If We're Going Back to Level 60, Why not Bring Back Talent Trees?

[PenguinChan]

I'd like it back, because it gave some sense of progression as you went from 1 - 60 / 70 / 80. There was some wiggle room depending on the spec / class, but I'd like them to just make it actually have a path you choose. IE: Haste builds, crit builds, survival builds, etc.

[Nnyco]

Short answer: Because they sucked

Long answer: Because they suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked

[Florena]

When leveling I liked the old system, getting something every level to put a point into. But once you hit max level, I much prefer the current system. Is there a best option for any given fight now? Sure, but it's not like that wasn't the case with the old talent trees too.

[Nuciek]

The old talent trees sucked. I would actually welcome back talent trees but of them being a combination between current ones and something like artifact weapon.

So you would have a tree where you put your point every level and unlock certain abilities and passives and then at certain points you unlock a talent tree row that you pick 1 out of 3 (like right now). So while leveling you get a point every level and you feel some kind of power upgrade, but at max level you have all "minor" talents and you just switch between talents on the specific tiers. So at max level it would be pretty much what it is now, just a bit more fun when you're leveling.

[Blackmist]

Talents trees were pretty poor. It was a cookie cutter spec, with maybe one or two points movable depending on what you wanted to do.

The new system is better BUT the design and balance of the talents themselves is often miles out and never gets adjusted. If 90% of the players have Talent 1 in Tier 3 then those other talents need adjusting to make them competitive. My BIS talents for every single fight were the same ones. That can't be right. Over a long enough fight, they should be more or less equal. On specific fights, there should be enough difference to make one noticeably better than the others. And that could vary as we get better at the fight as well.

And get rid of tomes as well. If I'm raiding, I want to be able to think about talents and just change them whenever. Using a shitty consumable or having to get summoned back does not make it "meaningful".

[Katchii]

The only thing the old talent trees did is provide a reward for every level, something to spend every time you leveled up. That felt good. But there was very little actual choice involved in where you put those points.

With how much stuff (talents, abilities, etc...) that will now be crammed into 60 levels, I don't think feeling rewarded for leveling up will be an issue.

[prwraith]

Let's go hardcore and bring in the everquest alternate advancement grind.

[Coldkil]

I think one of the reasons was that Blizzard spoke about their difficulty balancing abilities cause there were some niche builds and "hybrid" builds that took the best talents from each spec. I think most developers prefer players playing the game with limited control over their power and would prefer to control how powerful or how gamers play the game. That way they have almost total control. Its why you've seen the shift to the raiding meta where you are forced or pushed to raid. That is how its easier for developers to have quantifiable information.

Yeah, i can see where this comes from. 0/31/30 on my rogue in TBC, or the same 0/31/30 (or 0/30/31?) with DK as soon WotLK launched. Anyway, right now we have a bunch of spells to choose from where realistically have a single option (or no option cause they're irrelevant) and this defeats the talent system as a whole.

[bloodwulf]

You could do the same with the older talent tree system as well.

Not nearly as freely. The cost associated was higher, not to mention the point limits meant you could do very little changes without redoing your entire tree. Also about 80% of the old trees are passive % gains to stats, and only a few keystones are actually abilities\gameplay changing. Certain deep keystones were literally required for specs to function correctly that you had to always devout X number of points minimum in that tree, and then the options down that tree often equated to % stamina or % spirit etc, and depending on your role you typically only needed one option in each choice the talent tree. Builds were cookie cutter and were very difficult to change on a fight by fight basis (as in, no one really ever did it).

[Hadriker]

I would be a huge fan of actual talent trees again, but not in the way they were done previously. Or just a more involved Skill/talent system all together.

Like others have said. Those old talent trees only really gave the illusion of choice. For the most part there was only one real way to build out a spec and you'd have maybe 3 -5 talent points left over to play with, but that's it.

unless they could figure out a way to make the talent trees truly customizable with a lot of options, then i don't really want them back. My favorite talent/skill system i've seen in an MMO was Rift.

[Amsden]

New talent system, old talent system. It doesn't matter you're still going to go to icy veins and put the points exactly where they tell you, just like you do now.

[ihate2beapessimist]

Old talent trees were garbage, stop it.

[Eldrathian]

Just NO.
God no.

If you want the old talent trees, Classic is there for you.

[FossilFree]

Current talents are way more cookie cutter than the old ones. There is always a best talent each row, only now there is way less of them total.

[Stricks]

Old talent trees are bad and Classic has proven that beyond doubt.

90% of the tree is pointless trash like +1 str, and then the rest are mandatory things you have to take to perform well. Old talent trees bring nothing positive in and just confuse the newbies. Oh, and the "choice" is also much more real now because you often find yourself switching between movement abilities in the new talent rows. Back with the trees 99,99% of people were just running with the same stuff.

It was an illusion of choice, not actual choice.

How has Classic "proven" that? Many, many players like the talent trees...

[Venziir]

I mean part of the reason they were scrapped and/or rehashed was because the amount of talent points became bloated by level 80.

It seems like the route Blizz is going is to just perpetually keep us at level 60. Which I'm fine with. But instead of all this borrowed power stuff, why not just give us back our talent trees and improve on them. They're far more exciting when leveling. And Blizzard can perhaps introduce "talent pages" for when we need to quickly respec (no mis allocating points accidently).

They can keep the current PvP Talents to compliment the actual Talent Trees. Thoughts?

Ah yes, gotta love those good ol' "1% dmg increase to X spell"-talents! Muh immersion!

[MoanaLisa]

I'm not going to say the idea behind the old talent trees was trash but the way they were implemented certainly was. Put 3 points into this talent that you don't want or need to get access to a talent that you do need was the essence of bad choices.

I think someone could design better trees but there doesn't seem to be any desire to do so. So we go with what we have which I think is better than what the old trees brought to character customization.

Trees and choices are only cookie cutter if you bow to the desires of the theory-crafters. Personally I think there's far more choice and flexibility to switch things up than there ever was with the old trees.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I question this every time I boot up Classic.

But I think the reason is the devs see the system as inherently flawed because people just looked up guides for how to talent correctly.... which is the exact same problem the current system has.

Look I'm fully on the train of either bring back the old system which was more fun for the people not using guides, or just scrap talents entirely because the new system has the exact same issue with guides.

[glowpipe]

classic is what you want. its over here https://www.mmo-champion.com/forums/...al-Discussions

[deenman]

I´m all in for old talent trees, then at least you have more choice.

I would go as far as:

Keep the current talents for extra spells/powers and CDs.

Bring the old talent trees for enhancing. This combo would allow us to have several possible specs. It would not matter all that much with balancing classes as it would be the same but keeping all the powers instead of borrowing them.

lol more choice?no...there is far more choice today,but i will admit i miss the feeling of old talents when lvling,they shouldnt have replaced old talents with new,instead just have the new ones be an extra thing