The problem with Hero Specs.

[Amnaught]

It's that they're locking more class fantasy behind swappable player power. Dark rangers are fucking awesome, but there's inevitably going to be a M+ fight where you need to suck it up and swap to Sentinel even if you hate them and your character is undead.

You're inevitably going to have to choose between the fantasy you like and the optimal build for your spec. That's just definitevely less fun than being able to pick the fantasy you want. These should either have minimal gameplay effects, like racials, and be locked permanently as a fundamental part of your character like race and class.... or they should just be 100% cosmetic.

[Shaqthefat]

These should either have minimal gameplay effects, like racials, and be locked permanently as a fundamental part of your character like race and class.... or they should just be 100% cosmetic.

This sounds extremely boring

[Amnaught]

This sounds extremely boring

Why does this sound boring? Glyphs are dope. Class skins are dope.

Even just adding all the Dark Ranger talents but then an identical tree of "Sentinel" ones that use Sentinel flavored spell effects and talent names would be sick.

[Shaqthefat]

Why does this sound boring? Glyphs are dope. Class skins are dope.

Even just adding all the Dark Ranger talents but then an identical tree of "Sentinel" ones that use Sentinel flavored spell effects and talent names would be sick.

Gameplay should trump cosemtics and class fantasy. Having 3 hero spec trees be the exact same just a different skin is infinitely worse than what we have coming in war within.

[Amnaught]

Gameplay should trump cosemtics and class fantasy. Having 3 hero spec trees be the exact same just a different skin is infinitely worse than what we have coming in war within.

Not three identical spec trees, but three different spec trees with 3 different skins over the abilities each.

Gameplay does already trump class fantasy. That's why people chose Covenants based on what made their class the best, instead of which aesthetic matched their character. The point I'm getting at is that you could still have those gameplay choices without losing the fantasy choice. That they're locked together means that you CANT choose both. There's no benefit for that.

[Malkiah]

Gameplay should trump cosemtics and class fantasy. Having 3 hero spec trees be the exact same just a different skin is infinitely worse than what we have coming in war within.

would it though?

what we have coming in the war within is "another row on the talent trees, something for us to look up icy veins or subcreation and then never think of again"
who gives a single buttery fart about that?

i mean to be fair i also don't give a single buttery fart about cosmetics or class fantasy because i'm not 12, but the point is that hero talents are just more of the same bullshit being piled on top of the bullshit that is WoW's core fundamental design flaw, and it won't actually be any different than now.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

To me the issue is that the hero fantasy I want isn't available for the spec I play.

[Shaqthefat]

would it though?

what we have coming in the war within is "another row on the talent trees, something for us to look up icy veins or subcreation and then never think of again"
who gives a single buttery fart about that?

i mean to be fair i also don't give a single buttery fart about cosmetics or class fantasy because i'm not 12, but the point is that hero talents are just more of the same bullshit being piled on top of the bullshit that is WoW's core fundamental design flaw, and it won't actually be any different than now.

You get every talent in a hero tree. They exist to change the gameplay of a spec, they're not a set and forget type of talent tree.

- - - Updated - - -

Not three identical spec trees, but three different spec trees with 3 different skins over the abilities each.

Gameplay does already trump class fantasy. That's why people chose Covenants based on what made their class the best, instead of which aesthetic matched their character. The point I'm getting at is that you could still have those gameplay choices without losing the fantasy choice. That they're locked together means that you CANT choose both. There's no benefit for that.

I don't really see this working. A dark ranger does very different things than a sentinel. A dark ranger doing dark ranger things, but looking like a sentinel would just look really weird.

One hero tree being worse than another shouldn't stop the majority of people from playing that tree if they want to be that tree. It's not going to matter in the vast majority of content.

[Kisuke411]

would it though?

what we have coming in the war within is "another row on the talent trees, something for us to look up icy veins or subcreation and then never think of again"
who gives a single buttery fart about that?

i mean to be fair i also don't give a single buttery fart about cosmetics or class fantasy because i'm not 12, but the point is that hero talents are just more of the same bullshit being piled on top of the bullshit that is WoW's core fundamental design flaw, and it won't actually be any different than now.

If every talent tree addition to you is just another simcraft icy veins chore, then why bother?

No, I mean seriously. I doubt most of you even raid at mythic level or do 20+ on mythic keys. That is the only place where min maxing your character has ever mattered.

And if you actually do that content, congrats. Blizzard hates you, has always hated you, and will continue making systems that will make you want to rip your ears off. They don't like you, they don't like that you take a fantasy game and turn it into a spread sheet formula. That's why they will continue to release systems that infuriate players who feel the absolute need to "compete" at the higher tiers of content. They will keep releasing covenant-esque BS, they will drop another artifact or a relic, and they will even bring back a Legion-like legendary system again that has roll protection only via a work order crafted item.

All because it spites players that reduce the game to its raw most basic form. The design has been intentional since the MoP cloak grind and the WoD personal loot fiasco, so don't pretend that they aren't intentionally maligning competitive players by their game design: they are the ones who designed it.

[Sanguinerd]

One hero tree being worse than another shouldn't stop the majority of people from playing that tree if they want to be that tree. It's not going to matter in the vast majority of content.

In an ideal world yes, but we don't live in such a place.

People will pick whatever is best and if you happen to dislike whats best you'll have to decide between gimping yourself, your guild, your m+ team OR play the class fantasy you enjoy. Most people don't want to hold others back and will just pick whats best.

The same thing happened with covenants, Legion legendaries, the heart of azeroth and even corruptions if you were lucky enough to get the best ones.

Time will tell but this seems like another unnecessary system that'll just cause issues where there didnt need to be any.

Hell even the current "pick what you enjoy" talent system overhaul is a joke, people just look up whats best - there is no freedom of choice.

[Relapses]

In an ideal world yes, but we don't live in such a place.

People will pick whatever is best and if you happen to dislike whats best you'll have to decide between gimping yourself, your guild, your m+ team OR play the class fantasy you enjoy. Most people don't want to hold others back and will just pick whats best.

The same thing happened with covenants, Legion legendaries, the heart of azeroth and even corruptions if you were lucky enough to get the best ones.

Time will tell but this seems like another unnecessary system that'll just cause issues where there didnt need to be any.

Hell even the current "pick what you enjoy" talent system overhaul is a joke, people just look up whats best - there is no freedom of choice.

Here's a novel idea: Wait until we start seeing numbers for these talents before claiming that Blizzard has failed to balance something.

[Malkiah]

If every talent tree addition to you is just another simcraft icy veins chore, then why bother?

that's my point - that's WoW's core issue, that's the rot at the heart of the game that IMO is causing every other systemic issue year after year.

as for the rest of your post... i disagree with your supposition about intent.
to me, it's glaringly obvious that all of these things stem from the central problem of WoW as a game: that there is nothing post-level-cap to do for player power progression other than ilevel, and there is no content to engage with other than that which increases ilevel.

until the dev team as a whole has the collective realization that a persistent online MMO game needs methods of incremental character power progression that is NOT related to gear, and that there needs to be content worth doing that necessitates (or at least encourages) upgrading gear in order to tackle, then everything is simply fluff or it's simply spite, but there's just nowhere else to go.

[Relapses]

until the dev team as a whole has the collective realization that a persistent online MMO game needs methods of incremental character power progression that is NOT related to gear, and that there needs to be content worth doing that necessitates (or at least encourages) upgrading gear in order to tackle, then everything is simply fluff or it's simply spite, but there's just nowhere else to go.

You do know there are Legion private servers, right?

AP sucked dick. There's a reason it went away.

[Malkiah]

Here's a novel idea: Wait until we start seeing numbers for these talents before claiming that Blizzard has failed to balance something.

two things there:
1. when have multiple choices ever been balanced? do we even need to pretend that's possible?
2. does the tuning even matter when the entire premise of sanguinerd's post is completely baseless and stupid?

"People will pick whatever is best and if you happen to dislike whats best you'll have to decide between gimping yourself, your guild, your m+ team OR play the class fantasy you enjoy"

pro tip: this has never been the case in the history of WoW.
people on this forum think it's been the case, but it hasn't been.
you having a 1-5% variance from a single damage source to your overall dps... or fuck, you personally having a 1-5% variance on your overall dps... makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to you, or your guild, or your team.

there has never once in the history of the universe been an instance where you personally doing 230,857 less damage than you could have if you'd used another talent made it so your guild never cleared a raid on heroic.
there have been ZERO instances in the real physical world that an insignificant variance in the numerical output of any poster on this forum's individual contribution to a group effort made any tangible difference to the success or failure of that effort.

there are maybe 50 or 60 people alive on the planet earth for whom absolute balls-deep min-max theorycrafting actually matters, and those are the people who are literally paid to be the first people in the world to beat a raid.
unless you're one of those people, shut the hell up because the difference in your numbers due to talents/legendaries/AP/whatever only matter in your deluded worship of the color of your parse on warcraftlogs.

- - - Updated - - -

You do know there are Legion private servers, right?

AP sucked dick. There's a reason it went away.

you do know that AP is not synonymous with incremental character power progression that is not tied to ilevel, right?
AP was certainly a form that kind of process can take, it's one of hundreds of ways you can implement something like that, but it's not the only way.

also, AP was fine. the reason it went away is humans are by and large literally, physically, retarded.

[Relapses]

two things there:
1. when have multiple choices ever been balanced? do we even need to pretend that's possible?
2. does the tuning even matter when the entire premise of sanguinerd's post is completely baseless and stupid?

"People will pick whatever is best and if you happen to dislike whats best you'll have to decide between gimping yourself, your guild, your m+ team OR play the class fantasy you enjoy"

pro tip: this has never been the case in the history of WoW.
people on this forum think it's been the case, but it hasn't been.
you having a 1-5% variance from a single damage source to your overall dps... or fuck, you personally having a 1-5% variance on your overall dps... makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to you, or your guild, or your team.

there has never once in the history of the universe been an instance where you personally doing 230,857 less damage than you could have if you'd used another talent made it so your guild never cleared a raid on heroic.
there have been ZERO instances in the real physical world that an insignificant variance in the numerical output of any poster on this forum's individual contribution to a group effort made any tangible difference to the success or failure of that effort.

there are maybe 50 or 60 people alive on the planet earth for whom absolute balls-deep min-max theorycrafting actually matters, and those are the people who are literally paid to be the first people in the world to beat a raid.
unless you're one of those people, shut the hell up because the difference in your numbers due to talents/legendaries/AP/whatever only matter in your deluded worship of the color of your parse on warcraftlogs.

Are you even playing right now? I play a lot of different classes/specs and for each one of them there are multiple viable specs to play. There may be a theoretical best in most situations but the options are nice. These new talents seem like a natural progression of this system and if Blizzard wasn't trying to marry some Class fantasy elements into them and released the same talents as an additional row on the existing talents I wager a lot of people who seem convinced these are Covenants 2.0 would shut up instantly.

[Shaqthefat]

In an ideal world yes, but we don't live in such a place.

People will pick whatever is best and if you happen to dislike whats best you'll have to decide between gimping yourself, your guild, your m+ team OR play the class fantasy you enjoy. Most people don't want to hold others back and will just pick whats best.

The same thing happened with covenants, Legion legendaries, the heart of azeroth and even corruptions if you were lucky enough to get the best ones.

Time will tell but this seems like another unnecessary system that'll just cause issues where there didnt need to be any.

Hell even the current "pick what you enjoy" talent system overhaul is a joke, people just look up whats best - there is no freedom of choice.

That isn't a problem with the trees that's a problem with people actively choosing to play the optimal talent set ups. Every season people get KSH and AOTC playing bad specs or awkward talent builds. Playing optimally is sometimes going to just mean you don't get to play your "class fantasy". That exists in every game, this isn't unique to WoW or even just MMOs.

[Relapses]

you do know that AP is not synonymous with incremental character power progression that is not tied to ilevel, right?
AP was certainly a form that kind of process can take, it's one of hundreds of ways you can implement something like that, but it's not the only way.

also, AP was fine. the reason it went away is humans are by and large literally, physically, retarded.

Yes, AP was fine and the only reason it was removed is because the people who had problems with it were retarded. What a fair and balanced take.

[Kiwifarms]

Yes, AP was fine and the only reason it was removed is because the people who had problems with it were retarded. What a fair and balanced take.

It feels bizarre to imagine there are people still saying any version of AP was good... even in its least effective form it rewarded no lifing low skill play and punished new and returning players.

[Al Gorefiend]

They shouldn't be so tied to racial fantasy is the problem here. Them being unique and flavorful isn't.

Whys my big ass Orc Blood Death Knight got to be a sparklegoth that last got lore in Icecrown Citadel. San'layn? And there is already a priest talent called San'layn. Just use Venthyr, same idea presented more recently.

Like San'layn, that isn't even a word, it's a fantasy elf word. "I'm a Oracle" "I'm a Sentinel" "I'm a San'layn" that sounds so bizarre.

[WowIsDead64]

As altoholic, I just don't have time to dive deep into any "systems", so I personally don't care about them. My personal opinion - I wouldn't touch any systems. They're ok, as they're now. It's just waste of resources. And it causes constant problems. First Blizzard implement good class mechanics, then they bloat them, then they prune them, then bloat again, etc. But unfortunately they need some sort of "borrowed mechanics" to sell their boxes to players. They also need to shake class mechanics, so simcrafters and guidewriters wouldn't sit without work.

It's pure design problem. That's, what happens, when you have talent trees, you have to add +10 levels, that means +10 talent points, because you want to keep sense of progression, but you don't want players to have choice, so you add some mandatory Hero, Epic, Legendary, etc. talents.