I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of the old talents coming back.

[Vampyrr]

From what extremely little we've seen, it looks like it's more that they've repackaged/skinned the current talent system to resemble the old one, and given it a bunch of new passives like azerite. So I'm actually not too concerned, the nostalgia pandering looks like a trick.

Thats an alright system. What I dont need is a 1% or sometimes only .5% gains in a 0/5 format. Its not fun or compelling, those could just be baked into the level itself if that is what people want.

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Issue is the raids/dungeons do not compare to WoW raids/dungeons. The game isn't as complex and doesn't try to be which is fine. But they cater to different audiences.

[Utrrabbit]

That was a BAD system though. It is not good to bring failed systems back for nostalgia sake.

It was an amazing system. You are just factually wrong.

[Aydinx2]

...

They did say multiple times that sharing wouldn't be there. Not sure why the screenshot includes that then.

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Thats an alright system. What I dont need is a 1% or sometimes only .5% gains in a 0/5 format. Its not fun or compelling, those could just be baked into the level itself if that is what people want.

It's not about getting the stat. It's about the player getting a point and getting to spend it.
Why do you think Artifact Power wasn't automatic?

[Ersula]

I don't understand why people think talents add any sort of flavor, complexity or what have you.

There has, and always will be, right and wrong picks. Sure you can min/max it and choose the right and wrong talents for specific fights, but at the end of the day, there is no "flavor" in talents.

They are basically gear but in button form. You don't choose sub-par gear 'just because'.

I'd agree for the most part. But there were indeed on average more viable builds during the Talent Tree era than the Post-Cata era. There was nothing stopping them from supporting multiple optimal builds with the post-cata era of talents, but if they're not going to try to do that, going back to the tree is the next best thing.

[Utrrabbit]

They did say multiple times that sharing wouldn't be there. Not sure why the screenshot includes that then.

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It's not about getting the stat. It's about the player getting a point and getting to spend it.
Why do you think Artifact Power wasn't automatic?

They said it wont be at launch but it will be later.

[Diaphin]

Class balance is objectively better in FF14 than in WoW. It's just a fact. It comes at the cost of customization, but it is factually better. The difference between the best specs and the worst specs is significantly smaller than it is in wow, let alone the difference between the best specs and the worst specs *with the wrong talents*.

It's not that your criticisms of FF14 are invalid. I agree with them almost entirely (please no more ARR dungeons in queue, at least give me level 50 abilities for all of them), but the alternative to those things that wow has (throwing content in the trash every patch for example) is so much obnoxiously worse that it is silly to point out these minor quibbles with FF14.

The idea that FF14 doesn't put out content at the pace WoW does is simply false. FF14 has a much more aggressive patch schedule than WoW. FF14 is putting out 2-3 patches (arguably more because of end-expansion droughts) for every single patch WoW puts out. Let's see what we get for 2 patches in FF14:

6.1
Ultimate raid
Alliance raid
Unreal Trial
New MSQ
Dungeon
A significant amount of side story content
New housing district
New rep
New PvP mode (equivalent of a new BG)
Adventurer plate system
Overhauls to ARR dungeon systems

6.2
4-boss raid
Unreal trial
New dungeon
New MSQ
New criterion dungeon system
New island sanctuary system
More that hasn't been announced

Each of these patches is something like 66% - 75% of a wow patch, but we get two of them in the time it takes wow to deliver one. Most notable is the constant introduction of new evergreen content, like ultimate raids or new pvp modes or the island sanctuaries or new deep dungeons. Even if we put aside the idea that roulettes represent evergreen content, the fact that in three patches we are going to see all of the following evergreen content is crazy: island sanctuaries, new housing district, criterion dungeon system (this is presumed evergreen), a deep dungeon, two ultimate raids, a new pvp mode....

To say this is incomparable to wow is flatly dishonest, just like it is dishonest for you to talk about Eureka (blech) and ignore the absolutely massive amount of content that came with Bozja, which is yet another evergreen system.

The problem with the class balancing in FF14 is, that there is a pretty tight group composition in this game and any challenging raid mode is just 8 group spots and there are still some pretty significant differences between classes, so I would argue that differences at times are even worse than in WoW, especially since there are no other specs or roles to fall back on when you're class is currently performing badly. I don't know how its currently, but look at Summoner for example during 6.0. It was just objectively worse than any other caster and all the more if you compare it to Red Mage, which was just objectively better in every regard for the role its supposed to fulfill, being the more supportive caster who brings a rezz. Same with Machinist, which doesn't brings any support yet can't compete with selfish dps jobs either, so it is just not a good choice to bring.

And yeah, lots of FF14 content is evergreen in theory, but the question here is more of how engaging it is. Dungeons and Alliance Raids are content that become tiresome and old pretty fast, just due to the fact that its content on lfr and normal dungeon levels of difficulty. Especially new dungeons become just annoying after the first few runs, because the expert dungeon roulette system lets you do the same 2 or 3 dungeons every day and they are just ridiculously easy. And when it comes to Bozja, its better than Eureka, sure, but only evergreen to the extend of finding parties for the content. The same with MSQ, which is great an all, but pretty fast to play through and really only something thats engaging once. Criterion dungeons sound nice though.

Lets be real here, so far FF14 doesn't have the kinds of content that offers daily engagement and rewards to basically all levels of players that WoW has. And you act like FF14 has all contents stay relevant indefinitely, which is quite dishonest. In terms of progression, every its exactly the same like WoW, only in a 2 patch cyclus where there is an effective reset happening with catch-up gear once the next raid tier hits and we get new raid- tomestone and crafting gear, that renders everything before redundant.

[NineSpine]

The problem with the class balancing in FF14 is, that there is a pretty tight group composition in this game and any challenging raid mode is just 8 group spots and there are still some pretty significant differences between classes, so I would argue that differences at times are even worse than in WoW, especially since there are no other specs or roles to fall back on when you're class is currently performing badly. I don't know how its currently, but look at Summoner for example during 6.0. It was just objectively worse than any other caster and all the more if you compare it to Red Mage, which was just objectively better in every regard for the role its supposed to fulfill, being the more supportive caster who brings a rezz. Same with Machinist, which doesn't brings any support yet can't compete with selfish dps jobs either, so it is just not a good choice to bring.

And yeah, lots of FF14 content is evergreen in theory, but the question here is more of how engaging it is. Dungeons and Alliance Raids are content that become tiresome and old pretty fast, just due to the fact that its content on lfr and normal dungeon levels of difficulty. Especially new dungeons become just annoying after the first few runs, because the expert dungeon roulette system lets you do the same 2 or 3 dungeons every day and they are just ridiculously easy. And when it comes to Bozja, its better than Eureka, sure, but only evergreen to the extend of finding parties for the content. The same with MSQ, which is great an all, but pretty fast to play through and really only something thats engaging once. Criterion dungeons sound nice though.

Lets be real here, so far FF14 doesn't have the kinds of content that offers daily engagement and rewards to basically all levels of players that WoW has. And you act like FF14 has all contents stay relevant indefinitely, which is quite dishonest. In terms of progression, every its exactly the same like WoW, only in a 2 patch cyclus where there is an effective reset happening with catch-up gear once the next raid tier hits and we get new raid- tomestone and crafting gear, that renders everything before redundant.

"I don't like the evergreen content" isn't the same argument as "There isn't evergreen content".
"I don't like the new content" isn't the same argument as "They don't add enough new content."

These are dishonest conflations you are making. You can't complain that the game doesn't get enough content and then when the content is listed just start saying that you don't like that content so you don't count it. That's as silly as me saying "I don't like wow raids therefore FF14 has more raids".

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Issue is the raids/dungeons do not compare to WoW raids/dungeons. The game isn't as complex and doesn't try to be which is fine. But they cater to different audiences.

Remember when a group of hardcore world first wow raiders came to FF14 and practiced for six months to show us how its done and then came in.... 37th in the world first savage race? And then took their toys, went home, and didn't bother embarrassing themselves by taking part in the ultimate race?

I remember. Funny how all these people that declare FF14 so much less complex than WoW don't just come to FF14 and one shot all the bosses, claim world first, and laugh at everyone else.

[Makaloff]

They seem confusing, and I feel like I'll be stressed out by them, I've played Classic and have quit as the talents seem too extreme and such.
I prefer the WOD era talents as I started in Late MOP and boosted a fury warrior in warlords of Draenor, and I might miss the pick a talent, and boom, you read the thing and you pick a talent. That seems easy, but with this other system, I don't understand I'm not sure.

how does it stress you out? the talent tree pretty much uppgraded your abilities over time and honestly im liking they are bringing it back. current talent tree is just filled with dead talents and some stuff that is in there should be baseline for some classes and speccs even.

[alturic]

I'd agree for the most part. But there were indeed on average more viable builds during the Talent Tree era than the Post-Cata era. There was nothing stopping them from supporting multiple optimal builds with the post-cata era of talents, but if they're not going to try to do that, going back to the tree is the next best thing.

But when there's a system that deals with math, there will *always* be a right choice and a wrong choice. The absolute only way they could make talents have flavor, flair, choice, would be if they were cosmetic changes (animations or the like) and/or cosmetic changes with the same math behind them - at which point... what is the point (no pun intended) of the damn system.

[Aedruid]

Because that was the biggest factor that gatekept people out of content back in the day, thats why Blizz introduced catch-up methods in wotlk, the pool of people who will do the old content with you to gear up becomes ever smaller.

I guess I just don't see how this is a bad thing. Leveling is in of itself is a gatekeeping mechanism. Running higher keys in Mythic+ has gatekeeping via ilvls. Same for clearing mythic raids. Why would anew player experiencing all the content an expansion has to offer be bad? Nowadays in later patches you miss out on a year+ of content.

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But when there's a system that deals with math, there will *always* be a right choice and a wrong choice. The absolute only way they could make talents have flavor, flair, choice, would be if they were cosmetic changes (animations or the like) and/or cosmetic changes with the same math behind them - at which point... what is the point (no pun intended) of the damn system.

The older talent system was way easier to balance because of all the passive talents. 3% fire damage is easier to work with than 3 separate active abilities that have x^3 combinations.

[baseballfan]

confused? holy...

[Ashana Darkmoon]

I think my renewed concern is mostly not ending up with a ton more buttons. Some classes are already pushing the limits and beyond. It usually stinks to suddenly add like 3 active abilities from talents because of some change or set bonus (like how blood dk suddenly uses tombstone, blood tap, bonestorm, etc)

[Alkizon]

As I already said, these aren't old talents (it’s just formed in similar form; so nothing has changed significantly, so remains bad), and even more so, this doesn't mean return to old hierarchy (as it should be, how it worked), just rebranding, reshaping and be same lazying with lying about working

Current design of classes' organization is very flawed in quality of "development", since perks are too "greedy" for influence (a lot of them are too significant to be just talents (they create spec mechanics, not complement/benefit specific "whole class'" ones), as well as what is distributed to specs separately by default - these systems disrupt organization of healthy, both momentary and long-term choices
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there happened not only possibility, but also need for constant switching of what was previously always available, hanch such general dominance and demand of min&max-ing mentality; think for yourself, how often you would need to switch old talents in side-altars of your priority build, mmm? maximum "PvP/PvE and other role" right? because there was no such significant burning feeling that you were losing something class related much and this despite fact that if your build will be very different from "standard", you were staying just representative of your class, highly specialized or broad-based on your choice; and all because degree of influence and appointment of new and old talents differs greatly within design - the greater "weight" of talents, the stronger this burning desire, the more susceptible person to min-maxing, everything is simple and logical
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that over past six months we have also discussed in sufficient detail, and even devs didn't miss opportunity to turn this into ridiculous meme/put in service of marketing), which is why, when trying to return "build" significance within classes in Legion, the latter one were simply smashed to pieces (which we, in fact, have been talking about for years, and smart people talked about this already during process of new system's formation). The latter speaks (again) in favor of fact, that no matter how pleasant new system is/was, but foundation laid in Cata and implemented in MoP wasn't in favor of game. Do you understand all this? It significantly cut implementation possibilities of both fantasy component and accuracy/coherence/consistency of modification "classes' part" systems within general game design.

There are no repairs, there is no point in digging very far here *pointing at PvP perks* it was nonsense and nonsense will remain.

In other words, I agree with this person in terms of general judgment, but not in terms of joy/enthusiasm, since what is talking about isn't appointment of talents (they aren't for giving buttons/mechanics, they're "improvements", for supporting and buffing them, making more convenient - any, not just "spec-locked" ones, therefore only 1 class tree and no "spec/role-scaling" in gear's characteristics)... however, and this is something I also have repeated million times already

[Nymrohd]

But when there's a system that deals with math, there will *always* be a right choice and a wrong choice. The absolute only way they could make talents have flavor, flair, choice, would be if they were cosmetic changes (animations or the like) and/or cosmetic changes with the same math behind them - at which point... what is the point (no pun intended) of the damn system.

If you can change talents around easily, yes there will be a right choice. But the right choice will change constantly. It already does change to some extent; most specs have at least a few talent rows that are flexible depending on the encounter and content. The new system will probably add more flexibility. And what the right choise is even in the same encounter can be debatable. If your talents offer a choice to gain a bit more mobility but you lose a bit of damage for that, for the vast majority of players that will actually end up giving them MORE damage. If your raid composition a spec that can bring strong AoE without sacrificing ST well then some of the dps will have to take the fall and switch to more add damage. There is always nuance in what is optimal. And the moment you are no longer a BM hunter with the same talent build for every type of content but rather have to make adjustments for every encounter or depending on dungeon and affix (not even to mention how varied optimal talents can be for different pvp scenarios), can we really talk about cookie cutter specs anymore? I repeat, this is already the case just to a smaller extent because we have far less flex points in our builds. With a tree that changes.

[Eurhetemec]

I just read over the interview and watched the spotlight again. I did not catch anyone say this will no be available.
Also this:


Directly from the presentation. Maybe i missed something but please show me where then because i didn't find.

If they said that. Ok. Then i was wrong. But i don't see anything pointing in that direction for now.

Even if it is not sharable and this was just a red herring for whatever reason. It is 9-11 rows.... open a tab click without reading. Done.

Yeah people noticed that in the mock-up of the UI that and asked if they will be shareable, and so far in interviews the response has been "probably not at launch" (sorry not rewatching several entire interviews to find the exact mention).

That said, either it'll be in within a few patches (almost certainly by 10.1), and/or modders will create a mod that makes it possible for everyone with that mod.

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But when there's a system that deals with math, there will *always* be a right choice and a wrong choice. The absolute only way they could make talents have flavor, flair, choice, would be if they were cosmetic changes (animations or the like) and/or cosmetic changes with the same math behind them - at which point... what is the point (no pun intended) of the damn system.

If you ask the wrong question, you won't get the right answer - and that applies with the math on talents. Whilst, in a purely technical sense, there will always be theoretical optimal configurations, there are so many variables involved, including player skill, and how practical some talents are to use, that the math will not necessarily reflect the reality of actual gameplay.

This is something we've seen countless times before across many games. "The math" says X is optimal, but "the math" typically makes assumptions that don't hold up in practice (like that you never have to move, or that you have X GCDs free per Y seconds, or that the fight length is different to what it actually is) and so on.

Right now, the recommended talents are generally not based purely on math, note - they're based on a mixture of math and the recommendations of experienced players, which allow them to account for stuff that simplistic mathematical approaches does not (and yes, even complex modelling of systems is simplistic if it doesn't account for the right factors which may well be outside of that model).

That pattern will continue. Even if you tell people that talent A is the best talent by 5.4% or something, if talent A is a pain in the arse for most people to use, then outside of serious raiding, and the particular kind of idiotic boxchecker who follows recommendations not matter how poorly they're able to execute them, it's unlikely to dominate.

And frankly the fact that you can store a ton of configurations and switch easily between them means people will experiment with a lot of stuff they wouldn't even bother to try, and talents which are more niche/specific will probably see significantly more usage than they do now, because some people will swap to them when they are optimal.

[bloodykiller86]

It's fundamentals that I can get interested in. I've just consulted whatever website to tell me how to build because I don't have the mental energy to refresh my entire understanding of the game's underlying power structure every raid tier. I usually love this stuff, but the time and energy it takes to feel rewarded by these systems just isn't worth putting in when it never lasts.

Talents, though, as proposed? I can sink my teeth into these. There's a reason that I can still map out the Shaman talent tree in classic by memory - I spent time with it, and that time wasn't discarded every couple of months.

yup talents are something more memorable and it seems decently customizable that we will actually see differences in play style with some changes. so im excited to mess with it

[Dalinos]

Too many things to press and think about. The current talent system in Retail is casual friendly and understandable.

It also completely murdered hybrid specs and took out all the fun of experimentation out of the game.

During WOTLK's Season 5/Season 6 (Deadly and Furious season), do you want me to tell you what the best spec was for a healer paladin?

It was a hybrid prot-retri spec. It went semi-deep into Retri to get some passives and access to Repentance (a CC ability), it completely ignored the Holy tree, and then they spent the rest of their points in the Prot tree for extra survivability, extra buffs on blessings and access to Blessing of Kings. Imagine that. The go-to PVP healer spec of paladins spent either 0 or 5 points total in the Holy tree. Shit like that is, for all intents and purposes after Cataclysm, impossible.

[VMSmith]

They seem confusing, and I feel like I'll be stressed out by them, I've played Classic and have quit as the talents seem too extreme and such.
I prefer the WOD era talents as I started in Late MOP and boosted a fury warrior in warlords of Draenor, and I might miss the pick a talent, and boom, you read the thing and you pick a talent. That seems easy, but with this other system, I don't understand I'm not sure.

Either you are a Cutting Edge/AOTC raider and you'll follow what the websites tell you to pick, or you're just an average joe for whom it doesn't really matter and you pick what looks fun and never think about them again until Blizzard forcefully resets your talents when they inevitably "balance" them.

They're changing the talents solely to appeal to the nostalgia of a small crowd, for everyone (including those people, really) this revamp won't actually do anything of note.

[Goat7]

If you think Blizzard is going to be on top of these tree's for all specs and classes, you are in for a rude awakening.

It is going to be a shit show, esp for PVP. Lets be honest, they suck at listening to feedback and they are even worse at getting updates or changes out fast enough. Maybe by 11.0 the NEW, OLD talent trees will be balanced for some of the classes. Till then, FOTM class/spec will be worse now, way way worse, mark these words.

My opinion they should of left this alone. I like the old trees better, but this is not going to go well.

[Lorgran]

I don't think anyone does. Wooooow, I do 1% more damage with this ability. Who gives a shit?

You clearly haven't played any idle games