*Please don't take this post personally. I do not mean to offend anyone here. I am simply just trying to see another person's veiw on this concept so it can help me maybe understand.*

-->http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator#W!

I've been just looking at the new talent tree's for the upcoming Expansion for World of Warcraft.

So let me get this strait. Maybe you can enlighten me here because maybe my minds a little effed up here... You players that play WoW in it's current state like it when Blizzard comes out and claims that they are reworking talent tree's and anything of the like, but on closer inspection common sense reveals that they have actually removed most of the original talents, and skills for your class. Reworking it so it's even more simplistic and dubbed down? It's not just the Talent Tree's but also in Cataclysm they removed a lot of other things too.

I don't understand how this would make any MMO better. I understand about reworking something to make it more accessable, or changing the look of something to make it look better, but removing things and simplifying it entirely just makes the game easier. If not easier then most certainly more simple. I have never understood why people who love these MMO's think that it's such a great thing just because the developers say it is. I notice this not just in WoW, but in other MMO's as well, and everytime when the developers decide to remove or dubb things down the players think it's great and wonderful. Wasn't the whole point of MMORPG's about adding more to these games then removing and simplifying them?

I have worked on some Free 2 Play MMO's in the past doing artwork for them, and the concept of the programmers and designers were always about adding more, not removing things that were already good.

The current process forces you to pick useless talents you never wanted in the first place simply because 'it goes down that line'. With the new system the idea is that at each point you will have a choice instead of 'oh my point will go here because I want these skills at the end'. Because the skills are not dependent on trees players are more free to make choices instead of being forced down a line. At max you will pick 1 of 3 instead of that one golden skill at the end of the tree.

Most existing talent enhancements will be moved directly on to the class. At least this is what they have lead me to believe.

At first glance the tree is 'dumbed down'...well on closer inspection it is being dumbed down. Although they have the right idea I don't think it is being executed well.

Personally I like the current system of points and think that they should just expand on the current systeem.

Freedom to spec into two trees would be more than enough to satisfy tinkers.

Originally posted by Magnetia

The current process forces you to pick useless talents you never waned in the first place simply because 'it goes down that line'.

 

Ahh I see that makes sense then, but I don't understand why they couldn't of done it another way instead of just removing most of all the talent boxes. I remember my healing specced paladin still had points left over, but it had hardly any inpact on my class in raiding.

I think your right though. They really could of done a better job executing it. Even as an artist in real life, even I could of come up with something better then this. Blizzard should be focused on making those talent tree's more detailed and broaden it out more. There was no need to just remove what they already had, because it was already good. They just needed to change around some of the talent box's and added a few more into the other tree is all.

Good lord I hope BW don't do this in TOR with thier talent tree's

Originally posted by trash656

 understand about reworking something to make it more accessable, or changing the look of something to make it look better, but removing things and simplifying it entirely just makes the game easier. If not easier then most certainly more simple. I have never understood why people who love these MMO's think that it's such a great thing just because the developers say it is. I notice this not just in WoW, but in other MMO's as well, and everytime when the developers decide to remove or dubb things down the players think it's great and wonderful. Wasn't the whole point of MMORPG's about adding more to these games then removing and simplifying them?

Well , Blizzard has been doing that with various elements of WoW since BC and especially since WoTLK,so that's not really new thing. They are just continuing their long-term strategy.

Simplifiying and streamlining constantly.

One of reasons I don't play this game anymore.

It's really hard to say what kind of impact the skill system and class changes will have on gameplay. The introduction of the monk class changes battle mechanics somewhat and the strange new 'give all classes some sort of unique resource' is intruiging. I talked to a WoW mate recently about the upcoming changes and compared it to giving eveyrone DK runic power or something. Have to wait and see how it all works out. 

I remember when much of the playerbase was livid over the first major overhaul of the skills. I think it was just before Cata. After it came out everybody kept playing / adapted as if the system was there the entire time. I can only assume that anybody that keeps playing will just adapt like they always have.

First of all, they are not removing skills or talents, they are working into the carious specs of a class.

So stuff you used to get from talent trees now you get by just being a Frost mage or a Holy Paladin, they are treated like skills that you get at certain level.

This is not very different from how things are now. You do ONE menaingful choice at level 10 (your spec) and then you spend your talent points in that tree all the way down. what talents you take are quite automatic and mostly depends on you wanting a PvE or PvP build. The only options you have are with the smattering of talents you are left with once you complete the tree, and those do not really change that much because they are not enough (by design) to bring you more than one or two tier deep in another tree.

Compare THAT to what we have in MoP.

You still do one meaningful choice at level 10, your spec, but now you also do another choice at level 15.... and 30.... and 45.... and 60... etc.

It is not many choices, they could be more, but it looks better than Cata telent trees.

Then again, it would be quite difficult to do worse than cata trees...

I don´t get it eirther but that doesn´t mean they are wrong.  

As a none Wow player I assume I just don´t get what makes the Wow players tick and Blizzard shouldn´t make any changes for me, they should make them for their players.

It is really that simple. People are obviously liking what Blizzard do so who are we to complain on that?

If I played it my view on the whole thing would most likely be very different though.

Originally posted by trash656

So let me get this strait. Maybe you can enlighten me here because maybe my minds a little effed up here... You players that play WoW in it's current state like it when Blizzard comes out and claims that they are reworking talent tree's and anything of the like, but on closer inspection common sense reveals that they have actually removed most of the original talents, and skills for your class. Reworking it so it's even more simplistic and dubbed down? It's not just the Talent Tree's but also in Cataclysm they removed a lot of other things too.

Apparently you did a poor job in the "inspection". They did not remove them, they make them automatic in your "spec skills". You just have fewer choices, NOT fewer abilites.

In fact, they put in really INTERSTING mechanics (like no mana regen, but no CD for evocation for the mage).

I was a fan of talent trees and my initial reaction was to add this to the big list of things on why I will never go back to wow. I still perfer talent trees. But they added just enough intrested things for me to say its not the utter fail I originally perceived it to be.

Originally posted by RefMinor
So it has been Pre min/maxed I guess.

Pretty much.

The current talent trees, and the upcoming MOP talent trees are the sole reason I'm not playing now, nor will I again.

Pandas don't bother me. Pokemon doesn't bother me. Faster leveling doesn't bother me (much). But this. This bothers me.

I can't get past their explanation that there were worthless talents that people had to choose to move on and the min/maxers dictated what you had to have anyway, so this does away with that. Personally, I never listened to the FotM group. I quit guilds for telling me I had to spec a certain way. Let me make choices, even if those choices are "bad".

I see this system giving me choice in choosing the talent I like. The current tree system is givng me only 2 choices, right or wrong. Right is the correct choice for PVP and raiding, because otherwise you are just gimping yourself.

This system is made for me and people like me, to us experimentation with tangible consequences is more fun than theorycrafting with percieved consequences that measure in single digit percentages.

Originally posted by WhiteLantern

Originally posted by RefMinor
So it has been Pre min/maxed I guess.

Pretty much.

 

The current talent trees, and the upcoming MOP talent trees are the sole reason I'm not playing now, nor will I again.

 

Pandas don't bother me. Pokemon doesn't bother me. Faster leveling doesn't bother me (much). But this. This bothers me.

 

I can't get past their explanation that there were worthless talents that people had to choose to move on and the min/maxers dictated what you had to have anyway, so this does away with that. Personally, I never listened to the FotM group. I quit guilds for telling me I had to spec a certain way. Let me make choices, even if those choices are "bad".

But really... it is nice that you want the ability to gimp yourself.. but should Blizzard encourage new players to make bad choices.  I can give you two examples from the early days.    Wand spec for priests and shield spec for enhancment shaman.    Why should Blizzard developers ádd´ something that every level 60 knew was bad.

I also completely agree with the developers reasoning for meaningless talent trees.  I still remember my first character, a moonkin,... when I finally reached level 10.  You know what my first talent was..  a talent point that reduce the casting time of one of my spells by .1 seconds.   Oooh, how excited I was to get that one, huh?   And then... my next talent point... another .1 seconds off the same spell...    How many talent points did I spend enhancing abilities I never even used?

I personally think they did a good enough job with the pruning for the Cata trees.. and the new system is not really needed.  I do however like some of the options that will be available for some of my alts.. they really do force you to make meaningful choices that will greatly affect your gameplay... that is for most specs... for some spec, many of the choices seem so similar that which one you take won´t matter (mostly the self-healing stuff).

thank you so much for the insightful and intellegent replies here. I think I have a better idea now, and thanks for enlightening me. It seems I was missing some information. Hmm maybe it won't be so bad afterall. But it still looks really really simplified and dubbed down from when I remember playing vanilla wow and burning crusade. I miss those days, all the guilds and people i knew on my old server are gone and have left because the game is too simplified now, but like loki666 said. Who am I to complain about it. They are giving what the majority of the players want and if they want it, then all the power to them i guess... it's just to bad us hardcore gamers were ignored...

Thanks again guys

You guys are awesome.

PS: Lets hope bioware dosnt dubb everything down in TOR. God knows the game is easy enough. :P

cheers

-trash

Originally posted by WhiteLantern

Originally posted by RefMinor
So it has been Pre min/maxed I guess.

Pretty much.

 

The current talent trees, and the upcoming MOP talent trees are the sole reason I'm not playing now, nor will I again.

 

Pandas don't bother me. Pokemon doesn't bother me. Faster leveling doesn't bother me (much). But this. This bothers me.

 

I can't get past their explanation that there were worthless talents that people had to choose to move on and the min/maxers dictated what you had to have anyway, so this does away with that. Personally, I never listened to the FotM group. I quit guilds for telling me I had to spec a certain way. Let me make choices, even if those choices are "bad".

There were never useless talents. Back in Bc or even vanilla i made some very smart hybrid combos that were really playing well especially in pvp on my hunter. And im talking about 10-12 different working hyrbid talent combos.

When Blizzard started the cuttering/butchering of talent numbers i understood from then it was just a cheap explanation from their side so they wouldnt have a hard job to balance and calculate much. They ended up in cata with a system that in fact let players with no choise at all in builds. U r martkmanship ? all talents from mm tree on. etc etc

And they finally conclused with an even more oversimplified version that will be in their next panda expansion.

Well they can have it. Skyrim tool kit is out now ;P

here is what they seem to have done

the old (age old) vanilla tree system had three trees which were subclasses of your chosen class. the trees modulated how specific spells behaved, and tallents could be chosen out of any of the trees at any time. most spells of the class were available to all players. the few which were not shared were obtained through the tree's unlockables.

in this 'new' system they have added another layer and simplified stuff out. they made you define what you wanted to spec as.

because players designate this by having fire mages choose fire as their major spec. and it locks them in. the impact of this choice is it makes it impossible for players to spec extremely poorly. in the vanilla version there were people who went 1/2 up all the trees, and by trying to be a jack of all trades they failed specializing at any. this is further apparent if you take into consideration of how they altered the druid (poor: healing caster, "rogue", and tank) to be able to compete at all of the disciplines/specs. they PvP ballanced the classes beyond the rock-paper-sissors style they once were.

later at some point. rather than buying mindflay through a tallent point you get it from a trainer at an equivalent level, this makes it far easier to assume what spells a player of a certain spec has. notice how in the priest one, all the psychic scream teir are various flavors of crowd control.

then on top of that re-integration of many of the baseline skills. they recreated another perk system which gives more occational but meaningful perks, which create choice and in theory give an impression of the class playstyle. one thing they limit is the degree someoen with a different playstyle/mindset can fail at specing.

what is the point of all of this? i bet "less algebra" in vanilla wow, the game wasn't for true casuals. you could have a couple dozen choices that say, "choose 5  in the following teir to unlock the next more influencial one":

• +3% skill x effect, (max 3)
• -50% cooldown y (max 2)
• +1% crit (max 5)

and have people so enamored- so empassioned they would take their playstyle and figure out which was best for them. but quickly this degraded into optimum builds and spell rotations. so people began getting their specs off of webpages. and when this happened, the roleplaying/choice became more of a hinderance to an increasing action oriented market.

if people don't feel interested in the complexity, and will use third party sites to avoid it... why have it? it is a wasted investment. also if one allows people to fail if they don't cheat the system (by using third party comments/analysis of builds) they might lose more customers.

personally, i think this is a bad approach but then again they aren't aiming at me as their target market. for their target this is actually a really smart thing to do. it should have more diversity and exclusivity than it does, but it will keep people strung allong for a bit longer.

I have not tested the new system (obviously), but I see it as a positive thing. The current Talent trees are full of either completely meaningless talents, talents that you only take because you need to fill the tier, or talents that are a must take for the spec and cannot be skipped no matter what.

The new system incorporates the must-take talents into the class itself, removes the useless talents and forces you to actually make a choice at every talent tier.

I believe the new system will actually bring more valid specs than the old one ever did, even if the choices seem to be more limited.

Vanilla - Fairly complex talent trees, enjoyed that.

TBC - Continuation of talent trees, still enjoyed.

WotLK - More talent tree's, notice some dumbing down and lack of development, don't grumble much about it.

Cata - Talent tree's for Dummies.

MoP - Talent tree's for retards and window lickers.

Originally posted by WhiteLantern

Originally posted by RefMinor
So it has been Pre min/maxed I guess.

Pretty much.

 

The current talent trees, and the upcoming MOP talent trees are the sole reason I'm not playing now, nor will I again.

 

Pandas don't bother me. Pokemon doesn't bother me. Faster leveling doesn't bother me (much). But this. This bothers me.

 

I can't get past their explanation that there were worthless talents that people had to choose to move on and the min/maxers dictated what you had to have anyway, so this does away with that. Personally, I never listened to the FotM group. I quit guilds for telling me I had to spec a certain way. Let me make choices, even if those choices are "bad".

Well, good for you but 99% of the DPS players won't .. can't pass up a DPS talent like "3% crit". So what is the point of having a choice?

I much rather have fewer, but real choices that is playstyle oriented. At least when I respec, i don't have to click through all the meaningless "choices".

Because it's what the player based asked for.  The thing you didn't wrap your head around.  The state of MMOs today is not something being forced on gamers.  It's something being asked for the paying consumer base.  You may not be a member of this majority community, so you can't understand their wants and needs.  But it's the facts you must live with.  If you feel uncomfortable with a situation, then leave.  Those that stay are obviously fine with things the way they are.  Once again the problem is all yours.  Only you must find a solution, not them.  I hope this answers some of your questions.