The talent trees are a total mess.

[Elodeon]

But apparently I'm one of the few players that liked MoP talents better. Because I can't calculate in my head what effect "Ability A has a 15% chance to proc effect X" has on my DPS.

Gawd, yes. All this "depth" talent shit is burdensome garbage. It requires either (a) each player does a PhD-level analysis, or (b) you wait until someone else does the PhD analysis and follow what they did.

Effectively, this means the "depth" is for 0.0001% of the player base, and everyone else just copies. If there's no one to do the PhD analysis for a particular spec, the spec is dead. If there is an analysis, but it is bad, the spec is dead.

I imagine it also makes it 10x more complex for developers to balance specs.

[Tyris Flare]

Some talent swaps make basically no difference. Others can absolutely cripple a spec. Weird to talk about them all in blanket terms.

[Palapop]

Apparently you have never been accused of getting your account on ebay for not doing enough dps is a LFG by an entitled prick.

You do not "need" anything in this game, but when you join group they expect you to do well enough in their eyes.

But if he didnt do the very same thing for many expansions, why would he do it now?
He suddenly cares?

This is only true for single-player games.

In games where you're playing with other people who put their own time on the line for you, there's a responsibility to respect that time and do well. If you just want to play whatever the fuck you want without a care in the world, do it without other people - you don't get to just put your preferences above their time.

Depends what level of gameplay were talking about here.

[SpaceMistakes]

Why have pure throughput options like "get 3% haste" when 100% of raiders are going to pick them up anyway and 95% of PVPers too; why have those convoluted with optional defenses making it hard to read; why have those in turn further convoluted with different paths of spell utility like single target vs AOE making it further harder to read.

Here's what you'll do if you don't want your game to be a total unreadable and unusable mess:

1) Get away with "options" like obvious throughput like "get 3% haste" that 100% of raiders are going to get anyway and give those passively

2) Make a separate tree for pure defensive capabilities that depend on the encounter and the PvP type

3) Make a different tree to that for utility like separating single target and AOE talents

PS Sometimes I believe the designers are stupid and don't get that giving the delusion of option is too obvious and people don't buy it, but maybe there's a chance some people like the extra unnecessary work of deciphering obvious options they would get anyway and they want the delusion of choice.

Yep, they're stupid alright. They're so stupid that they created and maintain the top MMORPG of all time, a game that has it hooks in people's brains so deep that even the people who 'hate' it can't stop talking about, won't stop playing it.

As evidenced daily, if not hourly, by this very website.

Yep, they're definitely stupid.

[NineSpine]

Yep, they're stupid alright. They're so stupid that they created and maintain the top MMORPG of all time, a game that has it hooks in people's brains so deep that even the people who 'hate' it can't stop talking about, won't stop playing it.

As evidenced daily, if not hourly, by this very website.

Yep, they're definitely stupid.

The people that created the top MMORPG of all time are long gone.

[JustaWarlock]

Yep, they're stupid alright. They're so stupid that they created and maintain the top MMORPG of all time

Lol, all of the people that made WOW successful have left. You can tell the current team lack ability purely by the fact the only content they can come up with is recycling all of the old devs work and calling it new content. If it isn't a copy/paste recycle of something of the past dev team they struggle.

Talent is long gone. Game barely resembles an RPG anymore.

[Ghostile]

Lol, all of the people that made WOW successful have left. You can tell the current team lack ability purely by the fact the only content they can come up with is recycling all of the old devs work and calling it new content. If it isn't a copy/paste recycle of something of the past dev team they struggle.

Talent is long gone. Game barely resembles an RPG anymore.

But somehow the current zero talent crew manages to run a game more popular than the second biggest mmo on the market by a large margin.
That sure is a take.

[NineSpine]

But somehow the current zero talent crew manages to run a game more popular than the second biggest mmo on the market by a large margin.
That sure is a take.

OSRS has almost 200,000 people concurrently online right now. How many people are currently logged into retail wow? Surely you know, since you are talking with such authority.

Also, hundreds of millions of people play candy crush every month. According to you, this makes it the greatest video game ever made. Right? Or is it the case that cheap predatory cash grabs can get lots of engagement?

[Ghostile]

OSRS has almost 200,000 people concurrently online right now. How many people are currently logged into retail wow? Surely you know, since you are talking with such authority.

Also, hundreds of millions of people play candy crush every month. According to you, this makes it the greatest video game ever made. Right? Or is it the case that cheap predatory cash grabs can get lots of engagement?

You probably shouldnt make hating blizzard that big part of your personality, lol.

[Biomega]

Depends what level of gameplay were talking about here.

It actually doesn't.

However, what changes with level of gameplay is how much people care. They'll let you get away with all kinds of shit in throwaway content that doesn't matter when they wouldn't do so in content of actual relevance - but that doesn't change the underlying principle. Just because people sometimes let you waste their time doesn't mean you can assume it's okay to do so.

[RobertMugabe]

I like the current design ngl. It's not perfect, but it offers some flavour and some different builds/choices even if a lot of it is mandatory. I dunno, it just feels right even if it has obvious issues and is unnecessarily convoluted.

You do actually have a few good points and that's basically the reason why Blizzard changed the system in MoP, but we all know that this system wasn't well received. Just because something makes more sense on paper, it doesn't mean that people will actually like it more.

Personally, I didn't mind the MoP system though. For all I care they could also just remove talents completely and only offer Hero Talents or smthn. I think the game is complex enough with this many classes and each one having at least 3 specs. Many other MMOs like FFXIV do well without it.

[SpaceMistakes]

Lol, all of the people that made WOW successful have left. You can tell the current team lack ability purely by the fact the only content they can come up with is recycling all of the old devs work and calling it new content. If it isn't a copy/paste recycle of something of the past dev team they struggle.

Talent is long gone. Game barely resembles an RPG anymore.

Metzen's still there, Ion's still there (and he's been GD through some of the most successful expansions, no matter what your opinion of him is). Many other people that have been with Blizz a decade or longer, but just don't have their names out there because they aren't 'Cosby room' types, are still there.

So you are objectively wrong. And even if you weren't wrong (which you are), the game is still the top MMORPG.

Your opinion of whether or not it is still an RPG is irrelevant, you're still here talking about it and you're still in game playing it.

[Ereb]

You probably shouldnt make hating blizzard that big part of your personality, lol.

A wee bit late for that advice, don't ya think?

[NineSpine]

You probably shouldnt make hating blizzard that big part of your personality, lol.

You probably shouldn’t make blind worship of Blizzard that big a part of your personality.

Do you have those numbers or do you not?

- - - Updated - - -

A wee bit late for that advice, don't ya think?

It’s never too late for Ghostile to make up some bullshit, get called out on it, and then resort to insults to deflect.

[Ghostile]

You probably shouldn’t make blind worship of Blizzard that big a part of your personality.

It's fascinating how you think anything short of crying and screaming about blizzard is blind worship.
Imagine starting to shit and piss everywhere instead of posting an actual argument when someone didn't use a scale, which is basically irrelevant to the convo, which you agree with.
Jesus christ.
My condolences.

[NineSpine]

It's fascinating how you think anything short of crying and screaming about blizzard is blind worship.
Imagine starting to shit and piss everywhere instead of posting an actual argument when someone didn't use a scale, which is basically irrelevant to the convo, which you agree with.
Jesus christ.
My condolences.

You brought up the scale. Can you back it up, or are you just going to keep freaking out?

[Ghostile]

You brought up the scale. Can you back it up, or are you just going to keep freaking out?

Are you going to post an argument against how wow is a massive MMO compared to its peers despite apparent zero talent devs, or shut the fuck up and let the adults talk?

[NineSpine]

Are you going to post an argument against how wow is a massive MMO compared to its peers despite apparent zero talent devs, or shut the fuck up and let the adults talk?

It’s very simple:


1. There is no evidence that retail is as wildly popular as you claim. That’s why when asked for evidence you started crashing out.


2. Lots of popular things are garbage so it’s a moot point anyway. Do you think candy crush is the greatest video game ever made, made by the most insightful game designers in history?

[Ghostile]

It’s very simple:
1. There is no evidence that retail is as wildly popular as you claim. That’s why when asked for evidence to started crashing out.

TWW S3 first week saw over 4 million m+ runs. And S3 is always the dead season.
There are over a thousand guilds at 8/8 mythic, and we all know the small fraction of the community raids on this level.

2. Lots of popular things are garbage so it’s a moot point anyway. Do you think candy crush is the greatest video game ever made, made by the most insightful game designers in history?

So everything you don't like but is popular is garbage, because why use the statistics when we can ask someone whos made hating blizzard part of their personality, right?

we will just get more crash out.

No, take a deep breath, dry the tears and just don't crash out.

[prwraith]

Honestly the MoP era talent trees were by far my favorite. No useless +5% something nodes.

Just 3 abilities per row, pick the one you want, profit. It doesn't need to be that complicated. Especially when the complicated is just the illusion of choice anyway.

- - - Updated - - -

I like the current design ngl. It's not perfect, but it offers some flavour and some different builds/choices even if a lot of it is mandatory. I dunno, it just feels right even if it has obvious issues and is unnecessarily convoluted.

You do actually have a few good points and that's basically the reason why Blizzard changed the system in MoP, but we all know that this system wasn't well received. Just because something makes more sense on paper, it doesn't mean that people will actually like it more.

Personally, I didn't mind the MoP system though. For all I care they could also just remove talents completely and only offer Hero Talents or smthn. I think the game is complex enough with this many classes and each one having at least 3 specs. Many other MMOs like FFXIV do well without it.

MoP system wasn't well received because people like illusions. What currently exists is no better or worse in actual value. But markedly worse from a design perspective because it's the same thing with more useless clicks.

Really though, the current talent trees are similar to the issue that everquest experienced on a much larger scale with regards to AA's. Here's a billion things that all add 1% to this or that and a few interesting abilities mixed in. Now blow that system up across 26+ years and you get a nightmare. WoW at least has avoided letting a long launch blow its system completely out of the water, with level squishes etc. But adding useless things, disguised as choice, is just silly by nearly every

If they really must have talent trees that have this many choices, because people long for the nostalgia of the OG talent trees which were as cookie cutter as current talent trees. Then make most of the choices cosmetic, make them change the swing animations, the coloring, the style whatever. At least then people would pick different things.

Or go back to the MoP style where the choices were less per row and more impactful