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  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by TheRogue View Post
    The current iteration of talents is as basic as it gets, any simpler and they may as well take it away all together.

    Bring in the FFX/PoE talent map imo.
    The problem with that is balance and design. FFX is a single-player game and PoE is also mostly played solo or in very small groups, and is a classless system to boot (mostly). There are no DPS meters to show you what setup is the absolute best, no difficult team fights where one person underperforming player can mean the raid doesn't progress, no Warcraftlogs-level spirit of competition within the same group, no tight balance required between classes, no PvP to balance either which is a whole other can of worms.

    Thus having this massive tree where most options would inevitably be deemed suboptimal (as is the case with PoE in the end, let's not kid ourselves) wouldn't change much to the problem we sometimes have now where 1, maybe 2 talents in a row are worth it. And creating your build only works if you're mostly playing your way, by yourself. Once you enter difficult and competitive content in any game, cookie cutter rears its ugly head if it is the only way, or only perceived way, to advance.

  2. #22
    Old school talent trees only gave the illusion of choice.

    In reality there was only really 1 way to spec most classes/roles with little to no variation outside of "PVP and PVE spec".
    There is a thin line between not knowing and not caring, and I like to think that I walk that line every day.

  3. #23
    The Unstoppable Force Super Kami Dende's Avatar
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    Old Talent trees are basically the exact same as what we have now. They just took the useless 10 points we spent on +dmg% modifiers between every major talent and baked it into the class.

  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by torish View Post
    It's just the question what the devs value more: "Competetive" content played by a few, or an immersive RPG gameplay for everyone.

    And as i wrote, you have cookie cutter builds no matter how complex your talent system is. The current incarnation of the talent system has them as well.

    Just check icyveins with their "best used"-talent templates. Even a dual option has one option that is stronger (see azerite gear).
    Except players also drive this. Why do you think Icyveins is so popular? Why do you think even LFR/Normal raiders (who honestly could run damn near any setup they want and succeed) ceaselessly complain about sim DPS or ask ''what the best class is''? People want to play what's good because an MMO encourages competition and optimal setups in a way single-player or Diablo-esque games don't. This isn't just Blizzard imposing things on players.

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by torish View Post
    It still is not what gameplay should mainly focus on. Gameplay in a MMORPG, which is a RPG, after all, should give many options to chose from, and allow you to find the spells and abilities which suit best to your gameplay. With all that focusing on damage meters and balance for a small amount of competetive blizzard slowly reduced the set of options, while the talent system never really gave the freedom a RPG skill system should give.
    Choosing what spell you cast is the entire point of choosing your spec, and within your spec your gameplay can change quite a lot depending on talents. WoW is a class and spec based system, not a freeform RPG like Elder Scrolls or PoE (which also became halfway class-based). Always has been.

    If you want to, say, run Inner Rage and Carnage as current Fury, you can by all means. It's fun even if sub-optimal as all hell but knock yourself out. Get ready for every other player to ask what the blazes you are doing however, in Heroic+ at least.

    I do like the idea someone made of cosmetic talent trees. The glyph system feels half-assed and I'd love more visual customization options across the board. But WoW has never been the game where you can pick and choose your skills, and because of both balance and the wide variety of game systems in place it's never going to happen. Thus I'm fine with the idea of making the choices simple and clear.

  6. #26
    Scarab Lord Boricha's Avatar
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    Yeah I would say the current talent tree is about as simple as it gets. It also feels really weird that we get nothing in terms of class development after 100 until 120 azerite armor, which is mostly passives that can't be played around anyway.

  7. #27
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    'member the time, when you got 5% crit on a spell with 5/5 skillpoints... Oh yes, that was so much fun

  8. #28
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    I like the new talent tree but BFA looks to have almost 0 class developement which is scary and weird.

    Azerite traits so far does not even remotely look like anything interesting to replace the three class developement tools we had in Legion.

  9. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by torish View Post
    Well, it is never too late to change a system.

    Just ask yourself if the current system managed to do what it was planned to do. Does it allow real options? No, as there still is cookie cutting. And people who want cookie cutting will still chose the only path their fan page suggests them.

    So if that doesnt work, why not changing the system to a real customizable system, which allows any freedom you could imagine?



    Heroic+ is played by how many people? How many people would want more class customization? How many people play competetive gameplay, and want a narrow option path? Compared to those who play WoW as an RPG, and rarely participate in competitions?

    Also think about the mistery the options would offer. Test out specs to find the one which suits best to your gameplay. And not just "Chose whatever option you like, it doesnt really matter".



    Well, i prefer a real choice system, which still allows cookie cutting for the few competetive players, which wont care about skill and talent options as they do now, no matter which system is in place.



    But arent many people crying about the wish to have more options? For me, i dont see a change for your playstyle, as you would chose the optimal path no matter if you had 100 other options. I only see a lot of possible paths for everyone else.
    It does allow for options a good portion of the time. Choosing between Warpaint and Bounding Stride is a real option. Switching to different setups based on raiding/M+/WQing/PvP is something that happens a lot. Some specs have a few rows where tow talents are fairly equivalent in the same situation. There's tuning mishaps, but that happens all the time in any game. Also the 36 specs are choices in and of themselves.

    WoW is still nowhere near as cookie cutter as PoE was where, for years, Energy Shield builds were pretty much the only thing that could survive high tier Maps and everyone else got oneshot.

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by torish View Post
    While there is only one path for one situation most times. That would not need to change in a way more diversified skill choice system.



    Actually, WoW is still cookie cutting, as the situations have no real choices as well.

    I think a system which allows options as like chosing a skillset out of hundred active and passive skills which are based on your class is way more possible customization than 7 rows of talents á 3 options which still have the cookie cutting problem.

    A massive skillset system also would allow you to create counters to special situations, as like chosing a tank damage reduction passive in high damage situations, or chosing to be a hybrid healer in 5 man dungeons with both healing and damage symbioses. Hybrid specs would really feel like hybrids again, as you could freely chose out of their skilset. Support roles could become a real role based on your selections.
    And watch players ditch your finely crafted system as everyone just goes for the best options and things like support classes are either ignored if they don't bring enough, or hated because they're mandatory and someone has to play them because everyone's performance depends on them.

    Blizzard designs for the realities of an MMO, not daydreams. And they're not going to radically change a 14 years old game.

  11. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Powerogue View Post
    How on earth can something be both "situational" and "not impact playstyle?"
    It shouldn't affect your DPS in any situation, as simple as that.
    Quote Originally Posted by anaxie View Post
    Looking for Raid.
    They never found one though

  12. #32
    Love the current talent system. I can actually set up, and switch when needed, without having to check websites beforehand like in Wrath (don't remember whether Cata and Mop still had the old one). The old talents were horribly set, confusing, with a lot of noise (+1/2/3% dmg from X ability). They were just pain in the ass for experienced players, and confusing shit to new players.

    Oh and also, all the "weird and funny possibilities" are pure fiction, or stuff only tried by pvpers. I bet mostly people who didnt even play the game back then are the ones extolling the virtues of the old shitty talent system

  13. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Floo View Post
    So Blizzard have removed talents from certain classes and replaced them with legendaries or artifact traits. Basically creating a washed up version of what we had in legion. However if we look at the fire mage they have 3 "new" talents that have replaced old ones which are these legendary and artifact traits.

    But what seems really obvious to me is blizzard could of just added a level 120 talent row, with the 3 talents they've replaced with the old ones? this solution is right in front of us all and yet its so good in my opinion, I don't know if it would be better then the legion systems we have, however I'm pretty sure its better then what we're getting.

    This adds to class progression, you maintain talents you did in legion. Because the reason the legendaries were so good is because they worked with other talents so well, now we have to choose between the two. And that's not fun + with this new talent row you keep that synergy with the legendaries and talents.

    Tell me your thoughts boys
    blizzard HAS removed talents, not HAVE......*facepalm*

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Frolk View Post
    old tree is so shit compared to current one, with current one u get to chose from boss to boss, singletarget/aoe, for tanks if u wanna go offensive/defensive, and easier to change on the fly.
    the old talent tree isn't shit because it made you actually weigh your choices and if you fucked up you either reset or had to put on your big boy pants and figure out a way to fight the boss handicapped....switching in between bosses is called easymode.....grow up...the current talent tree is fucking garbage, esp the fact that they split pve and pvp talents....that was a HUGE mistake
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  14. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by zupf View Post
    they just need to bring back classic talent trees and stop pretending that their "fresh" take on the talent system is nothing but meh.
    I would really like a mix of the two - the old system forced builds. Would be really cool if at 30, 60, 90. and 120 you had access to those 'tiers' of talents, so let's say as a warrior you could go Fury for the 30 talents, Prot for 60, Fury for 90, and Arms for 120. With the old system, you realistically could only go Fury and 1 minor other.

  15. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by TelefonoGatewood View Post
    You work at Blizzard? Shouldn't you have a blue name? Other Blizzard reps have identifiable tags here.



    Yeah, but it doesn't do that. The choices are just as static and cookiecutter as they ever were. There's no "how you play" choice in there these days.
    Not for blizz but for other games

  16. #36
    What I liked about the old talent trees is that each class had a base set of abilities, but then you would spec into each tree to you know... 'specialize'. During that time, it was like there were 12 distinct classes, and you could flavor them differently. For example when I was an Enhance shaman in BC, I could choose to forgo some elemental damage and spec into resto to give my raid more utility and support. That was interesting to me.

    Now it's like WoW as 36 classes. But they are all watered down so much for balance sake.

  17. #37
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    Very agonized topic already.

    And I mean here not much the theme (although it too), but the more - design approach. We talked a lot about what talents were like before and why it looked like that, but it was all inseparably connected with notion and realization of classes in this game. Ie presence of almost full complete mutual set of spells/abilities in spellbook for class required a "mutual tree" and possibility of creating "hybrids". Moreover, Lore demanded this itself, because there is no characters in history of Warcraft that had so narrow specialization. They in majority were most developed representatives of classes. Ie its (design/philosophy) change in Cataclysm: unsuccessful closure specialization in its mastery; led to may be still very similar between specializations, but already seperate set of perks-talents in Pandaria, and eventually it was realized in that unhealthy horror that Legion presents itself (where there is even division between PvP and PvE perks, which is a wild horror due to absence of any kind of even a little logic in world design of such classes limitation as "field of activities" or "spec", and violates basic game rule "don't break original design, or you'll gonna turn it into some other one" due this reason).

    Also links about classless approach.

    ps. In order to not go much into details here, you can just get first 2 links in text above.
    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    Even bad MMO's can have interesting ideas. Generally it's when concepts don't work together that a game gets into trouble. The individual concepts can be subjectively better or worse but if they don't gel together then that's a problem. Personally I think the entire talent business in WoW needs a rework. The old system was too locked in; the new is not very rewarding. Flexibility is not the same thing as customization.
    Exactly! Game is resultant, picture that is obtained by adding many parts of mosaic. You'll err/incorrectly change one of details and picture won't work (especially in case of its direct production). Yes, maybe half of it will look worthy, but this disturbing incompleteness will remain.
    Last edited by Alkizon; 2018-12-19 at 10:47 AM.
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  18. #38
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shelly View Post
    Sounds like Wildstar, which was kinda terrible.
    Even bad MMO's can have interesting ideas. Generally it's when concepts don't work together that a game gets into trouble. The individual concepts can be subjectively better or worse but if they don't gel together then that's a problem. Personally I think the entire talent business in WoW needs a rework. The old system was too locked in; the new is not very rewarding. Flexibility is not the same thing as customization.
    Last edited by MoanaLisa; 2018-07-16 at 08:02 AM.
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  19. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    Even bad MMO's can have interesting ideas. Generally it's when concepts don't work together that a game gets into trouble. The individual concepts can be subjectively better or worse but if they don't gel together then that's a problem. Personally I think the entire talent business in WoW needs a rework. The old system was too locked in; the new is not very rewarding. Flexibility is not the same thing as customization.
    Yup, as many problems as SWG had it had what is to this day considered the best crafting and gathering system in any MMO. It was so involved no one has really tried it since, but it's generally one of the first thing people bring up if they experienced it.

    I agree as well, I think we need a new system, something that falls between the old and this one.

  20. #40
    The whole reckless ability pruning that became extreme in legion completely ruined the game for me.

    One thing is to remove truly pointless abilities, but blizzard flat out removed most of the utility, situational spells and even flavor abilities.

    The point of ability pruning was to reduce the clutter on the action bars - some specs like Enhancement easily had over 10 rotational DPS abilities.

    But blizz went completely overboard and in the wrong direction by removing everything that made classes feel like they had some depth, so now even a skilled player has nothing to actually spend his skill on.

    Before pruning while you were DPSing or tanking or healing you could use one of your many utility/situational spells to make the encounter more favorable for your party.

    But now almost all classes are just capable of doing their basic roles and nothing else, nothing to spend that APM on or utilize your awareness and capability to utilize more than just basic rotations.

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