I appreciate the effort, but lets be honest here, the problem with the game is not the talent tree system. It's the people making the decisions on what goes on them and the classes.
I appreciate the effort, but lets be honest here, the problem with the game is not the talent tree system. It's the people making the decisions on what goes on them and the classes.
Perhaps you are right. If you were to ask me what the problem was with the game though, I'd have a list of multiple solutions to propose alongside it. This is just one of the proposed solutions to some of the problems, in my opinion.
As for the people behind the game pulling the strings projecting their decisions rather than their dreams upon us. I'd need more time to speak on that.
The Problem is, with an ever changing game, "Long Term" choices are not good.
E.g. With the Content coming with ShadowLands season 1, certain Covenants are "The Best" in almost all Situations. But if we are talking about Long-Term, I cant make any informed choice, because I dont know how the Abilities will be Changed later, this is not only a DPS concern, but even more so a Utility thing.
Scaling doesnt work that well with so much "choice". And if you implement Scaling for Talents, it lessens the impact of your Talents by a very very Large Margin. E.g.: Whats the Point to get stronger/better skills, if the mobs get stronger the same way.
This is one of the Reasons why the First time you Level in ShadowLands the zones dont Scale. Its overall a much better Feeling.
And it doesnt stop at the Leveling experience, with each Season/Tier/Difficulty that comes, blizzard needs to set the "expected performance" and toolkit when designing the Encounter.
If you detach the Talents from the Level you have no Baseline of Toolset/Performance players will have.
I dont think I need to mention that it will be even worse for Players.
E.g. If you right now Invite someone to your Group, you have two indications what this Person is capable of: His Gear, and his RaiderIO score (If you have the Addon).
Whats bad is: The Gear Level doesnt tell you jack shit.
For example, depending of the corruptions my DemonHunter could do between 71k and 86k DPS (According to Simulation), you wont know that.
With your system there would be yet another layer of unknown ontop of the Player. And again if your Talents dont make an Impact that it matters, you can leave them as is.
You will have the same annoying Issues with this, as with the Azerite Essences. From your draft you want to not only increase the Power, but also the tools the ability brings with Level up. With this you will also just add "Grind for the sake of it".
Rank 1 "Tomes", will be considered Useless, as they are. And if you Acquire a new one, you will have to grind it up to be Usefull. (Like Season 1 Azerite Armor)
People dont like forced Grinds.
I dont see any elegant way to use Achievment points as Currency, the lowest maxLevel Char has 280 Achievment Points, the Highest ~18000
While there are a shit ton of Achievments to earn, for most players only a fraction is actually obtainable from an enjoyable source. And the later you start, the more you are Punished and lag behind, so newer players or players who take a break can never catch up.
The key point is Cost Efficiency. You can never achieve 100% Balance so players are satisfied.
One Spec, and/or one Class is always better than the other.
This is why we arrived at "Simple" Talent System we have now. Only the minority will actually put any effort into the system to Figure out "What is good", the Majority of the players will either, pick what others say is Best, or Pick whatever looks fun/usefull short Term.
This ties again into the first major concern: The more Choice you put into PlayerPower, the larger the possible power between players is going to be.
And again, if you artifically close the Gap with Scaling, or have the individual Talents/Perks not matter as much: Why bother at all? It doesnt matter what to Choose.
This is what Blizzard calls: "The Illusion of Choice", if the game is Balanced around Cookie Cutter builds that are stronger than any other, you dont really have a choice. If you Balance it so that you can Specc anything you like, you might give the player Choice, but it doesnt matter anyway.
Flat out "Increase Damage of X" are the worst offenders for that.
You can Buff/Nerf abilities right now also. Abilities come and go, for different Reasons.
Interesting Abilities are not so easy to be Buffed/Nerfed. No matter what, the more Abilities you have, the more possible combinations there are.
Which in return increasingly Difficult to Balance.
Obviously the effects are different. But basically, its the same as Azerite Essences, you do stuff for "Tome X", and then you have 3-9 Slots to Socket it in.
I said, choices short term and long term that matter. Just because its an ever changing game it does not mean "Long Term" choices are not good.
Eg. Playing Warlock instead of Rogue.
Okay, so there are things that need further discussion. So I am glad that we can discuss the feasibility of the implementation including the scaling aspect. I am confident that this can be scaled appropriately, but this is an ever changing game like you said. This is for good reason, and I think it takes more than just me to lay down all the ground work that would make the scaling reasonably comfortable for everyone. I'm okay with zones not scaling but that also depends on how the scaling can be done.
So you are saying something that happens now will continue to happen regardless. I'll make a note of that.
Actually that isn't true. Also it's not a fair comparison. These things are suppose to be upgraded through the course of leveling and not be a system that is unlocked at max level as part of the end game.
The forced Grind is leveling from 1 to max. This adds some choices as to what you want progress upon before you reach max level, and those choices are meaningful, not a RNG based system.
Well this is a concept and shows its 900 achievement points to complete. If you don't agree with that currency or the amount, that's fine. I will continue to try to come up with a more suitable solution for everyone so people who take a break can catch up. However this system caps at 900 atm and I never implied that the cap would increase over time.
I definitely know this to be the case. At least in terms of end game, at lower levels that "best" class might not be as good as some of the "worst".
Your concern is warranted, as the concept itself does not implicitly describe how the choices do matter. Nor does it address the scaling issues you are worried about. I do not think we will get anywhere with discussing how we can implement scaling till other things are cleared up though, it also is a bit of a non sequitur. However since you did mention "The Illusion of Choice" I am curious as to what you would propose to solve the Illusion of Choice, and what you think is not an illusion of choice in wow when it comes to "PlayerPower".
On the Contrary, choices that you cannot or are not supposed to change, which directly influence your Power are Bad, because its Changing.
Thats the entire reason of the Class Whining thats going on.
People chose a Class, and that class gets Changed and is not anymore what they thought it was, and that is bad. The more Layers you put ontop of that, the worse it gets. Thats why people are so upset about Covenants.
This is the entire Point: If it happens anyway, why Bother with a System for that?
If you gain all the TalentPoints while Leveling up anyway, without any additional Grind. Why bother with a detached system anyway?
Either you force people to go out of the way and Grind these things, or you grant them by default. Doesnt matter if its intended for MaxLevel, or Leveling.
If you dont unlock everything at MaxLevel and you need to Choose stuff beforehand its even worse, because how the Fuck should someone who maybe levels for the first time know what he´s supposed to pick?
Choices are only "Good" if the player can make an Informed Choice, that isnt going to bite him in the ass in the end. And LongTerm Choices, in an Ever Changing game are almost 100% guranteed to bite someone in the ass.
As I said, if you put the Currency so low and easy to Aquire, you dont need to bother at all. You can just aswell Gra
Might´ve lost my own train of thought here.
I dont mean in Player perspective, but Development perspective.
Your entire convoluted system aims to give people the ability to click a few buttons more during leveling.
With a shit ton of Issues that would come up with it that needs balancing adjustments and thought forever. That costs a ton, for next to no valuable return. As the Leveling Process is the smallest part of the game.
I feel the way Talents are handled right now is relative good way.
I think "Potential" power should not be a Choice. In that regard, the player should never be forced or able to Choose between Utility or Power.
(Which is basically one of my Issues I have with Covenants, as the player is supposed to Choose between Power, Utility and Looks).
The only way to Eliminate the "Illusion of Choice" is to make every Choice as strong as the other. Or have a balanced amounts of "Pro and Cons" for each choice. (Which is insanely Difficult)
E.g.:
- Choose between a Dot and a Direct Damage Cast | Both would in the Perfect scenario do the same amount of Damage/DPS
There you have the Choice to Manage a Dot, or add a Cast to your Rotation.
- Choose between a Passive PowerUp, and an Additional Spell to fire.
If you only look at a few skills this is fairly easy to Balance, but the more Skills and Effects come into play, the harder it gets to have stuff come out relativly equal. And the further apart the overall Performance of Talents goes, the more the Choice becomes an Illusion.
Last edited by LanToaster; 2020-09-03 at 01:21 PM.
I understand your issues with Covenants. Though I heard they recently pulled back on how hard it is to switch between them so they are closer to how talents work right now. I don't know how you feel about that.
If you feel the way Talents are handled right now is in a relatively good way, I guess this would be a matter of opinion. If it is all relative. I think this idea I have is relatively good in the way that it solves issues I am concerned with.
I do understand your points of contention but I also feel that this makes the game better, not worse. I could reiterate my rebuttals towards it not being worse and all that jazz. Though I think you understand my perspective as well.
I do believe this idea does require more discussion, as I do want to improve upon the presentation and address the issues you and others have raised. These things take time to develop so I try to keep an open mind as to how I move forward or backwards with an idea like this. So I have to take time to mull everything over and see where to take it from here. As of right now I am still in the this is good camp, but have no doubt that your concerns are in the forefront of my mind.
Last edited by Klueade; 2020-09-03 at 01:49 PM.
I have worked as a game designer, and I think you are way off base here. This system is incredibly convoluted and inelegant. I don't see any advantages to this over just going back to the old talent trees. This has almost all of the drawbacks of the old system but no new benefits, and you've also jammed in the problems with the CURRENT system on top of that.
I understand what you think is "cool" about this, and I see what you are going for, but this is way way way too convoluted. You need to step back and ask yourself what you are trying to achieve here.
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The primary thing missing from your post is the following:
1. What are the problems you want to solve?
2. How does this solution solve them?
These are the first things you need to do before presenting any design concept.
"stop puting you idiotic liberal words into my mouth"
-ynnady