Seeing the Forest for the Talent Trees

[Gilian]

The problem is that talent trees do not work in World of Warcraft as the level cap expands. They cannot continue to give players more and more and more abilities or everyone will have 120 buttons and it will just be wonky as hell. Same with talents.

See this:

Once upon a time, you got a new talent point every level. That worked okay for a game with 60 levels. It works less well for a game with 90 levels. It probably is totally incomprehensible for a game with 150 levels, should we ever get there.

So what? I still want to have fun and figure things out myself and play with my talent tree. I don't want them to give out a cookie cutter build, I want to figure it out by myself.

You know why Skyrim is so awesome (obviously totally different game but with a few mechanics that work the same)? Because you have the freedom to experience with things, you have to figure out things yourself. They don't have 10,000 tooltips that explain everything you have to do, they don't have cookie cutter builds.
Skyrim talents are awesome, but yes they won't work in a PvP environment. But still, a game is about fun and not about having everything handed to you so you don't have to think.

[Zn]

Please show me in the Vanilla, TBC, Wrath, or even Cataclysm talent trees where you have a level of meaningful choice that is even remotely close to the ones shown in the more complete talent trees (not Shaman) like Warlocks, Druids, Priests, etc.

I can think of quite a few examples. Warlocks in vanilla and TBC had several meaningful choices, they could choose to go full affliction, full demo, full destro or a mixture of affliction/demo or affliction/destro (not sure if there was a demo/destro combination, but I think there was at one time or another, never tried).

Druid healers in TBC could go tree or dreamstate.

Ferals could go full bear, full cat or a decent compromise for an off-tank role. Fury warriors could throw on a shield and off-tank. Healing Priests could also choose a mix of disc and holy talents that suited their playstyle and the current content they're playing. And don't forget PvP/PvE hybrid specs.

Yes there have always been "ej-recommended" specs for each role. But so what? You didn't HAVE to follow those suggestions. Want to play a big-dotting afflock with extra health pool for drain tanking? No problem, put a few points into demo to get the extra health. You have to sacrifice some damage but it could come in handy... ("Hello Curator").

With Wrath, they dissolved those choices and each spec was made cookie-cutter. With MoP, they're going even farther. My main gripe is that sure, while these optional non-cookie-cutter builds may have been suboptimal in the very top tier of raiding, at least at that time there WERE tiers of raiding (during which some of them were competitive with the cookie-cutter specs). You had to get a certain level of gear before you could progress to the next tier, and it took a lot of time to get to that final tier. Now, they just hand you a tier and that's the tier you play. Not enough gear for the current tier? No problem, 2 weeks of farming badges/justice/valor points/pvp points/etc. and it's yours.

So the issue is really a combination of less choice in customization and less tiers of raiding. If we have only 1 tier of raiding, then true, it doesn't make a lot of sense to have custom builds. But if there are multiple tiers, then more options during the progression towards that final min-max tier make the game more dynamic. And more fun.

Please don't cop out and say "we have 3 tiers of raiding now, LFR, normal and heroic." That's just ridiculous.

[Gilian]

Couldn't have explained it any better myself.

[marukale]

The amount of whining in this thread is amazing.

What I really love are the people who say things like:
"I'm dps I'll choose the one that does damage"
Its like they haven't even looked at the talent trees.

Or the ones who go with:
"Now I have to choose between 3 defensive cooldowns but I'm not a tank so don't need any"
Anyone who said that in my guild wouldn't be raiding, if you don't know why defensive cooldowns are so important in raids then you should just walk away from your computer now.

Personally from looking at the intention of the talent trees we will have more choice than ever before. I am a resto shaman and there are currently about 6 specs that you can use in a raid centering around if you want more movement, telluric currents or how you want to dispell.

Not all of the shaman tiers are currently that exciting, however tier 4 does look good and that tier alone gives me half of the meaningful choices the current system gives. Tier 5 nature's swiftness vs echo is going to be an interesting choice so I'm now up to 6 choices so drawing level with the current system. Tier 2 while less exciting than tier 4 also provides a decent choice in defensive cooldowns so with just 3 tiers I have more real options than I have currently.

If I look at it from an elemental point of view, Tier 5 now has 3 viable options while tier 4 looses fortifying waters as a reasonable choice, tier 2 is still interesting and tier 1 is going to be interesting when handling trash/adds.

Enhancement all 3 choices in tier 4 are useful, by using maelstrom procs for healing rain (a common practice by decent enhancement shaman) fortifying waters becomes a valid choice again.

So all three specs have more viable choices than they currently do. Tier 6 in my opinion sucks and I hope it changes and tiers 1 and 3 are going to be decided by the boss fight more than any choice in playstyle.

[Deleted]

The one thing i find about this blizz post is they are outright rude!the "you are wrong" comments are not something a company should ever say to its customers. Its one thing saying it in the confines of the office, but you never say it to your clients, they get the feeling they are irrelevant and stupid rather than their input being valid.

[Mekh]

The one thing i find about this blizz post is they are outright rude!the "you are wrong" comments are not something a company should ever say to its customers. Its one thing saying it in the confines of the office, but you never say it to your clients, they get the feeling they are irrelevant and stupid rather than their input being valid.

Is this the next step of political correctness? You don't tell people anymore when they are wrong? I hope this doesn't spread.

[Deleted]

Is this the next step of political correctness? You don't tell people anymore when they are wrong? I hope this doesn't spread.

No its not political correctness, its good business sense. You don't openly tell people they are wrong, people resent that. You tell them things like "we have taken your comments on board" and stuff like that.

[Gilian]

The amount of whining in this thread is amazing.

What I really love are the people who say things like:
"I'm dps I'll choose the one that does damage"
Its like they haven't even looked at the talent trees.

Or the ones who go with:
"Now I have to choose between 3 defensive cooldowns but I'm not a tank so don't need any"
Anyone who said that in my guild wouldn't be raiding, if you don't know why defensive cooldowns are so important in raids then you should just walk away from your computer now.

Personally from looking at the intention of the talent trees we will have more choice than ever before. I am a resto shaman and there are currently about 6 specs that you can use in a raid centering around if you want more movement, telluric currents or how you want to dispell.

Not all of the shaman tiers are currently that exciting, however tier 4 does look good and that tier alone gives me half of the meaningful choices the current system gives. Tier 5 nature's swiftness vs echo is going to be an interesting choice so I'm now up to 6 choices so drawing level with the current system. Tier 2 while less exciting than tier 4 also provides a decent choice in defensive cooldowns so with just 3 tiers I have more real options than I have currently.

If I look at it from an elemental point of view, Tier 5 now has 3 viable options while tier 4 looses fortifying waters as a reasonable choice, tier 2 is still interesting and tier 1 is going to be interesting when handling trash/adds.

Enhancement all 3 choices in tier 4 are useful, by using maelstrom procs for healing rain (a common practice by decent enhancement shaman) fortifying waters becomes a valid choice again.

So all three specs have more viable choices than they currently do. Tier 6 in my opinion sucks and I hope it changes and tiers 1 and 3 are going to be decided by the boss fight more than any choice in playstyle.

Maybe I am looking at the wrong talent calculator http://www.wowhead.com/mists-of-pand...t-calculator#s .

You get a choice out of 3 talents every 15 levels right? And none of them has a real impact on your performance. You can't really make mistakes.
Maybe one talent is better for a certain boss than the other but there isn't much to figure out other than that. And if you choose the 'wrong' one for one boss then it still doesn't matter. Only when you min/max it could maybe matter on a few bosses or when you PvP and you use some sort of tactic.

Ofcourse all the talents are usefull but it's still boring. And there is far less to choose from. Blue poster can say the choices now matter but they really don't because they have no real impact on your performance.

You can spin it every way you want but these talent trees are more boring than the ones in TBC and WotLK. As I said figuring out stuff in a new game is more fun and having more choices even if they 'don't matter' is more fun. Having cookie cutter builds handed out to you is boring.

[deplorable]

don't they say the same thing every expansion...with TBC and wrath they said "we've fixed the talent trees to be more fun and true to our vision" - they didn't.they said the same in cata, now they're just reburning old questions and with the same answers "these will be more fun, we've got it right this time pinky promise".i'm putting bets on the new system will work but after 3 patches and 19 hot patches.and that's me being optimistic. We've seen more hot patches than other MMO's see patches.

[Mekh]

No its not political correctness, its good business sense. You don't openly tell people they are wrong, people resent that. You tell them things like "we have taken your comments on board" and stuff like that.

But that would be a lie. They don't want to take "comments on board" from the "everythin sucks!"-crowd. When I'm in a restaurant ordering a meal, I trust the cook to get it right and don't just because I am paying will walk over into his kitchen and talk down to him. He is the cook with the cooking experience, I am only the guy who will eat the meal. Sure if he adheres to my "no onions" plea, I will be glad, but if his experience tells him the meal falls flat without, he'll add them and produce something that is generally more well rounded even if it's not perfect for my spoiled palate. And if I don't like it, I'll walk out without a tip.

[good diu bro]

7. "Spec doesn’t matter."This is a concern especially for warriors, priests, DKs and the pure classes (those characters who have multiple specs of the same role). What we have concluded is that many players want to choose their spec based on flavor (“I want to be the mage who uses Frost magic”) or rotation (“I like the fast gameplay of the Frost DK”). While the raid buff / debuff matrix and spec utility helps to encourage diversity among groups and discourage raid stacking, it’s also a little lame when the Affliction lock is asked to spec Demonology (against the player’s desire) in order to bring a specific buff. In Mists, we want players to have even more flexibility about which character they want to play. Asking a player to swap from damage to tanking for a couple of fights is acceptable to us. Asking someone to respec from Unholy to Frost just for the debuff is not.There will still be some utility in the various specs, but less than we have today. You should pick a spec because you like the rotation or the kit. Fire is about crit, Hot Streak, and Ignite. Frost is about Shatter combos and the Water Elemental. Arcane is about mana management and clearing Arcane Blast stacks.

Priest have to play DISC now is because of damage reduction from Power Word: Barrier can prevent 1-shots, which divine hymn(will become holy exclusive in mist) cannot.

With the radical change in disc and PW:B still exclusive to disc, this "problem" will worsen.

(Although, I dont think this raid buff and spec issue really matters)

[callidas]

1. "I have fewer choices."This is the big one, and the truth is it is ultimately correct. You will have fewer choices. But you will have more choices that *matter*.

That summed it up right there.I am a disc priest, I heal in raids. If you really think choosing between a roots and a snare *MATTERS* to me then you are very much mistaken.I would like to choose options that buff abilities that I use, not just choose flavours of PvP abilities that they will make us use in fights to justify their inclusion.I do read up on my spec, I do try out different builds, I do test things out. I reforge for crit, add a dps metagem, and see if I can abuse the 4 set ICC bonus. I do try out Inner Will and a renew spec (as disc) for HC Atrimedes.I use an Attonement spec, a ToT spec, a Haste spec, a Shadowfiend spec. I like to choose my talents carefully and change them for different bosses when we are stuck on X for Y reason.The new talent trees give me as many new healing options and choices as Transmogrification and PokemonPets combined.

[Deleted]

The amount of whining in this thread is amazing.

The amount of blind fanboy in this thread is abyssmal...

The MoP tree talent is an insult to the intelligence of the players...

Except perhaps for pvp (can't say, don't play really pvp) there is no fun in thoses so called talents...

There is nerf with talent removed from standard class abilities (for paladin tank, there is at least 2 that I have to choose to replace the missing one).

The worse will be that a level 85 in the extension, you will actually LOOSE ablities you already own now...

Nerf, no fun, pvp oriented and no real choice...

What a promising extension...

rodrigj out...

[nobodysbaby]

Typical Blizzard answers to the players.

But let's stop whining and put some constructive feedback in there. Go put your thinking hats on.

Imo, if you haven't acted constructive and tried to "help", this goes for real life to, you have really no reason to complain after.

[marukale]

Maybe I am looking at the wrong talent calculator http://www.wowhead.com/mists-of-pand...t-calculator#s .

You get a choice out of 3 talents every 15 levels right? And none of them has a real impact on your performance. You can't really make mistakes.
Maybe one talent is better for a certain boss than the other but there isn't much to figure out other than that. And if you choose the 'wrong' one for one boss then it still doesn't matter. Only when you min/max it could maybe matter on a few bosses or when you PvP and you use some sort of tactic.

Ofcourse all the talents are usefull but it's still boring. And there is far less to choose from. Blue poster can say the choices now matter but they really don't because they have no real impact on your performance.

You can spin it every way you want but these talent trees are more boring than the ones in TBC and WotLK. As I said figuring out stuff in a new game is more fun and having more choices even if they 'don't matter' is more fun. Having cookie cutter builds handed out to you is boring.

It depends on what you count as your performance, none of the choices will make a significant difference to your HPS or DPS but can make a huge difference to your performance. With shaman I can't see any tier that will have as large a difference as speccing into telluric currents currently has, which is a bit disappointing. But then again I know shaman who had telluric currents who didn't cast lightning bolt and it didn't really make any difference to their performance.

Working out when its best to put that left over point in cleansing waters rather than acuity is not interesting. Out of the 6 valid shaman resto specs there are 2 interesting choices, if you should go for telluric current and if you should go for ghost wolf. Everything else is either mandatory or boring. Out of the first 20 points you put into resto shaman spec 19 are mandatory and without them you seriously gimp yourself, having 1 point to play with is not interesting. After that you have 11 mandatory points in the resto tree which opens up the other trees, from there you get to choose if you want to get elemental precision, if you do then all of you have no choice where to put your points.

So 1 viable spec has 1 boring choice in it.

If you decide not to go with elemental precision then you have to put 5 points into the elemental tree, many see this as mandatory which makes elemental precision not viable. So you now have 5 points, however, all of the places you can put the points require multiple points to be worthwhile (1 point in telluric currents for example is a waste, you either go all or nothing) So you can pick 2 from a list of 5 abilities: focused insight, telluric currents, ancestral swiftness, totemic reach, cleansing waters. As far as i'm concerned the only interesting ones are telluric currents, ancestral swiftness and to a lesser extent focused insight. You then put any left over points into acuity.

So I've made one boring choice to get access to the top of the resto tree, I've then made a couple of interesting choices with my left over points. Only 1 of those choices (getting telluric currents or not) is more interesting than the new talent system. Not every tier is going to be an interesting choice, on certain bosses there wont be any choice for a tier. But, except for the very rare pure tank and spank fight, my talent choices are going to be more interesting than the current system.

Plus I get to make those choices between wipes, without having to hearth and get summoned back. In the past when working on a new progression boss I've adjusted my spec very slightly each night to see if I can make a tiny difference, I can now do it multiple times a night which is great.

Obviously this is from a PvE point of view.

---------- Post added 2011-12-09 at 11:50 AM ----------

Except perhaps for pvp (can't say, don't play really pvp) there is no fun in thoses so called talents...

How many fun talents can you name that are not considered mandatory in the current system?

As for moaning about nerfs, get over it, some things need nerfs.

If you think all the talents of pvp oriented then you aren't playing to your full potential in a raid.

[MestHoop]

No its not political correctness, its good business sense. You don't openly tell people they are wrong, people resent that. You tell them things like "we have taken your comments on board" and stuff like that.

But... they ARE wrong, and if they don't tell them they're wrong, they'll just keep on complaining about it (some people will anyway though).
Also, people need to stop getting their panties in a twist when someone tells them they're wrong (with proper argumentation). People are wrong all the time, fucking deal with it

[lilbuddhaman]

Compare the amount of balance patches per expansion to each other.
Compare the degree of those changes per expansion.

Looking at each like this, it is clear that blizzard has completely lost touch with how to balance their game. I have not played Cata, but lurked this site for the entirety. Every week I read about X ability being completely changed or Y ability's coefficient being massively adjusted.

And this is after supposedly "fixing" the stat system...which was broke 1 tier into content.

They haven't a clue what they are doing. They have taken the easy route and just decided to continually change the "rules" of each class constantly, in hopes it'll keep people quite.

Core issues are either ignored (Paladin mechanics) or removed from the game (Druid shapeshifting bonuses).

I won't even bother lurking during MoP, there's no point.

[Deleted]

Personaly i love the <<You’re wrong. Next!>> catch phrace
I just remembered that kind of attitude are spcificly in wow forums atm
I remember when 4.1 came up , and i was schreaming with 1-2 more ppl that resto druid althought it deserve the nerf of istant root , we where crying that the healing in pvp was too low .
And flood of ppl came vs us , saying <<L2P noobs>> <<u have 1550 rating get out and close the door , none will miss u>> and <<look on 3 resto druids on top of the 3v3 in some servrers and shut up !>> , although they took the exploit of istant root , while damage was lower than the ress+hp of pvp gear

While at the end the thread was closed for heavily trolling(cause of the other 99%)

Some times u have to fight poison with poison
But this time he was joking

[Tydrane]

But that would be a lie. They don't want to take "comments on board" from the "everythin sucks!"-crowd. When I'm in a restaurant ordering a meal, I trust the cook to get it right and don't just because I am paying will walk over into his kitchen and talk down to him. He is the cook with the cooking experience, I am only the guy who will eat the meal. Sure if he adheres to my "no onions" plea, I will be glad, but if his experience tells him the meal falls flat without, he'll add them and produce something that is generally more well rounded even if it's not perfect for my spoiled palate. And if I don't like it, I'll walk out without a tip.

It's not exactly a lie, it's bending the truth. Saying something like "We'll take your comments/suggestions/complaints under advisement." allows Blizzard to both acknowledge that the player has made a complaint, legitimate or otherwise; as well as to distance themselves from any confirmation as to whether or not they actually do anything about it.

The point is, you don't have to say "Yes, we'll do that," but there are more polite ways of saying "No, we won't." It's about tact and the simple provision of respectful customer service. Moreover, I think the point that most people here are making when they say that "You're wrong" is the wrong thing to say, those individuals aren't saying that Blizzard CAN'T say it, they're saying Blizzard SHOULDN'T say it. Their method escalates the issue, whereas a more diplomatic route has the potential to leave all parties feeling satisfied with the outcome.

[Gilian]

It depends on what you count as your performance, none of the choices will make a significant difference to your HPS or DPS but can make a huge difference to your performance. With shaman I can't see any tier that will have as large a difference as speccing into telluric currents currently has, which is a bit disappointing. But then again I know shaman who had telluric currents who didn't cast lightning bolt and it didn't really make any difference to their performance.

Working out when its best to put that left over point in cleansing waters rather than acuity is not interesting. Out of the 6 valid shaman resto specs there are 2 interesting choices, if you should go for telluric current and if you should go for ghost wolf. Everything else is either mandatory or boring. Out of the first 20 points you put into resto shaman spec 19 are mandatory and without them you seriously gimp yourself, having 1 point to play with is not interesting. After that you have 11 mandatory points in the resto tree which opens up the other trees, from there you get to choose if you want to get elemental precision, if you do then all of you have no choice where to put your points.

So 1 viable spec has 1 boring choice in it.

If you decide not to go with elemental precision then you have to put 5 points into the elemental tree, many see this as mandatory which makes elemental precision not viable. So you now have 5 points, however, all of the places you can put the points require multiple points to be worthwhile (1 point in telluric currents for example is a waste, you either go all or nothing) So you can pick 2 from a list of 5 abilities: focused insight, telluric currents, ancestral swiftness, totemic reach, cleansing waters. As far as i'm concerned the only interesting ones are telluric currents, ancestral swiftness and to a lesser extent focused insight. You then put any left over points into acuity.

So I've made one boring choice to get access to the top of the resto tree, I've then made a couple of interesting choices with my left over points. Only 1 of those choices (getting telluric currents or not) is more interesting than the new talent system. Not every tier is going to be an interesting choice, on certain bosses there wont be any choice for a tier. But, except for the very rare pure tank and spank fight, my talent choices are going to be more interesting than the current system.

Plus I get to make those choices between wipes, without having to hearth and get summoned back. In the past when working on a new progression boss I've adjusted my spec very slightly each night to see if I can make a tiny difference, I can now do it multiple times a night which is great.

Obviously this is from a PvE point of view.[COLOR="red"]

Maybe I am not getting you but... you mean there is no difference but in MoP you just don't have to click those mandatory talents? But isn't that just more fun, to find out what is best and to play around with your talents, instead of getting a cookie cutter build right from the start?
Theorycrafting is part of the game. Having to find out what works best is part of the game. It's fun to do. It doesn't matter if you had cookie cutter builds already.

And what are you going to change in your spec? Are you going to change up Elemental Mastery, Nature's Swiftness and Echo of Elementals which will all have the same dps increase probably. Maybe Elemental Mastery will give you that little boost in burst damage. Well, it will be a very small difference... Just like the healing talents you get at level 60. Or you change snares. Like it matters with 9 or 24 other players in your group who will bring nearly the exact same skills to the raid.
You see, it doesn't matter in MoP what you spec. You get 3 talents every 15 levels which all give nearly the same results = NOT FUN.

That's why TBC was so much fun. You actually brought something to the group that mattered. It wasn't perfect but it was fun.
They are now making the whole game 'cookie cutted'. Just like the new quests. I understand it's convenient and maybe less frustrating because they are now all in the same place and easy to find etc. but it also makes the game boring. Three different difficulties is convenient but boring. It's much more fun to raid from tier to tier instead of from difficulty to difficulty and do the same bosses over and over again.

I really hope their accessibilty approach is going to fail hard because it's incredibly boring. There should be a good balance and I don't believe this is it.

---------- Post added 2011-12-09 at 02:21 PM ----------

Compare the amount of balance patches per expansion to each other.
Compare the degree of those changes per expansion.

Looking at each like this, it is clear that blizzard has completely lost touch with how to balance their game. I have not played Cata, but lurked this site for the entirety. Every week I read about X ability being completely changed or Y ability's coefficient being massively adjusted.

And this is after supposedly "fixing" the stat system...which was broke 1 tier into content.

They haven't a clue what they are doing. They have taken the easy route and just decided to continually change the "rules" of each class constantly, in hopes it'll keep people quite.

Core issues are either ignored (Paladin mechanics) or removed from the game (Druid shapeshifting bonuses).

I won't even bother lurking during MoP, there's no point.

This whole balancing thing got out of hand. It's ridiculous how many changes they make every time. I didn't PvP but I guess it's one hell of a job to keep track of all the changes. It matters less what other classes can do in PvE.
They should make far less changes and just stick with something. Who cares if one class is top dps in tier 1 but in tier 3 it's lowest for a while. If that's a long term problem then come with a good solution instead of adding 3% damage to a skill and then next week drop it back to 2% and then after a month make it 5% or just let it be. Stupid balancing is ruining the game and it's never ever going to be balanced anyway. That's also the reason why they simplify everything so it's easier to balance but also makes it boring as hell.