A better way to think about Casual v Hardcore: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...asual-Hardcore
Instead of interrupt being on the talent tree, make it baseline and instead replace it in the tree with a passive that rewards you for doing so with a stat boost or ability proc
Interrupt is the first point in the class tree, you always have to pick it if you want to spend points deeper than the first row. You literally get it at lvl 10 by spending your first class point... How can people not get that.
The problem is that you’ve got so much stuff interconnected with systems on top of systems, you need a Venn diagram to understand it all. Even after playing this expansion from the beginning I was so lost getting into 9.1 and 9.2 with all the new currencies, legendary materials, etc. It’s just all an artificial grind something that previous expansions didn’t really have to this extent. This has been WoW at its worst. People bitch and moan about Legion legendary grind but at least you were only grinding artifact power and unlocking weapon skins along the way. Right now you’ve got Stygia, soul cinders, flux, soul ash, covenant stuff, soul binds, conduits and so many other things just to make it to a raid. That leads to burn out. Top guilds usually have multiple alts to learn the fights and having to do this entire grind on every one of their alts leads to guild break ups. Casuals get burnt out as well cause they are forced to log in daily.
It's second tier in DK not first, and it's not mandatory to advance. It's fairly deep into Druid.
And this isn't just about interrupt. It is just the most egregious example of a core utility being lost as baseline, which is why it is being focused on. Dispels, soothe, CC, and other important utility is also moved to the trees and some of those will be harder to pick up and require sacrifice.
Besides, that, even if what you said was true, that is a more compelling argument for keeping something baseline than again it! If everyone takes a particular ability, either because it's so critical or because the tree forces them too, then putting it in a talent tree is stupid and a waste of points. Being too important to be optional is the exact reason why we have baseline abilities to begin with.
The whole reason people wanted more talents is so people could have more flexibility to tailor their builds around particular contexts and playstyles, so having to spend a good chunk of your points just to recover the stuff you already have is not only silly design but also runs counter to this goal. It would make way more sense, be better for group dynamics, and be more interesting if -- for example -- instead of being forced to spend a point to get your dispel back, you instead could make a choice to get a short buff whenever you dispelled, or maybe opt to spend that point in something else you felt was more exciting for your playstyle or on fights where you don't dispel as often.
A better way to think about Casual v Hardcore: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...asual-Hardcore
I don't think this is an attempt by Blizzard to make WoW more enjoyable to level. This is Blizzard devs seeing shit like PoE's sphere grid being widely accepted and them thinking that they can kill two birds with one stone: Make the game less dependent on borrowed power while still giving players more perceived choice than they do currently.
Frankly, it's a bit of a moot point because most people will end up playing cookie cutter builds; but like I said earlier I'm all for this wild ride.
Maybe. But that was one of their stated goals and it's the only way I can see why you'd have to unlock so many abilities otherwise. It basically simulates the old "level, hit a trainer" model without literally doing that. At at max level, you just have your stuff.
It could be all of this at once though, basically an attempt to throw a bone to as many groups as possible.
I'll hold out judgment until we have a talent calc where we can actually put in points. But people here are right to be skeptical; unless this another major change in how they do things, stuff rarely changes from when we see it to when it launches (since BFA at least)
A better way to think about Casual v Hardcore: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...asual-Hardcore
I'd argue that they just want to put all passive character progression systems into one new system. Essentially what used to be our level up rewards is now talents that we need to learn via a talent tree. Once upon a time in other games this was also an okay approach, in the context of WoW in 2022 is just feels cynical though. Essentially their stated design goal here is to pad the talent system with baseline abilities.
It's just uneccessary, because the new system doesn't really add much at all. We'd have expected some covenant and other borred powers to replace a few dead talents anyway, that has always happened. As others have stated, a new talent row of the current system would have probably been more exciting, than spending half my talent budget buying back my baseline I currently have at 60 without talents.
You are welcome, Metzen. I hope you won't fuck up my underground expansion idea.
A better way to think about Casual v Hardcore: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...asual-Hardcore
When I first heard they were going to change the talent trees to be more like the old ones, I made a bet with my friends: "I bet they'll just prune the crap out of classes and given them back abilities they have baseline if they choose a talent... and chances are you'll be less powerful baseline than you are in Shadowlands by the time Dragonflight comes out." From the looks of the talent trees thus far, it looks like I'm going to be correct... which is unfortunate.
If there's a point to be had, it's this: Blizz has never completely nailed their design intents for talent trees, and they tend to toss out their successes in order to have change for the sake of change. The current talent system could work (and has in the past for some classes/specs) to where there are many personal preference options and talents that actually change gameplay, but I think Blizz is their own worst enemy in this regard. Their proposed plans for Dragonflight so far look like they're going to piss off a lot of people if they keep the same trajectory, leaving classes/specs feeling like former shells of themselves like most people did at the start of BfA.
*edit* - If I had a choice of a system that I'd bring back in stead of the old talent trees, it'd be glyphs. The system had so much potential, but Blizz abandoned it like so many other systems... although you could say the shell of the system is the conduit system of Shadowlands (same with the artifact relic system in Legion). If anything, allowing way more cosmetic tweaking of spells/abilities would probably be more widely accepted and praised than what this talent system would do... let alone if you could tweak your spells to your liking beyond cosmetics. Your spells and abilities just looking different can be enough to help people feel different from someone of the same class/spec who may have the exact same talent build.
Last edited by exochaft; 2022-06-05 at 07:09 AM.
“Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.”
“It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville
Ah yes, the "in-progress" defense that people use when Blizzard decides on a shit design during Alpha and continues using it all the way to live. Covenants being one of the most recent examples of this shit, but hardly the first or last. They do this with everything, from classes to systems. They pick a shitty design, players tell them how it is shit and how to fix it, and then players get to suffer through said shit for 6+ months before Blizzard actually acknowledges the feedback and makes any changes.
It is shit right now, Blizzard has a tendency to fixate on their design without any regard for the actual feedback when it is in the testing phase. This doesn't inspire any confidence that it will be less shit on live, because that isn't the pattern with Blizzard.
Honestly it feels like it's aimed at new players, leveling alts, and experimenting in more casual content (Including non-serious PVP). The end-game systems may suffer some, but that's exactly what it seems Blizzard is focusing on: More casual things. And it's readily apparent too, with the 9.2.5 changes to include LFR progression, and the direct intention of making Dragonflight a more 'exploration based' expansion, ala playing an MMORPG for the first time.
I'm not saying they are succeeding, but to me, it's pretty obvious what they're aiming for. The question is how much will they let the end-game suffer for their casual userbase?
it matters in every content.
do you know the reason why some people consider content X or Y trivial even though they are lazy and cba like in your example ? because other 4/19 people pick up their slack and boost them
content becomes trivial only if there is at least 4/19 people who know all mechanics and do them
do you know why 10-14 is literaly hell on earth now in m+ ? because there are hundreds of people who got boosted for valor in low keys , are around 1k score and expect to be boosted all the way to 15 just because they happen to have key . or people boost other people using random pugs. and uddenly what is supposed to be "Trivial " becomes hard and requires you to do mechanics like in +20 .
I don't wan't a perfectly balanced game, no one should.
I'm in favor of this change for 2 reasons
1. leveling will be a bit more enjoyable
2. Shadow Priests might become no horrible to play anymore in DF