If Blizzard had reverted to the old talent system

[mostvp71]

It's a trade off. You need to chose either
a) somewhat balanced classes/specs
or
b) really in-depth talent specializations

I prefer the first one so I like today's system. Only criticism I would have is that nothing really has happened since level 100. Could do with at least one, if not, two tiers more on the current tree. I mean sure we have Azerite powers and we had the artifact, but these are temporary things.

All they’d need to do was look at what they did with MoP if they wanted to keep things balanced and not revert to the older talent system.

[Louz]

Boy, you are thick headed, when did I say I wanted to go back and play Vanilla? I personally thought Vanilla was shit. Then again if I was bad and concerned about my class having to actually take skill again with the addition of new abilities I’d probably get defensive and act like a child like you are rn too :^). We get it, you enjoy pressing 6 buttons and calling it “fun” but for the others who enjoyed the game when it wasn’t just mongoing your PvE rotation into other players the game sucks. The adults are talking in this thread go to bed.

Oof, that's ad hominem 101.

Surely you can do better than that, big man?

[Niwes]

Agreed, classes feel too similar nowadays it's boring.

if you didnt get the news (4-5 years in past):

- blizzard did QoL changes (they call it QoL but its more to stripe down development costs).
- blizzard homegenized all classes by bringing them all to the builder/consumer pattern. reasons: see above.
- blizzard pruned all classes.

so, if you didnt get that, its all about cost effective development and quarter numbers. the more standard template like, the more easy to balance, to more adjustable by a few knobs, the more cheap to maintain, the better. why ? because

$$$ bill ya > good game.

[mostvp71]

Oof, that's ad hominem 101.

Surely you can do better than that, big man?

Imagine trying to play victim by attempting to classify someone’s response to your own immaturity as a psychological attack. I think it’s amusing how defensive you’re getting over people wanting change from mashing 4 buttons over and over honestly :^), as a very wise mage once said “this is a git gud situation”.

if you didnt get the news (4-5 years in past):

- blizzard did QoL changes (they call it QoL but its more to stripe down development costs).
- blizzard homegenized all classes by bringing them all to the builder/consumer pattern. reasons: see above.
- blizzard pruned all classes.

so, if you didnt get that, its all about cost effective development and quarter numbers. the more standard template like, the more easy to balance, to more adjustable by a few knobs, the more cheap to maintain, the better. why ? because

$$$ bill ya > good game.

Yup sad times my dude.

[glowpipe]

So instead of 7 cookie cutter talents to choose, you now have 60 cookie cutter talents with even less meaning. No thanks. The old system was an illusion of choice, nothing else. They will never be able to balance a system like that in todays wow.

Not saying the one we got now is any good, it sucks, But less then the old system. 5 points each giving 1% extra dmg. Yeah. Super fun. Can't wait for the next point. Now i see your system is a bit different, but still. Poeple would find the cookie cutter spec as back in the days and everyone ran with the same

[Bonkbonk100]

So instead of 7 cookie cutter talents to choose, you now have 60 cookie cutter talents with even less meaning. No thanks. The old system was an illusion of choice, nothing else. They will never be able to balance a system like that in todays wow.

Not saying the one we got now is any good, it sucks, But less then the old system. 5 points each giving 1% extra dmg. Yeah. Super fun. Can't wait for the next point. Now i see your system is a bit different, but still. Poeple would find the cookie cutter spec as back in the days and everyone ran with the same

A lot of the current talents are also increase something by Y or reduce something by X. Like you said, both systems are meh, but do not pretend the current talent system is providing an amazing super fun and engaging choice at every single row.

[Malikath]

No, because they'd still leave the classes anemic auto-attack heavy slow-ass boring pieces of shit.
fucking most classes were gouged of baseline passives to fill the new versions of the talent rows, the MoP ones were in addition to the baked in skills from the talent trees and the baseline skills.

now bfa went even further beyond stupid and took a baseline passive OUT to make it a PVP-ONLY talent, this is degenerative development.
over time you have less as shit is gouged out to flesh-out an expansion feature only to be abandoned completely afterwards.

[Louz]

Imagine trying to play victim by attempting to classify someone’s response to your own immaturity as a psychological attack. I think it’s amusing how defensive you’re getting over people wanting change from mashing 4 buttons over and over honestly :^), as a very wise mage once said “this is a git gud situation”.

Yup sad times my dude.

Now you're throwing in a conspiracy theory. Yikes.

[Dremall]

There will always be a mathematically superior build. If another build proves to be superior it becomes the new build. What I miss from the old talent trees is the sense of progression during leveling. When the current system came out all that was baked in baseline. What I would prefer is unbake that for the steady trickle of rewards while leveling, and then every 15 levels reward a choice out of 3 talents like we have now.

[Malikath]

Oof, that's ad hominem 101.

Surely you can do better than that, big man?

you began with two logical fallacies, it's hypocritical of you to call his out.
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/...al-to-Ridicule
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/...io-ad-Absurdum

[mostvp71]

Now you're throwing in a conspiracy theory. Yikes.

As long as I can call it the “4 button mongo” theory with you on enh shaman as my case study.

you began with two logical fallacies, it's hypocritical of you to call his out.
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/...al-to-Ridicule
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/...io-ad-Absurdum

Let him try, this is amusing .

[Alphatorg]

A lot of the current talents are also increase something by Y or reduce something by X. Like you said, both systems are meh, but do not pretend the current talent system is providing an amazing super fun and engaging choice at every single row.

Spoken like the average MMO-C player could handle 3 gameplay changing abilities on every tier. The vast majority of players even struggles with the current pruned and "dumbed down" approach to specs and talents.

[Noxina]

So instead of 7 cookie cutter talents to choose, you now have 60 cookie cutter talents with even less meaning. No thanks. The old system was an illusion of choice, nothing else. They will never be able to balance a system like that in todays wow.

Not saying the one we got now is any good, it sucks, But less then the old system. 5 points each giving 1% extra dmg. Yeah. Super fun. Can't wait for the next point. Now i see your system is a bit different, but still. Poeple would find the cookie cutter spec as back in the days and everyone ran with the same

You'd have a bunch of filler talents, then the core talents. It's not like you can compare the filler 1% talents with the core ones we're stuck with now.

So instead of only picking a talent every 10 or 15 levels, can honestly not remember how often you could pick those. You'd pick 15 talents, THEN you get to a core that might change your playstyle, ie. Cold Blood in Assassin tree, or Mortal Strike in Arms. Then you pick another 10-15 fillers before your next core. Or perhaps you'd prefer to have 20 fillers to get 5% extra crit, as you don't feel the next choices in core talents is that great for your current situation.

All in all, it is an illusion of choice, but that's how it is with EVERYTHING. BUT you get the sense of progression with a new talent every level, instead of what you have now.

It is all these small steps Blizzard have done to dumb everything down to the extreme casual levels we have now, that have killed off the game for a lot of people. Talents hardly matter now, they could just as well have ditched it and we wouldn't notice it.

[tru]

Taking any ideas from current BfA azerite is a no.

[Rotted]

With old talent system you would go one top build and that's it. You do have actually a choice now.

No you don't have a choice, there's a choice of talents which is optimal for each encounter. There is literally no difference between now and then in regards to best talents in that context.

There's a difference between QoL changes on how easy it is to switch between talents. Previously, changing talents was expensive and progressive meaning you couldn't afford to change between each encounter. Also you had to be at a trainer to do it. If we had tomes back then to do that with minimum cost there would literally be 0 difference between then and now again in that context.

The old talent system in my opinion was superior. I felt like my character was progressing and get stronger with each level. Working through each tier getting that bit more powerful until you learned your main abilities at 40, 60 etc. Now when I level a toon I don't even pay attention to the exp bar let alone the talents. Literally in the last two days I've leveled from 10 to 51 and just last night I noticed; "Oh hey I haven't taken my talents". Even taking them I notice no difference whats so ever. It's just stale now.

Also with the old talent system; fun. You could make some wacky hybrid builds. Now they weren't any good for world firsts or server firsts but they were workable for the casual player. Titan grips tank was hilarious, Ret / Prot hybrid for reckoning was shit but when it proc'd was insane instant damage. I must of tried hundreds of different builds for the shits and giggles throughout TBC and Wrath (to a point? IIRC it was mid wrath when they changed it to kill hybrids). You just can't do that any more

[Kurve1776]

Meh, talents are not, and will never be interesting / balanced enough to give "choice."

IMO just remove them entirely and be done with it. It would allow for improved class design and balancing without the need of trying to account for all the extra crap and balance nightmares talents add.

The old system had its ups and downs, but I don't see any feasible way they could make it work and feel like it used to, remember we had the old system for 85 levels, and even then they had to scale it down. Imagine trying to make that system fit into 120 levels, I don't think Blizzard could pull it off.

The new system, while interesting at first, has had too many limitations added and, IMO, has almost entirely lost its original purpose and design philosophy and is just a relic of the past that they don't know how to manage.

So again, just get rid of them already.

[Narzok]

No you don't have a choice, there's a choice of talents which is optimal for each encounter. There is literally no difference between now and then in regards to best talents in that context.

There's a difference between QoL changes on how easy it is to switch between talents. Previously, changing talents was expensive and progressive meaning you couldn't afford to change between each encounter. Also you had to be at a trainer to do it. If we had tomes back then to do that with minimum cost there would literally be 0 difference between then and now again in that context.

The old talent system in my opinion was superior. I felt like my character was progressing and get stronger with each level. Working through each tier getting that bit more powerful until you learned your main abilities at 40, 60 etc. Now when I level a toon I don't even pay attention to the exp bar let alone the talents. Literally in the last two days I've leveled from 10 to 51 and just last night I noticed; "Oh hey I haven't taken my talents". Even taking them I notice no difference whats so ever. It's just stale now.

Also with the old talent system; fun. You could make some wacky hybrid builds. Now they weren't any good for world firsts or server firsts but they were workable for the casual player. Titan grips tank was hilarious, Ret / Prot hybrid for reckoning was shit but when it proc'd was insane instant damage. I must of tried hundreds of different builds for the shits and giggles throughout TBC and Wrath (to a point? IIRC it was mid wrath when they changed it to kill hybrids). You just can't do that any more

if you don't notice your talents than that is on you and the general feel of the game.
stuff like ebon bolt, chimaera shot or marked for death sure are noticeable points in leveling IF you really care about the leveling like you claim.
maybe the game in general is just less interesting, making every part "boring".


and why are wacky build not possible today?
in legion we had at least 2 somwhat viable speccs that were labeled "meme-build" (mm hunter and balance dudu had one, not sure if more) that were considered sub-par but were good enough to clear the content the majority of people care about, meaning normal-hc and maybe a dip into early mythic.
or, to quote you, "...Now they weren't any good for world firsts or server firsts but they were workable for the casual player...

[Aggrophobic]

Then HOW is the new one better? It is literally the same amount of choices, either you pick the right one, or you pick the shit ones.

In Vanilla you could go a bunch of different paths to be honest, depending on your playstyle. Don't believe, fine, but that was how it was. Sure there was always that one way to go that would put you ahead, but then you also needed the gear to assist it (ie. having the right amount of hit rating from gear, so you could take a different path in the talent tree).

What I've been saying though, is that back then we had a sense of progression, a sense that we actually got stronger as we played and leveled up. Now you toss in a new talent every 15 levels or what ever it is and that's that.

It felt like an MMORPG, and not an MMOMOBA or what ever you should call current WoW.


Also we had the ability to go hybrid back with the old system. Shockadin as an example. Was it as good as everything else? No, but sometimes a video game is about having fun and not pushing the 0.1% which almost no one here does anyways.
I could bet most of the people playing WoW could pick what ever talents they wanted, and wouldn't notice a DPS/HPS difference, simply because they get the whole class wrong from the start.

You could but only one was really worth it. Not to mention, a lot of the talents were just static extra damage talents that were mandatory yet super boring. Most talents these days actually makes a difference.

[voidillusion]

A real evolution of the old talent trees was kind of a missed opurtunity for blizz... They could have done so much using it as a basis to give real depth and uniqueness to each spec...

[Rotted]

if you don't notice your talents than that is on you and the general feel of the game.
stuff like ebon bolt, chimaera shot or marked for death sure are noticeable points in leveling IF you really care about the leveling like you claim.
maybe the game in general is just less interesting, making every part "boring".


and why are wacky build not possible today?
in legion we had at least 2 somwhat viable speccs that were labeled "meme-build" (mm hunter and balance dudu had one, not sure if more) that were considered sub-par but were good enough to clear the content the majority of people care about, meaning normal-hc and maybe a dip into early mythic.
or, to quote you, "...Now they weren't any good for world firsts or server firsts but they were workable for the casual player...

Seriously?

You're comparing a "meme" build of 5 mixed talents (Which btw, all talents are supposed to be designed to be viable, that was the selling point of the new system) to the old way of mixing talents to specs?