Dragonflight rant - Where did the production value go ?

[Darsyek]

What does your math say here?.

Ah, I'm so glad you asked! As you said, there were 32 artifacts, one for each spec, and each artifact had, on average, 23 total traits to "pick" from (in quotes because by the end of Legion, you had them all so you weren't really "picking"), for a total of 736 total traits. Including, of course, the 32 copies of Concordance that was the same for every class.

In BfA, each class had access to, on average, 300 pieces of Azerite armor (as per Wowhead's databse). 12 classes time 300 pieces is 3,600, but of course there were overlaps for armor types so let's divide that by 4. That's still 900 options. Each option at max rank (in 8.2) had 5 slots to choose from, despite the misleading picture you posted where you're comparing 7.2 Artifacts to 8.0 Azerite armor for added disingenuous bonus. 900 options x 5 slots to fill gives you, at minimum, oh... About 4,866,287,287,680 possible combinations. Just a casual 4.8 trillion possibilities. Now, of course, each class has it's "optimal" selection so realistically, the number is much smaller. But as you've established so many times, the issue of picking optimal solutions and grinding AP is not an issue for the majority of the playerbase, so they wouldn't be too concerned about being optimal and would just pick what's fun, right? Ah, but shucks, that doesn't even include the possible combinations of powers on the Heart of Azeroth itself... Darn, guess I'll just have to leave that up to your imagination.

This is a fact. I don't care if you like it or not. It's a fact, it's not an opinion.

[JustaRandomReindeer]

Ah, I'm so glad you asked! As you said, there were 32 artifacts, one for each spec, and each artifact had, on average, 23 total traits to "pick" from (in quotes because by the end of Legion, you had them all so you weren't really "picking"), for a total of 736 total traits. Including, of course, the 32 copies of Concordance that was the same for every class.

In BfA, each class had access to, on average, 300 pieces of Azerite armor (as per Wowhead's databse). 12 classes time 300 pieces is 3,600, but of course there were overlaps for armor types so let's divide that by 4. That's still 900 options. Each option at max rank (in 8.2) had 5 slots to choose from, despite the misleading picture you posted where you're comparing 7.2 Artifacts to 8.0 Azerite armor for added disingenuous bonus. 900 options x 5 slots to fill gives you, at minimum, oh... About 4,866,287,287,680 possible combinations. Just a casual 4.8 trillion possibilities. Now, of course, each class has it's "optimal" selection so realistically, the number is much smaller. But as you've established so many times, the issue of picking optimal solutions and grinding AP is not an issue for the majority of the playerbase, so they wouldn't be too concerned about being optimal and would just pick what's fun, right? Ah, but shucks, that doesn't even include the possible combinations of powers on the Heart of Azeroth itself... Darn, guess I'll just have to leave that up to your imagination.

Your math is wrong. First you are counting all classes as having different traits which is not the case, the class specific traits were like 10 per class. You are also counting Azerite armor pieces as having different traits which is once again not the case. But I am also curious why you didn't count all the different relic combinations for Legion artifacts? Was it convenient to leave all 1188 relics and all the different talent/relic combinations out?

[Darsyek]

Your math is wrong. First you are counting all classes as having different traits which is not the case, the class specific traits were like 10 per class. You are also counting Azerite armor pieces as having different traits which is once again not the case. But I am also curious why you didn't count all the different relic combinations for Legion artifacts? Was it convenient to leave all 1188 relics and all the different talent/relic combinations out?

I'm not the one that left out relics, my friend. You are. This conversation was about Artifact traits, not Artifact relics. And now that we've established that, you don't get to shift the goalposts when it's convenient for you. Even then, the relics did not add anything new, they simply added ranks to existing traits and increased item level, so completely irrelevant in this discussion.

You are also counting Azerite armor pieces as having different traits which is once again not the case.

I see you don't understand how combination possibility calculations work. That's the entire point of the Azerite armor, it gave you choices. It wasn't a set of points that you eventually filled out, and it's the combination that mattered more for classes than any individual single trait. So let's do an experiment. We'll cut the number of armor choices in thirds, since there are three slots. So 100 possible pieces of armor with 5 slots. That's still 75,287,520 possible combinations. Let's be generous and completely underestimate, let's pretend that you didn't even have all 5 slots filled out, maybe you only had 2. That's still 4,950 combinations, and still far exceeds any possible combination of Artifact powers you could've taken.

[JustaRandomReindeer]

I'm not the one that left out relics, my friend. You are. This conversation was about Artifact traits, not Artifact relics. And now that we've established that, you don't get to shift the goalposts when it's convenient for you. Even then, the relics did not add anything new, they simply added ranks to existing traits and increased item level, so completely irrelevant in this discussion.



I see you don't understand how combination possibility calculations work. That's the entire point of the Azerite armor, it gave you choices. It wasn't a set of points that you eventually filled out, and it's the combination that mattered more for classes than any individual single trait. So let's do an experiment. We'll cut the number of armor choices in thirds, since there are three slots. So 100 possible pieces of armor with 5 slots. That's still 75,287,520 possible combinations. Let's be generous and completely underestimate, let's pretend that you didn't even have all 5 slots filled out, maybe you only had 2. That's still 4,950 combinations, and still far exceeds any possible combination of Artifact powers you could've taken.

Then there is no reason to count all the different azerite trait combinations if you are not counting the different relic combinations. But anyways the rng of azerite pieces does not prove that Blizzard put more thought and work into developing this feature. They just slapped traits on armor and randomized it. So I haven't really counted the total amount of artifact traits but I will take your word for it. 23 traits on average per spec. That's 23 x 36 which is about 828 different artifact traits. I did count the total amount of Azerite traits however = 416. They had to come up with almost twice as many traits in Legion than they did in BfA. So I think it's pretty clear here which feature had more care and thought put into it.

[Flizzle]

This is much more entertaining than work right now.

There are merits to both sides of this argument/debate, but its derailed to semantics.
Is content better because there is a mechanic/content that "gives" more choice?

The original argument was that the quantity of said content has gone down. But its not just quantity that's in contention for people, its quality vs quantity and then a combination of the two.

I used to be able to spend way longer on wow and would be endlessly grinding but I cant do that anymore starting last year. I remember farming way more in Legion than I did in BFA if that adds any fuel to this fire.

Legion was a linear borrowed power path for the most part as it was all about getting as many traits and the optimal route for the first few weeks.
BFA was about getting the correct gear and then hoping you had enough AP to activate them by the time you got them, which was nearly always the case once the first few weeks had passed.

The similarities that were there that the vast majority of the playerbase will agree with is that; it doesnt matter after the first month has passed in each content patch.
After a while everyone had everything they wanted/needed. Same with Shadowlands.

The argument of 'where did the production value go' I agree, there is no hole that has been filled by the borrowed power mechanic, but I dont think its a bad thing. It was a cancer that didnt need to be filled.

Its way more liberating to be able to log on and not do wizard chores every night.

[Darsyek]

But anyways the rng of azerite pieces does not prove that Blizzard put more thought and work into developing this feature.

Oh dear, I see you've derailed yourself. You made the argument that the Legion Artifacts were better because they were, and I quote from you, "a more complex feature." I have demonstrated just how potentially complex the Azerite armor can be considering the thousands, millions, even trillions of possible outcomes, despite the fact that it has less individual, unique traits.

In case you've forgotten, your quote:

This right here
(Image of Azerite traits)

Did not have more work and thought put into it, and is not a more complex feature than this:

(Image of Artifact traits)

So I think it's pretty clear here which feature had more care and thought put into it.

Ah, the first honest thing you've said! You think it's pretty clear. Aren't semantics fun?

My point still stands. You have absolutely no fucking idea how much care and thought was actually put into either of these systems, all you are capable of doing is speculating. You ASSUME the Artifact system had more thought and care put into it simply because it has a greater number of traits, but you have no proof of that. You ASSUME the Azerite system was an inferior system, despite the fact that many Azerite traits were just as, if not more so, complex as traits present in Artifacts. As such, nothing you have yet to offer as "fact" can be posited as an objective fact.

[JustaRandomReindeer]

Oh dear, I see you've derailed yourself. You made the argument that the Legion Artifacts were better because they were, and I quote from you, "a more complex feature." I have demonstrated just how potentially complex the Azerite armor can be considering the thousands, millions, even trillions of possible outcomes, despite the fact that it has less individual, unique traits.

In case you've forgotten, your quote:




Ah, the first honest thing you've said! You think it's pretty clear. Aren't semantics fun?

My point still stands. You have absolutely no fucking idea how much care and thought was actually put into either of these systems, all you are capable of doing is speculating. You ASSUME the Artifact system had more thought and care put into it simply because it has a greater number of traits, but you have no proof of that. You ASSUME the Azerite system was an inferior system, despite the fact that many Azerite traits were just as, if not more so, complex as traits present in Artifacts. As such, nothing you have yet to offer as "fact" can be posited as an objective fact.

I mean, as I said, if you consider RNG to be complexity then you should take into account all the different relics and their combinations with artifact traits. And as I said coming up with twice as many different traits requires way more work and thought than simply slapping traits onto armor and randomizing them. We go back to the bread and butter and cheeseburger example. I don't have to assume anything, it's evident and it's simple logic. It's a fact. Blizzard got lazy with Azerite gear and it backfired on them. Towards the end of the expansion only like 20 different azerite traits were considered usable. You are denying reality at this point if you claim otherwise and I am not going to waste time explaining the same shit over and over again.

[Thirtyrock]

Okay I am not going to explain to you the difference between opinions and facts anymore. At this point you are just building strawmans and shilling for a multi-billion dollar company. i'm not interested.

Any time you say something is better than something else without agreeing on objective metrics, you're stating an opinion. You LIKE Legion better, but saying that artifacts were better than Heart of Azeroth is AN OPINION. It's like saying purple is objectively better than red. I might like purple better, but unless we agree on an objective measure, it's an opinion.

There is no objective measure we can appeal to to debate between artifacts and HoA. We don't have surveys, which would still just show opinion consensus. But better? There's nothing objective here. Some people liked one better, others like the other better. It's all opinion.

[Flizzle]

I mean, as I said, if you consider RNG to be complexity then you should take into account all the different relics and their combinations with artifact traits.

Am I missing the RNG element of this?
Legion Artifacts had no RNG, you grinded AP to spend on SET traits in a linear path. The only RNG was on certain things that could spawn AP or drop more of it. Relic drops were only RNG on when they dropped for you. Once obtained, the system itself still had no RNG, it was mathed out within an inch of its life because it was set in stone and an optimal build was there.

BFA Azerite armor had no RNG outside of dropping once again. The mechanic itself was set in stone, the armor had set traits and there were multiple pieces you could equip, but it always came down to, take 3/2/1 of X trait and so on. No RNG.

Shadowlands Covenants had no RNG. Set traits that you had drop. Once that was obtained, once again it was a case of plonk in the best ones for the situation and go brrrr.


All of these things have no RNG. I think RNG is being mistaken for volume of possible combinations.


In the grand scheme of things, none of them have any more choice than the other because it always comes down to reading a guide and taking the optimal route, the only people that have actual choice are people that dont care and just enjoy the game for what it is.


Also, just looking at the mechanical nature of the content is fine, but legion artifacts had the art to go with each weapon and all the different skins for the said weapons, thats a better argument than the number of possible outcomes of the power level.

Borrowed power through the ages:

Legion - weapon transmogs
BFA - armor transmogs (lots less variety than legion)
SL - ???

[Thirtyrock]

Dude, please go read my reply again and that merriam-webster definition. You can say you like bread and butter better than a cheeseburger. You can't say bread and butter has more ingredients or takes more effort to prepare. That's a fact. A fact. Not an opinion. Artifact weapons were way more complex and had a lot more thought and care put into them compared to the Heart of Azeroth. That's a fact. It's not an opinion. It's a fact.

But that's...not what you're doing...More complex and more thought still doesn't mean better. I'd argue that Azerite armor was more complex than Artifact weapons because there were actual options, as opposed to everyone with the same artifact having the same eventual abilities with the only difference being which order they unlocked them. Azerite had a TON more moving parts than artifacts.

But, let's grant that Artifacts took more time to prepare and were more complex. THAT STILL DOESN'T MAKE THEM OBJECTIVELY BETTER, just like your cheeseburger vs bread and butter analogy. All that would mean, if we could objectively say they took more time to prepare and were more complex (we can't objectively say either of those things because complexity itself is subjective and because we don't have receipts for the dev time) that one took more time to prepare...It wouldn't make it objectively better.

[Darsyek]

I mean, as I said, if you consider RNG to be complexity then you should take into account all the different relics and their combinations with artifact traits.

No, I shouldn't because that's irrelevant and off-topic. The topic, the one you started, was about traits, not external things that modified said traits. Moving on.

And as I said coming up with twice as many different traits requires way more work and thought than simply slapping traits onto armor and randomizing them.

Quantity does not equate to quality. A majority of the traits on Artifacts were incredibly simplistic, much akin to early talents. Let me use Blood DK's traits as an example, as that's actually one of the classes I mained back in Legion so I feel quite confident discussing it. Several of these are just stat increases, such as Grim Perseverance; Increase your Parry chance by 1-4%, Dance of Darkness; Increase the duration of Dancing Rune Weapon by 2-8 seconds, Meat Shield; Increases your stamina by 1-4%. 11 of the 23 traits on Blood DK's Artifact were simple stat increases or damage increases with no additional bonuses or effects. 3 traits added a simple extra effect to core abilities, such as Vampiric Fangs causing Vampiric Blood to additionally increase your max health by 10-40% and increase healing and shields by the same, or Mouth of Hell that caused your Dancing Rune Weapon to summon a second copy, or Blood Feast that made Heart Strike also heal for 25% of the damage it dealt. These are hardly inspired, masterworks of design here. These are incredibly simplistic at their core. Even the major traits were sometimes quite underwhelming. Skeletal Shattering; Bone Shield absorb just gives you an extra chance to absorb a bit more, Souldrinker; Overhealing by Death Strike gives you an overshield, up to 30% max HP. These are powerful effects in combination, but they hardly take a master class in game design to come up with.

If you want to argue that complexity=quality, then clearly Azerite traits must be superior in your mind considering that although there's not as many, the class traits are far more complex and often offer multiple bonuses. Take Bloody Runeblade for example; when Crimson Scourge activates, you gain Haste for 5 seconds and immediately gain runic power. Bones of the Damned; Marrowrend has a chance to grant an extra charge of Bone Shield, Bone Shield increases your armor. Eternal Rune Weapon; Dancing Rune Weapon grants you Strength, and each rune spent increases its duration by 0.5 sec, up to a maximum of 5 seconds. Sure, Azerite traits still that their boring ones, like Heart of Darkness; Your secondary stats are all increased by X. Blood Siphon; Increases Mastery and Leech. A large number of Azerite traits, even minor ones, have multiple effects, some completely new, some with new animations and art assets, like Dagger in the Back that has an animation of a dagger being thrown.

But that's still all an aside, a meaningless ramble of text you probably won't even fully read, and my point still stands just like it had before; You still have no idea how much effort went into either system. You have no foot to stand on to claim that what you're saying is objective truth, an unequivocal fact. You lack the perspective of actually being in the room with the developers to watch them work. We all do. The only people on this planet, the only people, that know how much time, effort, and work went into making these systems are the people that made these systems.

[Puupi]

Players already have that rush rush mentality in normal dungeons, I can't even look at the dungeons themselves in my first runs if I don't want to be behind the group.

Because your first runs are not their first runs.

[Thirtyrock]

I mean, as I said, if you consider RNG to be complexity then you should take into account all the different relics and their combinations with artifact traits. And as I said coming up with twice as many different traits requires way more work and thought than simply slapping traits onto armor and randomizing them. We go back to the bread and butter and cheeseburger example. I don't have to assume anything, it's evident and it's simple logic. It's a fact. Blizzard got lazy with Azerite gear and it backfired on them. Towards the end of the expansion only like 20 different azerite traits were considered usable. You are denying reality at this point if you claim otherwise and I am not going to waste time explaining the same shit over and over again.

The complexity is in the possible combinations, not in how you acquire the gear. The modeling that had to be done to math out the best combination of Azerite traits was WAY more involved than that of Azerite traits because...there were far, far, far more combinations, as evidenced by Darsyek's math.

each individual PIECE of Azerite gear was less complex than each individual artifact, having fewer options overall...but even that's a subjective measurement. We eventually unlocked all artifacts traits but could only ever choose from a selection of choices on each azerite gear, meaning we still had to make decisions in a way that we did not with artifacts...So, what is more complex, the system where you make a choice between a small set of abilities or a system where you get all the abilities eventually? That is, once again, a matter of opinion.

[Flizzle]

The complexity is in the possible combinations, not in how you acquire the gear. The modeling that had to be done to math out the best combination of Azerite traits was WAY more involved than that of Azerite traits because...there were far, far, far more combinations, as evidenced by Darsyek's math.

each individual PIECE of Azerite gear was less complex than each individual artifact, having fewer options overall...but even that's a subjective measurement. We eventually unlocked all artifacts traits but could only ever choose from a selection of choices on each azerite gear, meaning we still had to make decisions in a way that we did not with artifacts...So, what is more complex, the system where you make a choice between a small set of abilities or a system where you get all the abilities eventually? That is, once again, a matter of opinion.

The real test should be the relics vs azerite power/gear vs soulbinds right?

The artifact tree is unchangeable so it shouldn't be compared to something that is malleable.

I would presume (my opinion not a fact! ) that artifact power has the wider array to pull from over the course of the expansion.
Soulbinds would come in second? 3 per covenant and 4 covenants, then multiply the average traits each class/spec has onto that?
Legions relics.. each spec could use 3 of them and even then they were set types (blood/fire and so on).

Dragonflight has the new? talent system with a bunch of choice. It just took away the old talent system and increased it. But did it? Most of the talents are actually borrowed from the previous 3 and just thrown into one system.

The only difference now is the models and art that get carried forwards and can be farmed from those expansions.

[Thirtyrock]

The real test should be the relics vs azerite power/gear vs soulbinds right?

The artifact tree is unchangeable so it shouldn't be compared to something that is malleable.

I would presume (my opinion not a fact! ) that artifact power has the wider array to pull from over the course of the expansion.
Soulbinds would come in second? 3 per covenant and 4 covenants, then multiply the average traits each class/spec has onto that?
Legions relics.. each spec could use 3 of them and even then they were set types (blood/fire and so on).

Dragonflight has the new? talent system with a bunch of choice. It just took away the old talent system and increased it. But did it? Most of the talents are actually borrowed from the previous 3 and just thrown into one system.

The only difference now is the models and art that get carried forwards and can be farmed from those expansions.

I don't even think that's a helpful comparison, but we're just trying to show this dude that 1) he's wrong about objective complexity and 2) his opinions are opinions.

The reality is, these systems were all significantly different and their complexity can't truly be objectively measured very well. We don't have access to dev time logs, so we can't know which systems had more "care and thought" put into them. All we can say is 1) they were borrowed power systems and 2) Blizzard moved away from borrowed power after listening to player feedback. Which one is better or more complex or took more time/care/thought is either speculative or based on opinions.

That's the same thing with the talents. Our new talent tree is, I would argue, more complex than the old talent tree, for any number of reasons. Is it better? I think so. I LOVE the new trees, they provide so many options and combinations...But other people think it was wasted dev time.

[JustaRandomReindeer]

All of these things have no RNG. I think RNG is being mistaken for volume of possible combinations.

Yeah, that's what I meant.

In the grand scheme of things, none of them have any more choice than the other because it always comes down to reading a guide and taking the optimal route, the only people that have actual choice are people that dont care and just enjoy the game for what it is.

That is true.

Also, just looking at the mechanical nature of the content is fine, but legion artifacts had the art to go with each weapon and all the different skins for the said weapons, thats a better argument than the number of possible outcomes of the power level.

Borrowed power through the ages:

Legion - weapon transmogs
BFA - armor transmogs (lots less variety than legion)
SL - ???

That is also true. Azerite armor did not even have its own distinct appearance. It was just normal armor with traits on it. Artifcats appearances were a much better feature in that regard.

But that's still all an aside, a meaningless ramble of text you probably won't even fully read, and my point still stands just like it had before; You still have no idea how much effort went into either system. You have no foot to stand on to claim that what you're saying is objective truth, an unequivocal fact. You lack the perspective of actually being in the room with the developers to watch them work. We all do. The only people on this planet, the only people, that know how much time, effort, and work went into making these systems are the people that made these systems.

Yes, and only the person who made the cheeseburger knows if it has more ingredients or takes more effort to make than a buttered toast. But I am not interested in discussing this further.

[Darsyek]

I would presume (my opinion not a fact! ) that artifact power has the wider array to pull from over the course of the expansion.

It's actually surprisingly fewer than you'd imagine. Using Blood DK as an example again and factoring in only the relics that would be worth using at max level (i.e. not level 100-109 relics), there's actually only about 110 total relics (30 Shadow, 51 Blood, and 29 Iron) to use in combination, or approximately 215,820 possible combinations. That's also not taking into account the many relics that give the same traits since, in fairness, I didn't omit duplicate traits when doing my calculations for Azerite armor (though, also in fairness, you can actually select duplicate traits with Azerite armor, you can't choose to pick two Iron relics if you don't have two Iron relic slots), so I wanted the comparison as fair as possible. There is, of course, some level of variance for other classes and specs as not every Artifact has exactly 110 (and some even have duplicate relic slots, like two Iron relics for example), but "around 200k" possibilities is probably a fairly good estimate for most, again bearing in mind the trait duplication.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, that's what I meant.



That is true.



That is also true. Azerite armor did not even have its own distinct appearance. It was just normal armor with traits on it. Artifcats appearances were a much better feature in that regard.



Yes, and only the person who made the cheeseburger knows if it has more ingredients or takes more effort to make than a buttered toast. But I am not interested in discussing this further.

Ah, convenient to only cherry-pick the statements that agree with you while ignoring the ones that counter. Somehow, I expected nothing less. Since you're too stubborn to admit that you aren't the omni-potent main character of the universe and as such can't possibly assert your biases and opinions as objective fact, it is definitely you that's not interested in discussing it further, yes, certainly it is all in your control as the main character.

[Flizzle]

I don't even think that's a helpful comparison, but we're just trying to show this dude that 1) he's wrong about objective complexity and 2) his opinions are opinions.

The reality is, these systems were all significantly different and their complexity can't truly be objectively measured very well. We don't have access to dev time logs, so we can't know which systems had more "care and thought" put into them. All we can say is 1) they were borrowed power systems and 2) Blizzard moved away from borrowed power after listening to player feedback. Which one is better or more complex or took more time/care/thought is either speculative or based on opinions.

That's the same thing with the talents. Our new talent tree is, I would argue, more complex than the old talent tree, for any number of reasons. Is it better? I think so. I LOVE the new trees, they provide so many options and combinations...But other people think it was wasted dev time.

I understand the debate above is about proving somebody doesnt understand facts vs opinion.
I moved passed that and started off with what the whole debate was actually trying to achieve rather than trying to teach the unteachable.

IF we had facts then it would be less of a debate, because how can you argue with a fact? You can argue with different facts as to which one would have validity to defend or push a statement further. As you said, we dont have facts because we arent blizzard devs.

Talent tree is great, agreed. Some of the choices are hard to make but some do feel wasted though!

[Thirtyrock]

I understand the debate above is about proving somebody doesnt understand facts vs opinion.
I moved passed that and started off with what the whole debate was actually trying to achieve rather than trying to teach the unteachable.

IF we had facts then it would be less of a debate, because how can you argue with a fact? You can argue with different facts as to which one would have validity to defend or push a statement further. As you said, we dont have facts because we arent blizzard devs.

Talent tree is great, agreed. Some of the choices are hard to make but some do feel wasted though!

haha, yeah, I think I'm done with him as well. Though I said that before.

I think the original argument, "Where did the production value go" actually amounts to "why don't I have more stuff I personally enjoy to do in game". And, as such, we start off with stating our opinions. There's a TON of stuff for me to do and I really value the time they spent on the UI, Dragonriding, and the talent system. The game is a blast so far and I have plenty to do. I definitely feel like I've gotten my money's worth SO FAR

[JustaRandomReindeer]

Ah, convenient to only cherry-pick the statements that agree with you while ignoring the ones that counter. Somehow, I expected nothing less. Since you're too stubborn to admit that you aren't the omni-potent main character of the universe and as such can't possibly assert your biases and opinions as objective fact, it is definitely you that's not interested in discussing it further, yes, certainly it is all in your control as the main character.

No, I am just tired of explaining the same thing over and over again. I proved to you that artifacts had more traits than azerite gear does. You turned it into an argument about RNG. We both know that coming up with 416 traits and then randomizing how they appear on armor does not mean more thought and work was put into it than into the feature that had 828 traits. And I give you the cheeseburger and buttered toast example again. Moving on.

I understand the debate above is about proving somebody doesnt understand facts vs opinion.
I moved passed that and started off with what the whole debate was actually trying to achieve rather than trying to teach the unteachable.

IF we had facts then it would be less of a debate, because how can you argue with a fact? You can argue with different facts as to which one would have validity to defend or push a statement further. As you said, we dont have facts because we arent blizzard devs.

Talent tree is great, agreed. Some of the choices are hard to make but some do feel wasted though!

That's not necessarily true. We knew the Earth is round before we built the first space rocket. You can look at the feature and you can tell by its quality that someone put a lot of effort into making it. And once again the buttered toast and cheeseburger example. I don't need to know how to make a cheeseburger nor do I need to ask the person who made it to know that it takes more time to prepare and has more ingredients than a buttered toast