Developer Watercooler - Battle for Azeroth Class Design Overview

[valcrist]

Wtf another expansion with no additional talent slots to go up to 120? So damn tired of a bland small talent tree.

[Taeldorian]

I didn't say it was hard to read. I said the text doesn't actually give any information at all. It's just a wall of text with no actual meaning, or rather it could mean anything.

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I'm sure it can but we haven't gotten any information about that yet. Thats my point. These dev watercoolers are nice and all but rather pointless if they don't actually give any information.

We also haven't really gotten any info about the amount of RNG becuase Blizzard had very little to share about BfA at all. The removal of legendaries is great but TF/WF is still there and they haven't talked at all about CDs, trinkets and maybe more importantly rewards and such.

With WoD being rather lackluster and Legion downright horrible it's hard to stay positive and expect the current dev team to get this one right. Heck, even the Blizzard devs looked like they weren't sure about BfA during last years Blizzcon. Why should their customers?

Don’t state that as fact. Legion is one of the better expansions we’ve had imo. Wrath with it’s abysmal resource system (9 different types of badges or so) and BC with its even more so RNG legendaries I believe legion is better. You can think otherwise and maybe this is why I’m slightly more trusting than you are here. We don’t need to talk about this part though it won’t go anywhere I know where you stand and all that shit.

I do agree that it was vague. They said a lot without saying anything which they’ve done before but they made their intent and their mindset fairly clear which tells us what they kinda wanna do. We need more information which we’ll get with the beta but I see no reason to run around being as bitter as you complaining as much as you. If you don’t wanna play then don’t but don’t post on the forums (official not here) burying the posts from people who do care.

[Deleted]

IMO talents are just dumb as they are. If you're not going to make them massive trees with bigger and smaller buffs that actually feel fun to advance through while leveling but that you eventually get all of, just remove them completely. Talents will always be about maximizing DPS and picking the best options. There will never be a choice. It's just a pain in the ass.

If you don't want to go back to massive talent trees with proper customization that affects every single thing you do, just remove the talent system and give the players the skills instead.

[Alkizon]

Explicit Teemo Nudes
Vanilla talent trees were bad because they were uncreative and boring. Spending talents for 1-2-3-4-5% extra frost damage is boring - but then they add that exact same thing to artifact weapons.

They were not bad, they allowed to customize (not add a lot) any ability from your toolkit. This was main and best way, of course not everything can be "modified" beyond recognition, but at the same time, a lot has been done better during WotLK without unnecessary breaking of main class paradigms and design/implementation of talent system (and no any PvP/PvE = Holinka/Celestalon separate pieces):
- specialization - doesn't exist, there is whole set of abilities with miserable deviations in branches of ONE GENERAL TREE = CLASS which each of branches uses in their own way, but only if player desires (= choice), and not because system has decided so for him/her (= no choice)
(some tips from my new friends <1>(2nd part), <2>)

By the way, 1-3%-kind talents were insignificant minority in relation to really useful ones. It wasn't necessary to break anything, only edit slightly.

Current design of classes' organization is very flawed in quality of "development", since perks are too "greedy" for influence (a lot of them are too significant to be just talents (they create spec mechanics, not complement/benefit specific "whole class'" ones), as well as what is distributed to specs separately by default - these systems disrupt organization of healthy, both momentary and long-term choices
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there happened not only possibility, but also need for constant switching of what was previously always available, hanch such general dominance and demand of min&max-ing mentality; think for yourself, how often you would need to switch old talents in side-altars of your priority build, mmm? maximum "PvP/PvE and other role" right? because there was no such significant burning feeling that you were losing something class related much and this despite fact that if your build will be very different from "standard", you were staying just representative of your class, highly specialized or broad-based on your choice; and all because degree of influence and appointment of new and old talents differs greatly within design
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that over past six months we have also discussed in sufficient detail, and even devs didn't miss opportunity to turn this into ridiculous meme/put in service of marketing), which is why, when trying to return "build" significance within classes in Legion, the latter one were simply smashed to pieces (which we, in fact, have been talking about for years, and smart people talked about this already during process of new system's formation). The latter speaks (again) in favor of fact, that no matter how pleasant new system is/was, but foundation laid in Cata and implemented in MoP wasn't in favor of game.

Problem is in class structure and specifics of talents. There was no such thing before, which means that in general there was no such urgent need. Sad that there are some individuals asking for "more and more really significant talents". When offering something it's worth thinking about consequences first. I repeat, main talents' task is to support certain mechanics available in the whole class (at the same time, freedom of choice must be respected/without spec's "default" stuff, useful or unhelpful, significant or irrelevant, mandatory or optional, it's player, who has to make any decision, even every another +1%, but none of devs; this is players' right to do "like everyone else", find cunning stuff or make mistake, it adds flexibility (even if just imaginary), since, due to insignificance of 1 step in chosen direction, error/assumption doesn't seem as catastrophe and therefore doesn't require constant momentary change/moderation; system must obey hierarchy without random/misplaced/borrowed~temporary $hit), but not turn each of directions into separate one.

ps. Main advantage of old trees wasn't diversity (although it was, global system allowed to have it, but why? and answer is further), but freedom to choose each/any/little step of progress/castimization elements without violating class priorities. In other words, what was previously part of choice is no longer one = it's spec's default package now, but what was previously available to class as such has become "choice element" and not even everything, but only stuff, that devs decided for this spec... imo, deal is wildly unfair.

Also this and from here:

Varaben
So a assassination rogue played extremely similar to a combat rogue just with different weapons and maybe a different spender or builder.

(I played with most in assassination build during period of normal talent design, combat was strong option for pve, but I didn't like its playstyle, sub at that moment was difficult for me to master and seemed less balanced in terms of priorities/being more situational, albeit not weak, gameplay; there were many such people who were not guided by d/hps metric, this didn't have current catastrophic scale of distribution, namely, by its non-mediated participation in process, but all "specializations" somehow had their strong and ardent representatives = gameplay was different enough; in fact, argument is not mine, but my interpretation of one of discussions of old forum, with friend's participation; this argument won't have that weight in current game situation, outcome is too corrupted)

Well, this is something I don't quite agree with. I'll going to try to explain why. Gameplay between specializations as a whole differs primarily in abilities you prefer, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have right to use “neighbor” toolkit, it's available to you, especially functionally relevant secondary effects of abilities. You're absolutely correct about talents giving passive modifications, so area of ​​specialization is "designated" by priority of using upgraded by talents/glyphs abilities. Yes, you use them much more often than others and it's they who set the beat of your gameplay... but you don't lock yourself on them as the only ones available to you, you don't forget about "everything else" if necessary and for greater flexibility/variability. But now everything else is completely inaccessible for you, all previously available mechanics/class features are cut into 3 parts (and another piece from each is nibbled for PvP talents) and this is all, that you have. At the same time, most of talents provide "mandatory" active abilities for filling, and not passive ones, which means that choice between them is often too obvious and by making it you yourself limit your toolkit ≈ imposed by devs. Therefore, speaking of a toolkit, you need to understand that it's not so much different (wrong word), but one-sided, circumcised and partially veiled by "cosmetic substitution", which means, in essence, "same defective" for each of representatives.

(eg: mages had 3 shields, each of which had its own separate area of application/functionality, each of branches gave bonuses to one of them, but, if necessary, mages still changed them according to situation, since even basic "different one" was more useful in certain situations than talented one... but that opportunity was taken away = same toolkit as shield, but different, moreover, which is only third of original functional)

Should I also additionally mention here current design/degree of influence of "borrowed powers"

You choose not between passive properties of all abilities/mechanics available to your class, but between what was your momentary choice during the battle - now it has become long-term one, completely cut off from you.

Еven simpler: you have 3 talents in front of you, which are 3 buttons of abilities/mechanics, having previously made choice of one of them, you gave this ability/mechanic a slight advantage in your set (well, you like it more than others, it will be more useful for you more often), but now you completely lock yourself in this single button.

I don’t think you didn’t understand this, it's more just again for outlining concepts... so, difference between gameplay was imposed by choice of passive talents, they were responsible for priority of abilities and how they interact with each other, BUT this doesn't do gameplay between specializations "similar". Gameplay between specializations was very different (basic functionality was similar, yes, but not playstyle, which was different even for those who chose different talents within !same branch!), the most striking and wild example of this delusion were (and are to this day in discussions about old "specializations"; in general, I'm talking about period of "final" result in classical trees' development, not about raw vanilla, but rather about WotLK) hunters. Three absolutely different types of gameplay, with completely clear designation of priorities of abilities, but with full complex and variable toolkit, regardless of chosen specialization - gorgeous design. DK of WotLK period - gorgeous set of passive talents for choosing with having same toolkit... since we started talking about trees - boundaries of branches as a whole aren't really necessary for good talents' design/organization of different playstyles, they could absent and everything still will look holistic, full-fledged and functionally fulfill its role in hierarchy (some very light parody of this approach to talent existed in MoP).

Why did they cut off it all?
Balance? - not, nothing like that at all, it's much easier to balance on basis of general situation, instead of poking around with many too "valuable"/influential small elements. Result is no full-fledged balance, the whole metric revolves around d/hps logs, real players and their "actions" have long been forgotten.
(Already proven by time)
Playstyle? - not, no less stupidity, given their attempts to completely bind specializations within framework of "roles", do you know how many of them? - that's right, there will not be enough "separate" ones for each class, some classes aren't even quite enough if being the only consumer. Now, just imagine that 36 classes needed "individual" gameplay. Have you estimated the scale of disaster? Result is different icons and effects (cosmetics, still even those didn't get full way permission, and it seems to me that reason lies precisely in possible involuntary emphasis of obviousness of this paragraph's conclusions), while gameplay is more and more unified.
(Already proven by time)
Then may be...
Tear off growth of character's strengths from its real progress, thereby freeing hands of their "department of sick ideas" in terms of fee, getting them opportunity to legally "remove" all traces of their destructive actions, simplify work of automatic systems, and devalue as much as possible influence of player's real choice on final result, to make it as direct/predictable as possible, thereby cutting off all "unwanted" consequences. (I'm probably a little gloating that even these most obvious reasons for the most part have "failure" outcome, nevertheless) I tend to them as to root causes.

Oh yes, the topic!.. it's not about this, well then once again reminder:
dear devs, I'm waiting bards from you, not so much for play them, rather just to make fun of result, I don’t believe in you, you don’t give me a single reason to different attitude. My stingy regards

ps. In fact, three large sections in which written next stuff: we don't know how this works and, by the way, artifacts will no longer be a thing - which was clear even without this text at the beginning of Legion. Empty conversation. More like politic's talk

[Ranaas]

Not much difference to me as a frost dk main

We had no utility for years and this is our uniqueness

Oh wait we are slow

[Deleted]

For me just go back to Pandaria state. The 2 classes I played felt the greatest in that expac (warlock and paladin) Can't speak for others but those 2 were GOOD talentwise, utilitywise, good in PvE and very good in PvP. Destro warlock? mmm yeah they were touched by the hand of Blizzardgod. Ret paly in pvp? UNKITABALE Long Arm of the Law, reliable judgement slow. Good times.

Now Ret from being the least kiteable class with Empancipation, 2x Hand of Freedom, short cd slow, and short cd 45% speed are THE SLOWEST class in Legion next to DK. Just steal/dispel HoFreedom and gg. Fk Pony QQ

[Blamblam41]

The problem, as I see it, is that there are mainly two groups of players that want different things. Not everyone in these groups want the same thing, but generally speaking.

The smaller of the two groups is where all raiders, M+ and high rank arena/RBG players are. They are competitive and care more about numbers and balance over class identity and niche specs/talents/abilities.

The larger group has the rest of the player base. People that don't give a shit either way, and people that do care about class+spec identity and think that's far more important than numbers and absolute balance down to 1%. Some casual raiders and M+ people, smaller guilds, playing with friends, casuals, roleplayers, solo players, levelers/alt players - those kind of players.

I belong to the second group, and for me WoW is getting so boring because everything has gotten so streamlined and uncreative. I hate what the "everything must be balanced down to 1%" has done to the game. The adventure is gone from the game, even if Blizzard managed to bring some of it back in Legion - mainly thanks to the awesome Suramar storyline and all the puzzles/secrets.

At the same time I do think that the raiding scene and such is important to the game. It belongs in a MMO game. So I do understand why Blizzard needs to listen to the smaller group aswell.
I guess what I really wish for, is that the competitive people wasn't so competitive and could enjoy an adventurous game and skip the number crunching :P

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This watercooler is such a big, fat /yawn. It's the same as always.
Blizzard don't want "balance". They want - and need - the game to be a rollecoaster or they won't be able to give all players what they want.
They prune, then add. Prune again, then add. Repeat. Repeat again.
They add systems that are "better than the previous ones", but then replace them in the next expansion because "they didn't work out as they had hoped".
They'll never work out better than they have, and they know it. They need to add this drama to the game to keep the players. People are drawn to drama. People invest their emotions, and when you invest your emotions you get attached - and that is exactly what they want.

Vanilla talent trees were bad because they were uncreative and boring. Spending talents for 1-2-3-4-5% extra frost damage is boring - but then they add that exact same thing to artifact weapons.
- Hey dev crew. Don't forget that we need to make sure mages, rogues, resto druids and holy paladins have 100% pick rate as usual. Yeah, but make sure enhance shamans, holy priests and whatever other dirt at the bottom of the barrel gets a small patch window where they'll be insanely good just so these players will stick around in the hopes that one day their class will get their 15 minutes of fame again.
Bring the player, not the class. No, no! Bring the class, not the player. Nah, guys, bring the player and not the class. Next expansion we bring the class and not the player.
Players! We have something exciting for you in this expansion! Secrets! You will get the chance to unlock a hidden appearance for your new weapon! Exciting, huh?! They will definitely not be a low drop chance from a boss that may not even spawn once a year, or something that you buy from a vendor. No, you will unlock them in very creative ways!
Also: we thought the old way of working your ass off to hit exalted with a faction and then buying the rewards is very uncreative and not fun, so we've added boxes that has an extremely low chance to drop a reward. So you need to grind to exalted a hundred times for the same faction. Gambling is so much fun and not time consuming at all.

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My hopes are not high. Most will stay the same - or get worse - in the next expansion. But as I'm so deep into this game I still have that glimmer of hope that Blizzard made sure to plant in me.

I pretty much agree with the vast majority of your words. It really sounds like Blizzard's development has finally come full circle onto their own MMORPG cycle, rounding the corner into what essentially is Vanilla WoW's design philosophy. What they fail to understand is just implementing lootbox esque psychological features while overly extending the leveling process of your game and focusing on what is essentially top tier 1% balance, you make for a game that's shitty for the average player.

Look at Overwatch if you want an example of a game that exists only for top tier 'balance' (Like League of Legends I'm sure) that ends up being a horrible experience for the average player because it's not built around that players experience whatsoever.

[Gaarashatan]

alright guys, lets not forget to give 250 pages of pure feedback and theorycrafting that also has multiple blue posts of were listening just to have it all scraped and not a single thing implemented (cough cough mm hunters for legion cough)

[Blamblam41]

alright guys, lets not forget to give 250 pages of pure feedback and theorycrafting that also has multiple blue posts of were listening just to have it all scraped and not a single thing implemented (cough cough mm hunters for legion cough)

And see that's fundamentally my problem with Blizzard. They care more about their ideas, their systems and their implementation than they do abut the input of the fans and the people that make this game what it is.

You want to know why the community in WoW died? It died when the developers stopped giving a shit about making content for the community and instead focused on their own devices.

[Tiwack]

If they like designing roller coaster rides they're in the wrong business. It's the same with all their games when selling new content to players. Some players will have the time of their lives and some will feel neglected. Blizz expects you to adapt if you keep buying into their schemes, hence alts at the ready for the new fotm being the norm.

Social aspects just help retain players and let devs get away with this stuff. Overall sad when all the positives have a grim backside to them.

[Peacemoon]

Why do I get the impression that Classic realms have made the devs realise what they’ve done wrong with the game. Ever since Blizzcon I’ve felt they have loaded up classic and gone “oh cool look how awesome it was for this...”

So now we have the xp changes. And now we have the role act towards class uniqueness.

[Tiwack]

Anyone who plays beta and visits the forums will tell you this is true. They want you for bug testing, nothing more. Feedback on anything else is outright thrown in the trash without being read.

Exactly. We've become the product while blizz has gone full circle on the genre.

[Cavox]

How to write 500 words withot actually saying anything.

[Hawksolo]

Class uniqueness and utility.. copy and paste MoP spells and mechanics- solved.

[WhiteEagle888]

They better include ALL the traits which have visuals for ALL the specs.
And include even hidden stuff like mages incinerating dead enemies and retribution paladins turning dead enemies into a pile of ash.

[Sallomon]

Very nice comment. I'm with you.

[Deleted]

As for Class Changes my outlook after Legion actually is positive. I tink they did a great job with how the majority of classes got reworked. Specs feel alot more different in Legion then they did in WoD. While i personally prefer more changes to be made, because simply change is good, and is needed so things keep fresh and not stale, i understand that alot of players are different and just want there classes to play the same.
No matter what, i think class uniquenenss is definetly desriable, and Blizz will do their job to make it good.

When it comes to talents my positivity however is gone! After several expacs of this new talent system and how they did handle them in the past, i dont have any positivity left. "One of the major challenges in setting up talent rows is that they serve two conflicting desires: choices within a row should be meaningfully varied" I have read this statement in the past, yet Blizzard failed to deliver on its philosophy on every xpac so far.
Over the past months of Legion, Blizzard actually didnt manage to rework talents which are simply bad and almost never get used. Some would require overhauls to be even looked at, and i understand that this is something u necesarilly dont want to do in the mid of an expac. But if its necesarry, then do it! On the other hand, some talents simply are in the need of tuning and number changes, yet nothing alike is seen. There are talents which are unused and undertuned since the beginning of Legion, and actually didnt get touched ONCE over the course of Legion!
Additionally i think Blizzard has this strange missconception of talents to be as nummerically equal as possible. Which at the first place sounds good, but when looked into detail doesnt prove to be right.
Passive Talents almost always win in this scenario, because why would u want to take an active ability with additional CD and or resource management over a passive ability if their outcome is almost the same? On top of that, talents with clear mechanical design often fail to deliver, simply because they have disadvantages but no real advantage since they are tuned so equally.
Example? Retribution Tier 1 (lvl15) talents. Final Verdict - Execution Sentence - Consecration
The first one is the passive all around "i do everything" talent, second one is an CD based single target DMG ability, and last is a stationary AoE ability. Both ES and Cons have a clear core functionallity, with a major weakness, but no real strenght! They are bad in situations which are not ST or stationary AoE, but dont excel in those situations they are made for. And therefore never ever get picked.
I think the current and past talent system philosophy failed horribly. And while i want to be positive and look forward, i simply cant because of how Blizzard did handle them in the past.

so long

[Vitinariy]

As usual - the theory of the post sounds good, but it's not enough because we need to wait until the information on specific changes goes public.
I have to agree with some of the posters on the talent balance though - it was definitely not the best this expansion.

Some talent choices are simply odd - like warlocks having mobility talent in the same tier as two survivability talents.
Also, they should really tone down the approach of having all talents giving equal numeric output.
Passive talent choices should always give less benefit then active ones.

[Craaazyyy]

The smaller of the two groups is where all raiders, M+ and high rank arena/RBG players are. They are competitive and care more about numbers and balance over class identity and niche specs/talents/abilities.

you are so wrong about this you have 0 idea.. high ranked arena players actually WANT more niche abilities.. because its making the game more complex, therefore making it more fun to play, harder to play and you can differentiate yourself more from the average playerbase.. thats why majority of players liked wrath/cata/mop way more despite it being perhaps at times way less balanced than the game is now

and basically your whole post is just bullshit

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

"When it’s “Your First Day as a Pirate”, Captain Keelhaul should no longer fall out of his pirate ship."

But why is the rum gone?