.
The choices don't depend on what you want to accomplish. In tier 4 you get three choices that all result in the same DPS increase and have no other impact on a boss fight. Tier 3 you can choose from three healing talents that will all result in the same HPS increase and won't bring anything to a boss fight because there are 24 or 9 other classes that already bring talents and skills that will do the job. And have fun choosing from three different snares you are never going to use in PvE since in a raid you already have 100 snare possibilities.

The thing that previous talent trees provided was that you had to figure it out yourself which is fun. Maybe thinking is not fun for you so then MoP talents are obviously much better.

---------- Post added 2011-12-11 at 11:32 AM ----------



That's why they are losing subs? Because they are always right and people on a forum don't know shit.

---------- Post added 2011-12-11 at 11:44 AM ----------



When you are a new player do you want 3 choices every 15 levels or do you want 15 choices every level? Do you want the cookie cutter build right away or do you want to figure it out yourself? New players don't think: "I need the best build for end game content right now".

And what all the experienced players get now is the cookie cutter build they already had but now without pressing buttons. Yay!

All that Blizzard wants is to make the game easier and more accessible because THEY think that's the way to go since half TBC and they went crazy since WotLK. Now they are losing subs but I guess that's because "the lore sucks" or whatever reason. But it's probably because the game becomes boring real fast because everything is handed to you like you are retarded and can't figure things out yourself.

[Selenity]

The "too hard" / "too easy" folks are hardly the only people who are unhappy with the announced talents. I wish fans would stop using the "tired of the game" line. No, people are absolutely NOT leaving just because they're tired of the game. They're leaving because the quality has gone down the toilet. The drop was immediate and dramatic with the release of Cata in the US and Europe, while WotLK kept subs growing in China. Cata was released in China half a year later and met with the exact same dramatic drop in subs. The sub loss is clearly, identifiably, objectively (as in, it's not "opinion") due to Blizzard's own design choices.

I participated in the Cata beta. Hundreds of us voiced opinions which were contrary to their design decisions. We said healing wasn't nearly as fun, that Holy Power wasn't well-thought or well-implemented, that leveling was far too quick, that dungeons were far too slow, that Tol Barad was a disaster... basically every complaint that was voiced on live. GC responded that we "weren't being helpful" and STOPPED POSTING on the Beta forums. Now we're seeing the exact same thing with MoP design choices, even before beta. They are coming up with a talent system that a lot of people are unhappy with. Instead of dealing with this vocal not-a-minority, he's doing the same "you're wrong - la la la, I can't hear you" thing he did during the Cata beta. It'll have the same result: another few million subs lost.

I was in the Cata beta, and the Wrath beta as well. They were night and day compared to one another. It seemed like the Wrath beta was much more slow to invite masses of players, instead sampling from a smaller group who were there to actually play test, and not treat it like a free preview. The blues were helpful and the players constructive, and the DK forums were simply awash with input, most of which was responded to in some way or tested out. (Believe it or not, my husband was one of the Unholy DKs who started suggesting that Unholy, as a master of ghouls, get a permanent ghoul for themselves.) Me, I spent half my time in the DK forums (where I laugh about just how broken beta Blood DKs were - you think their self-healing now was absurd? Unlimited number of bloodworms spawning on AUTO ATTACKS mwahahaha) and staring glumly at the shaman forums, where all the enhancement players were wringing their hair and screaming about how DKs were going to be benching enh shamans everywhere.

No matter what the goddamn expansion, the sky is always falling for shamans. Christ.

Anyway. The Wrath beta was fun, and enjoyable, and minus that little Ret with the GOD SWITCH flipped on snafu, an overall success. Then came Cata. Suddenly their subs had ballooned to 12 million, Wrath was a rousing success ... aaaaaaaaand it all went straight to their heads. The Cata beta was shit. Utter shit. They started mass-inviting before things were even ready for a beta release, and most of these people weren't interested in submitting bugs or offering critique. They were there to get a free preview. The blues, especially Ghostcrawler, were very condescending and smug in a very "my shit don't stink a'cause I got 12 million subscribers whaaaaaaaat?" fashion. If suggestions weren't worded with 95% ass-kissing and hand-holding, GC or another blue would flop out the big blue Blizzard e-peen and start threatening to revoke the poster's beta status for "trolling" and "being unhelpful". What happened when Cata was released? Subs took a nosedive. Not surprising, given that they didn't listen to any of the suggestions - and how could they, when they started inviting hundreds of players hand over fist when the game was a week out of beta from the alpha. Half of the posts on the forums were complaints about bugs - not bug reports, actual complaints, and the other half were WHAT SHOULD THE WORGEN DANCE BE?

Given that they're handing out MoP keys to everyone with one of those goddamn obnoxious Tyrael's Chargers, I suspect the MoP beta will be no different, unless they sorely learned their lesson about being arrogant pillocks when it comes to the testing phase of their game.

Quoting both of these as a reality check, because that's exactly what happened.

I know no one here would know me or have reason to believe me, but I am not someone to say that a person should be removed from his job. However, GC has shown repeatedly that he is very tunnel-visioned when it comes to handling WoW. He comes across as a hardcore, endgame, elitist PvP-er, and every decision he makes seems to revolve around that type of player. Honestly, his whole attitude sounds like a 16 year old... "I know what you want, and you will like it." >,>

It's this attitude that I myself react to (not speaking for anyone else), and why I have a hard time taking this blog seriously. GC acted like a complete jerk during Cata beta. Now there is backlash, and he's trying to act less like a jerk. But there is no change, just a meaningless attempt at PR. I really don't think most people would care what his attitude is in of itself, as long as the results are a game people want to play. He's not making a game (certain) people want to play, and therefore they are leaving. His attitude is hindering because he can't seem to see outside of his own narrow vision of what makes/made wow fun.

I have no doubt that many people just play endgame, nor any doubt that many just want to skip to the end of leveling. But to discount that there might be a large group who enjoy the leveling process is just the sort of tunnel-vision I refer to. GC seems incapable of the multi-faceted thinking that is needed to head a game like wow, and that is why I think he should be removed.

But in all honesty, I think it's too late for WoW. Without MoP being a smash hit, which looks doubtful, it won't regain back to 12 mil subs, and will slowly keep bleeding. In general, people won't come back from the new, shinier mmos to play an old one. I'm not saying that to be a "doomsdayer", nor am I saying WoW will die completely, I just believe that is what will happen. To all WoW players who said "Go play another game," be careful what you wish for. (I did btw)

[ComputerNerd]

I can think of quite a few examples. Warlocks in vanilla and TBC had several meaningful choices, they could choose to go full affliction, full demo, full destro or a mixture of affliction/demo or affliction/destro (not sure if there was a demo/destro combination, but I think there was at one time or another, never tried).

Druid healers in TBC could go tree or dreamstate.

Ferals could go full bear, full cat or a decent compromise for an off-tank role. Fury warriors could throw on a shield and off-tank. Healing Priests could also choose a mix of disc and holy talents that suited their playstyle and the current content they're playing. And don't forget PvP/PvE hybrid specs.

Yes there have always been "ej-recommended" specs for each role. But so what? You didn't HAVE to follow those suggestions. Want to play a big-dotting afflock with extra health pool for drain tanking? No problem, put a few points into demo to get the extra health. You have to sacrifice some damage but it could come in handy... ("Hello Curator").

With Wrath, they dissolved those choices and each spec was made cookie-cutter. With MoP, they're going even farther. My main gripe is that sure, while these optional non-cookie-cutter builds may have been suboptimal in the very top tier of raiding, at least at that time there WERE tiers of raiding (during which some of them were competitive with the cookie-cutter specs). You had to get a certain level of gear before you could progress to the next tier, and it took a lot of time to get to that final tier. Now, they just hand you a tier and that's the tier you play. Not enough gear for the current tier? No problem, 2 weeks of farming badges/justice/valor points/pvp points/etc. and it's yours.

So the issue is really a combination of less choice in customization and less tiers of raiding. If we have only 1 tier of raiding, then true, it doesn't make a lot of sense to have custom builds. But if there are multiple tiers, then more options during the progression towards that final min-max tier make the game more dynamic. And more fun.

Please don't cop out and say "we have 3 tiers of raiding now, LFR, normal and heroic." That's just ridiculous.

And yet you can have those same choices now for the most part, and now just like then you can make good and bad choices.
The good choices being rather limited if not fixed so leaving little real choice if you don't intend to really hurt your ability to do your job.

The current trees if you are lucky will have maybe half a dozen points which are truly optional choices, exactly what the MoP talents are striving to do.
Questionable certainly how viable or not some of those choices are, but is it really that different to what we have now ?
No, because in order to get to that same state in the current game we have to realistically follow the same route, the same talents.

[MrHappy]

few choices = you pick what UTILITY you get vs SKILL BOOSTING TALENTS its a brilliant design and francly a much needed one....it gives people choices of what MORE they want there toons to do vs picking obvious dps choices

[Valedus]

few choices = you pick what UTILITY you get vs SKILL BOOSTING TALENTS its a brilliant design and francly a much needed one....it gives people choices of what MORE they want there toons to do vs picking obvious dps choices

Exactly. How is the idea of resto druids with typhoon and other examples like that not interesting to people? My favorite thing that has been pointed out (yes, I realize this is a PvP situation) is stepping into the Arena and not AUTOMATICALLY knowing the entire enemy teams toolbox. Combat will be much more dynamic, look at some of the priest choices for example. I'm personally very excited.

And in PvE, a lot of the talents are still difficult choices. Really, Blizzard has stated that YES you COULD choose other, "hybrid" specs like drain tanking, but why not have a tank for that position and have the warlock do his job of dps? And whose to say with some of the new talents, like "Harvest Life" or w/e, that Locks won't be able to do that? Let's be honest, nobody knows for sure.