A Fun Look to the Past - Old Blue Posts about Talent Tree Evolution

[ManiaCCC]

It removes the mandatory ones as they were not really options. It gives you more actual choices instead of illusions of choice. This is no debate and what you belive matters littel.

Even devs said that old talent system is too complex, too many variables and options - they basically decided that they will split classes into smaller specs, which are easier to control and give players multiple binary choices. So believe what you want, you are still wrong.

Also Illusion of choice is BS.

[Soikona]

You are saying current system provide more options and classes are more complex today. Sorry buddy, I am not wrong. You just don't understand that issue.

Compared to TBC/vanilla I would disagree. As a TBC late vanilla player, I have spent more time changing my talents and playing with them this week than I did throughout the entire expansion of TBC, never mind WOTK on top of that.

[Super Kami Dende]

Old talent trees were mostly filler. Though I would like at least a few more rows for the current trees.

[ManiaCCC]

Compared to TBC/vanilla I would disagree. As a TBC late vanilla player, I have spent more time changing my talents and playing with them this week than I did throughout the entire expansion of TBC, never mind WOTK on top of that.

Last time I played WoW seriously was Legion, so from Legion perspective, I was also changing talents a lot..because it's free. Also any combination of talents really didn't change much. Gimmick of your class is decided by your spec, not build. My build really didn't matter much. I sometimes just forget, what talents I have currently picked and I was still playing in the same way.

Vanilla and TBC actually provided the most options, how to play single class or even spec. WotLK streamlined talents a lot and removed a lot of customization along the way. If you really feel that in Vanilla or TBC there were less options, I say you were young and not really paying attention to options you had - or you were primary PvE players, so you went with best cookie cutter build.

[Soikona]

Last time I played WoW seriously was Legion, so from Legion perspective, I was also changing talents a lot..because it's free. Also any combination of talents really didn't change much. Gimmick of your class is decided by your spec, not build. My build really didn't matter much. I sometimes just forget, what talents I have currently picked and I was still playing in the same way.

Vanilla and TBC actually provided the most options, how to play single class or even spec. WotLK streamlined talents a lot and removed a lot of customization along the way. If you really feel that in Vanilla or TBC there were less options, I say you were young and not really paying attention to options you had - or you were primary PvE players, so you went with best cookie cutter build.

I would disagree, as someone that was always interested in raiding and using the best damage builds, the older stuff were more restrictive for me. I have more options now, an ele shaman is my main atm, and I have a few different playstyles to pick from. Back then, I didn’t. The old system didn’t allow me to have that flow, how was there more choice for me back then?

EDIT: it is good you can admit that as a PVE player, you know that there were no choices in vanilla or TBC.

[Kralljin]

So, you acknowledge they exist you just don't think there's a point to them? That's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. Just like there's nothing wrong with them existing.

It just leaves out a ton of essential parameters, in the old talent system you had more points to spent, congratz, that's the only thing that seemingly matters by your logic here.

Simply comparing the number of talent (points) really should not be the deciding factor here.

As much that exists in today's game.

Really?
Please link me those additional / optional core abilities i could talent into as hybrid dps.

Don't get me wrong, Icy Fury is cool (pun intended), but you can't tell me that couldn't easily be a talent in a tree. Just like Titan's Grip, one of the most iconic class abilities in the game today and it was a talent in Wrath.

Yeah, that's where you hit a fundamental issue of the old talent system.

If you made Icefury a talent in the old talent system, everybody that played Elemental had to adapt to Icefury, what if some people however didn't like Icefury?
That is a crucial flaw of the old system, Blizzard gave quite a lot of specs no alternative playstyles at all, it enforced a playstyle that you had abide to, deviation not possible.

Kinda sucks if you want a bit more complexity for your spec and Blizzard straight up tells you "Yeah, it's a simple spec, that's fine".

Kind of, I mean, that's exactly how it is today except they give you one or two small ways you might be able to change your game-play.

That's basically 1-2 more ways than i had previously.
Ignoring additional possible utility abilities.

Eh, I'd argue Legion. Suramar, Class hall campaigns, rifts, and everything circling around the artifact weapons (skins, AP, tints), mage tower, Light's Heart campaign. The big thing BfA really has going for it is WM and that new WM zone battle feature coming, but I'd agree, outside of PvP and M+ there isn't much.

Comparing a complete expansion to one that's still going doesn't work, 8.2 brings in quite a lot, with 8.3. still being on the horizon.

No, but the argument being given that they (the talent trees) take too much work seems to fall flat.

I don't think so, because whether they would have spent an equal time developing on that is an assumption on your part.

The one thing we know is that they straight up said "it's too much work", considering Blizzard are the only ones that actually have some insight knowledge on that front, i would assume that there is some truth to this statement - especially because the "too much work" excuse isn't exactly a good PR move, especially because GC was, at least regarding that, an honest person.

No one does, they also rebuilt almost all the classes from the ground up again come Legion.

The problem of the Legion rework was that a lot of classes ironically ended up with an eerily similiar playstyle.

The bare bones of the current Elemental and Balance rotation are currently very similiar, for example.

Of course it does. They removed options from classes and put them back as talents.. Shaman in TBC or WotLK was more complex without talents than current shamans with talents.

This is just one of those blatant lies that anyone who has some basic understanding can detect without issue.

Wotlk Elemental was braindead:
Keep searing up (Lasted one whole minute)
Keep FS up (No other Shock to worry about)
Use Lvb on CD (fixed 8 sec CD, no Lava surge procs)
Use LB

Throw in a CL, depending on Haste / Mana.

Now compare that to the current Master of the Elements / Icefury build, it's not even close, if you're looking for a spec that presses a lot of different buttons and requires constant attention regarding procs, try it out.

Minor sidenote, Elemental was an utterly dysfunctional spec regarding AoE in Wotlk.
And before you pull the "pruning" card, Shaman is probably one of the least affected classes by WoD / Legion pruning.

While I wasn't big fan of dual spec either, at least, you couldn't just fine-tune your build on the fly. I think their current approach for talents did the same thing like their skill system in Diablo 3 - there are no builds, just CoD style loadouts.

The game simply moved away from that and i'll doubt you'll find anyone who would give up the flexibility provided by it.
"I would tank but i'm dps currently and i won't respec" happened tad too often during Vanilla / TBC.

Little nuances like that are why the old talent system was great because two healers of the same class and spec could bring different things to the table.

And kinda dropped in value if you were not in the Melee group that night, better farm some gold to respec, yes?

I disagree, because in Classic if you were a Mage going Fire/Frost or Frost/Arcane, or 100% Fire, or 100% Frost, etc. Your playstyle was changed quite differently.

Your spec basically defined what kind of filler you spammed.
Rest was up to your Manareg (or combat duration by that).

You only get the abilities Blizzard says you should have.

Do please list me all those additional core abilities hybrid specs could get (You know, outside of stuff like Crusader Strike / Vampiric Touch).

Literally every single person i am discussing this topic dodges this question, because it just undermines your entire narrative.
Blizzard gave a lot of specs one set of abilities, you liked them or you could fuck off, additional options? Nope.

On top of that, this argument also applies to the old talent system, it's just one of those lies that the old talent system magically filled your bar with different abilities.

[Trbn]

I would disagree, as someone that was always interested in raiding and using the best damage builds, the older stuff were more restrictive for me. I have more options now, an ele shaman is my main atm, and I have a few different playstyles to pick from. Back then, I didn’t. The old system didn’t allow me to have that flow, how was there more choice for me back then?

EDIT: it is good you can admit that as a PVE player, you know that there were no choices in vanilla or TBC.

lol

tell me more, at start of bfa you picked best damaging talents and forgot that you could press "talent" button unless you need to respec
at least in legion you had to swap between aoe and st, now you just pick the best, and don't say I'm wrong, coz I'm not. you either pick the best or your choice doesn't matter.

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This is just one of those blatant lies that anyone who has some basic understanding can detect without issue.

Wotlk Elemental was braindead:
Keep searing up (Lasted one whole minute)
Keep FS up (No other Shock to worry about)
Use Lvb on CD (fixed 8 sec CD, no Lava surge procs)
Use LB

Throw in a CL, depending on Haste / Mana.

Now compare that to the current Master of the Elements / Icefury build, it's not even close, if you're looking for a spec that presses a lot of different buttons and requires constant attention regarding procs, try it out.

Minor sidenote, Elemental was an utterly dysfunctional spec regarding AoE in Wotlk.
And before you pull the "pruning" card, Shaman is probably one of the least affected classes by WoD / Legion pruning.

sure, because all the totems were pruned earlier xD
why do you write this wall of text is the question, because you are ill if you try to defend current style of gameplay

[Kralljin]

sure, because all the totems were pruned earlier xD
why do you write this wall of text is the question, because you are ill if you try to defend current style of gameplay

I think you're the sick one if you seriously enjoyed all those buff totems post TBC.

Because after all, all of them were, due to their range limitation, inferior versions of the same buffs brought by other classes.
Wotlk Strength of the Earth Totem was just worse than Horn of Winter, period.
Same goes for Manaspring and Blessing of Wisdom.
And so forth.

Also, simply because i like one specific system, doesn't mean i enjoy literally anything, but i guess anything beyond black and white is beyond your scope.

[Grimbold21]

What's wrong with a multitude of options? I mean, alright, WoW might end up like PoE, but then again, it's already Diablo is

[kaminaris]

@kaminaris What do you think about this?

No, leave damage and current "trees" as they are. They would need to add another system for utility and that might be a tree.
For this to work damage would be as it is now. They might remove all utilities from there and leave current talents for damage.

This way some classes wouldn't be so bad in M+ if they balanced trees about utility and not forcing some classes to be dps turrets.

[ManiaCCC]

The game simply moved away from that and i'll doubt you'll find anyone who would give up the flexibility provided by it.
"I would tank but i'm dps currently and i won't respec" happened tad too often during Vanilla / TBC.

From current playerbase? Perhaps. But I would find tons of people, who already left wow, who want old school "build" system to return.

One of the reason, why D3 failed so hard was lack of customization. And while I understand WoW is different game, tons of people dislike current "loadout" system.

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I would disagree, as someone that was always interested in raiding and using the best damage builds, the older stuff were more restrictive for me. I have more options now, an ele shaman is my main atm, and I have a few different playstyles to pick from. Back then, I didn’t. The old system didn’t allow me to have that flow, how was there more choice for me back then?

EDIT: it is good you can admit that as a PVE player, you know that there were no choices in vanilla or TBC.

I think I should use disclaimer in my posts - Everything i discuss here is from PvP perspective

[Kralljin]

And while I understand WoW is different game, tons of people dislike current "loadout" system.

I doubt you have numbers to support that.

Because it's just one of those things were pros by far outweigh the cons and anyone who has played before dual spec can attest to those "cons".

I'm just not seeing it, not even regarding classic i don't see a lot of people looking forward to a lack of dual spec or its derivates, whereas a ton of other "inconveniences" is actually among them.

Fun fact, handful of private servers capped the respec cost at 5g.

[Big Thanks]

No, leave damage and current "trees" as they are. They would need to add another system for utility and that might be a tree.
For this to work damage would be as it is now. They might remove all utilities from there and leave current talents for damage.

This way some classes wouldn't be so bad in M+ if they balanced trees about utility and not forcing some classes to be dps turrets.

The image i posted is is actually "fun" IMO.
The last point in damage is only there to spicy things up.

You know what will happen?

All PVE'ers will pick the cookiw cutter damage option (as always) and the PvP players will have a WHOLE WORLD OF FUN to pick from.

A PvP player will be gifted the dilema: "Shall i go more 3% damamage...but wait...i can pick so much utility if i dont go for the damage...what shall i ever do!?!"

Its fun IMO

[ManiaCCC]

I doubt you have numbers to support that.

Because it's just one of those things were pros by far outweigh the cons and anyone who has played before dual spec can attest to those "cons".

I'm just not seeing it, not even regarding classic i don't see a lot of people looking forward to a lack of dual spec or its derivates, whereas a ton of other "inconveniences" is actually among them.

Fun fact, handful of private servers capped the respec cost at 5g.

I don't think you have any numbers to support it either. There were also private servers, which left respec cap at 50g..so..

[Kralljin]

I don't think you have any numbers to support it either. There were also private servers, which left respec cap at 50g..so..

Okay, your point now?
I didn't claim that there were "tons of people", you made the statement, not my job to job disprove your unsubstantiated claims, burden of proof is upon you.

[ManiaCCC]

Okay, your point now?
I didn't claim that there were "tons of people", you made the statement, not my job to job disprove your unsubstantiated claims, burden of proof is upon you.

My point is you are wrong. You said " i'll doubt you'll find anyone who would give up the flexibility provided by it." Which is just false.

I was there when Dual spec was announced and introduced and no matter what you believe, it wasn't all cheering. There was quite a lot of resistance on chat, in my guild, on forum. There were thrown arguments back and forth - it wasn't universally loved feature. Some of my friends liked it, some of my friends hated it - same with my guild and I am sure you could see polarized opinions basically anywhere. Even devs said that it was pretty much 50:50 split in development team.

You still believe that people want play games, especially MMORPGs, for efficiency. This is wrong and until you will get this from your head, you always will be wrong. Yes, current WoW players are all or mostly "efficient" players, because that's how game is played for years - so where are these people, who are not big fans of this approach? Well, they are gone.

[Kralljin]

You still believe that people want play games, especially MMORPGs, for efficiency.

Perhaps one should seek the golden middle? Between convenience and inconvenience? Apply it there it makes sense and keep it out where it causes problems? Discuss the pros and cons, but whatever.

This my last reply towards you, because i don't have to argue with people who simply assume my stance on a massively broad topic (like why do people MMO's) based on a single topic.
Who, on top of that, has nothing to support their extremely subjective claims, but just tells me "how it is".

[ManiaCCC]

Perhaps one should seek the golden middle? Between convenience and inconvenience? Apply it there it makes sense and keep it out where it causes problems? Discuss the pros and cons, but whatever.

This my last reply towards you, because i don't have to argue with people who simply assume my stance on a massively broad topic (like why do people MMO's) based on a single topic.
Who, on top of that, has nothing to support their extremely subjective claims, but just tells me "how it is".

Golden middle doesn't exists. It's just wide spectrum of different preferences and this is what I am saying all the time. You are the one, who is saying words like "noone" and "nope, it isn't like that" without argument. I recognize different people want different things. I am not sure if you do.

[LionSinMaikeru]

And kinda dropped in value if you were not in the Melee group that night, better farm some gold to respec, yes?

Well there's that issue, but that's more of a problem with Blizzard and not the system itself. For example, the current system doesn't have ridiculous respec costs. Now add an increasing respec cost to the current system. That makes it a problem.

If the old system didn't have an unneeded gold sink cost you wouldn't have to complain about it.

Your spec basically defined what kind of filler you spammed.
Rest was up to your Manareg (or combat duration by that).

Why is that an issue + how is that any different from today?

In TBC on my Affliction Warlock, I had 3-4 DoTs to use. Today, I have roughly the same.

I didn't play a Druid in Classic, but in Cata my Druid mostly spammed Moonfire + Wrath. It's pretty much the same today.

Core abilities are always going to be a huge part of a class' rotation.

The difference is, back then you could augment the core abilities that YOU wanted to, no matter your spec. Today you cannot do that. You're forced to deal with the augments Blizzard wants and the abilities they want you to have - aside from 6 points.

Do please list me all those additional core abilities hybrid specs could get (You know, outside of stuff like Crusader Strike / Vampiric Touch).

Literally every single person i am discussing this topic dodges this question, because it just undermines your entire narrative.
Blizzard gave a lot of specs one set of abilities, you liked them or you could fuck off, additional options? Nope.

On top of that, this argument also applies to the old talent system, it's just one of those lies that the old talent system magically filled your bar with different abilities.

First of all, I didn't allege that you got a bunch of core hybrid spec abilities. I said that you had access to more abilities back then than you do right now. Which is verifiable and true. You got the abilities from ALL specs - aside from a few that were talent specific, and then specing into a specific tree would buff those abilities so you could specialize. In today's system that isn't what happens. Blizzard locks you out of the abilities they don't think you need for your role and limits you to a few. And then you can proceed to pick a few more. And second, your rotation changes based on the abilities you've empowered with your points. I've been quite vocal in that regard.

But for an example, look at Mage. If you wanted to be a Frost Mage who subs in Fire, then you could put points down the Frost tree to empower your frost spells. But you could then put some of your points into Fire, powering up your Fireball spell (Improved Fireball to reduce cast time, Flame Throwing to increase its range) and then you'd have a reason to add Fireball to your rotation. Or if you want to be a pure Fire Mage and grab Combustion, you can decide if you want to put the rest of your points into Fire to make your fire spells even more potent or go down Arcane to grab Arcane Concentration (for the clearcasting bonus) or invest a bit in Frost to get Elemental Precision (6% less chance opponents can resist your Frost/Fire spell) and some defensive talents.

I'm aware in a raid setting it's more clearcut but that's always how it's going to be. Raiders are min/maxers and as such will always have a defined way of doing things. The same is still true today and the new talent system didn't fix that, but it did destroy options.You had options when playing solo and those options were dependent on your personal preference + what you wanted to do.

In today's system you aren't able to make decisions like that because they're chosen for you. Today's system is nowhere near the freedom you had in Classic.

[Schmilblick]

People still believe what blizzard says ? seriously...