Page 4 of 16 FirstFirst ...
2
3
4
5
6
14
... LastLast
  1. #61
    Here's the thing that neither side is talking about.

    For the "Talent trees are good, see!??!?!" side: Yes, the promote some diversity in what you CAN build for, but there will always be some kind of optimal build that you will follow a guide for.

    THAT BEING SAID

    For the people who argue it doesn't make sense to make this change because there will always be an optimal build: Who cares? It doesn't affect you in any way. You are currently probably raiding with an optimal build anyway. They already mentioned that there will be nodes on the talent trees that function in a similar manner to the way that the current ones do. You can choose between one of three options from said node. You might not be changing your talent trees other than those nodes potentially, but then you're just playing the game the exact same way you are today. No real difference.


    Either way, the main thing I see coming from this system are as follows:

    Lower levels will be more interesting in general. The reason I have more fun leveling in Classic WoW from 1 to 60 is because I'm constantly shown the carrot on the stick for that next level. You're shown the talent trees and you can very easily see what is ahead of you. Same thing with the way that learning spells used to work. You'd have to go to your class trainer to buy the new spells, and then you'd be able to see the next spells you were going to get in the next few levels. The way leveling currently works in WoW, you kinda just flash gold and then a spell appears on your bar. It's a pain to navigate through the spellbook in order to see what spells you already have and what spells you don't have yet, so you're not really excited to see what comes next.

    It's just a very different feeling between the two games, and I think the talent trees will succeed in bringing back that excitement that leveling has. Is that useful for end game? No, but it also doesn't affect end game. Not every single thing in the entire game needs to be designed for you and specifically you to enjoy. Leveling is a part of the game, and some people enjoy or had enjoyed it in the past. If something is added that doesn't negatively impact you directly but positively impacts somebody else, then it's perfectly okay.

    The other thing that's positive is that, while it might ultimately end up with cookie cutter builds as far as the eye can see, it doesn't HAVE to be that way any longer. The talent options you've been given since MoP are not really build or playstyle defining for the most part. There are some exceptions to this, but generally every single spec is going to play like every other spec because it was hand crafted by Blizzard to do so. Even if it doesn't work out, there's a CHANCE that it might create more diversity in how you build your spec. As stated before, if it fails in this goal then all that happens is that you just play the game EXACTLY as you do today. There's no "oh shit, this didn't work and now it's negatively affecting the way I played the game!" It either brings diversity into the game, or you just cookie cutter spec like you do today and ignore talents the same as you ignore how your class and spec is built today.

    There's really no negatives to this system being added so might as well add it for the few positives that it may or may not create.

  2. #62
    memespecs were a thing before everyone decided min/max'ing was the meta.

  3. #63
    Quote Originally Posted by Fion Silberpfeil View Post
    Spending 20 Points in all three speccs may be original, but it didnt make any sense nor was it any good. So...just because there is an option for diversity doesnt mean its good diversity. Just that you have it. (Duh)
    It made sense because it was fun and cool at the same time + you were a class buffing different damage profiles. I dont see how that doesnt make sense.

  4. #64
    Quote Originally Posted by NineSpine View Post
    Half of players don't even do M+ or normal+ raids or rated pvp. You overestimate how many players give a shit about min maxing.
    And those same people just look up a guide to follow for their talents.

  5. #65
    Quote Originally Posted by Chadow View Post
    Video:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BbgROZ9STY

    Video features crazy player created specs from Wrath era:

    -Honor Among Thieves Rogue
    -AoE Fan of Knives interrupt and silence Rogue (pvp)
    -Spell Power Enhancement Shaman
    -Prot Holy Paladin (converting stamina into spell power...later changed to strength into spell power)
    -Preg Pala (Prot Holy Ret Paladin)
    -Necromancer caster ranged Deathknight (pvp)
    -Dancing rune blood DK DPS (pre nerf)
    -Arms Prot Tank Warrior
    -Frostfire Mage

    And there were many more player created inventions in specs some of which had to be nerfed.
    I loved this stuff back in the day. Hopefully it comes back.

  6. #66
    Quote Originally Posted by thunterman View Post
    Yea, it's really no different to how it is now, there's the standard cookie cutter build and niche talents that you occasionally use. As a Blood DK I'm switching talents fairly often in Sepulcher.
    But if they put a focus on that, it would be huge. Making it so there really isn't a cookie cutter option. I do like the option knowing that if I want, I can have more points put into CC's and have more CC abilities or if I want to change those points out for more damage abilities and no CC option? On my DH in Sepulcher, I hardly ever use imprison as it doesn't work on any mob thats important. So I should be able to switch that out for something else.

  7. #67
    No one specced differently beyond maybe 3 to at most 6 points.

    Can't you just take the L that covenants were when it comes to player choice?

    People want to be effective not unique. That or we are gonna see the tremendous amount of cope from people bending into a pretzel about why specs are 90% one covenant.

  8. #68
    Do people forget that they thought Covenant choice was going to be more varied instead of what the guide says? That tells you all you need to know about how talents will work. A players choice is diminished when they have to interact with a larger community that is timed because its up to them to carry their fair share and we can debate all night about how fair or right that is but since the rise of personal responsibility mechanics in raids and damage checks personal choice kinda does not matter, this is not baldurs gate.

    They would have to tune down the difficulty to make choice a personal thing with the current mindset in the game which at the very least the raiding could stand a knock or 2 down.

  9. #69
    Quote Originally Posted by Rucati View Post
    If I invite someone and they have all the right talents they at least know what their abilities do, they at least spent the 5 seconds it takes to look up a build to do good damage. Can they still be bad? Sure. But there's at least a decent chance they have a small understanding of their class.

    If I invite someone and they have all the wrong talents that they picked at random it means they have no idea what they're doing. There's a 99% chance they're going to be literal dead weight.

    Personally I wouldn't even consider doing content with someone running some troll build. They're going to be bad players, they're almost certainly going to be obnoxious players, and it's not going to be a fun experience in any way.
    None of what you said makes even an ounce of sense, especially compared to what you were replying to.

    "Make your own group." That solves all problems, according to you people. God knows when others complain about having to play with obnoxious elitist twats, that's what you people say, dust your hands, and go "problem solved!"

    But it's absolutely fucking hilarious how you respond when people say the same thing right back at you.

  10. #70
    Quote Originally Posted by Infinity Cubed View Post
    None of what you said makes even an ounce of sense, especially compared to what you were replying to.

    "Make your own group." That solves all problems, according to you people. God knows when others complain about having to play with obnoxious elitist twats, that's what you people say, dust your hands, and go "problem solved!"

    But it's absolutely fucking hilarious how you respond when people say the same thing right back at you.
    They won't though... derps naturally filter out of groups. It's why a plus 24 right now goes smoother then a plus 15. Less drops running around pulling random mobs or using some absurd strat

    Covenants proved how retarded the snowflake mindset is and how many problems it makes for the playerbase as a whole.

    To be brutally honest the game would be better if they removed talents from save for pvp ones and just balanced classes around having aoe.

  11. #71
    Quote Originally Posted by Thestrawman View Post
    And those same people just look up a guide to follow for their talents.
    They really don't. I've broken down the numbers on this forum multiple times, but if we look at covenant selection for example it only shows that around half of people, at most, were min maxing.
    "stop puting you idiotic liberal words into my mouth"
    -ynnady

  12. #72
    Quote Originally Posted by NineSpine View Post
    They really don't. I've broken down the numbers on this forum multiple times, but if we look at covenant selection for example it only shows that around half of people, at most, were min maxing.
    Once they were swappable yes... I still remember you clinging to the three outliner specs trying desperately to explain they proved the trend then arguing 80 wasn't 90%.

    Can you just accept reality and not let even a facade of success waft off covenants so we can never see them again please?

  13. #73
    Quote Originally Posted by Celement View Post
    Once they were swappable yes... I still remember you clinging to the three outliner specs trying desperately to explain they proved the trend then arguing 80 wasn't 90%.

    Can you just accept reality and not let even a facade of success waft off covenants so we can never see them again please?
    Almost no spec had 80%. This is the shit you guys did every time I proved you wrong with numbers. You just started wildly claiming that every spec was 80% one covenant when it simply wasn't. Very, very few were that extreme and almost all that were were where the spec and theme of the covenant aligned, like Night Fae druids. You guys can't deal with reality so you just make numbers up and mock everyone who bothers to do math. It's remarkably similar to flat earthers.
    "stop puting you idiotic liberal words into my mouth"
    -ynnady

  14. #74
    Stealthed Defender unbound's Avatar
    7+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2014
    Location
    All that moves is easily heard in the void.
    Posts
    6,798
    Yes, there was plenty of originality long ago. Some worked quite well (despite people claiming otherwise), and some didn't do as well. But it didn't matter.

    Casual guilds will let you do you. If you aren't in a guild, you can do you.

    Serious guilds will demand that you follow whatever uber spec is on whatever site. I've been in a couple of guilds (ones that were casual and decided to become more serious) where I was do 90+% of max for the spec, and they'd still yell at me to change my spec. I leave such guilds, but some stay because they want to do such things.

    So, with the highly limited nonsense talent system we have today, people running solo or in casual guilds are unhappy with the lack of choices. People in serious guilds are largely told what to use.

    With a much more expanded talent system option, people running solo or in casual guilds can play around and enjoy the game the way they want. People in serious guilds will not affected whatsoever....they'll still be told what to use.

    Therefore, it is a slam dunk to provide options. It doesn't harm the min/max people, and gives so very much to everyone else.

  15. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by NineSpine View Post
    Almost no spec had 80%. This is the shit you guys did every time I proved you wrong with numbers. You just started wildly claiming that every spec was 80% one covenant when it simply wasn't. Very, very few were that extreme and almost all that were were where the spec and theme of the covenant aligned, like Night Fae druids. You guys can't deal with reality so you just make numbers up and mock everyone who bothers to do math. It's remarkably similar to flat earthers.
    I recall you screaming 60% of four choices wasn't a massive majority either... leave math alone it never did anything to you.

  16. #76
    Yeah I remember discovering the healer pally one with more points in prot than holy back in Wrath. No holy shock but I was basically unkillable so you could waste all your stuns and interrupts on me to stop my casts, but it didn't matter because you weren't killing me anytime soon anyway.

    Of course that's another reason why Blizzard got rid of them. Much harder to balance when something so out of meta ends up being broken AF.

  17. #77
    Quote Originally Posted by Celement View Post
    I recall you screaming 60% of four choices wasn't a massive majority either... leave math alone it never did anything to you.
    60% out of four choices means that less than 50% of players are min maxing. I know this because I can do math. In a random distribution, that just means 35% of players broke from the expected distribution.
    "stop puting you idiotic liberal words into my mouth"
    -ynnady

  18. #78
    Quote Originally Posted by Darkimpact View Post
    I love watching people who love playing with legos arguing with the barbie (now with interchangable shoes!!!) loving crowd. Keep it up guys, you specifically are totally right and that other guy is just plain wrong. I totally agree with you (specific reader currently reading this) GET EM!
    I can tell you from experience -- the only thing people dislike more than those at the extreme ends of either issue are the ones who don't have a strong opinion one way or another and blast everybody from the center. Good luck.

  19. #79
    Quote Originally Posted by ellieg View Post
    The difference is that based on ilvl and spec today you have a good idea about the role and quality that they will perform. Back then you invited a class and had 0 idea if they were going to melee or ranged or even try to tank or heal. Are they gonna do multiple roles at once? Are they gonna do 1 role really well or just do 1k dps moonfire spamming?

    Idc if they are an amazing player if they are playing a spec literally only capable of doing 1/5 the dps of a dif spec. Its the outcome I care about.
    This is just straight up false. It's just as bad, if not worse today.

    Quote Originally Posted by ellieg View Post
    I think ppl also forget that for the most part, 90% of the talents were the same if you wanted to actually perform decently, and there were maybe 2 or 3 actual choices you'd make after that. Those 90% that were the same are just the passives baked into the skill book now, or skills u get automatically for picking your spec now, like mortal strike and sweeping strikes. The choice you did end up picking was like do I want gouge to last 0.5 sec longer, or give kick a 50% chance to silence a target for 2 seconds.

    Now you've got 7 talent rows. You get to make a choice at every row. Arguably its not much better because there's usually a best pick depending on which content you're doing. But at least it changes (and easily) depending on the content unlike old talent where 1 build was basically locked in 100%. And now you've got some options to change out an active talent that might yield slightly more dps, with a passive one that eases up the rotation.

    So my point is sure, you had more "variety" back then if you include vastly underperforming builds. And im sure turbo soloing casuals would prefer that. But if you only include builds that actually perform within 10% of the best build, then there is much more variety and choice today
    The problem with the current talent trees usually falls down to horrible balance. You can just see a frost mage using a water elemental to know they can't possibly perform in the top 10%, but if we're actually going to be honest actors here, you shouldn't be expecting the random mage you invited to be in the top 10% in the first place. Some specs are in a much better place balance wise, but there are still a good number of talents that are absolute dog shit. Serenity for Windwalker monks is a talent that is a damage loss over choosing nothing for instance. Frost mage as a whole has very limited spec options if you want to be competitive at all. On the other hand, Demonology has a lot of wiggle room in talents.

    Compared to old talents... It's been a long ass time, but I'm sure I ran off meta on my resto shaman back in wrath, and I was considered among the best shaman in the world. I was running dual wield resto instead of earth shield for prog in a top 100 NA guild with no problems nor any bitching and moaning about not being cookie cutter. Actually good players don't give the slightest fuck what talents you run, they care about results. For the most part they don't even care about you pushing 100 parses on logs, they care that the boss dies and that you do mechanics while doing damage/healing. The difference between actually good players and this shit you are pretending is like trying to compare the NBA to your middle school basketball team.

    There are issues with both old and new talents, and the claim of promoting more originality in old talents just goes without saying because you had more options regardless of if they were good or bad. Hopefully the new talent trees bring us back closer to a "you can pick both of these but it might cost you elsewhere" rather than the current day "you must pick this OR that and it's physically impossible to choose both". I just don't understand why people hate the idea of just picking the 7 abilities you want out of 21 options rather than having that limited to picking 1 of 3 preset options 7 times. Maybe I want to run Glacial Spike AND Thermal Void by giving up Shimmer, and I think if we go back to that style we're going to see a lot of build diversity even among top players.

  20. #80
    Quote Originally Posted by NineSpine View Post
    60% out of four choices means that less than 50% of players are min maxing. I know this because I can do math. In a random distribution, that just means 35% of players broke from the expected distribution.
    I think there is a frozen song about this that was mildly popular that sums up the correct response to this.

    I admit I think I lack the words to try and explain how if out of 4 choices one having 60% isn't a massive majority...

    A hint would be the other 3 combined don't equal it...

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •