Upcoming talent change gutting

[Mafic]

I suppose inns in small quest towns would also serve as "safe spots" for changing talents. This could later become "ganking spots" where the predominant faction of each server can find its next victims and have some fun. Meanwhile those who should be targeted by the change (raiders) remain unaffected with their raid scribes and teleporting in and out of dungeons straight into the cities.

The stick is for the casuals, the levellers, the pvpers. God forbid we may upset the sacred minority that is raiders. And lets stop pretending that putting yourself in frustrating situations has anything to do with preserving your identity. You are your class. You are good or bad regardless of the ease you change talents. And yes the talents you choose even as you play are the ones that define you.

You wanna preserve identity and make it meaningful? Make every talent change to cost 100g. First talent application free then 100g. Meaningful, preserving identity and preserving freedom to change (for a fee).

Use your garrison for a safe heaven to queue for arenas. That is probably the best solution to the mess Blizz has created.

[Stormspark]

Stop with the freaking overdramatic whining. This is a GREAT change. Let me explain why.

We have had dual spec for YEARS. The ability to switch between two specs for free as many times as we want. Tank and healer classes benefitted the most from this obviously but everyone benefitted to some extent. Alt specs already gates. Gear and now artifact power. Adding a gold cost on top of that felt like PUNISHMENT for exploring all aspects of our class. With the new system, a druid, or priest, or DK, or warrior, or demon hunter, or paladin, or monk DPS could say "hey, I'd like to try tanking/healing...I don't have to go anywhere, I can just swap to that spec and experiment with it!" It ENCOURAGES people to explore aspects of their class they may not have played. FFXIV has an IDENTICAL system (though one character can be all classes/jobs in that game, switching is totally free - classes/jobs in FFXIV work kind of like specs in WOW, although each has their own level instead of your character having the level).

Right now, in the live game, you have to use a tome to change talents. All the time. 100%. In the new system, you will be able to change for free in your order hall or capital city. With a little bit of patience, it's completely free. And if a high end raid group wants to change without hearthing, well there is the new group tome. Inscription is really lacking in things to sell with glyphs (mostly) going out the window, so this will help that profession out. How often do you NEED to change talents out in the world, like RIGHT NOW? The only NEED for this is in high end raid groups, who will have the tome. If you are really really really really that desperate to to change your talents on the fly out in the world, buy some of those tomes, or roll a scribe and create your own.

[deadman1]

You created something to affect your character instead of just clicking a bunch of things in a menu.

Something that allows you to "click a bunch of things in your menu" aka basically the same thing with a bit or arbitrary inconvenience put in to artificially add time to the game.

[Mafic]

If you consider that the strength you should've specced it. Instead you specced for a different strength.

Switching at next major hub is not a big deal.

Now they are balancing around these talents in a big way for DPS, so it is very punitive if you make the wrong choice. The entire genesis of Legion pruning and changes was to make it easier for new players to make choices. Now, they are saying they want choices to have harsh opportunity costs now...the problem is that a lot of talents are highly situational.

[Deleted]

Something that allows you to "click a bunch of things in your menu" aka basically the same thing with a bit or arbitrary inconvenience put in to artificially add time to the game.

otherwise known as roleplaying game element

[deadman1]

otherwise known as roleplaying game element

You're going to need to explain why that is good.

[Bobby1291]

Class design has become such a mess over the years because everything about it is done to accommodate raiders and raiding.

Leaving it the way it was didn't affect casual players OR raiders. Casual players because they never change anything cause they don't give a shit, and Raiders cause they could at least change it on a fight to fight basis.

This model doesn't affect casuals cause again, they don't give a shit about changing, but it affects the high end raiders.

Which option would you have?

Live version- 2/2 not affected
Legion- 1/2 not affected

Not hard to figure out.

[deadman1]

-snip-

Let me explain why it isn't good.

Raids aren't tuned to revolve around "picking and exploring a spec" raids are designed to be min-maxed, and 100% of the time there is a best spec/talent for each individual fight.

[Evolved]

Stop with the freaking overdramatic whining. This is a GREAT change. Let me explain why.

We have had dual spec for YEARS. The ability to switch between two specs for free as many times as we want. Tank and healer classes benefitted the most from this obviously but everyone benefitted to some extent. Alt specs already gates. Gear and now artifact power. Adding a gold cost on top of that felt like PUNISHMENT for exploring all aspects of our class. With the new system, a druid, or priest, or DK, or warrior, or demon hunter, or paladin, or monk DPS could say "hey, I'd like to try tanking/healing...I don't have to go anywhere, I can just swap to that spec and experiment with it!" It ENCOURAGES people to explore aspects of their class they may not have played. FFXIV has an IDENTICAL system (though one character can be all classes/jobs in that game, switching is totally free - classes/jobs in FFXIV work kind of like specs in WOW, although each has their own level instead of your character having the level).

Right now, in the live game, you have to use a tome to change talents. All the time. 100%. In the new system, you will be able to change for free in your order hall or capital city. With a little bit of patience, it's completely free. And if a high end raid group wants to change without hearthing, well there is the new group tome. Inscription is really lacking in things to sell with glyphs (mostly) going out the window, so this will help that profession out. How often do you NEED to change talents out in the world, like RIGHT NOW? The only NEED for this is in high end raid groups, who will have the tome.

Exploring your characters specs is good, and exploring their talents is bad? None of that explains why it's a great change, try again.

[Deleted]

You're going to need to explain why that is good.

because it makes the game feel more 'real', my decicions and choices have more impact and in the context of the game's lore it also makes a lot more sense

it's immersive

for those of us who like rpgs decisions like this one are always welcome and a step in the right direction


imagine watching a movie and suddenly the main hero learns a new ability because a menu pops up instead of him performing some magic ritual

[Wow]

You know the quest text/log usually tells you where you're going and what you're gonna be dealing with, right? Like, there's a whole lot more information available than just that little yellow circle on your map.

Knowing where you are going doesn't tell you anything about how the area is laid out, what I mean by that is I may have a quest to kill 20 boars it doesn't mean there's 20 boars stacked up to be killed or they maybe really close together or far apart but I won't know that until I get there. And another point on this generally I don't go to a quest hub and just get one quest I get them all.

Honestly this feeling like no flying all over again. A pointless change to make you waste more time and has no real purpose other than to annoy you. And like that you have some people that are all for it and some fully against it. Pitting the player base against one another again nice...

[deadman1]

Exploring your characters specs is good, and exploring their talents is bad? None of that explains why it's a great change, try again.

When he says exploring he means "choosing a spec and sticking with it instead of exploring."

[MasterHamster]

You're going to need to explain why that is good.

I think the ToC raid is a pretty funny example of taking away the "unnecessary" elements of RPGs that "artificially adds time". Players are just there to kill bosses aye? Who wants trash? Who cares about the pacing or build-up towards a boss.

Designated areas for free respecs adds value to these areas, for one. It reinforces the idea that while you're "out in the world" you're relying on your preparation and anticipating what you'll face.

Not "Ugh it's that guy that summons small minions <click click> alright got my AoE talent sigh"

This is a bit like explaining why instant teleportation anywhere anytime would make the world seem smaller.

[deadman1]

because it makes the game feel more 'real', my decicions and choices have more impact and in the context of the game's lore it also makes a lot more sense.

Does it really though? Is picking an objectively worse talent and having to hearth to change it really "fun" or "compelling?"

it's immersive

for those of us who like rpgs decisions like this one are always welcome and a step in the right direction

Then make the change only affect RP servers.

[Jagorath]

because it makes the game feel more 'real', my decicions and choices have more impact and in the context of the game's lore it also makes a lot more sense

it's immersive

for those of us who like rpgs decisions like this one are always welcome and a step in the right direction


imagine watching a movie and suddenly the main hero learns a new ability because a menu pops up instead of him performing some magic ritual

dude, what's up the overuse of buzzwords ?

[Deleted]

dude, what's up the overuse of buzzwords ?

I didn't know regular words are buzzwords now.

[Adramalech]

One step forward, two steps back. Guess they won't be satisfied unless there's some sort of dumb restriction.

[MasterHamster]

One step forward, two steps back. Guess they won't be satisfied unless there's some sort of dumb restriction.

Haha, when it comes to leniency in respeccing they've taken a hundred steps forward, to the point where they risk falling off a cliff.
But hey, that's another amazing thing of this community. Inability to take things into wider consideration.
We've gone from one spec at a talent, and only able to respecc by going back to a major city and paying a high cost incremental cost, to being able to switch between specs and talents almost for free outside of combat.

But yeah, removing gold cost and instead adding value to these safe havens and making talent choices more impactful is taking "+1 -2"?

I didn't know regular words are buzzwords now.

You used the word immersive and that means you're wrong, didn't you know.

[Stormspark]

Exploring your characters specs is good, and exploring their talents is bad? None of that explains why it's a great change, try again.

You can explore your talents. They are totally free to change in your order hall or any capital city. And you can use a tome to change them out in the world. Most players probably don't change their talents around that often honestly. I personally like to pick talents that I will stick with most of the time. Sure there are situational ones. But the people that are frantically changing their talents around on every pull are in the extreme minority of players (hardcore raiders/PVPers).

Most people change their spec more often than they change their talents (ESPECIALLY hybrids, which were disproportionally impacted by the spec switching fee).

[Evolved]

because it makes the game feel more 'real', my decicions and choices have more impact and in the context of the game's lore it also makes a lot more sense

it's immersive

for those of us who like rpgs decisions like this one are always welcome and a step in the right direction


imagine watching a movie and suddenly the main hero learns a new ability because a menu pops up instead of him performing some magic ritual

There was nothing preventing you from playing that way to begin with. Make sure you delete your character after every death, you have to keep that immersive feeling going strong.