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Update on talents!
Treekodar
Member Posts: 524
Cataclysm Class & Mastery Systems Update
When we first announced our design goals for class talent trees back at BlizzCon 2009, one of our major stated focuses was to remove some of the boring and “mandatory” passive talents. We mentioned that we wanted talent choices to feel more flavorful and fun, yet more meaningful at the same time. Recently, we had our fansites release information on work-in-progress talent tree previews for druids, priests, shaman, and rogues. From those previews and via alpha test feedback, a primary response we heard was that these trees didn’t really seem to incorporate the original design goals discussed at BlizzCon. This response echoes something we have been feeling internally for some time, namely that the talent tree system has not aged well ever since we increased the level cap beyond level 60. In an upcoming beta build, we will unveil bold overhauls of all 30 talent trees.
Talent Tree Vision
One of the basic tenets of Blizzard game design is that of “concentrated coolness.” We’d rather have a simpler design with a lot of depth, than a complicated but shallow design. The goal for Cataclysm remains to remove a lot of the passive or lame talents, but we don’t think that’s possible with the current size of the trees. So to resolve this we're reducing each tree to 31-point talents. With this reduction in tree size we need to make sure they're being purchased along a similar leveling curve, and therefore will also be reducing the number of total talent points and speed at which they're awarded during the leveling process.
As a result, we can keep the unique talents in each tree, particularly those which provide new spells, abilities or mechanics. We’ll still have room for extra flavorful talents and room for player customization, but we can trim a great deal of fat from each tree. The idea isn’t to give players fewer choices, but to make those choices feel more meaningful. Your rotations won’t change and you won’t lose any cool talents. What will change are all of the filler talents you had to pick up to get to the next fun talent, as well as most talents which required 5 of your hard-earned points.
We are further taking a hard look at many of the mandatory PvP talents, such as spell pushback or mechanic duration reductions. While there will always be PvP vs. PvE builds, we’d like for the difference to be less extreme such that someone doesn’t feel like they necessarily need to spend their second talent specialization on a PvP build.
The Rise of Specialization
In addition, we want to focus the talent trees even more towards your chosen style of gameplay right away. We want that first point you spend in a tree to be very meaningful. If you choose Enhancement, we want you to feel like an Enhancement shaman right away, not thirty talent points later. When talent trees are unlocked at level 10, you will be asked to choose your specialization (e.g. whether you want to be an Arms, Fury or Protection warrior) before spending that first point. Making this choice comes with certain benefits, including whatever passive bonuses you need to be effective in that role, and a signature ability that used to be buried deeper in the talent trees. These abilities and bonuses are only available by choosing a specific tree. Each tree awards its own unique active ability and passives when chosen. The passive bonuses range from flat percentage increases, for example a 20% increase to Fire damage for Fire mages or spell range increases for casters, to more interesting passives such as the passive rage regeneration of the former Anger Management talent for Arms warriors, Dual-Wield Specialization for Fury warriors and Combat rogues, or the ability to dual-wield itself for Enhancement shaman.
The active abilities unlocked with the initial talent tree selection are abilities that are core to the role being chosen. Our goal is to choose abilities that let the specializations come into their own much earlier than was possible when a specialization-defining talent had to be buried deep enough that other talent trees couldn’t access them. For example, having Lava Lash and Dual-Wield right away lets an Enhancement shaman feel like an Enhancement shaman. Other examples of abilities players can now get for free at level 10 include Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Shield Slam, Mutilate, Shadow Step, Thunderstorm, Earth Shield, Water Elemental and Penance.
Getting Down to the Grit
The talent trees themselves will have around 20 unique talents instead of the (roughly) 30 talents of today, and aesthetically look a bit more like the original World of Warcraft talent trees. The 31-point talents will generally be the same as the 51-point talents we already had planned for Cataclysm. A lot of the boring or extremely specialized talents have been removed, but we don't want to remove anything that’s going to affect spell/ability rotations. We want to keep overall damage, healing and survivability roughly the same while simply providing a lot of the passive bonuses for free based on your specialization choice.
While leveling, you will get 1 talent point about every 2 levels (41 points total at level 85). Our goal is to alternate between gaining a new class spell or ability and gaining a talent point with each level. As another significant change, you will not be able to put points into a different talent tree until you have dedicated 31 talent points to your primary specialization. While leveling, this will be possible at 70. Picking a talent specialization should feel important. To that end, we want to make sure new players understand the significance of reaching the bottom of their specialization tree before gaining the option of spending points in the other trees. For all intents and purposes, we intend to make sure dual-specialization and re-talenting function exactly as they do today so players do not feel locked indefinitely to their specialization choice.
A True Mastery
The original passive Mastery bonuses players were to receive according to how they spent points in each tree are being replaced with the automatic passive bonuses earned when a tree specialization is chosen. These passives are flat percentages and we no longer intend for them to scale with the number of talent points spent. The third Mastery bonus which was unique to each tree will now encapsulate the Mastery stat, found on high-level items, and Mastery will be a passive skill learned from class trainers around level 75. In most cases the Mastery stats will be the same as the tree-unique bonuses we announced earlier this year. These stats can be improved solely by stacking Mastery Rating found on high-level items.
To Recap
When players reach level 10, they are presented with basic information on the three specializations within their class and are asked to choose one. Then they spend their talent point. The other trees darken and are unavailable until 31 points are spent in the first tree. The character is awarded an active ability, and one or more passive bonuses unique to the tree they've chosen. As they level they'll receive a talent point around every other level, and skills available from their trainer (ideally) when a talent point isn't given. They'll have a 31-point tree to work down, each talent being more integral and exciting than they would have been in the past. Once they spend their 31'st point in the final talent (possible at level 70) the other trees un-darken and become available to spend points in from then on. As they move into the level 78+ areas in Cataclysm they'll begin seeing items with a new stat, Mastery. Once they learn the Mastery skill from their class trainer they'll receive bonuses from the stat based on the tree they've specialized in.
We understand these are fairly significant changes and still have a lot of details to solidify. We feel, however, they are more in-line with our original class design goals for Cataclysm and are confident they will make for a better gameplay experience. Your constructive feedback is welcomed and appreciated.
Source: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=13817049255&sid=1
Eleanor Rigby.
Comments
In before "dumbed down again".
I like this change. Less talents, more specialization.
"If all you can say is... "It's awful, it's not innovative, it's ugly, it's blah.." Then you're an unimaginative and unpolished excuse for human life" -eburn
Remember when Cataclysm sounded like it was going to be the coolest expansion ever? That people would return to the game in droves? That new players would come to drink from the well of awesomesauce that Blizzard was offering?
Reality sucks, eh?
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Sad thing is it subs will probably go up and it will outsell every other mmo.....again.
Only because of the hype.. I already know for sure I and friends will not be back when Cat comes out.. All I see is more bluring of class distinction and homogenizing of classes.. How is less talents more? I will have to give credit to Bliz tho for the spin on facts.. While they are pissing on us, atleast they are calling it rain.. in which many are thankful and applaud.. One good thing about upcomming fall and winter.. Football season and my PS3 games..
Yep , Real ID + this , sometimes i think blizzard wants WoW to die . Maybe they don't know they could just switch the servers off .
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
There weren't any real freedom with the old talent tree any way. If you wanted to do raids, you'd need to have the 'right spec' and not a 'bad spec'.
Whether this will give more freedom or not I have yet to see. Blizzard may just surprise me in a good way.
Eleanor Rigby.
"The other trees darken and are unavailable until 31 points are spent in the first tree. "
i hate this part, now i cant even choose how i want to play...
RIP Orc Choppa
But at least they're going to make it more apparent at low levels that you chose a specific tree.
Eleanor Rigby.
Anyone who doesn't believe this is a great idea and much needed change has absolutely ZERO understanding of game design and as such has zero right to post their diluted and factually-unsupported opinions.
Yes, everyone has an opinion and they are entitled to express is, but that doesn't mean opinions cannot be WRONG because they have no logic nor practical reasoning/factual evidence to support their beliefs.
Sort of like when you tell everyone that they are wrong and you fail to give any practical reasoning or factual evidence to support your claims?
Would that be a good example of what you are trying to say?
going from 51 to 31 is needed since the mastery skill is adding those passed bonuses. Like they said a lot of that boring fluff has been moved. So instead of putting 5 points into increased melee damage it is granted as you put point into the "melee" oriented tree. From what i understand this is pretty similar to WAR's, that was a neat system.
What's that word i'm looking for again, oh yes : OWNED! .
Apart from actually dumbing down everything again and taking away variablity i don't see how it was necessary? (and while yes there was often 1 or 2 specific "i win" raid speccs or such you could always add your personal touch and still perform very well. Less talents => less choice => Less depth => More fail)
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
In my opinion.. GOLF is the best sport in the world... so how do we go about factually proving or disproving that OPINION? See my point? I think you do
One can think of this as 'dumbing down' but I look at it as taking the 'dumb' out. For most talent trees there really was not that much choice since to get a high tier talent you had to have a requisite number of lower tier talents so you were using a lot of 'filler' talents anyway. There were maybe 1-3 talents that would be a 'personal touch' and hopefully those will still be there.
The one thing I am concerned is the part where you have to be level 70 before you can put points into seconday trees. When playing a new character I would mix an match talents from trees to see which tree I like more and then respeccing into the tree I liked. I will reserve jusgement on this till I see what the talents actually are.
This takes away player choice and that is almost never a good thing. Regardless of how many people think that spending points one way or another is dumb and this somehow removes the option to be dumb, it does limit player options. It will also limit the options of extremely smart players who think outside the box and conceive builds that do wonderful things.
It isn't like forcing a player into a specific talent tree is going to make them smart. .
There were a lot of talents there were just filler or uninteresting in the talent tree, so I am not sad to see those go away. I don't like the idea of being forced into one tree for x levels of gameplay. It makes little sense to me and I could not care less about the mastery system, so I see no need for it.
The way I see it, we're just trading 30 talent points (we used to invest them into passive abilities anyway) for our specialization. It will be pretty much the same in the long run. Begone those talents that used to give me 1% more intellect or improve my fire damage by 1%!
It will also help devs to bring most trees to the same level. Some trees are extremely boring or bloated and some are filled with fun abilities.
Such a high horse idd
While I like the idea of streamlining the Talent system, the removal of "extremely specialized" talents has my spidey-sense tingling. Since the addition of Ghostcrawler, Blizzard has been bent on homogenizing the classes. I liked having race/class combinations that had some uniqueness to them, like when Priests had a distinctive ability depending on race. Now it seems that everything is being leveled out and standardized, little deviation from the cookie cutter. My guess is that this is furthering Blizzard's crusade to make Arenas and endless random Dungeons the preferred form of play.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
So you claim that people who dislike this idea or don't think it's a great idea have zero understanding of game design because they don't agree with your opinion on the matter?
How are you one to say who has and hasn't any understanding of game design?
This 'great idea' of theirs is taking a lot of customization out of the hands of the player. They are limiting player choice in an attempt to make it easier to balance pvp/raid/dungeon encounters. Every little tweek they have done to classes in the last few months is doing nothing but blurring the lines that define a class, making almost every one of them play like the others.
At this rate by the time they release the expansion after Cat we will have but one class choice: The Palwarmagdrulockrouhunter....
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Did you actually READ what the Blizzard rep said?
Do you actually play this game and understand that right now there is only 1 "right" spec for each class for a given activity?
Limiting choices, but making each choice more meaningful is good game design. Simple, yet deep and meaningful.
Instead of bloated and convoluted trees full of needed/useless "filler" talents is not advanced nor is it intelligent in any way.
Why make 40 classes when they are all just variation on the same basic 7-8 archetypes? What not instead make those 7-8 archetypes unique and meaningful and special. That's good game design.
Why make 400 empty zones filled with nothing but rocks and grass instead of 40 zones filled with interesting and challenging content? That's good game design.
[Mod Edit]
Oh my god a well thought out and supported opinion!
Run and hide!
One right spec according to who? You have already dismantled your entire argument by presenting an opinion as your factual reasoning. There are plenty of specs that have variations and none of which cause the player to suck.
Just like picking the right spec doesn't make someone awesome.
They are called choices and most of those choices offer benefits in certain situations.
After reading your barbed tongued comments, it makes me wonder if you are the one who doesn't understand what is coming. Specs right now have a core of talents that are more effecient than the rest with a handful of points left over for talents that a player feels best suit their playstyle.
If you think the revamped talents coming are going to deviate from that formula you are painfully mistaken.
A few math wizards will crunch numbers and find out which optional talents are .04% better in a sterile controlled environment and some people *cough cough* will take that as the holy bible of what spec is 'right'. Others will look at their options and pick the talents that best suit their playstyle.
The way the game is right now, as a Moonkin who raids, I have exactly 3 talent points that aren't 'mandatory'. .. and the things I can use for those 3 points are basically meaningless.
Because we haven't seen the new talent trees yet, I cannot say whether things will improve or not.. But as a long term player, I can say without and hesitation that this change cannot give us less options (because we currently have so few).
The big thing this will do is make our talents actually more meaningful. I mean.. who cares about going from lvl 11 to lvl 12 when my talent point will be spent to lower the casting time of a spell by .1 seconds.
As far as endgame raiding, the worst case scenario is we are right back where we began with very little 'choice' in our specs. But even in that scenario the leveling part of the game is greatly improved because of this change. There is nothing worse than putting your first 15 points into the feral tree (or shaman enhancement) and then spending most of your time actually casting balance/elemental spells which didn't get upgraded because your talents are in the wrong tree.
The best case scenerio is that the endgame 'builds' actually have some variety to them. I am hoping that they do actually make us have really difficult choices.. Do I upgrade my treants, or upgrade my hurricaine spell?
As others have suggested, the only think I dont' understand is forcing us to put 31 points into a talent tree before spending out last 10 points. I think one you specialize at level 10, your only requirement should be to put more talents in that tree than any other tree. But again, this is a very early iteration of the new system, it hasn't even been beta tested yet at all.
But no matter what, at worst it is a wash at endgame and an improvement for leveling.
I think a lot of what people call manditory has grown to be so out of habit. My moonkin build leaves me with 5 points to spend and I'm pretty sure I spend 3-6 points in the core areas differently than many other druids do.
That isn't to say there are some poor talents in the tree, but druid/paladin have issues in that area, because they have the most options of roles to fill via talents. Melee dps, ranged dps (druid), tank, healer, so they don't have as much room as other classes do for wiggle room.
I'm just speculating, but I don't think the new talent system is going to deviate that much and people on average will only have maybe half a dozen points to move around.
lol...wow.
Less flavor....Incredible.
So instead of having 55ish points in a tree, and allowing people to be a cookie cutter build and always have options on the last few talents...Everyone will have exactly the same thing.
COOL.