Diablo 3 - Announcement - Simplified Skill Tooltips

Seeing the Forest for the Talent Trees
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We’ve gotten a lot of feedback on our crazy, exciting, and scary talent overhaul, for which we are enormously appreciative. For real and for true. We *want* your feedback on the new talents. That is why we are presenting so much detail so early. While we will continue to iterate on talent specifics, your feedback is an important part of that process. Don’t abstain because you’re convinced that things will change without you. Your input is one of our most important tools for improving the game.

We have seen a few consistent responses from players concerned or dismissive about the model, so we thought we’d take the opportunity to explain the philosophy behind some of our decisions, to provide a better framework upon which you can continue giving us feedback.

1. "I have fewer choices."
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*. One of the important philosophies of game design is that interesting choices are fun. The word ‘interesting’ is key. Choosing between a talent that grants 10% damage and one that grants 5% damage, all else being equal, isn't interesting (unless perhaps you’re a superstar role-player). Choosing between a talent that grants you 5% haste or 5% crit might be interesting, but more than likely there is still a right answer (and like most of us, you'll probably just ask someone else what the answer is.) Choosing between a talent that grants you a root or a snare can be interesting. Which does more damage? Hard to say. Which is better? It depends on the situation.

This is why we don't have a clear damage, tanking, and healing talent choice every tier. In the case of the old 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, and an easy one at that. Are you Ret? You probably want the damage option. But what if the Ret player had to choose from three healing talents and couldn't sacrifice healing for damage? Now it gets interesting. Worst case scenario is the player just picks one at random because he refuses to heal. However, he has the ability. Maybe he'll use it in some situation. Meanwhile, other players will be happy that they can benefit more from the hybrid nature of the paladin class without having to give up damage to do so.

2. "There weren't cookie cutter builds."
You're wrong. Next!

To be fair, we did manage to engineer most of the Cataclysm talent trees to include a few legitimate choices. These typically occur when you need to spend enough points to get to the next tier of a tree to get the good stuff. Many specs had 1-4 points to spend wherever they want. That's a huge victory compared to pre-Cataclysm talent trees, but ultimately nothing to really brag about.

It is possible of course to strike a blow for individuality and use a non-cookie cutter build. Ninety-nine percent of the time, these builds are just going to be less effective. The remaining percent of the time, they will eventually become the new cookie-cutter. When players talk about their love of options, I think what they are really saying is they are in love with the idea of having dozens of interesting talents. We just don't think that will ever happen.

Look, we tried the talent tree model for seven years. We think it’s fundamentally flawed and unfixable. We know some of you have faith in us that someday we’ll eventually replace all of the boring +5% crit talents with interesting talents and give you 80 talent points that you can spend wherever, and that the game will still remain relatively balanced and fun. We greatly appreciate your faith, but we fear it is misplaced. It’s not a matter of coming up with enough fun mechanics, which is challenging but ultimately doable. The problem is the extreme number of combinations. When you have such a gigantic matrix, the chances of having unbeatable synergies, or combinations of talents that just don’t work together is really high. That’s not lazy design. That is recognizing how math works.

So given that we don’t think it’s humanly possible to have 40-50 fun, interesting and balanced talents in a tree, the alternative is to continue on with bloated trees that have a ton of inconsequential talents that you have to slog through to get to the fun stuff. A lot of you guys have stuck with us for years, continue to play regularly, and still love World of Warcraft. You are the reason we’re still making this game. We think you deserve better, and we think we can do better.

3. "We'll still have cookie-cutter builds with the new design."
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.

Just to make sure, I chose several specs at random and researched their builds. Sure enough, even with the Cataclysm builds today, you see quotes like “spend the last two points wherever you want” or “choose X or Y at your discretion.” It is “easy” (which I put in quotes because theorycrafters devote a lot of time and neurons to it) to determine the value of a DPS talent like Incite or Ignite. It is hard to determine the DPS value of Improved Sprint or Lichborne. Most of the Mists talents are things like the latter. Now there are still some pure throughput (damage, healing, or tanking) talents in the trees. We expect there will sometimes be a right answer as to which talent to take for those roles. On a fight like Baelroc (one boss, no adds), Bladestorm and Shockwave probably aren't competitive with Avatar. We're okay with that, because on Beth'tilac (lots of adds) they definitely can be and it will depend a lot on your play style and the role you have in the fight. However, given that we know a player can only have one of those three talents and that the synergistic effects from those talents with other talents are limited, it is much easier for us to balance say the healing value of Archangel and Divine Star. Despite what you read on the forums, we actually have gotten better at balancing World of Warcraft over the years.

4. "No rewards for leveling."
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. We keep bumping the level cap because frankly it’s fun and we haven’t yet come up with a progression mechanism that will feel quite as good.

Leveling is pretty fast these days and fairly rewarding, in that you see lots of new content and get gear quickly, which is something we have trouble replicating at max level (though stay tuned for Mists of Pandaria). On top of that, you’ll still get lots of abilities as you level up. 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). There are gaps in getting new abilities, especially at high level, because we don’t want players to have to have four rows of action bars to play their character. Again, that is just the blessing and curse of having a game with so many levels.

Third, I’ll challenge the notion of just how interesting it is to get that second point in Pain and Suffering or Rule of Law while leveling. Do you really notice that you now kill a creature in 2.9 GCDs instead of 3 GCDs? (But see below for a bit more on this.) There are some game-challenging talents of course, like Shadowform, but as we just discussed, you'll still get those.

Finally, the reality is that for many players, WoW has become a game focused on max level. Back in the day, leveling a fleet of alts was really compelling gameplay, but for many of the old-timers, there just isn’t a ton of interest in making a second mage or whatever. Hopefully account-level achievements will help with that somewhat, but at the same time, I don’t think it’s realistic to expect all of our long-term players to have thirty or more characters at some point in the future. It’s a fair concern that the new talent system is geared more towards making max level exciting, but that’s also where players tend to spend most of their WoW-playing hours these days. We don’t know yet what we are going to do for players who want to play a monk but just can’t stomach the idea of hitting Hellfire Peninsula one more time, and how we solve the problem when you get a friend to try WoW, only to discover that your pal will need to spend several weeks or months getting up to max level before he or she is ready to join your Arena team or raid group. But these feel like problems we are going to have to solve at some point.

5. "I like being better than noobs."
It was surprising and a bit disappointing at how frequently we saw this argument. The players in question fully admit that they don't experiment to find the best build. They accept the cookie cutter spec that is offered from a website, but then they use the fact that they knew the cookie cutter to mock players who don't. Intimate knowledge of game mechanics certainly is and should be a component of skill. But knowing how to Google "4.3 Shadow spec" doesn't automatically make you a better player. Sorry, but I’m just going to dismiss this one as an illegitimate concern.

6. "The talents are all PvP choices."
We see this response from players who say “I don’t care about PvP,” or “raid bosses can’t be snared,” or even “I am a solo player, so I don’t need a defensive cooldown.”

First, a lot of players do care about PvP, and almost every choice in the new talent model will be interesting for them. We are also taking some steps with Mists to encourage more crossover between PvP and PvE as the game once had, so even if you don’t care for PvP now, maybe we can get you interested in the future.

Second, a lot of raid bosses can’t be snared, but their adds and trash sure can be. We don’t do a lot of Patchwerk fights these days. Crowd control, movement increases, and defensive cooldowns are all an important part of raid encounters these days. They are even a part of dungeon encounters until you overgear the content.

Now if you're a solo player or a fairly casual raider and you don't often find the need to use crowd control or hit a defensive cooldown, then maybe the choice isn't compelling. But we think that's a problem with the game. I think it’s a fair complaint that our outdoor world creatures have become a little monotonous over the years. Once upon a time, you could choose to take on that camp of gnolls, or you could try and handle the elite ogres, or you might get a patrolling kobold. While we don’t want outdoor leveling to be brutally difficult, that doesn’t mean that every situation needs to be solved with 3 Sinister Strikes. Imagine a cave full of weak spiders. You can choose to AE them all down, use a movement cooldown to get through the cave quickly, use a defensive cooldown to survive the damage, or use your heals to keep you up. When players use their full toolbox of abilities intelligently, they tend to feel good about their character and the game. But it is our responsibility to engineer more of those situations into the world.

7. "Spec doesn’t matter."
This is a concern especially for warriors, priests, DKs and the pure classes (those characters who have multiple specs of the same role). What we have concluded is that many players want to choose their spec based on flavor (“I want to be the mage who uses Frost magic”) or rotation (“I like the fast gameplay of the Frost DK”). While the raid buff / debuff matrix and spec utility helps to encourage diversity among groups and discourage raid stacking, it’s also a little lame when the Affliction lock is asked to spec Demonology (against the player’s desire) in order to bring a specific buff. In Mists, we want players to have even more flexibility about which character they want to play. Asking a player to swap from damage to tanking for a couple of fights is acceptable to us. Asking someone to respec from Unholy to Frost just for the debuff is not.

There will still be some utility in the various specs, but less than we have today. You should pick a spec because you like the rotation or the kit. Fire is about crit, Hot Streak, and Ignite. Frost is about Shatter combos and the Water Elemental. Arcane is about mana management and clearing Arcane Blast stacks.

8. “It must be new to be good.”
This is a tricky one. Specifically, the warlock and druid trees include a lot of new talent ideas simply because we felt like those classes needed them. While we want to make an effort to add some new mechanics every expansion just to keep things fresh, we don’t want to arbitrarily replace fun talents that have stood the test of time just in the name of change for change’s sake. Bladestorm is fun. Body and Soul is fun. Shadowstep is fun.

From a designer’s perspective, the half-life of a new spell or talent idea is fleetingly short. You know how when you buy a new car and drive it off the lot it immediately loses a huge chunk of its value? New game ideas are like that. Seeing something brand new is super exhilarating, but that thrill just doesn’t last. I suspect even by the time Mists launches, we will see a lot of comments along the lines of “When are druids going to get something new? We haven’t seen any new ideas since November!”

It isn’t our goal to come up with 18 new talents for every class. We want to come up with 18 fun talents, and that’s going to mean a mix of old and new. Try not to confuse “shiny” with “good,” and we’ll try on our end not to fall into that trap as well.

9. “You overhaul talents every expansion. Please leave well enough alone.”
This is another tricky issue, because neither extreme (stagnation versus constant design churn) is appealing, and every individual player (and designer!) has a different definition of where those extremes lie. We changed talent trees in Cataclysm to try and fix some of the underlying problems the talent design had since its inception. We actually considered going to the Mists model for Cataclysm, but we were worried that the change would be too shocking to players, so we went with a more restrained design first. As often happens with compromises, it didn’t fix the underlying problems. Our hope is that this new design solves them once and for all. That isn’t a promise to not change talents for 6.0, 7.0, and beyond. But we hope that an overhaul this drastic isn’t necessary again for a long time to come.
MMOs are inherently living designs that are going to change over time. This is particularly true of subscription models, where players rightly expect to see something for their monthly payment. We don’t think it’s fair to cling to designs that aren’t working just because that’s the design we shipped with. As we have discussed a great deal lately, we will try to limit our big design changes to new expansions, but it’s just not in our DNA to leave something at a B- level if we think we can make it A+.

10. “You’ve got your minds made up and don’t care about what we think.”
You’re wrong. Next!

As I have said a million times, good games (maybe good anything) can’t be designed by popular vote. Our design feedback process is about making informed decisions. The developers will make the decisions we feel are right for the game, but we’ll do that armed with the feedback from players about what is fun and not fun for them. If you want to provide the best feedback possible, try to be succinct (we get a lot of feedback), try to be specific (why don’t you like something), and don’t assume you speak for everyone (game design, like art, is often subjective). Don’t get upset if we don’t implement your idea -- that’s just not a realistic expectation. Don’t confuse the echo chamber phenomenon that can occur in forum discussions for consensus. Most importantly, try to remember what will be fun for everyone, and not just your character.

One more thing to keep in mind: Playing with the new talent system in-game is really different from choosing talents on “paper.” Some of the decisions we made didn’t come about until we could get into the game and see how leveling and playing actually felt. Once we’re in alpha, many of you guys will be able to give us some more concrete feedback. We understand that, and we’re pushing for doing that just as soon as we can. In the meantime, enjoy the Hour of Twilight.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Seeing the Forest for the Talent Trees started by chaud View original post
Comments 285 Comments
  1. Glub's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Deadanon View Post
    You just talked about 1 tier out of 6 there. So 1 in 6 is not bad ? 1 meainingful choise... 5 pointless ones. Thats not great. Thats crap design.

    Lets look at Paladins shall we

    1 tier is about speeding up. 3 diffrent ways of speeding up. Matter much ? not really since its all just about speeding so why not give the class 1 speeding up ability.

    2. 1 CC ablity. Paladins loose CC abilitie they have had from Vanilla. They get a chooise to pick it. Thats called nerf

    3. Defenive ability. Tanking abilites have been thown across the tree and you pick 1 of 3. Yes - Thats how childish that tier is. Tanking abilites that all roles are forced to make a "meaningfull" choise.

    This is bad. There is no way around it.
    Tier 1 is a tough one.
    • 60% movement speed + utility (gee I can see many situations where it would be usefull) vs
    • 45% movement speed on judgement (a talent Retr can pick today) vs
    • 10% constant movement speed + 10% for each Holly power point (similar to what Retr has today, but the HoPo part is new).

    All three of then are good to the point I'd love to have then all. But guess what, now Holly and Prot can also have that speed boost too that was once only Retr's.

    Tier 2 is even harder:
    • 50% reduction on our stun cooldown vs
    • A 1 minute CC
    • vs a 50% movement reduction on judgement.

    You say we lose an ability, I say we gain: Repentance (the 1 minute CC) is an optional talent on the Ret tree. Now Holly and Prot can have it too if so they want. And it is a completely different animal from current Repentance. For one, it now has a cast time (it's instant, currently), but for another, it has no cooldown, so you can reapply it if your target wakes up prematurely. I love it.

    I am also staring at the interaction between these two tiers wrt Judgment. So, I can has a speed boost on Judgement while my target gets a massive speed reduction? Talk about running away from a tight spot. Are we mages, now? =))))

    Tier 3 allows every pally to pick up:
    • Ardent Defender (an "oh-shit" talent currently deep down prot's talent tree) vs
    • Sacred Shield (an automatic protective bubble that today is a retribution talent) vs
    • an ability that gives you Holly Power whenever you take direct damage, are feared, stun, etc (an improved version of what Holly pallies find way down their talet tree).

    Oh-my, oh-my, choices, choices... Ah, gimme that Holly Power one, please! No, wait, that is a Holly talent but I'm a Retr... hey, but now I *can* has that! =D

    Tier 4 is all about healing. Either:
    • Your basic healing spell (Flash of Light, since Holly Ligh is now a Holly only ability) becomes doubly-effective (and mana free) after you have judged twice, or
    • You can use a big, instant heal (Word of Glory) without consuming HoPo or
    • You can place a protective 10s shield on a friendly party at the super low cost of a single holly power (and whith no cooldown).

    Hmm, I really like the Flash of Light one, but I can see how the World of Glory one would be more benign to my Dps. But hey, I'm a Retr, why am I even considering healing. We are a pure dps class aren't we?

    Tier 5 is about preventing becoming stuck.
    • Consecration now also prevents movement impairing on friendly parties standing on it, or
    • I can have the mana cost and cooldown for my main movement helper abilities reduced or
    • I can have a spell that will reset the cooldown of said abilities...

    So, that mage casts her Ring of Frost we would all have to move away from, but I burn it down with Consecration, my own ring of fire? omfg, yes, yes... =))

    And finally, comes tier 6, the only tier that I really don't love (not that I hate it, either). That's because in order to get that amazing talent that allows me to go crazy on holy power consuming spells while Guardian is up (damn, I want this talent!) I will have to say goodbye to Divine Purpose, a talent that I really, really like today... Sigh... I'm a sad pally. Damn you Greg Street! You ruined my class! =)))
  1. Kazlehoff's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Palemoon View Post
    Because...paying makes you automatically right on every topic and opinion?
    irrelevant.

    right or wrong, you don't tell the customer they are wrong. you find flowery ways of saying it. saying flat out "no, you are wrong." is insulting.
  1. Gurbz's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kazlehoff View Post
    irrelevant.

    right or wrong, you don't tell the customer they are wrong. you find flowery ways of saying it. saying flat out "no, you are wrong." is insulting.
    Sometimes being blunt is the only way to get through to people. Especially ones who are convinced they are right no matter how much evidence you provide to the contrary.
  1. Glub's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Masternewt View Post
    Blizzard: Please send us feedback, so we can tell you that you are wrong.
    Uh, didn't they just did that?
  1. Hellaciouss's Avatar
    Hello? Didn't some of the lead Devs used to play EQ religiously? How can you not remember AA? Grinding out a whole nother level for .05% higher chance to crit and maxing that AA to 10/10 (which gives a total of 0.50% higher crit chance when maxzed) which would take grinding out 10 levels? AA was one of the best systems ever.
  1. Rolly's Avatar
    I was just permanently banned from the forums for saying I disliked where the talent trees are going and that I considered it had more to do with reducing development costs than it had to do with engaging game play. ROFLMAO.
    Gotta love a company that asks for feedback then bans you for giving that feedback.
    I was extremely polite when I did it. Didn't rant, didn't use caps, used proper punctuation etc.
    ah well no biggie.


    edit: added from the forums for clarity. also "I used to play WoW like you,but then I took an arrow to the knee"
  1. jayremy's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Gurbz View Post
    Sometimes being blunt is the only way to get through to people. Especially ones who are convinced they are right no matter how much evidence you provide to the contrary.
    When a customer is in the wrong you CAN flat out say they are wrong whenever you want, its your business even in this case (if it wasn't) when a majority of people and all those with a coherent and function brain no that "this customer is a trash customer" dismissing them from everybody else's troubles is a positive PR enforcement because everybody witnessing it or ever hearing about it will praise such actions. I don't play the game any more, when Blizzard was silent early cata, not saying shit but giving us a crap filled game, I quit, not worth my time. Now Blizzard actually is putting interesting shit up and responses with decent promise, even with the features of next x-pac.

    However Blizzard as always solves and admits to their problems, or simply is just late on anything nice, so likely I will not be coming back ever, I got SWTOR to fill my time in until I try GW2, if that fails I can look forward to what firefall is and Especially TSW; not to mention the next RPG to come out KoA: Reckoning and numerous other big titles of many genres.

    Right now, have Skyrim... FUS RO DAH!

    ---------- Post added 2011-12-09 at 06:51 PM ----------

    I gotta love those complaining about class/spec balance and abilities being OP, as if its a serious issue and their class is in major jeopardy. Seriously what evidence do you have of that, do you even know half of the shit that is being removed from the game or classes come MoP or flat out being revamped? Its obvious to any person with a brain that you can't say what is or what isn't until we seen a steady beta rolling for MoP, if you are honestly judging classes' balance by just what you see here you are severely misguided.

    ---------- Post added 2011-12-09 at 06:56 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Flaks View Post
    "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.
    Well some may want to see all the content, but not expect to. This are two different things, for example, I myself would want to see all the content, but I don't think I will whether it be having the time or getting burnt on the game I don't care if I do. People that expect to see ALL of the game content and think they should are those types thinking their first job out of high school should be a million+ a year paying job, expectations are way overboard. You CAN see it all, but expecting that much is folly because nothing is certain.
  1. Anira1152's Avatar
    I think it is definitely too soon to start speculating on how this is going to play out until we can get into game and try it for ourselves.
  1. Glub's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Deadanon View Post
    You just talked about 1 tier out of 6 there. So 1 in 6 is not bad ? 1 meainingful choise... 5 pointless ones. Thats not great. Thats crap design.

    Lets look at Paladins shall we

    1 tier is about speeding up. 3 diffrent ways of speeding up. Matter much ? not really since its all just about speeding so why not give the class 1 speeding up ability.

    2. 1 CC ablity. Paladins loose CC abilitie they have had from Vanilla. They get a chooise to pick it. Thats called nerf

    3. Defenive ability. Tanking abilites have been thown across the tree and you pick 1 of 3. Yes - Thats how childish that tier is. Tanking abilites that all roles are forced to make a "meaningfull" choise.

    This is bad. There is no way around it.
    Tier 1 is a tough one.
    • 60% movement speed + utility (gee I can see many situations where it would be usefull) vs
    • 45% movement speed on judgement (a talent Retr can pick today) vs
    • 10% constant movement speed + 10% for each Holly power point (similar to what Retr has today, but the HoPo part is new).

    All three of then are good to the point I'd love to have then all. But guess what, now Holly and Prot can also have that speed boost that was once Retr's only.

    Tier 2 is even harder:
    • 50% reduction on our stun cooldown vs
    • A 1 minute CC
    • vs a 50% movement reduction on judgement.

    You say we lose an ability, I say we gain: Repentance (the 1 minute CC) is an optional talent on the Ret tree. Now Holly and Prot can have it too if so they want. And it is a completely different animal from current Repentance. For one, it now has a cast time (it's instant, currently), but for another, it has no cooldown, so you can reapply it if your target wakes up prematurely. I love it.

    I am also staring at the interaction between these two tiers wrt Judgment. So, I can has a speed boost on Judgement while my target gets a massive speed reduction? Talk about running away from a tight spot. Are we mages, now? =))))

    Tier 3 allows every pally to pick up:
    • Blessed Life (you gain Holly Power whenever you take direct damage, are feared, stun, etc. It's an improved version of what Holly pallies find way down their talet tree) vs
    • Sacred Shield (an automatic protective bubble that today is a retribution talent) vs
    • Ardent Defender (an "oh-shit" talent currently deep down prot's talent tree)

    So, it's not *tanking* abilities, as you said, it's talents that are currently spread out along the three tress. If you don't like the ones from the other trees, pick the one that your spec currently has. I, on the other hand, am here thinking oh-my, oh-my, choices, choices... Ah, gimme that Holly Power one, please! No, wait, that is a Holly talent and I'm a Retr... No, wait, now I *can* has that! =D

    Tier 4 is all about healing. Either:
    • Your basic healing spell (Flash of Light, since Holly Ligh is now a Holly only ability) becomes doubly-effective (and mana free) after you have judged twice, or
    • You can use a big, instant heal (Word of Glory) without consuming HoPo or
    • You can place a protective 10s shield on a friendly party at the super low cost of a single holly power (and whith no cooldown).

    Hmm, I really like the Flash of Light one, but I can see how the World of Glory one would be more benign to my Dps. But hey, I'm a Retr, why am I even considering healing. We are a pure dps class aren't we?

    Tier 5 is about preventing becoming stuck.
    • Consecration now also prevents movement impairing effects on friendly parties standing on it, or
    • I can have the mana cost and cooldown for some movement/helper abilities reduced or
    • I can have a spell that will reset the cooldown of said abilities...

    So, that mage casts her Ring of Frost we would all have to move away from, but I burn it down with Consecration, my own ring of fire? omfg, yes, yes <frantic laughter>... =))

    And finally, comes tier 6, the only tier that I really don't love (not that I hate it, either). That's because in order to get that amazing talent that allows me to go crazy on holy power consuming spells while Guardian is up (gods, I.want.this.talent!) I will have to say goodbye to Divine Purpose, a talent that I really, really like today... Sigh... I'm a sad pally. Damn you Greg Street! You ruined my class! =)))
  1. Doktor Faustus's Avatar
    If you truly want change, vote with your feet.

    Mass unsubscibe, lay out your depends (time for a union, lol).

    Otherwise, your rancor is in vain.

    Stop feeding this bloated beast and.. just move on.

    Yes, years of wasted time some may say, but I relish the good memories.

    Stop making them feel they are masters amongst men, just leave...
  1. Iplaydrunk's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Doktor Faustus View Post
    If you truly want change, vote with your feet.

    Mass unsubscibe, lay out your depends (time for a union, lol).

    Otherwise, your rancor is in vain.

    Stop feeding this bloated beast and.. just move on.

    Yes, years of wasted time some may say, but I relish the good memories.

    Stop making them feel they are masters amongst men, just leave...
    I agree... on everything but the depends part... I think you meant demands lol.

    But yeah, there are plenty of other games. Vote with your wallet and take your friends with you. Try it for a while I think you'll find it's freeing :-)
  1. ringpriest's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Vallius View Post
    But it does make for great internet! ;D To your point, I agree and I don't. I agree with your take on the forum crowd to some degree. You have little camps that pop up that can be categorized as either 'with blizzard' or 'not with blizzard', but I think that's the case for any discussion where more than two people are involved. They'll never be able to please the latter camp, but I don't think that's their goal. I think their goal is to make a great game the best way they can and any feedback, even if it is from the unruly rabble, will help.

    So, It seems to me that Blizz knows how ... passionate ... some of their player-base is. But I think they know what I know and that's that these people, however Jaded and unruly they are acting are only acting that way because they -do- care. I think the perception from people that GC has a "confrontational tone" is all about perspective. I think he sounds honest and to the point. He doesn't use airy metaphors and amorphous terminology to placate his audience. He knows we're a group of walking meme impersonators and internet junkies. I wouldn't confuse "casual personality" with "confrontational", though, to another posters comment.
    You're wrong, Next!

    I'm not being confrontational, I'm just being honest and to the point.
  1. Cruor's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by pilch View Post
    No, because pvp in wow is so poorly balanced it's not even worth playing anymore
    Translation to this and all QQ's about pvp: "I'm not good enough to pvp so I don't like it" Is WoW pvp perfect? Hell no. Is any games pvp perfect? Hell no. However, it is still good and fun. I have been in top 10 US PvE guilds. I was there for 300~ M'uru and all the Naxx level 60 attempts etc. I can tell you, PvP is MUCH harder then pve. PvP is vs other humans who think, you gotta think fast and play well, a lot of people can't handle it.

    As for the talent system, I think its a good change... all builds that work ARE cookie cutter. This one forces you to make really tough choices... some of them a bit too tough, needs some adjustment but the idea is solid. I play a Warrior, having to choose between say Avatar and Bladestorm is a rough one. For killing 1 healer, avatar, but Bladestom is amazing for killing grouped enemies and avoiding CC.... I think it will be very interesting.
  1. doven1212's Avatar
    To the whole matter of "I now have more choices that matter"... NO WE DON'T!!!!!!!! looking at the priest talent tree as being a healing spec I DON'T CARE ABOUT FEAR!!!!!! I'm not even going to put my point there if i don't have to. Level 30 is just a situation based talent otherwise 80% pointless... Wish i could save my first two points to put two into the level 45 section. Level 60 wish i could save that pointless choice to put into level 75. I will say the experimentation area for level 90 will be fun and exciting to find what i prefer to play with. I have only really looked into the priest talent tree, though i have heard the say from other class players that they wish they could save choices for further down the tree. Thoughts of TalentsLevel 15: Choice between "root totem," "fear totem," or "caster fear." -O good a choice I wish to never care about AT ALL!!!! I don't PVP so fear is pointless and useless to me. If i have to spend time CCing adds mt tank will die, so I DON'T CARE ABOUT THIS TALENT!Level 30: my shield makes characters move faster, increases MY movement speed while levitated, Fade removes movement impairing effects and movement to ME is increased. -Think I'll keep the shield movement increase has more use in PVE.Level 45: Chance on spell cast to receive a free flash heal, New healing/Damage spell, and increase healing by 5% over 30 secs. -I wish i could have the first two in this level. Can i take the one i don't want to use in level 15 and use it hear!Level 60: self heal 30%, increase my own shield effect on me, gain shield when damaged over 30%. -I'll spend the mana to heal myself, really only on MYSELF worthless, and what am i doing if I'm getting hit for more than 30% my health... can I put this point back down into level 45.Level 75: heal/damage targets below 20%, increase casting speed and lower mana cost by 20%, casting flash heal lowers cost and cast speed by 20%. -I wish i could get all three, these are the priests heal saving abilities. Either increases size of the heal coming, puts more spells out with mana conservation, or just doing my job saves me future mana. ALL AMAZING wish i could have all three.Level 90: Vow of unity, Void shift, Vampiric Dominance. -Vow of unity will be what i choose most likely because I can use binding heal to counter the damage I will be taking. Void shift will be worth experimenting with on certain encounters. Vampiric Dominance easy raid healing yes please.I know a lot of people will see this as me just QQing, I'm just giving Honest feedback to the Employees on what PVE healing priests views are. A better level 15 choice would be a new Dispell ability that travels like prayer of mending does.
  1. mmoc901f183e68's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Cereal Killer View Post
    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.....
    They did but, in Blizzard's defense, it does feel like they are addressing the (often rather childish) vocal minority. The arrogance seems to come across more in responses to comments such as: "I like being better than noobs." Or: "You’ve got your minds made up and don’t care about what we think." Comments like that have no credibility, at all, so I couldn't care less how Blizzard handle them.

    Just my two pence, really.
  1. Tython's Avatar
    Blizzard lost me with Cataclysms recylced content. Although I like the Monk idea in MoP, I don't care for losing all my talents for new "choices" that won't really matter. It will just be a step backward like the old system; if you lack a talent for a boss, respec to get the optimal talent for said boss. Blizzard could easily have made the talent trees non-cookie cutter by inserting meaningfully different abilities in each tree. Instead they took the lazy path with stat adjustments. Anyway, I like my talent trees and I'm glad they are alive and well in SWTOR. I unsubscribed and moving on to a better game. Farewell.
  1. DBZMerciter2005's Avatar
    I actually like the fact that he's telling people, "Hey no, you're wrong." After working in retail there is nothing more I'd like to tell customers than, "You are wrong," and to have the balls to do it? Well, that's courage right there. Gives me a little more respect for the man, not that he had much to begin with.
  1. KaoGen's Avatar
    "game design, like art, is often subjective." well of course it is... Games are art, and peoples opinions of a painting can be different when its half finished compared to when it actually is.
  1. Faunwea's Avatar
    I like changes.
  1. Gilian's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Scarjack View Post
    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 ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Gurbz View Post
    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 ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Ragedaug View Post
    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.

Site Navigation