Idea: Reward leveling and variety again, whilst culling some skills.

[SamuraiJakkass86]

Hi everyone,

I had another idea. This one is multi-functional, and inspired by some other recent threads. For starters, here are some pretty popular complaints about the state of the game;

1. Leveling is not rewarding anymore. With the old talent system there was a talent point reward every level. That's gone!
2. There are too many skills, but its completely cookie-cutter, and no variety!
3. The talent point system doesn't provide as much variety as the pre-cata one!

I'm sure I'm not the first to propose these "changes/fixes", but I want to hear what everyone would think about them. So - here's my proposed changes;

1. Talent Points are granted every 10 levels starting at level 5, with a final point granted at 100. (so, 11 tiers worth of talents at level 100 as opposed to 7). This will offer a substantial reward for players very early on, with more frequently occuring substantial rewards as time goes on. It's not the same as "1 point per level" like we had in the pre-cata days, but it should feel substantially more rewarding to level in the mean time. Some of the existing passives in each respective specialization can be consolidated, combined, augmented, and amplified - in order to create some of the new talent options.

Example;

Shaman:
* Flurry, Unleashed Rage, Maelstrom Weapon - removed.
* New Talent Tier Options;
1. Dual Typhoon - While dual-wielding 1h weapons, the Shaman has 20% increased attack speed, and grants +10% attack speed to their party/raid. Every melee attack grants 10% Maelstrom for 15 seconds. At 100% Maelstrom the Shaman can cast a [maelstrom affected spells] for free with no cast time, and increases their attack speed by another 20% for 5s.
2. Howling Gale - While wielding a 2h weapon, the Shaman has +15% crit chance, and grants +10% attack speed to their party/raid. Every critical strike grants (10/20?)% Maelstrom for 15 seconds. At 100% Maelstrom the Shaman can cast a guaranteed critical[maelstrom affected spell] for free with no cast time.
3. Bulwark Blowback - While wielding a shield, the Shaman has +25% block chance, and grants +10% attack speed to their party/raid. Every healing skill cast grants (10/20?)% Maelstrom for 15 seconds. At 100% Maelstrom the Shaman can cast a[maelstrom affected spell] for free with no cast time, which ignores 50% of enemy resistances/armor.

2. At levels 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 - players are rewarded with a "complete transmog set". These items are for appearance only and can be freely transmog'd onto the players gears whenever they desire. Players will be offered one of 3 different appearances every 10 levels (the set options are static, and do not repeat). These set styles are not higher than rares though, so there will be no "difficult sets" granted in this manner. This should help motivate lower level players who cannot feel *immersed* due to the lower level-rewards, the daunting "long road ahead" and the dread that transmogging a decent appearance is something you only do when you get to end-game.



What does everyone think? The overall idea I'm trying to go for is to make it "more rewarding" for players who are still leveling. So feel free to contribute ideas that you think will make the experience better for leveling players!

Thanks,
-Lore

[Blithe]

What...? No.

[Krazzorx]

Tl;dr:

WTB 2h Shaman.

[ComputerNerd]

Old one had more variety ?
That is funny.

There isn't the NEED for something every level, though I can see why it was attractive.

But talents were simply the wrong way to go about it.
More like talents were made to fit the per-level rewards, and that is why we had that mess.

Transmog is certainly an interesting option, but I also had another one which I will repeat here.
Basically each level up grants a spendable point or token of some sort.
You can opt to spend some quantity of those points, maybe 1-5 on either a gear upgrade, green to blue with relevant costs.
Or to get a passive one-level buff to a stat, or to xp gain etc.

That way there is a huge amount of variation possible at each level up, rather than something you know you are getting in advance.
As dungeon/quest gear might not be entirely predictable in advance this offers the choice of filing in holes in your gear.

[Apexis]

I have never equate a talent as a reward to making my leveling experience a better one. A 11 tiers of talents is not going to make me want to play the game or level anymore than the current 7 do. I simply level a character because I simply want to play that class, nothing more. I really like being diverse in my play it keeps the game constantly fresh and less grindy and boring. Since I started playing in BC, I have never play just played a class or two, that just makes the game less attractive for me to want to play. Talent also don't equate into immersion either, I don't get the sense of going through the same content after the 10th or 15th time because I get greater immersion for a said talent to a class.

People are so hell bent on talents and gear to be the reward for leveling through content. When in fact it should be the said content that should be the focal point. Had Blizzard simply not felt the need to constantly change talent and put that to time actually toward updating the older content to make it somewhat relevant to the new content, then more people would want to level a new character to check out the changes. They do so many useless changes and waste so much time on trying to redesign character, than they do in making actual engaging and meaningful content. The cohesion and continuity in this game is broken from bottom to top that much of it over runs other points and makes those that are joining game for the first time scratch their heads when the see things like Garrosh, Thrall, Saurfang littered through the content in one form or another.

Simply adding four more talents levels is going to do nothing to fix immersion and rewards, for a game so sadly broken.

[Ihnasir]

I can dig it, especially the transmog deal.

[SamuraiJakkass86]

Old one had more variety ?
That is funny.

There isn't the NEED for something every level, though I can see why it was attractive.

My apologies. I did not mean to imply that I *agreed* with the statement, just that it is the commonly repeated one around these parts. Old style was the illusion of variety, but really was just cookie-cutter builds with a lot of "noob trap" talents.

Basically each level up grants a spendable point or token of some sort.
You can opt to spend some quantity of those points, maybe 1-5 on either a gear upgrade, green to blue with relevant costs.
Or to get a passive one-level buff to a stat, or to xp gain etc.

This is an interesting idea. Do you have a more in depth write up on it that I can look at?



@Krazorz: I used that as a method to portray the kind of break-up/redistribution I'm referring to. I will admit that long ago when I mained an enh shammy I wished I could get away with 2-handers though.

@Quixdraw: If you like to have a diverse playstyle, would more options to differentiate your build not help with that? While I may be in the camp that sees character progress/options as a good reward for leveling, I would not say that it suits *everyones* needs. The immersion comment was not specifically tailored to my talent suggestion, but the free transmoggable set suggestion.. As far as content being the reward - I can understand that, but the majority of wow players cannot. I don't see raids as the only possible outlet for content/lore, but that is how Blizzard treats it. If you aren't running raids, you aren't seeing a majority of the content they add. However trying to fight the raid-lust that perpetuates itself through most every wow player is an unwinnable fight.

[Izalla]

They should just build the talent system so that every few levels there is a tier with a choice like now, but everything else that you would get automatically learned is in the "tree" as well, and instead of automatically getting the ability you get a point like old times, and put it in the slot for the passive or ability you would have gotten. So that between each choice you still get to award yourself with that point that you put in that slot to get that ability. Something like the old trees where over three levels you get to put a point in 1% extra crit, but without the ability to gimp yourself, how the Draenor perks are going to be (as in, you get everything eventually but still feel rewarded).

[Blithe]

I like the current system a lot more, and while the old talent system offered spec variety, we have a lot of passives and skills spreadout through the levels to give the illusion of reward. That's why 85-90 feels so damn long, it's psychologically draining for the amount of time it takes compared to the limited rewards. This current talent tree just needs to be looked at more thoroughly, as some talent tiers (looking at you Totem Tier Shaman) are extremely lackluster and a great cause for concern that just haven't been touched.