Proof that old Talents promoted more originality from players

[Myradin]

I may be misremembering things but Frostfire mages were thought of as lesser beings compared to Arcane mages during wrath. Then again, that might have only been after one acquired a Shard of Woe. But yes. More options allowed for more variety.

Its been a long time but as someone who was frostfire, I don't recall dipping behind arcane mages until ICC.

[Aedruid]

Bad game design is what allowed these builds. Also, the Dragonflight talents are not the same as the original system. They work differently.

I disagree, it was good talent design. A demo warlock should be able to choose whether to do more fire damage or shadow damage. Same as a destruction warlock who enjoys using stronger pets. That's hardly a bad design unless you're trying to ensure all numbers match up damage/healing/absorb wise across the board... which is just boring as heck, and since I like to play WoW for fun, it'd be great if people would stop dumbing the game down to "cookie cutter" builds that are just as hard to balance as the original talent system.

Taking out the original talent system in MoP did not fix balancing. It did nothing except make the game more dumbed-down. Definitely not a fan of the current system and I look forward to theorycrafting my own builds that I enjoy.

[NineSpine]

You can look at current frost dk covs to prove my point about how there's usually a number 1 and a number 2, based on content.

Necro sits at 60.8%. It was the best cov for pvp and pve. Now its still the best for pvp, still the best on high movement fights and pug encounters.

Nightfae sits at 26.8%. If you have an organized group that plays well, or cleave fights, this is the best and uve seen it climb up do to this.

Venth sits allt the way 7.8%. It was the best cov for blood so ull have a lot of offsets included in this number.

Bottom is kyrian at 5.1%. Best blood cov now but only under ideal conditions.

Let's look at resto druids. Best raid cov is nightfae. They are 69.2%. Best m+ cov is necro. Necro is 25.6% kyrian is 3.3 and venth 1.9.

The 3rd class I play is arcane mage. Kyrian is best in raid and m+. It is 51.9%. Nightfae is best in pvp, and is the cov the other 2 specs use the most, its 26.7%. That leaves the other 2 combining for 21.4%.

It is more often than not more than just 35% min maxing. Its 80+% of players happen to be in 1 or the other covenant thats best for their content. Then you have covs that are more flexible for offspeccing, and a million other reasons. There are many more ppl min maxing than those that aren't.

When you start saying that Night Fae popularity with druids or DK popularity with necro is proof of min-maxing, you are just disengaging from reality. Why are you going to the two most difficult to parse classes, the two classes who have the most overlap between theme, spec, and performance? To use that fuzziness to bolster your point.

I'm not claiming only 35% of min maxing, but the highest numbers we could get from your mage example is about 40-50%. Even if we put aside that Kyrian and Night Fae are very thematically appropriate for Arcane, those numbers arent as dramatic as you are making them out to be.

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Why do you assume I would bother to not simply take the win?

It's the advantageous situation I am in with the math on my side.

As usual, more declarations of victory and no actual math.

[potis]

Back then the information wasnt so wide spread, guides and shitty streamers or whatever you want to blame in 2022 for the mass information, or just the internet.

People can play whatever they want, whether it was in 2005 and shitty talents, or todays and playing whatever, the problem occurs when "Revelation" happens.

And by revelation i simply mean, when someone is shown how different the game is, if you arent terrible at it, thats when people start to question others people choices.

Right now, despite the pointless "Meta" or "Fotm" specs, back then it as the same if you had eyes and half a brain.

If you went in a dungeon with 4 guildies and a random tank, and the run took 4 hours because overagroo, tank deaths, out of mana healer, and then the same dungeon , 3 days after with another tank, and it took 1 hour bla bla, you start to question the first tank, his skill level and choices.

The illusion of choice will always be strong in games if you are bad at basic reading, basic math, and generally if you dont enjoy getting better.

I have basically experienced the above because of net cafe culture, multiple times, new people to the game, or people that have been playing for years, watching others play so easily/smoothly/differently, that a light bulb goes on in their head "God i am terrible at his game", not everyone changes, but some people definitely get an awakening.

[Foolicious]

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 don't see it. honestly. Its the same as fan of knives rogue or moonfire druid in bfa. Its a result of overtuning of abilities not a result of the talents.

Honor among thieves rogue was a sub rogue with infinite combo points. Broken? yes. But they didn't go out of their way to take the talent or choose some crazy talents no one thought about. Its literally a pvp spec viable in raids.
Caster deathknight is a death knight that could stay on distance thanks to absurd damage and runic power generation (which was also mostly enabled by a glyph that was nerfed later on not specific talents)
All of them come down to some ability doing way to much damage or scaling way too good. Nothing else.

[ellieg]

When you start saying that Night Fae popularity with druids or DK popularity with necro is proof of min-maxing, you are just disengaging from reality. Why are you going to the two most difficult to parse classes, the two classes who have the most overlap between theme, spec, and performance? To use that fuzziness to bolster your point.

I'm not claiming only 35% of min maxing, but the highest numbers we could get from your mage example is about 40-50%. Even if we put aside that Kyrian and Night Fae are very thematically appropriate for Arcane, those numbers arent as dramatic as you are making them out to be.

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As usual, more declarations of victory and no actual math.

So we aren't going off numbers like you wanted? Back to feels?

[NineSpine]

So we aren't going off numbers like you wanted? Back to feels?

It would be equally silly for me declare "Man look at all the Night Fae Druids! That means everyone picks based on theme!" Obviously the cases where the theme and the performance overlap are going to be outliers and difficult to parse. That's why I addressed your more interesting example, which notably you didn't bother countering and instead went to whining that I'm not shocked and defeated by the commonality of Necro Death Knights.

[Ryzeth]

"More originality"

Ah yes, by playing very sub-optimal specs that performed far worse than other specs.

Cookie-cutter / meta builds existed just as plainly back then as they do now. Just like bad, sub-optimal specs also exist now, still.

[Dorothyjean]

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'd like to point out that thanks to talent trees back then...

People wanted to play Shockadins.

Every guild... hated... those people in their guilds but they needed to do it because we need 25 people on every raid so we had to put up with their shit.

Same with the other people who picked dumb talent layouts cause they thought it was cool.

I get people wanting to do something different but at the end of the day the fundamentals of M+, raiding etc. are all about numbers and math. The highest numbers win out.

[Infinity Cubed]

"More originality"

Ah yes, by playing very sub-optimal specs that performed far worse than other specs.

Cookie-cutter / meta builds existed just as plainly back then as they do now. Just like bad, sub-optimal specs also exist now, still.

Found another one of these people who don't know what they're talking about and are just regurgitating what some streamer/"optimization" forum told them to think.

But hey, when (not if, when) they do come back, you can just form your own groups. Problem solved.

[Ryzeth]

Found another one of these people who don't know what they're talking about and are just regurgitating what some streamer/"optimization" forum told them to think.

But hey, when (not if, when) they do come back, you can just form your own groups. Problem solved.

If that's what helps you sleep at night, champ.

[Finlandia WOAT]

If the old talent system had been intended for player customization, then the fact the majority of players just looked up the cookie cuter build on Thotbot and never gave it much thought thereafter means it was a failure, no?

I mean, that a heterodox build became shorthand for someone who hadn't researched their class should shows just how much customization the system cultivated.

But I don't think that was the primary intention. The 41st point was usually a spec defining spell. That suggests the intention was to have players put 41 points into one spec, then spend the next 10 points freely.

[Myradin]

If the old talent system had been intended for player customization, then the fact the majority of players just looked up the cookie cuter build on Thotbot and never gave it much thought thereafter means it was a failure, no?

I mean, that a heterodox build became shorthand for someone who hadn't researched their class should shows just how much customization the system cultivated.

But I don't think that was the primary intention. The 41st point was usually a spec defining spell. That suggests the intention was to have players put 41 points into one spec, then spend the next 10 points freely.

Furthermore the new system seems to be designed away from these kind of quirky builds.

There's a general tree and a spec tree. The general tree is is likely going to try to stay as neutral as possible, while the spec tree is going to be presumably highly tied to your spec.

So none of this 'taking enough points in 2-3 specs to get something unique" or "turning X spec into Y role instead".

I could be wrong, but even then, all of the specs listed could have just been created in the new system with the choice of a single talent. A number of the examples were either barely viable or just nerfed because blizz didn't approve of the interaction.

[munkeyinorbit]

If people had fun playing the bad specs, that alone justifies having them as an option.

As is ruining other people's fun for being bad is justification for not having them as an option.

[potis]

As is ruining other people's fun for being bad is justification for not having them as an option.

Which basically destroys the whole argument.

Its insane how the concept of "Your fun is irrelevant to me" is something they dont comprehend and they can never respond with anything other than "Yeah but my fun is actual fun because i treat it as a game", cause they know they have no real argument.

Play whatever and whenever and whichever version of WoW you want WoW community but face the consequences of that, and shut up about it.

[znushu]

I am genially surprised that anyone (even WillE) even remembers my old spec from WoTLK era.

So thanks for the post OP.
You kinda brightened my day up even if you didn't know it

[Goatfish]

Which basically destroys the whole argument.

Its insane how the concept of "Your fun is irrelevant to me" is something they dont comprehend and they can never respond with anything other than "Yeah but my fun is actual fun because i treat it as a game", cause they know they have no real argument.

Play whatever and whenever and whichever version of WoW you want WoW community but face the consequences of that, and shut up about it.

I mean, the better argument is that being given strict things to choose between rather than being allowed to experiment and potentially suffer those consequences you talk about is limiting the creativity of the players and thereby restricting "fun". But that couldn't possibly be anyone's argument that they aren't sure how to describe effectively... Fun is subjective, and most people don't actually break down what and why they have fun with something, they just experience it.

As an example, I used to have a lot of fun on old style playgrounds where there was a serious chance at injury. I don't have fun on these new-age childproofed playgrounds where there is little risk involved. The fun for me is overcoming the risk, not merely being on the playground. Having that risk means having learning opportunities and motivational consequences I wouldn't have on the childproofed version.

[Infinity Cubed]

If that's what helps you sleep at night, champ.

It does. Because, you know, I form my own group. It solves everything according to you people (unless you're told to do so, then it solves nothing and the entire game MUST be changed to adhere to YOUR preferences).

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Which basically destroys the whole argument.

Its insane how the concept of "Your fun is irrelevant to me" is something they dont comprehend and they can never respond with anything other than "Yeah but my fun is actual fun because i treat it as a game", cause they know they have no real argument.

Play whatever and whenever and whichever version of WoW you want WoW community but face the consequences of that, and shut up about it.

The fact that you think you're making a salient point, rather than being completely oblivious to your own hypocrisy, is truly astounding.

"Play the way *I* want you to play, or get the hell out of 'MY' game!!!!111one"

Some people just didn't have parents that raised them properly.

[Ryzeth]

It does. Because, you know, I form my own group. It solves everything according to you people (unless you're told to do so, then it solves nothing and the entire game MUST be changed to adhere to YOUR preferences).

I'd love for you to point to anywhere in my post, where I said any of this. Strawmanning isn't helpful.

[Infinity Cubed]

I'd love for you to point to anywhere in my post, where I said any of this. Strawmanning isn't helpful.

You should read what you're replying to in the future, then. (It's amazing how you people can't keep up with the conversations you keep inserting yourselves into.)