Time for talents to go in 9.0?

[styil]

Talents have been around since the inception of WoW, but have really struggled to find a compelling place in the game. What if instead of this archaic system, we were simply given the tools that we need at a baseline level? With some of the existing talent trees simply baked into the class. I think that this would solve multiple problems:

- classes no longer feeling barebones
- greater player agency by having the appropriate tools needed to perform
- less development time wasted attempting to balance 36 specs of talent trees every patch
- levelling experience improved with more skills unlocked as we level

The major drawback would be that players would no longer be able to choose their talents, but they never really were choosing talents in the first place as there is always the right choice for every situation.

What do you think? Should the entire talent system be sceapped for 9.0? With talents baked into classes. Or should the current system remain?

[Jindujun]

Talents have been around since the inception of WoW, but have really struggled to find a compelling place in the game. What if instead of this archaic system, we were simply given the tools that we need at a baseline level? With some of the existing talent trees simply baked into the class. I think that this would solve multiple problems:

More like havent been compelling since they dumbed down the talent system. Bring back the trees and expand them with viable options

[Lochton]

Talents have been around since the inception of WoW, but have really struggled to find a compelling place in the game. What if instead of this archaic system, we were simply given the tools that we need at a baseline level? With some of the existing talent trees simply baked into the class. I think that this would solve multiple problems:

- classes no longer feeling barebones
- greater player agency by having the appropriate tools needed to perform
- less development time wasted attempting to balance 36 specs of talent trees every patch
- levelling experience improved with more skills unlocked as we level

The major drawback would be that players would no longer be able to choose their talents, but they never really were choosing talents in the first place as there is always the right choice for every situation.

What do you think? Should the entire talent system be sceapped for 9.0? With talents baked into classes. Or should the current system remain?

So, you mean, removal of player choices?

[Big Thanks]

So, you mean, removal of player choices?

The player choice of BfA is a complete illusion.
Ive never seen such a perfect illusion of choice like in BfA.
Its a complete mess

OP is right that "at this point" mught aswell remove them

But do i like this idea? NO! I would like old talent system back if not for PvE than for PvP and World content only.

[Lochton]

The player choice of BfA is a complete illusion.
Ive never seen such a perfect illusion of choice like in BfA.
Its a complete mess

OP is right that "at this point" mught aswell remove them

But do i like this idea? NO! I would like old talent system back if not for PvE than for PvP and World content only.

Well, you do have choices but sadly if raiding, you have cookie cutters. Even the old system.

[GreenJesus]

I'd rather they just remove talents and have the classes have a full toolkit rather than all the abilities locked behind a choice of 1/3. I want ALL of the abilities. Why choose when you can have them all?

[Big Thanks]

Well, you do have choices but sadly if raiding, you have cookie cutters. Even the old system.

Indeed IMO we should all aknowledge there will always be cookie cutter for raids (single target or AoE)...every single time.
There is no point fighting this.

But there is a point in preserving player choice in all other kinds of content. Please?

[Justpassing]

Professions first.

[D3athsting]

Time for removal of retail wow

[Lochton]

Indeed IMO we should all aknowledge there will always be cookie cutter for raids (single target or AoE)...every single time.

Indeed, hence when I set my talent mostly, I set it for World Content, more mobility and so on, while it changes in PvE..

[Magicon]

What about No, lol. There Will be differences in talents in 9.0 anyway

[Toxuvox]

I wouldn't mind seeing another system in place instead of the talents. I mean, while there is choice in the current system, just as there was in the old system, it is an illusion. There is, for the most part, one right choice, one meh choice, and one wrong choice. Between the devs and the alpha/beta test feedback, this really shouldn't be the case. After 15 years, maybe it is time to shelve the idea of any iteration of a talent tree and implement another way of empowering our levelling characters?

[Niffo]

Removing talents completely would be a no-go since you will be removing another RPG element. Replacing them by another system is something I look forward to.

[GreenJesus]

I wouldn't mind seeing another system in place instead of the talents. I mean, while there is choice in the current system, just as there was in the old system, it is an illusion. There is, for the most part, one right choice, one meh choice, and one wrong choice. Between the devs and the alpha/beta test feedback, this really shouldn't be the case. After 15 years, maybe it is time to shelve the idea of any iteration of a talent tree and implement another way of empowering our levelling characters?

Not to mention they remove abilities and then place them in competition with other talents that you might enjoy.

[Kumorii]

The player choice of BfA is a complete illusion.
Ive never seen such a perfect illusion of choice like in BfA.
Its a complete mess

OP is right that "at this point" mught aswell remove them

But do i like this idea? NO! I would like old talent system back if not for PvE than for PvP and World content only.

Illusion of choice exists in any game no matter how complex, unless the choices are insignificant. There will always be the optimal choice as long as people will theorize and calculate it. The "illusion" of choice is a player made problem where as you should always be optimal otherwise you drag others down.

It was the exact same in vanilla, it's the exact same in most games that are multi-player and somewhat competitive.

[luciano]

Talent trees should be points you spend in the other specs. Your spec's tree should be baseline.

For example, a ret paladin would have his/her ret tree completed at level 1. This gives access to the rotation spells and lets the player begin to learn to play the right way.

Every 1-X levels, you get a point to spend on either the holy or protection tree. (It'd be like the old trees in size.) You can mix and match as you choose, eventually adding a sustained raid DPS booster or off-heal boost or extra survivability cooldown (depending on your alternate specs.) at max level. Maybe even both. Giving every raider access to a long-cooldown last stand (or similar) would give the raid design team another variable to mess with to make cool fights. Same with DPS with heal specs able to step in and help heal for, say, a 30 second mana-free hasty heal phase every 5-10 minutes (as needed).

[rogueMatthias]

More like havent been compelling since they dumbed down the talent system. Bring back the trees and expand them with viable options

This! I really felt like they used to be real customisation to make your character. Granted if you were a proper raider (which only a small percentage are anyway) there was only one "real" option for a lot of it, but they could work to make it more flexible for everyone else.

[Shammyrock]

There has always been cookie cutter builds regardless of how talents are implemented and always will be.

Doesn't mean having other choices are a bad thing, most people dont really need to feel any obligation to follow those builds

[exochaft]

WoW just needs to put more of the RPG back into the MMORPG. I've been playing a bunch of different ones in between mythic raiding nights, and the problem that WoW tends to run into is that there can only be one right answer, when typically in RPG's there should be multiple right answers. It greatly varies with classes in WoW, but some classes actually do have multiple options depending upon how they want to play when it comes to talents (which is great). I won't deny there are classes who just use one talent build for everything, but the solution isn't getting rid of talents.

It's a design philosophy that's developed over the 15 years of WoW, where Blizz does not want people to fail while equating it to everyone needs to succeed. In order to achieve that, you get homogenization, which people tend to be against (and sometimes not). The player base has come to accept this mentality, where everyone's a winner, and when something shows up where people can fail or make wrong choices, it becomes all the outrage and has to get fixed. Now, this seems absolutely contrary to my original point, but it's actually not.

The point is that this cycle has made Blizz very safe when it comes to designs of certain systems in an effort to make sure everyone succeeds. However, trying to maintain such a philosophy puts you in a very tight situation from a design and tuning perspective, where you don't want total homogenization but you can't have systems where people fail. The result is playing it safe, and the player doesn't really feel like they get to customize their character to the levels they want, nor are they different from another person playing the class. If you truly want multiple solutions and actual choices that can all be correct and feel fulfilling, quite often you cannot play it safe all the time when designing systems, and this extends well beyond talent trees. You have to embrace imbalance, not avoid it at all costs.

Ironically enough, classic WoW did a much better job at this than current WoW, albeit at a very limited capacity. The lines were blurred a bit more compared to how compartmentalized BfA is when it comes to classes and how you want to play your class.

[Big Thanks]

Illusion of choice exists in any game no matter how complex, unless the choices are insignificant. There will always be the optimal choice as long as people will theorize and calculate it. The "illusion" of choice is a player made problem where as you should always be optimal otherwise you drag others down.

It was the exact same in vanilla, it's the exact same in most games that are multi-player and somewhat competitive.

My opinion:

The talent trees are only a mess because Blizzard decided in 7 rows to have
1) PvP talents
2) PvE talents
3) Utility talents

There is no way in hell ONLY in 7 rows to have all this crap put together and expect good results

So in my opinion blizzard should have
1) 7 rows of talent choices for PvE only (gameplay changing talents that change the way you play your class)
2) 7 rows of talent choices for Utility and PvP
3) The PvP talents we already have

I like the sound of this idea...