The good times of character customization & non-rng progression, professions matter

[mvaliz]

Part of me is considering rolling on Classic as I was the guy who broke the Fishing Times back in Vanilla.

Goddess how many people will freak out realizing that they have to fish to get the best armor defense potions! Nobody will do that... which means I could make a goldmine ALL OVER AGAIN! ;D

[Powerogue]

Just keep in mind that all those things are from BC-WotLK, not classic.

[Th3Scourge]

Even though this isn't from Vanilla, god do I miss those days. Glyphs, talent trees, valor tokens, token gear vendors. You could plan out the approach to your character. Now I have to run M+ and have a 1/100 chance of getting the loot I need. If I wanted to play Diablo I'd go do that. Fuck RNG

[Kithelle]

1/2 is not a majority. That's an equal spread.


When the systems are functionally the same, why does it matter what period the screenshots are from?

You're right...I was wrong...none of those images are from Vanilla.

[Deleted]

I have to post the original reddit post that got upvoted.
This guy is my hero

I think it's less that, and more how they're trying to tell the story.

Old school WoW was kind of like a hunting safari, it dropped you in the middle of nowhere and said "The game is over that way."

Today WoW is more like a theme park. "Come along, heroes, follow me down this beautiful trail. Oh no, what's that on our left? Why it's the Iron Horde! Boy they sure don't look like someone I'd want to mess with... wait, oh no, they're readying their siege engines! Watch out heroes, you'd better stop them before they power up!"

Now the problem with a theme park design is that you have to keep you arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. In the case of this game it means that Blizzard has to take a lot of choice away from the player, just out of necessity. They need to tell the player where to go, how to get there, and what to do once they arrive, and that requires simplicity and predictability on the part of the design team.

The upside to this is that they can tell incredible stories, build beautiful rides, and provide an amazing experience in that regard. This is often called a "walled garden," a managed ecosystem, and managed ecosystems need to be small. But let's give credit where credit is due, I don't think anyone is bitching about how Battle for Azeroth, or Legion, or even WoD have been telling their stories. Confusing? Extremely. Entertaining? Even more so.

The downside is that by taking more control over our characters, giving us prescribed paths to get from A, to B, to C, is that leaves less control and choice for the players. People joke about "fun detected," but there is some modicum of truth in that: Blizzard often solves their problems with a machete when all they needed was a scalpel.

Think of how many specs were re-fantasized to fit the mould of Legion artifacts as an example.

These restrictions have left many specs feeling broken and generic. Doesn't it feel these days like your Prot Warrior is identical to every other Prot Warrior on the server? A Demo Lock is a Demo Lock is a Demo Lock? "Oh, you're a Fire Mage, yeah I know your rotation by heart!" How many classes have combo points now? "Build up five kanoodles then cash them all in on this big awesome spell!" Combo points.

It didn't always used to be this way.

For those who are out of the loop on classic talents, or may have forgotten why they went away, back in the WtoLK days talents reached peak absurdity "+5% to crit, Half of your spirit counts as intellect, 10% chance that your Lazur Blastar will proc Lazur Blastar Supreme!, increases the damage of Lazur Blastar by 5%." stuff like that, but all in a single talent point. They were flippin' impossible to balance, they were confusing for some players, and the open nature of the trees meant that there were a lot of unpredictable hybrid specs that Blizz had to manage on the fly. It was a problem.

In Cataclysm they sorted most of those problems out. They simplified talents (got rid of the extra, uninteresting garbage), reworked the trees so a player could only make a hybrid spec once they'd filled out their main tree, had a good mix of boring stats and interesting skills... By and large the player base actually seemed pretty okay with the changes. We'd lost a lot of our hybrid specs, but core specs really shined.

TL;DR: Old talents were not as confusing, complicated, or boring as you may have heard. They were predictable and dependable ways of empowering our character how we saw fit. Want to do a min/maxed cookie cutter build? Hit up Icy Veins. Want to do a fun situational build that would make a theorycrafter throw up in his hat? Play around on the training dummies until you find something you like. (And no, not everyone used cookie cutter builds. The person who tells you that everyone used cookie cutter builds is probably one of the players who only used cookie cutter builds themselves.)

When MoP rolled around Blizzard decided to trash the updated classic talent trees in favor of something more streamlined and simple. Blizzard's explanation was that they didn't like players just simming the most powerful talent combinations and picking those, they made the cookie cutter argument. The player base, meanwhile, had been paying attention to Blizzard bitching about how difficult it was balancing talents trees for years. It was my opinion, and the opinion of many others, that Blizz simplified their talent system for their own benefit, to make things easier on them. Now that would be fine if the players didn't lose anything in the process, if the replacement system had been an improvement over the older one, something that I'm still not convinced is the case.

In WoD Blizz doubled down on the simplification scheme, culling spells from every class and spec in the game. This was again done in the name of streamlining and simplification, many specs were simplified to the point of not being recognizable. My primary experience is with the Mage, a class I had been playing since Vanilla, Fire Mages lost access to almost all the spells in the Frost and Arcane Trees.


Then in Legion specs were further redefined, spells further culled, other spells redesigned, talents rearranged, and Artifacts introduced. Of course I don't need to tell you what happened to Artifacts when Legion ended, or where the player base is now.

It is my opinion that Blizzard's continued attempts to replace what they've removed is where the game is starting to run into problems. The changes they're making to the game are at such a fundamental level that the repercussions can ripple out to even the newest content. Legion's Artifacts had to take the place of lost talents and missing spells, now Azerite has to take the place of lost talents and missing spells and Artifacts. The next expansion pack will have to make something to take the place of lost talents, missing spells, Artifacts, and Azerite. It's a treadmill within a treadmill, and Blizzard has no idea how to get off of it.

How many pieces can be replaced before it's not the same game anymore? Talents, spells, artifacts, azerite, glyphs, everything that we players see as a way of remaking our character in our own image, has been pried up and replaced, only to be pried up and replaced again. This cycle is unsustainable, no matter how hard they may try to sustain it.

[Kralljin]

When the systems are functionally the same, why does it matter what period the screenshots are from?

Because if i want to show how cool Vanilla is / was, i don't show people stuff from BC / Wotlk simply because it worked on the same principle.

Small reminder, people already asked for Vanilla servers back in BC and Wotlk was a controversial expansion among the vocal part of the playerbase during its time.

[Swalload]

Glyphs and gems were nice, I also like weird stats like multistrike.

The old talents tho? Fucking garbage, you could be "original and unique" but at the cost of sucking big time or just pick the cookie cutter build that simply is better than other choices. So it's just like today but with more clicks to put points in.

Old talent trees literally did nothing good other than making people believe it feels good to put a useless 1% each level and give fake choices to make (which were really jut, take the right thing or be wrong).

[Deleted]

(which were really jut, take the right thing or be wrong).

There is no such thing as "wrong" in a friggin RPG.

I want to play the way i like, how i like, whenever i like.

Anyway, thats no longer possible so "gg"

[frogger237]

Wants Vanilla shows post Vanilla stuff.


You vanilla nut jobs never cease to make me laugh. 75% of you never even played vanilla wow.

[Swalload]

There is no such thing as "wrong" in a friggin RPG.

I want to play the way i like, how i like, whenever i like.

Anyway, thats no longer possible so "gg"

It's very possible. Nothing stops you from putting the bad talents in like you did before to be unique. It was the only way, you either put the strong talents or the bad ones. There was no "unique and good", no, unique was always the weaker version, that never changed.

Maybe in your perception it was good because you could still quest and do raids with that, but your performance was factually less than what it could be with the right talents.

[Deleted]

It's very possible. Nothing stops you from putting the bad talents in like you did before to be unique. It was the only way, you either put the strong talents or the bad ones. There was no "unique and good", no, unique was always the weaker version, that never changed.

Maybe in your perception it was good because you could still quest and do raids with that, but your performance was factually less than what it could be with the right talents.

But its the way we like to play. Doesnt that count for anything? Personal enjoyment?

Forget about raids, raids are an elitist place to be optimal. There will always be a optimal build for PvE. Always.
But for PvP and World content....plz, let our imagination fly and let us be creative.
Its a RPG...

[Wallmaker Yahzarah]

First off, this was not customization. This was specialization. Better understand youre talking about. If youre going to talk customization. ADD EVERYTHING.

[Swalload]

But its the way we like to play. Doesnt that count for anything? Personal enjoyment?

Forget about raids, raids are an elitist place to be optimal. There will always be a optimal build for PvE. Always.
But for PvP and World content....plz, let our imagination fly and let us be creative.
Its a RPG...

Who's "we"?
I find enjoyment in being optimal, I don't find enjoyment in purposefully weakening my character for the sake of originality. Which is what you need to do, because if you read the talents you instantly realize what is best, so most people had the same build without even checking the internet. The people with the weird builds were bad players, people who had no clue or comprehension issues and beginners. After a few days you'd realize that you put points in useless stuff, move them around, end up exactly like everybody else. Not to mention the trees were basically designed to guide people into certain things that made sense together. It was far more braindead than nostalgia-hungry people remember.

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First off, this was not customization. This was specialization. Better understand youre talking about. If youre going to talk customization. ADD EVERYTHING.

A specialization is a form of customization. If you can change things around, be it in your abilities or your character's visual, it's all customization. Addons are a form of customization as well.

[Craaazyyy]

cata glyph system was perfect, some stuff was mandatory, some very situational and cool

reforging, gemming, enchanting almost every piece of gear.. shit man so many things removed

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Who's "we"?
I find enjoyment in being optimal, I don't find enjoyment in purposefully weakening my character for the sake of originality. Which is what you need to do, because if you read the talents you instantly realize what is best, so most people had the same build without even checking the internet. The people with the weird builds were bad players, people who had no clue or comprehension issues and beginners. After a few days you'd realize that you put points in useless stuff, move them around, end up exactly like everybody else. Not to mention the trees were basically designed to guide people into certain things that made sense together. It was far more braindead than nostalgia-hungry people remember.

- - - Updated - - -

then no one is stopping you from using that cookie cutter build, m8

but whats the point of removing shit that lets people do whatever the fuck they want?

[Wallmaker Yahzarah]

Who's "we"?
I find enjoyment in being optimal, I don't find enjoyment in purposefully weakening my character for the sake of originality. Which is what you need to do, because if you read the talents you instantly realize what is best, so most people had the same build without even checking the internet. The people with the weird builds were bad players, people who had no clue or comprehension issues and beginners. After a few days you'd realize that you put points in useless stuff, move them around, end up exactly like everybody else. Not to mention the trees were basically designed to guide people into certain things that made sense together. It was far more braindead than nostalgia-hungry people remember.

- - - Updated - - -



A specialization is a form of customization. If you can change things around, be it in your abilities or your character's visual, it's all customization. Addons are a form of customization as well.

Don't play pretty with the specifics. You are discussing. Specialization builds of an older wow. That is all. If you were talking about any other game, or whatever... Specialization is way too distinguished in wow to simply lump it into the category of customization. What transmog goes with character build? Long hair or short? I hear you get more dps out of your SS build if you are female orc atleast 3 earrings showing.

Specialization. Don't generalized.

[Craaazyyy]

It's very possible. Nothing stops you from putting the bad talents in like you did before to be unique. It was the only way, you either put the strong talents or the bad ones. There was no "unique and good", no, unique was always the weaker version, that never changed.

Maybe in your perception it was good because you could still quest and do raids with that, but your performance was factually less than what it could be with the right talents.

there were many builds that actually worked better for some types of shit

in PVP there were multiple different builds many classes had that were better for specific comps you play/play against

[Swalload]

cata glyph system was perfect, some stuff was mandatory, some very situational and cool

reforging, gemming, enchanting almost every piece of gear.. shit man so many things removed

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then no one is stopping you from using that cookie cutter build, m8

but whats the point of removing shit that lets people do whatever the fuck they want?

That's a perspective. What if I told you I never could do what I wanted? I wanted to be a tank frost mage. I never could do that. Does it mean customization always sucked? No it doesn't. So then in retail if you can't do what you want, does it mean customization sucks now? No it doesn't because if it does it means it sucked back then cuz I couldn't do what I wanted.

Basically the game gives options and you customize within these restrictions.
Right now there's more valid talent options than there was back then. Just because there was more points to put in useless talents before doesn't mean the customization was better. It means it was shittier with the make believe of choices that were actually not choices.

To put it simply, you were manipulated by a fake sense of having a choice when in fact you didn't have as many choices as you thought you had.
Unless you're one of the funny people who think a bad choice is still a choice.

[Craaazyyy]

That's a perspective. What if I told you I never could do what I wanted? I wanted to be a tank frost mage. I never could do that. Does it mean customization always sucked? No it doesn't. So then in retail if you can't do what you want, does it mean customization sucks now? No it doesn't because if it does it means it sucked back then cuz I couldn't do what I wanted.

Basically the game gives options and you customize within these restrictions.
Right now there's more valid talent options than there was back then. Just because there was more points to put in useless talents before doesn't mean the customization was better. It means it was shittier with the make believe of choices that were actually not choices.

To put it simply, you were manipulated by a fake sense of having a choice when in fact you didn't have as many choices as you thought you had.
Unless you're one of the funny people who think a bad choice is still a choice.

what a dumb example

its about how many different things you can play with, more = better.. always

and i know exactly how many choices i had, dont pretend to know whats in my head, cuz you most likely never pvp'd on ratings above 1500 in any expansion(or at least when these talent trees were around)

again as i told you no one was stopping you from using cookie cutter builds

also you're saying that now its the same, then whats the point of changing old shit? to make it less complicated and a shittier version of what we used to have with fewer options?? when you changed something now you only change it cuz you're forced to do so(not for ever spec maybe, but for the majority).. so its in no way a choice

[Swalload]

Don't play pretty with the specifics. You are discussing. Specialization builds of an older wow. That is all. If you were talking about any other game, or whatever... Specialization is way too distinguished in wow to simply lump it into the category of customization. What transmog goes with character build? Long hair or short? I hear you get more dps out of your SS build if you are female orc atleast 3 earrings showing.

Specialization. Don't generalized.

I learned english to better communicate with the world because I come from a place that uses a language that is not popular at all.

I suggest you do the same because I didn't understand anything in your post, literally not a single thing made sense.

[Pandragon]

None of that was character customization. There was always just one set up to use 99% of the time. With a few different talents or glyphs better on a specific boss. No different than what we have now. It just created the illusion of choice.