World of Warcraft: Current Year

ESO tried AA points 2.0, i think (forced CP grind). Now the game is stuck with a massive power creep and high skill ceiling, that they now have to fix.

I don't necessarily think talent trees themselves are a bad idea, but pretty much everyone agrees that the Vanilla WoW talent trees were terrible.

If the dev's game design is to completely scrap mechanics every 2 years not much is going to work long term.

Im not in the same mind set as you Khane . Can you elaborate? Cause the way I look at it, Talent Trees are a great way to add different flavorful playstyles to an MMO RPG. The down fall imo comes from when they dont balance the trees properly between abilities. Currently in WoW, if a person chose the polar opposite of every single cookie cutter build available, then yea, they are a detriment to the group/raid. If they actually spent more time balancing individual talents, and I dont know.. play tested them? Then I dont think we would really be having this conversation. What has been constantly creeping up as a debate the last month or two is that the WoW devs constantly put in new shit, spend all their time on it and give fuck all about the base part of the game.

Using the very first talent tree option for a Shadow Priest, you can clearly see that they didnt even put a lot of thought into one of them, mild thought in the next, and the no brainer choice in the third. This even goes so far as to say whats wrong with them, and offer an option as to what could fix them. That, to me, is what the problem is. The devs arent given, or dont devote the time necesarry to make just basic changes that would allow for more specialized game play.

Is specialized gameplay necessary? No, of course not. But if a player's playstyle matches one better than the other, and they both come out roughly the same DPS - then I dont see why they shouldnt be viable and in turn, talent trees being viable.

I already elaborated

"The only option because it makes the class feel nicer to play."

That's enough for me.

Chris said:

Looks like shit, talent trees were exciting because you worked your way to the spec defining skills, not because of the filler options.

Now specs are just a choice you make and every progression system is filler options. Epic.

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They wernt exciting. If anything it was just another progression on top of levels. All you did was play until you finally got to that 31 points to finally make your spec play like it is supposed to. You were basically half a playstyle until you got that final ability.

As for if talent trees belong in a MMO, that's up for debate. I will say no matter how hard a developer tries, there will always be a "Best" build that the majority will follow. You can't avoid it. It happens in any game or genre where there is talent trees.

Cinge said:

They wernt exciting. If anything it was just another progression on top of levels. All you did was play until you finally got to that 31 points to finally make your spec play like it is supposed to. You were basically half a playstyle until you got that final ability.

As for if talent trees belong in a MMO, that's up for debate. I will say no matter how hard a developer tries, there will always be a "Best" build that the majority will follow. You can't avoid it. It happens in any game or genre where there is talent trees.

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That's due to shitty design and poor perspective. Quite a few WoW classes felt good as they leveled -- there's a difference between natural progression while leveling and not having the tools to do the job. I believe that's the essence of balance. Then that just leads us to who gives a fuck about balance until max level?

This sounds pretty complicated at the start. Are they going to bolt more shit on top later like they did with BfA?

Arbitrary said:

This sounds pretty complicated at the start. Are they going to bolt more shit on top later like they did with BfA?

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Lets hope not. Granted I am pretty sure I wont even make it near that far, so doesn't bother me much.

I could easily seem them letting you wear a 2nd legendary and adding more conduits though. As leveling up the latter seems like its going to be a ongoing thing for quite some time.

Cinge said:

Lets hope not. Granted I am pretty sure I wont even make it near that far, so doesn't bother me much.

I could easily seem them letting you wear a 2nd legendary and adding more conduits though. As leveling up the latter seems like its going to be a ongoing thing for quite some time.

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The very thought of having to farm out relics or w/e to put into your soul binds each tier makes me a bit sick to my stomach. Especially if they are coming from the exact same dungeons, just +15 instead of +5. If thats how it ends up, that really will mean this expansion is just one tier for me. I cannot stand upgrading stuff like that. At least armor/trinkets/etc. have a graphical component instead of just a "Oh look, my dps went up .03%!"

Daidraco said:

The very thought of having to farm out relics or w/e to put into your soul binds each tier makes me a bit sick to my stomach. Especially if they are coming from the exact same dungeons, just +15 instead of +5. If thats how it ends up, that really will mean this expansion is just one tier for me. I cannot stand upgrading stuff like that. At least armor/trinkets/etc. have a graphical component instead of just a "Oh look, my dps went up .03%!"

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Dont quote me but I dont think it works like that? You get the relics to drop from what seems like most content(dungeons, raids, pvp, WQs,reps etc) then you level them up with a currency from the maw(pretty sure?). You also have to earn renown or w/e to unlock the rows of conduits itself also. Basically something to keep people playing and such like AP/azerite etc.

Cinge said:

They wernt exciting. If anything it was just another progression on top of levels. All you did was play until you finally got to that 31 points to finally make your spec play like it is supposed to. You were basically half a playstyle until you got that final ability.

As for if talent trees belong in a MMO, that's up for debate. I will say no matter how hard a developer tries, there will always be a "Best" build that the majority will follow. You can't avoid it. It happens in any game or genre where there is talent trees.

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OK. How about everyone just starts at make level with preset gear and spec? Everyone makes the same choices so why bother?

Chris said:

OK. How about everyone just starts at make level with preset gear and spec? Everyone makes the same choices so why bother?

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Once you have done it once or twice, i bet most people wouldn't mind your suggestion, at least level wise(and a basic gear set to match max level). There's a reason boost are sold and so popular.

For new games or new expansions its fun to see everything the first time and progress though. You can do that maybe 1 or 2 more times before you are basically over it and just want to finish asap.

Chris said:

OK. How about everyone just starts at make level with preset gear and spec? Everyone makes the same choices so why bother?

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I've thought about this. Why not just build a game from the ground up that starts with end game complexity. moba+mmo=??? I already know I need to taunt shit, it's the same in every fucking game. move out of the red? gotya. Interrupt shit? yep. Eso, WoW, ff14 -- it's all the fucking same. Let's just get to point already and give me access to the gameplay you're just gating for no reason anyway. Those special tank busterlol moments in ff14 is just an elderscrolls online tank timing a right click block, or a WoW tank timing shield block ability. All dps across the genre come equipped with interrupts, stuns, and self heals, self dmg buffs, ohshit moment buffs, etc. The genre it's self is now a fucking recipe.

Once you've elimated the BS you can swing development to dungeons, raids, and what the fuck evver else multiplayer content. Like fishing and mount taming or s ome fuck shit

Happy Canadian thanksgiving.

Xerge said:

I've thought about this. Why not just build a game from the ground up that starts with end game complexity. moba+mmo=??? I already know I need to taunt shit, it's the same in every fucking game. move out of the red? gotya. Interrupt shit? yep. Eso, WoW, ff14 -- it's all the fucking same. Let's just get to point already and give me access to the gameplay you're just gating for no reason anyway. Those special tank busterlol moments in ff14 is just an elderscrolls online tank timing a right click block, or a WoW tank timing shield block ability. All dps across the genre come equipped with interrupts, stuns, and self heals, self dmg buffs, ohshit moment buffs, etc. The genre it's self is now a fucking recipe.

Once you've elimated the BS you can swing development to dungeons, raids, and what the fuck evver else multiplayer content. Like fishing and mount taming or s ome fuck shit

Happy Canadian thanksgiving.

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I mean a moba even has levels and progression. You start level 1 with 1 skill and no items and progress up while doing the same thing over and over.

Character progression, especially levels are not going away anytime soon. Especially as they have basically seeped into almost every other genre of games at this point. Even if you don't see that in the game itself, they now have it at the account level instead. Anything to keep people logging in and working towards something.