So these talents feel extremely boring...

[Missbenedict]

We get 18 talents to chose from but every time i play the beta and i respec to marks bm or survival, i always end up picking the same talents. Does anyone else feel like these new talents are really boring and blizzard put 0 creativity into them? I mean half of them are straight out of cata talent trees, the rest are just pure useless utility. And don't even get me started on glyphs.... even more useless utility that does nothing but add minor convenience to some abilities.

[Keren]

the new glyph system is exectly for this. There will be no longer mandatory glyph for every spec.
And Talents will be picked depending of the encounter that you will fight. Heavy Burst, maintain dps, Movement, CC and so on. I wish a little more balancing, but it will come. PVP balancing didn't even startet and will effect even more talents in the next weeks...

[Cyph3r]

I'm willing to bet that you and I are picking different talents though, so isn't that actually a success, considering they wanted to do away with "cookie cutter" builds and everyone having the same talents? Just because you always choose to build them a certain way doesn't mean there's something wrong with them. Besides, I'm willing to bet that once everything goes live you find yourself actually switching talents a LOT more than you ever do today. I can't tell you the last time I respecced my main.

[timoseewho]

In some ways I agree with the OP because really you just have 6 talent points.

[Cyph3r]

You're still thinking of talents the old way. Currently, talents are how we build our character. Before you choose a spec and start spending points, you're just a generic hunter with a few baseline attacks and abilities. None of our signature abilities, or passive proc effects, or group buffs, or anything, are available until you dole out those points. Under this system, yes, 6 points is nothing. It's barely enough to be able to say "I'm a marksman", because with just 6 points, there's very, very little differentiating you from all the other Hunters.

But that's not how the new system works. Talents are no longer how you "become" your chosen spec. That all just happens on it's own now. Look at it this way:

A level 85 Beast Mastery Hunter on live, and a level 85 Beast Mastery Hunter in the beta who hasn't spent any of his 6 talent points yet are basically identical. There's a few differences yes, some things are gone, others have been added. But they're just about the same. Now on live, that Hunter has had to spend all his talent points to get to that point. In Mists, he got to that point just for picking a spec at level 10, and letting the rest happen on it's own. So it's taken all the choice away right? Wrong. Because you already were going to put those points into certain things whether you really thought you needed to or not. Hell you're REQUIRED to spend at least 31 of your points in your main tree. How is that choice?

Now look again at that Mists Hunter who hasn't spent any of his talent points yet. You now have 6 extra tools/abilties/procs/whatever to add on TOP of what you already have. And you get to choose those 6 from a pool of 18, knowing that there is no wrong choice. The biggest thing is what I brought up in my first post: You and I are not going to choose the same build. I mean sure, we could, but chances are we won't. And more importantly we're going to change them, probably all the time. How frequently to you respec currently? And when you do, how many points do you actually move around (assuming you're not completely changing specs)? I'd bet it's somewhere around 6.

[Tehterokkar]

Cyph3r is telling the truth how the talent system works.

In my own experience, yes there will be some talents that are required for that spec to do the highest DPS(Like Readiness for BM seems kinda the obvious choice here ._.).
I have leveled my Main hunter in the beta as Marksman with the following spec: http://mop.wowhead.com/mists-of-pand...alculator#hxf9 This is for leveling though, I most likely will change CTHC to Posthaste for the mobility in raids.

[Deleted]

i agree with you!

[Dexiefy]

This system already failed in d3, every1 is running with cookie cutter specc and thats it. But hey only retard can think that he can prevent cookie cutters by giving less options to players... unfortunately GC is a retard and players are going to pay the price.

His idea of new talent system could work but ONLY if all possibilities would be PERFECTLY BALANCED between eachother, which will never happen (fervor vs readiness, k, gl).
They never should have touched old talent system (by old i mean pre cata) in any other way but just removing most passives and converting them into fun talents.

[Brayis]

His idea of new talent system could work but ONLY if all possibilities would be PERFECTLY BALANCED between eachother, which will never happen (fervor vs readiness, k, gl).
They never should have touched old talent system (by old i mean pre cata) in any other way but just removing most passives and converting them into fun talents.

But then wouldn't all those talent trees need to be balanced themselves? Im assuming and correct me if im wrong, that you think that the pre-cata trees where easier to balance or where more interactive if they removed/converted passive talents. What you suggested was what they attempted in cata but failed. What they are doing now just at the class level, rather than a tree per spec.

Its also a problem of resources. Which do you think is the easier to implement and upkeep? Making 10-25 "Fun" Talent tree out of the old passives and abilities, putting them into a pre-cata style tree, arranging them for balance, then testing them to figure out where there are problems, over power/underpowered combinations and builds, then polishing it up all for live for 11 classes(33 trees). OR What they are doing now, where they give each spec all the mandatory talents, only have tree for then entire class designed as a 1 talent per tier system.

[Dexiefy]

But then wouldn't all those talent trees need to be balanced themselves? Im assuming and correct me if im wrong, that you think that the pre-cata trees where easier to balance or where more interactive if they removed/converted passive talents. What you suggested was what they attempted in cata but failed. What they are doing now just at the class level, rather than a tree per spec.

No they would not, i mean, talents not necesarilly ahve to make you more powerfull, they can give you fun things, less significant to min/maxing which this game has become.
What they attempted in cata was halfway... they removed passives (not all mind you) and replaced them with absolutely nothing. So yes their implementation failed cause only thing they did was reduce ammount of talent points which acomplishes nothing.
Their "new" system already failed in d3, cookie cutters are all over the place, there is less variety than tbc or wotlk had with their talent speccs.

Its also a problem of resources. Which do you think is the easier to implement and upkeep? Making 10-25 "Fun" Talent tree out of the old passives and abilities, putting them into a pre-cata style tree, arranging them for balance, then testing them to figure out where there are problems, over power/underpowered combinations and builds, then polishing it up all for live for 11 classes(33 trees). OR What they are doing now, where they give each spec all the mandatory talents, only have tree for then entire class designed as a 1 talent per tier system.

so in your book, game that you apy for every month(and pay for every expansion on top of that, when expansion cost alone should cover WHOLE EXPANSION DEVELOPMENT), should go for 2 shit solutions rather than 1 solid?
I really don't care about their resources. Gc wastes most of them with simply retarded decisions and by showing complete lack of insight in the game and his insane bias. If a designer thinks he can get rid of cookie cutter builds, he should just stop designing cause there is no perfect balance and its impossible to achieve.
If he would INCREASE ammount of options instead of DECREASING them, he could actually reduce the "problem" of cookie cutters.
However he goes the way that reduce ammount of choices and while his aim was to make choices more meaningful, he failed at that aswell, cause, at elast for my class, i have no brainer on every single tier. There is no balance whatsoever between talents and if he cant even balance 3 talents between eachother then yeah, as i said, he should jsut fucking quit.
o and btw, with this new mop system he will make cookie cutter build for every single boss. Players will find themselves annoyed that they "have" to switch talents all the time between fights in order to min/max.

[Xeraxis]

...game that you apy for every month(and pay for every expansion on top of that, when expansion cost alone should cover WHOLE EXPANSION DEVELOPMENT), should go for 2 shit solutions rather than 1 solid?
I really don't care about their resources. Gc wastes most of them with simply retarded decisions and by showing complete lack of insight in the game and his insane bias. If a designer thinks he can get rid of cookie cutter builds, he should just stop designing cause there is no perfect balance and its impossible to achieve.
If he would INCREASE ammount of options instead of DECREASING them, he could actually reduce the "problem" of cookie cutters.
However he goes the way that reduce ammount of choices and while his aim was to make choices more meaningful, he failed at that aswell, cause, at elast for my class, i have no brainer on every single tier. There is no balance whatsoever between talents and if he cant even balance 3 talents between eachother then yeah, as i said, he should jsut fucking quit.

I'd take a step back and look at how much you hate GC and see if maybe you'll never be happy with the game and decide then if it just isn't the game for you. So much hate for one man who isn't the only one behind these changes.

[KrazyK923]

Dex should probably realize that GC isn't the person solely responsible for every single thing in WoW. And calm himself.

[Brayis]

so in your book, game that you apy for every month(and pay for every expansion on top of that, when expansion cost alone should cover WHOLE EXPANSION DEVELOPMENT), should go for 2 shit solutions rather than 1 solid?

Not to be snarky, but a shit solution is still a solution is it not? And I think the direction they are going is an interesting and almost innovative given how theory-crafting results have an impact on game-play. How many players simply go to elitest jersk to get their talent specs every patch? How many are TOLD to go there? I would explain my reasoning but its late.

If he would INCREASE ammount of options instead of DECREASING them, he could actually reduce the "problem" of cookie cutters.......

So you're reasoning that by adding more variables into already complicated system there would be less cookie cutter builds. Its not the number of talents, its the quality of them. I find your suggestion of increasing the number funny, since you take a 180 and criticizes them for not being able to balance 3 talents per tier. And you want them to add more. For quick reference anything they add, and I mean anything that is more than just a "+X% damange" , it will have a boss fight is better on. If even just a little. Its just the way the game works.

[Deleted]

If he would INCREASE ammount of options instead of DECREASING them, he could actually reduce the "problem" of cookie cutters.
However he goes the way that reduce ammount of choices and while his aim was to make choices more meaningful, he failed at that aswell, cause, at elast for my class, i have no brainer on every single tier. There is no balance whatsoever between talents and if he cant even balance 3 talents between eachother then yeah, as i said, he should jsut fucking quit.
o and btw, with this new mop system he will make cookie cutter build for every single boss. Players will find themselves annoyed that they "have" to switch talents all the time between fights in order to min/max.

Well u can also look at it this way:
Before u had only 1 maybe 2points to alocate and make choises about, and they probably wasnt very significant ones.
Now u have 6 significant choises imo. But ofc u might not agree on this and say they are no brainers.

Wich brings me to your next paragraph.
U "forgot" to mention what class it is your playing, and what 6 talents u chose in the beta, that are so no brainer.
If u would tell me, im sure i can find plenty who would disagree with u, and then its not so cookie cutter?

[microtonal]

Studies have shown that humans are actually less happy the more choices they're given, that having a glut of options is a pretty significant contributor to our level of anxiety.

Choosing between three things is fairly easy. Choosing between thirty is a lot harder, and significantly more stress inducing.

[Thetruth1400]

We get 18 talents to chose from but every time i play the beta and i respec to marks bm or survival, i always end up picking the same talents. Does anyone else feel like these new talents are really boring and blizzard put 0 creativity into them? I mean half of them are straight out of cata talent trees, the rest are just pure useless utility. And don't even get me started on glyphs.... even more useless utility that does nothing but add minor convenience to some abilities.

The reason they feel like this is because they are essentially useless by design. If they make the talents good, they become mandatory, which is what they were trying to get away from with cookie cutter builds. Instead, they have to design them in a way in which your choice really isn't one, and therefore does not matter.

For example, Hunter level 90 talents. You have a choice between the following;
- A 400% damage throw that does 100% damage to other mobs in the path with a 30% movement speed debuff for 3 seconds.
- A 400% damage shot that does 100% damage to other mobs in your path with a knockback.
- A 400% damage shot that does 100% damage to other mobs in your path rapidly over 3 seconds.

In the end, no matter which you take the choice doesn't matter, especially in a PvE respect. The game takes any of the challenge of a talent tree, removes it, and leaves you with minor options to make you feel like you're doing something when the actuality is, if you never took a single talent, you'd probably be within 2% in terms of DPS as a person fully talented. Again, that's because the choice does not matter.

I'm willing to bet that you and I are picking different talents though, so isn't that actually a success, considering they wanted to do away with "cookie cutter" builds and everyone having the same talents?

Is it really a success though if the only difference is because the choices don't matter? That's like saying that someone that pays for a $10 item with a $10 bill is different than someone that pays with 2 $5 bills, or a third person that pays with 10 $1 bills. There is no difference, people just choose different ways to do the same exact thing.

So yes, if that's the case, they achieved the removal of cookie cutter builds, but only by making the choices moot.

[Cyph3r]

Is it really a success though if the only difference is because the choices don't matter? That's like saying that someone that pays for a $10 item with a $10 bill is different than someone that pays with 2 $5 bills, or a third person that pays with 10 $1 bills. There is no difference, people just choose different ways to do the same exact thing.

So yes, if that's the case, they achieved the removal of cookie cutter builds, but only by making the choices moot.

So you're saying that all the new talents are essentially identical (within their tier), and therefore it makes zero difference which ones we choose. Never mind that there is actually significant difference in the specific function of each individual talent, even within a tier; Going by your logic, there's essentially no difference between the 3 Hunter specs, they all just do damage right? They even all do it from range! With a pet! Using focus as our resource! So it really doesn't matter which spec you choose because they're all functionally identical. It's a "non-choice"... right?

You can't seriously tell me there's no difference between Readiness and Fervor. Or between Murder of Crows and Lynx Rush. It's the subtle nuance, the slight difference in functionality that makes all the difference. Maybe I like to be highly mobile in a pvp scenario, so I take poste haste. Or maybe I prefer that my targets have trouble not just chasing me, but friendly targets as well, in which case narrow escape becomes the more attractive option.

This doesn't all just go for Hunters either, look at some of the talents for other classes and tell me they're non-choices.

[zyx]

The point with the new talent system, is that for every tier you have 3 talents in the same theme, but different behavior. There's a healing, CC, traveling tier and so on.
A good example is tier 3 with survivability/healing.
You have 3 choices:
An on-use big heal with CD.
A passive dmg reduction.
A passive small heal with no real CD.

All 3 adds to survivability, it all comes down to how you want to use it. Personally I prefer the passive small heal, while others might want the dmg reduction or big heal.

[Dexiefy]

I'd take a step back and look at how much you hate GC and see if maybe you'll never be happy with the game and decide then if it just isn't the game for you. So much hate for one man who isn't the only one behind these changes.

He is leading, ergo he has the final say at everything, thats what leading a team means... you call the shots.


As for my hatred for GC... its basically caused by fact that the moment he got lead and he run out of projects of old team, this game has begun to move downhill. I already quit this game cause DS turn out to be a joke(stick up the ass after buying AP) and my guild came to a conclusion that DS isnt worth anyones time(especially mine since my main was a hunter and i think i don't need to remind how "good" hunters were when ds came out in nonshit guilds where people actually know how to play).

Since your next question will be "if you quit, why are you still here?" im gonna answer it in advance. I like wow, i play it since release (with breaks during shit parts like trial of grand fail or now DS) i would love to play with my guild again and have fun as i did in vanilla/tbc or up to middle of wotlk. For that however i need to see proper decisions to be taken by GC. So far it aint going too well and i prolly wont even touch MoP with a stick, however it doesn't stop me to express my opinion on forums that ARE READ by blizz (they confirmed that ages ago that they are frequently reading popular forums) and hope that they will look at some decisions they are making.
With d3 they(as in blizz) changed half of the game few months before release, can always hope they do similar thing with mop.

Dex should probably realize that GC isn't the person solely responsible for every single thing in WoW. And calm himself.

read first paragraph of this post and also, i am calm just as i was when i was writing last post. Just because i have strong opinion, doesn't mean im raging.
Also, he might not be responsible for graphics, music or stuff like that, but class deisgn or talent design is most definately his task...

Not to be snarky, but a shit solution is still a solution is it not? And I think the direction they are going is an interesting and almost innovative given how theory-crafting results have an impact on game-play. How many players simply go to elitest jersk to get their talent specs every patch? How many are TOLD to go there? I would explain my reasoning but its late.

solution it might be, but for how long? did cata talents fix anything? for me it was waste of resources.
It might be innovative, it might be great, it might be interesting but guess what? it doesnt fix ANYTHING. Its like having sand at your front door and instead of completly getting rid of it, you decide to sweep it to the side just so the wind can bring it back at your doorstep the next day... Maybe you were"fine" for a while, but you used your energy to complete a task that was completly pointless...

Only difference between now and mop will be that instead of switching whole talent tree you will switch 1 talent between bosses for min maxing, which as i mentioned, this game has become over the years. Players will always go for what is the best, not what they prefer(or will get forced to by guild leaders). They would go for what they prefer and what fits their playstyle if talents would be balanced between eachother, however they are not. Ergo, its waste of time to revamp something for the second time in order to change it to a system that has already proven to be failing in d3. O also rune system in d3 gives in fact bigger customization than wow system will...

So you're reasoning that by adding more variables into already complicated system there would be less cookie cutter builds. Its not the number of talents, its the quality of them. I find your suggestion of increasing the number funny, since you take a 180 and criticizes them for not being able to balance 3 talents per tier. And you want them to add more. For quick reference anything they add, and I mean anything that is more than just a "+X% damange" , it will have a boss fight is better on. If even just a little. Its just the way the game works.

nice, you can suck the part of my suggestion and comment on it. There were 3 parts to idea of talent revamp...1) remove passives 2) replace them with interesting talents and 3) make them less significant/fun/less impotant to min maxing. Also if they cant balance 3 talents out... should they really be designing biggest and supposedly best mmo game on the market?

Food for tought...

[wynterlyn]

We get 18 talents to chose from but every time i play the beta and i respec to marks bm or survival, i always end up picking the same talents. Does anyone else feel like these new talents are really boring and blizzard put 0 creativity into them? I mean half of them are straight out of cata talent trees, the rest are just pure useless utility. And don't even get me started on glyphs.... even more useless utility that does nothing but add minor convenience to some abilities.

Yup. I have noticed the same thing as well. All the abilities besides the level 75 and 90 ones seem a bit boring. I find Murder of Crows to be fun depending on how much damage it does. And even the level 90 abilities have very long CDs which is quite annoying. They need to be lowered by at least half its current duration.