The talent trees are a total mess.

[NineSpine]

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.

And that's how many players? This isn't a trick question. You either have an answer or you do not.

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?

If we use the statistics the way you are, we can determine that Candy Crush is the apex of video game design, correct? And Avatar, a movie that is notoriously copy pasted from Dances with Wolves, is almost nobody's favorite movie, and is frequently joked about for how forgettable it is, is the apex of filmmaking, correct? And the best piece of music from 2025 must be Taylor Swift's record, despite being almost universally considered a disappointment and step backward for her, correct?

Or is it possible that rather than "iF tHiNg MaKe MoNeY tHiNg GoOd", often things achieve popularity through some combination of cultural momentum, FOMO, and marketing. Sometimes, if the marketing people are smart enough, the quality of the thing doesn't matter. You already know this, but you aren't an honest interlocutor. If me and Taylor Swift both released albums where we fart on a snare drum for an hour, my parents wouldn't even buy my album, while her fart noises would make the Billboard Top 100 and be defended by some as an avant garde masterpiece, a subversive finger in the eye of the establishment.

I love a good shitty Marvel movie as much as anyone else. The difference between you and I is that I know those movies are shitty, empty calories. If I was like you, I would be lecturing people about how The Avengers is better than The Godfather because it grossed more at the box office.

[Ghostile]

And that's how many players? This isn't a trick question. You either have an answer or you do not.



If we use the statistics the way you are, we can determine that Candy Crush is the apex of video game design, correct? And Avatar, a movie that is notoriously copy pasted from Dances with Wolves, is almost nobody's favorite movie, and is frequently joked about for how forgettable it is, is the apex of filmmaking, correct? And the best piece of music from 2025 must be Taylor Swift's record, despite being almost universally considered a disappointment and step backward for her, correct?

Or is it possible that rather than "iF tHiNg MaKe MoNeY tHiNg GoOd", often things achieve popularity through some combination of cultural momentum, FOMO, and marketing. Sometimes, if the marketing people are smart enough, the quality of the thing doesn't matter. You already know this, but you aren't an honest interlocutor. If me and Taylor Swift both released albums where we fart on a snare drum for an hour, my parents wouldn't even buy my album, while her fart noises would make the Billboard Top 100 and be defended by some as an avant garde masterpiece, a subversive finger in the eye of the establishment.

I'm not sure why I keep thinking "maybe this time he is capable of a conversation" every goddamn time.
This would be hilarious if this wasn't so fucking sad to witness.

[Nederbelg]

And that's how many players? This isn't a trick question. You either have an answer or you do not.



If we use the statistics the way you are, we can determine that Candy Crush is the apex of video game design, correct? And Avatar, a movie that is notoriously copy pasted from Dances with Wolves, is almost nobody's favorite movie, and is frequently joked about for how forgettable it is, is the apex of filmmaking, correct? And the best piece of music from 2025 must be Taylor Swift's record, despite being almost universally considered a disappointment and step backward for her, correct?

Or is it possible that rather than "iF tHiNg MaKe MoNeY tHiNg GoOd", often things achieve popularity through some combination of cultural momentum, FOMO, and marketing. Sometimes, if the marketing people are smart enough, the quality of the thing doesn't matter. You already know this, but you aren't an honest interlocutor. If me and Taylor Swift both released albums where we fart on a snare drum for an hour, my parents wouldn't even buy my album, while her fart noises would make the Billboard Top 100 and be defended by some as an avant garde masterpiece, a subversive finger in the eye of the establishment.

I love a good shitty Marvel movie as much as anyone else. The difference between you and I is that I know those movies are shitty, empty calories. If I was like you, I would be lecturing people about how The Avengers is better than The Godfather because it grossed more at the box office.

So your taste is superior and everybody else that does like the things you mentioned here are wrong, therefor WoW is not the most succesful MMORPG ever made.
Nobody has numbers, but judging the postion of the game in the big wide world by what you like or dislike is not adding to the discussion.

According to these and other forums, WoW has been dead or dying for 10 years now. In reality, the game has never been better and is still attracting a big number of players.

[NineSpine]

So your taste is superior and everybody else that does like the things you mentioned here are wrong, therefor WoW is not the most succesful MMORPG ever made.

That's just a total non-sequitur unrelated to anything I said.

Nobody has numbers, but judging the postion of the game in the big wide world by what you like or dislike is not adding to the discussion.

Here are the numbers we actually have: WoW has declined dramatically since its heyday, and that is before we consider that a lot of people are playing Classic. You can't have it both ways. If popularity is a sign of good design, then the conclusion is that WoW needs to return to the model that made it the biggest game in the world, not the model that has stagnated and atrophied for a decade.

According to these and other forums, WoW has been dead or dying for 10 years now. In reality, the game has never been better and is still attracting a big number of players.

Considering that Ultima Online and Everquest are still online, I don't think WoW is going anywhere. But again, this has nothing to do with anything I said.

Marvel movies still attract big audiences, but you aren't going to find many people who think Marvel is really killing it since Endgame.

[Nederbelg]

That's just a total non-sequitur unrelated to anything I said.

Here are the numbers we actually have: WoW has declined dramatically since its heyday, and that is before we consider that a lot of people are playing Classic. You can't have it both ways. If popularity is a sign of good design, then the conclusion is that WoW needs to return to the model that made it the biggest game in the world, not the model that has stagnated and atrophied for a decade.

Considering that Ultima Online and Everquest are still online, I don't think WoW is going anywhere. But again, this has nothing to do with anything I said.

Marvel movies still attract big audiences, but you aren't going to find many people who think Marvel is really killing it since Endgame.

You stated that avatar can't be a good movie, despite selling well, or taylor swift a good artist or candy crush a good game. That is a matter of opinion not a fact, but you use it to prove a point. The fact that bad stuff sells well is not an argument for the statement that everything that sells well is bad. Correlation is not causation.

You think WoW is bad, so the millions of players that enjoy playing it in it's current state are wrong.

You state that WoW declined dramatically. To determine that we need to know what dramaticcaly entails wrt to numbers and we need to know the actual player numbers (and players per version). Since we do not have those numbers, you can't state as fact that more people play classic.

Nostalgia is like wearing tainted goggles, you forget all the bad shit and the good shit looked better than it ever was.

[NineSpine]

You stated that avatar can't be a good movie, despite selling well, or taylor swift a good artist or candy crush a good game. That is a matter of opinion not a fact, but you use it to prove a point. The fact that bad stuff sells well is not an argument for the statement that everything that sells well is bad. Correlation is not causation.

I didn't say any of those things. I said that selling the most doesn't indicate quality. You can sell the most and be the best, the worst, or anywhere in between. The Force Awakens grossed more than The Empire Strikes Back. I don' think there is much of a population that genuinely believes TFA is the better film.

You think WoW is bad, so the millions of players that enjoy playing it in its current state are wrong.

I think that retail WoW is in a very poor state, just like the MCU. I still see the MCU movies, because I like comic book bullshit. You seem to want to reduce my argument to "I don't like it so it's bad" when I am obviously making a more nuanced and thoughtful argument.

You state that WoW declined dramatically. To determine that we need to know what dramaticcaly entails wrt to numbers and we need to know the actual player numbers (and players per version). Since we do not have those numbers, you can't state as fact that more people play classic.

This is what we know:

1. The player base stagnated in Wrath.
2. The player base began a catastrophic nosedive in Cata.
3. This nosedive continued into WoD.
4. Blizzard acknowledged publicly that Shadowlands performed historically poorly in player retention.
5. The chart Blizzard showed most recently shows that the large bumps since Legion have been from Classic versions , which also appear to drive retention better.
6. The same chart shows that Dragonflight's initial numbers were worse than Legion, BFA, or Shadowlands.

Nostalgia is like wearing tainted goggles, you forget all the bad shit and the good shit looked better than it ever was.

"You think you do but you don't", right? Do you think that that sentiment turned out to be correct?

[Nederbelg]

I didn't say any of those things. I said that selling the most doesn't indicate quality. You can sell the most and be the best, the worst, or anywhere in between. The Force Awakens grossed more than The Empire Strikes Back. I don' think there is much of a population that genuinely believes TFA is the better film.



I think that retail WoW is in a very poor state, just like the MCU. I still see the MCU movies, because I like comic book bullshit. You seem to want to reduce my argument to "I don't like it so it's bad" when I am obviously making a more nuanced and thoughtful argument.



This is what we know:

1. The player base stagnated in Wrath.
2. The player base began a catastrophic nosedive in Cata.
3. This nosedive continued into WoD.
4. Blizzard acknowledged publicly that Shadowlands performed historically poorly in player retention.
5. The chart Blizzard showed most recently shows that the large bumps since Legion have been from Classic versions , which also appear to drive retention better.
6. The same chart shows that Dragonflight's initial numbers were worse than Legion, BFA, or Shadowlands.



"You think you do but you don't", right? Do you think that that sentiment turned out to be correct?

That graph has been interpretted in many ways and for each way it has been claimed that it validates the point people are trying to make. Truth is, we have no clue. Anything said about it are guesses and wishful thinking.

At the time of classic it was a new genre and a new game. In my opinion the current state of WoW is much better.
I do think the sentiment turned out to be correct. I have been playing since wrath and do not want to go back to how the game was then.
Or did you forget the endless Arthas monologues "I could kill you but I have things to do now. I will see you again in the next patch"

[NineSpine]

That graph has been interpretted in many ways and for each way it has been claimed that it validates the point people are trying to make. Truth is, we have no clue. Anything said about it are guesses and wishful thinking.

I am looking at the graph exactly as it was presented. Everything I said is a stone cold fact, not an “interpretation”. You are now engaging in reality denial.

At the time of classic it was a new genre and a new game. In my opinion the current state of WoW is much better.

It was not a new genre, and there are games that see their playerbase grow over 10+ years, not decline.

I do think the sentiment turned out to be correct. I have been playing since wrath and do not want to go back to how the game was then.
Or did you forget the endless Arthas monologues "I could kill you but I have things to do now. I will see you again in the next patch"

If you genuinely believe that it turned out nobody wanted to play vanilla or wrath again, I don’t know what to tell you, because you are no longer engaged with reality. The release of classic was the biggest spike in the games history, and wrath attracted an unbelievably huge audience.

[Nederbelg]

I am looking at the graph exactly as it was presented. Everything I said is a stone cold fact, not an “interpretation”. You are now engaging in reality denial.
It was not a new genre, and there are games that see their playerbase grow over 10+ years, not decline.
If you genuinely believe that it turned out nobody wanted to play vanilla or wrath again, I don’t know what to tell you, because you are no longer engaged with reality. The release of classic was the biggest spike in the games history, and wrath attracted an unbelievably huge audience.

The only graph released by Blizzard in recent history only showed active accounts. Nothing more. So any disctribution over game versions is pure specualtion, unless you have one where they are specified, we can't say only speculate.

I did not say that nobody wanted to play that again, I know a lot of people played it or at least tried it. By your own reasoning the fact that a lot of people played it, does not mean it was good. * points at marvel and cadyy crush and taylor swift.

The hype did not last though, when DF came out a lot of players returned to retail, bacause the were tired of having to go to their class trainer when they leveld up, had to run everywhere or had to go buy bullets because they ran out.

The fact that classic did well at the time is because of BfA ending and nostalgia. Not because it was great gameplay, in my opinion.

[Aucald]

This thread isn't about Taylor Swift, Avatar, or any of the dozen other irrelevant topics currently being argued about. Let's return to the actual topic at hand, WoW's current talent tree design, and drop the derailing tangent arguments and discussions.

[Rorixis]

Why have pure throughput options like "get 3% haste" ...

Because thats what people asked for. The current era of Blizzard seems to be kinda traumatized by not realizing that ppl wanted classic wow sooner so now they just give in to all kinds of regarded things that the players want. But maybe thats okay? To make silly things for silly ppl to enjoy. And then they can keep making their own things as well.

I agree with your title, but i dont know if it needs to change. Ppl want a mess so they can feel superior when they have the knowledge that their mess is the best mess. People like feeling like they are "in the know". And this talent system does that perfectly. And over time the new talent system can start to look like the old one once you realize that 90% of the points are locked in. You end up with ~6 points that you can swap around on a wim.

I dont know im babbling, its not like they are going to change it, the mayority prefers it.

[WeAreNotSmilesTimes]

According to these and other forums, WoW has been dead or dying for 10 years now.

Oh it's been far far longer than that friend. Someone linked to a forum a while back from before original BC launched and it reads almost identically to now. "Lazy designers, devs don't play the game, game is dying, X will ruin the game". It was hilarious and sad to read.

[RobertMugabe]

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.

Yeah pretty much.

[epigramx]

can't go on the PTR on the account which doesn't have more than the standard

That's just false. I was playing the "PTR (Midnight)" for a week on an account who hasn't bought more than Shadowlands.

The weirdest shit here is that you think anonymous people on a gaming forum would give a shit to lie about that to you.

Here's some proof Doubting Thomas,

[Mysterymask]

That's just false. I was playing the "PTR (Midnight)" for a week on an account who hasn't bought more than Shadowlands.

The weirdest shit here is that you think anonymous people on a gaming forum would give a shit to lie about that to you.

Here's some proof Doubting Thomas,

You know that just proves your on the PTR...doesn't say you didn't buy the expansions

[Flaks]

All you acting like you didn't go to icy veins for your specs... fuck off.

I've realized pretty clearly that unless you're pushing +20s or mythic raiding, building out your own spec is absolutely the way to go. When it comes to rated pvp especially you have to create a spec that works for you. Trying to go for the optimal build and trying to learn/master it does NOT work for the vast majority of players.

So you acting like everyone does cookie cutter builds and that's how the world turns just tells me that it's maybe you who should, how did you put it?

- - - Updated - - -

Because thats what people asked for.

In what world are people asking for talents like that? Show me a single thread that in any way even eludes to requesting simple throughput talents like this?

People absolutely asked for going back to talent trees and we got exceptional talent revamps going into dragonflight. Right now though, it seems that blizzard is getting rid of interesting talents and adding in more throughput "you get a straight additional this stat" going into midnight which literally no one has ever asked for.

[epigramx]

You know that just proves your on the PTR...doesn't say you didn't buy the expansions

At least regular conspiracy theorists have a goal with their bullshit. What would I achieve by lying I'm unsubbed?

Also the moving the goalposts has reached comedic levels (we went from 'you don't PTR' to 'you're subbed!").

[Mysterymask]

At least regular conspiracy theorists have a goal with their bullshit. What would I achieve by lying I'm unsubbed?

Also the moving the goalposts has reached comedic levels (we went from 'you don't PTR' to 'you're subbed!").

Easy

1. It makes you "One of the cool kids" here for some reason...there's been a ton of people who lied about being banned of all things
2. You do love to make up bullshit
3. Honestly at this point pissing you off is kinda hilarious

[Lolites]

You do love to make up bullshit

indeed he does...
and lets not forget to point out the irony of him acusing someone else of moving goalpost

[casecase89]

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.

nothing you suggested solves anything... any time there is "choice" there is always the "best" choice and therefore 99% of players will choose it. What are you even complaining about? Are you one of those people who fall for the illusion of choice? Do you want even more systems piled into wow just so that you dont have to choose between 3% haste and 10% DR added to one of your CDS? get OVER yourself dude lol.