Proof that old Talents promoted more originality from players

[Unholyground]

yes yes its blizzards fault for allowing people to make game breaking third party additions to their game

yes yes yes that makes perfect sense.

Never said it had to make sense but they said it themselves.

[Celement]

I look forward to the future when you group wipes because none the shutters talented into interupts. Whenever I think the design of this game can't get dumber they pray the defeat from the jaws of victory.

[Echocho]

I think very few people will say that the old trees do not promote originality.

But most will agree that originality does not mean optimal.

And they will also agree that since this is kinda of a numbers game, people will pick the build that gives them the bigger numbers.

You don't always have to play optimally, sometimes I take a day off and play something that's fun just to experiment a little.

[ellieg]

They literally admitted in a recent development interview that it's their fault for allowing so many different types of add ons.

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I have had lots of attractive girls fall in love with me I'm pretty good looking overall bro I'm smart to boot lol.

This was their quote:

"To be clear: We make “high complexity” mechanics not because we feel pressure to keep up with addons, but because doing so allows us to create more unique bosses."

I think they are saying the opposite of what you are claiming they said

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I think the proof just lies in a system they invested several expansions into is being scrapped because even the main dudes that design the game are like.. yeah.. its boring af.

[jeezusisacasual]

I look forward to the future when you group wipes because none the shutters talented into interupts. Whenever I think the design of this game can't get dumber they pray the defeat from the jaws of victory.

I am hoping someone creates an auditing addon to hopefully lower the chance of that.

[Myradin]

eh. meta specs were prevalent from the jump. only difference now is that you can respec at will instead of paying 5g incremental fees.

While meta specs existed I dont think they were quite as uniformly adhered to as they are today. The player base naturally funneled to it though due to DPS meters being common and there always being pressure to 'git gud'.

[Elbob]

I look forward to the future when you group wipes because none the shutters talented into interupts. Whenever I think the design of this game can't get dumber they pray the defeat from the jaws of victory.

i cant wait for the tanks with no kick in mists xd

[cozzri]

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

Actually, the game design was pretty forgiving for talent builds. One raid difficulty, you could play the game with your drunk uncle, high friend, grandpa, and disabled half-brother in raids and still make progress and have a good time; I remember raising with people that didn’t even pick talents.

The difficulty curve of the game has gotten absolutely insane, and in the process, destroyed communities in the name of iLvL addiction.

The original system was fine because the content wasn’t designed armed to the teeth, you weren’t required or expected to be 100% optimized.

[whyabadi]

Actually, the game design was pretty forgiving for talent builds...

I meant in the sense that it didn't achieve its intended goals. Unintended design could still be fun.

[Zoopy]

eh. meta specs were prevalent from the jump. only difference now is that you can respec at will instead of paying 5g incremental fees.

Yeah, like I said, min-maxing has always existed. It just wasn't always the dominant playstyle like it is nowadays. And that goes for all games, not just WoW.

Compare how people played vanilla WoW to how they played WoW Classic. In Classic everyone was following online guides to find the meta builds and read up on the most efficient strategies to complete all the content, then they blasted their way through the endgame and sat there bleating that they had nothing fun left to do.

I think it's in part because the internet landscape has changed so drastically that these kinds of resources are easier to access than ever before and also that the multiplayer landscape, even in casual multiplayer games, has just become so ridiculously competitive. And it definitely doesn't help that devs feed into this mindset, which you can see when you look at the state of raiding in WoW, with even WF guilds complaining that raiding has become too difficult and they don't want to bother with it anymore.

[Jinpachi]

fun isnt a quantifiable metric.
please don't ask for metrics then go back to vague concepts.

How about you read the whole fucking paragraph before responding like an asshole. If you can't infer that the individual, player agency, and fun, are interchangeable, and not referring to quantifiable metrics, then maybe get out of the discussion. Bitch.

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Please help me quantify "player agency" and "fun" for me so I can use better metrics like you want me to ¬_¬

If you had actual reading comprehension then I wouldn't need to. As it stands, figure it out.

[Biomega]

If you had actual reading comprehension then I wouldn't need to. As it stands, figure it out.

*cough* reading comprehension *cough*

hoooo boi.

Who's gonna tell them?

[muto]

No, there were cookie cutter builds and if you weren't running them you were gimping yourself. There was however occasionally a spec that filled a niche role, like healer priests taking all the mana saving talents in both trees for the saronite bomb boss in Ulduar.

[Simca]

A couple of people have mentioned the reason this won't promote the same kind of originality that it did back then: you could build AP and SP separately in different ways through different stats (and you can't now because your spec determines which stats even function), and ability coefficients were not unique by specialization but universal.

I bet that you could make many different builds in Classic without spending a single talent point, just by leaning into different stat compositions to strengthen different abilities. The synergy between various talents, stats, and varying ability coefficients was the real source of cool ideas and originality in character builds.

Talents needed the right environment to flourish. They don't have that anymore.

I think that a more expansive talent system is ultimately a good thing, but don't expect a return to the originality of the first 3 expansions because that isn't going to happen.

[bloodkin]

I blame this kind of thing not so much on Blizzard as I do on players. Players will, when given the chance, optimize the fun right out of a game. And it stretches far beyond just WoW. Every single game has people scurrying to follow the meta builds or whatever builds their favorite streamer is using.

When I started playing WoW, it was rare to come across min-maxers and we laughed at that kind of playstyle. Now that's the dominant playstyle.

Your statement would be accurate where it not for the fact that wow's lead developer is exactly the type of person that min-maxed the fun straight out of the game when he was a player, and still does so as a developer.

However, now he's optimising the game for engagement metrics and token sales while catering directly/indirectly to an incredibly small section of the playerbase.

Slow claps for blizz, dragon Isles isn't going to change this one bit and it'll continue to go downhill if they don't change management style.

[owbu]

I remember numbers like 90% of players picking the same covenant, because it was optimal/some website claimed it was optimal.

If that is true, I think the only important thing a talent system has to offer is to feel rewarding during leveling, because everything else is just a one time copy paste job (old trees) or a once per encounter chore (new talents) that doesnt add any value to the vast majority of players.

[cparle87]

Your statement would be accurate where it not for the fact that wow's lead developer is exactly the type of person that min-maxed the fun straight out of the game when he was a player, and still does so as a developer.

However, now he's optimising the game for engagement metrics and token sales while catering directly/indirectly to an incredibly small section of the playerbase.

Slow claps for blizz, dragon Isles isn't going to change this one bit and it'll continue to go downhill if they don't change management style.

So here we have someone passing off their negative conspiracy theories about devs as "fact" followed by even more conspiracy theories, and finished off by a passive aggressive attack that unless things are changed to be done his way things will continue behaving in the way he presented his opinion as fact earlier.

Top classy post.

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I remember numbers like 90% of players picking the same covenant, because it was optimal/some website claimed it was optimal.

If that is true, I think the only important thing a talent system has to offer is to feel rewarding during leveling, because everything else is just a one time copy paste job (old trees) or a once per encounter chore (new talents) that doesnt add any value to the vast majority of players.

That's true. Take druids. 90% of them were night fae. Most of the remaining 10% were tanks first and foremost so they took kyrian. I'd wager most of the other tank classes looked the same. Huge sum of the best covenant, most of the remainder kyrian, then tiny percentage the other two.

[sam86]

and most of those sucked

no, all of them were broken in specific play, for example healing protadin (before stamina to spellpower removal) was broken in arena, but nothing in pve
infinite combo rogue build is broken in 25 men raid, but has no dps in any other playstyle (a build that get combo point whenever a player crit in ur raid)
MM hunter with prep was broken in arena too, and so on
so depend on what u mean by suck, yeah some of those builts are total crap in other play, but so is everything, if u spec pure pvp as holy priest with reduce dmg and crit talents, how exactly that is good in pve?

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I remember numbers like 90% of players picking the same covenant, because it was optimal/some website claimed it was optimal.

If that is true, I think the only important thing a talent system has to offer is to feel rewarding during leveling, because everything else is just a one time copy paste job (old trees) or a once per encounter chore (new talents) that doesnt add any value to the vast majority of players.

exactly
we aren't free pick at all, a priest talent tree has 99% only 1 option pick, the 1% left is probably forgotten alts or misclick (yes 99%, no typo here)
current 'pick' ur talent is same as before, except now we have actual no option so we can't make weird broken talent builds like wrath era, where every minor patch blizz had to adjust lot of talents (check prep hunter talent, by end of wrath its list of 'denials' was longer than what it actually reset that it became a meme), with actual freedom players created so much hybrid weird builds that became instant broken in specific playstyles

A couple of people have mentioned the reason this won't promote the same kind of originality that it did back then: you could build AP and SP separately in different ways through different stats (and you can't now because your spec determines which stats even function), and ability coefficients were not unique by specialization but universal.

no the reason is actually very easy to guess and obvious: balance, while ppl think balance now is crap (did they ever think game was balanced anytime in wow?), it was a total beast pre-talent change, it was normal to adjust talents on weekly bases even, and not for balance, but for stop broken builts for any class that some creative player can pull out of nowhere
blizz made the 'new' MoP style talent so they don't spend every day waiting for one crazy player find a broken talent that catapult him to broken status