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Why WoW's new talent system makes sense, and other games should analyze it.
Neverdyne
Member Posts: 167
It is probably a suicide act to post something like this in MMORPG.com, a place infamous for having many WoW haters; but I've seen so much misinformation floating around and people who just don't grasp the concepts and philosophy behind the talent changes that I had to post something.
The "talent" customization system is present in many modern MMORPGs. Games like AoC, Rift, and even SWTOR all have similar concepts of class customization, though implemented in slightly different ways. The objective of talent trees is to make two people from the same class distinct from one another; to give more customization for players on how they want to play their class. But the problem with this system is that it gives a false "illusion" of customization. The truth is, on a competitive level of gameplay, people simply google "rogue combat spec" and get a cookie cutter talent build that has been number crunched, analyzed, and discussed with the overall concensus of it being the "most damage" or "best AoE healer" spec. So the typical player proceeds to copy paste this talent build, which usually has only a few points at the end for real customization; those last points that really have no effect on your performance and you can simply put on "whatever you like".
With the current system in WoW, the only choice the player does is which of the three specs he wants to play, and after that, 95% of his talents are placed exactly as what the cookie cutter build dictates. Those 3-4 points remaining are the only real choice they make on the talent trees themselves.
So really "customization" does not go further than choosing one of the three specs. And Blizzard knows this, so what they did is simply make the current talent trees "subclasses", and change talents completely to offer hard choices for the player. A mage will still be able to spec either Frost, Fire, or Arcane. They will still have distinct abilities and playstyles. The ONLY thing that has really changed is that to spec Frost, you now only have to click once instead of many times, and without the need to google "mage frost spec". So in a sense, what Blizzard has done are "subclasses", Frost Mage, Fire Mage, and Arcane Mage; from which you pick one.
On the other hand, the philosophy on the new talents is that they must be hard to choose from, and offer something to all three specs of the class. They must be things that when a player chooses one, he still is left with doubts on the back of his mind to if he made the right choice. They are all highly situational and based on style instead of performance. Let's see an example. The Warlock's 6th tier of talents are:
Archimonde's Vengeance: Curses an enemy, inflicting 25% of all damage you take back to them.
Kil'Jaeden's Cunning: You can cast and channel while moving, but doing so doubles the cast time.
Illidan's Guile: Some spells now do splash damage to enemies within 10 yards.
You can see how they are very situational. Maybe the boss does heavy AoE damage every once in a while to you, perfect for the first if you want to maximize DPS. But then another boss requires a lot of movement, then the second might be better. Yet another boss has adds spawn constantly, maybe the third is actually a DPS increase. Scince you can only choose one of the three, this actually becomes a more difficult choice than, say, "Increases 15% of your damage." vs "Silences the enemy player." talent choices we have today, because simply the first one is for DPS PvE, the second for PvP, no doubts at all.
I think the new talent system is a step forward, if implemented as it's supposed to. As they say: In theory there should not be any difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is. The concepts and philosophy behind the changes, however, are spot on; so we'll see if they can pull it off.
Comments
Ya people said the same thing last time they changed it. People call this content and pay for it? Blizzard are masters!!
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The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
And the solution is: You will take the first choice for the first boss, the 2nd for the second boss....
By letting the players change there setup on the fly, they take out any real choice. It is more cookie cutter then in ever was. Everyone has anything at his disposal anytime. You won't have cokkie cutter skill-trees because they are gone entirely and you get your cokkie cutter behaviour right out of the dungeon/raid-guide for the boss.
I am curious,...
In many MMO's nowadays, sure, they give you all these choices,...but None of them are Commital. Meaning,...oh,..I want to be Frost today,...but the groupd needs a Fire,..ok,.brb,...ok I am Fire!
That to me, kinda ruins the whole feeling of Uniqueness.
So,..is that the way it is in WoW? If so,...and players can customize on a whim with no 'real' consequence,...then
Rift does it better
Actually, I agree with the OP, this is a step forward for Wow.
I personally would want a system closer to how Guildwars works however, where you unlock skills and pick all of them from a list based on your profession and what you have unlocked. Of course I also want more than 8 skills as GW have but in my book is the more customization the better. GWs idea is a lot more flexible than anything else.
I agree, Guild Wars 1 have the best skill system by far. U can mix it with secondary proffesion spells, and u can chouse any profession as secondary when ever u want.
And what if, as it is in many cases, the same boss does all three things? What if your particular raid group has low DPS compared to other raid groups, and so Phase 2 lasts longer, making the second choice more attractive to you in particular, while on other group maybe people take more damage and the first is better. It still is a more complex choice than what we have now.
I understand what the gist of the change is for but my only argument is it limits choices made.
1 talent point every 15 levels? Way to long of a wait.
Ideally if they went to this system what I would rather see is this:
Start off as a class, pick a spec and that spec has a signature ability. Then instead of having 1 talent every 15 levels, and automatic skills every few levels in between you would have a talent point every single level and have 3 choices like they have now but instead of every 15 levels, make it every 2-3 levels.
Imagine if you will a Warrior. Choose Prot get Shield Slam, or Arms get Mortal Strike, or Fury get Bloodthirst. Now depending on which spec you choose you will get all the needed passives and mastery like you get now. I.e. for Prot you get Sentinel, Vengence and Shield Critical Block. Now here is where it changes from the MoP announced talents. Dont forget you scrap all the things you would normally get while leveling up and instead have a choice every 2-3 levels.
Lvl 10 Utility for charge
lvl 12 passive defensive boost (i.e. +10% health, +10 parry, +10 Dodge)
lvl 14 active cc
lvl 16 passive offensive boost ( i.e. +5 crit, +5% chance to get a 2nd swing, +5% chance to increase Str by 10% for 15 sec)
lvl 18 Utility spell
lvl 20 a combat shout
lvl 22 an active offensive ability that can be used for a short duration after using your primary attack.
lvl 24 A self Heal
lvl 26 +10% to a specific defensive stat ( Armor, health, 10% to healing recieved)
Continue down, rotate a passive with an active. Balance the talents against each other, this would continue the comparing apples to apples scenario that the Devs want.
6 Talent points for 90 levels not only sounds, BUT IS very underwhelming.
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Previously, we had the following spectrums:
MMORPG <----> SPRPG
In the MMORPG, you had choices for your character.
In the SPRPG, you had choices of what character you would play.
With systems such as this, we are getting further away from playing "your" character that you had with MMORPGs and closer to playing "their" character like you have with SPRPGs.
Given the movement from MMORPGs toward MMOGLs... it only makes sense that character customization would disappear as well.
MMOs will be game lobbies where you play canned characters...
....you know, like the new WAR?
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I think part of the problem with this is that it would become very hard to balance. The more talent tiers you add, the more complete combinations you get. For example, if it were a talent every 2 levels, you would get 45 talents. Now considering it's a choice between 3 for each tier, that means they have to make 135 talents for a class. But the big problem is that it also implies there are a HUGE number of different warriors. Some math:
If I have two talent tiers of three talents each, then there's 3^2=9 possible combinations of talents a wariror can have. If we were to have the proposed 45 talents we would have 3^45=2954312706550833698643 possible talent combinations for a single class. Now when you consider there's 3 specs per class, that number increments to 3*3^45 = a sh*t load of combinationts, for a single class. It would be impossible to make every talent unique and viable.
On the current system, this isn't a problem simply because choosing a spec "locks" the talents you can pick, and furthermore the different combinatins of talents that a class can be is much smaller. There is, at most, about 10 different talent builds a Frost Mage can make, of which maybe 1 or 2 are viable (possibly PvE and PvP). Multiplied by 3 specs that's 30 combinations.
In this way, the new talents cannot be compared to the old ones. But I agree that while leveling, the new system will probably "feel" less interesting.
The "talent" customization system is present in many modern MMORPGs. Games like AoC, Rift, and even SWTOR all have similar concepts of class customization, though implemented in slightly different ways. The objective of talent trees is to make two people from the same class distinct from one another; to give more customization for players on how they want to play their class. But the problem with this system is that it gives a false "illusion" of customization. The truth is, on a competitive level of gameplay, people simply google "rogue combat spec" and get a cookie cutter talent build that has been number crunched, analyzed, and discussed with the overall concensus of it being the "most damage" or "best AoE healer" spec. So the typical player proceeds to copy paste this talent build, which usually has only a few points at the end for real customization; those last points that really have no effect on your performance and you can simply put on "whatever you like".
You're so wrong about this. First of all, only a small amount of WoW population ever PvP or Raid for that matter so those "cookie cutter" build matter less for the rest of us. Second, what is it to you if I want sprinkles on my cookie rather than cream? Forcing me to use sprinkles because some "elitist jerks" says so is a Totalitarian Regime policy only found in the Middle East and has no place in the free country of U.S. of A. Third, "best", "most", etc are all relative terms. What's "best heal" or "most damage" is relative to your play style. And I don't play like you and will never will, so can you then call the "best heal" build also best for me? Obviously not!
"With the current system in WoW, the only choice the player does is which of the three specs he wants to play, and after that, 95% of his talents are placed exactly as what the cookie cutter build dictates. Those 3-4 points remaining are the only real choice they make on the talent trees themselves. "
Ah yes "dictates" is the word isn't it? I pay $15/month for someone to dictate me on how I should play the game. No thank you.
So really "customization" does not go further than choosing one of the three specs. And Blizzard knows this, so what they did is simply make the current talent trees "subclasses", and change talents completely to offer hard choices for the player. A mage will still be able to spec either Frost, Fire, or Arcane. They will still have distinct abilities and playstyles. The ONLY thing that has really changed is that to spec Frost, you now only have to click once instead of many times, and without the need to google "mage frost spec". So in a sense, what Blizzard has done are "subclasses", Frost Mage, Fire Mage, and Arcane Mage; from which you pick one.
It's never like that for mages. It's more like Utility (Arcane), Damage (Fire), Control (Frost). Now you cannot even have a balance spec with little from each talent tree. "Subclass" is nothing but a coolaide everyone's, including you, have been drinking from Blizzard's soda fountain.
When I first made my hunter, I WAS a hunter, with pet, traps, and killer damage. Before I left WoW, I'm just a mediocre Markman(not even a hunter) who rely on Epic(-fail) gears.
On the other hand, the philosophy on the new talents is that they must be hard to choose from, and offer something to all three specs of the class. They must be things that when a player chooses one, he still is left with doubts on the back of his mind to if he made the right choice. They are all highly situational and based on style instead of performance. Let's see an example. The Warlock's 6th tier of talents are:
Archimonde's Vengeance: Curses an enemy, inflicting 25% of all damage you take back to them.
Kil'Jaeden's Cunning: You can cast and channel while moving, but doing so doubles the cast time.
Illidan's Guile: Some spells now do splash damage to enemies within 10 yards.
You can see how they are very situational. Maybe the boss does heavy AoE damage every once in a while to you, perfect for the first if you want to maximize DPS. But then another boss requires a lot of movement, then the second might be better. Yet another boss has adds spawn constantly, maybe the third is actually a DPS increase. Scince you can only choose one of the three, this actually becomes a more difficult choice than, say, "Increases 15% of your damage." vs "Silences the enemy player." talent choices we have today, because simply the first one is for DPS PvE, the second for PvP, no doubts at all.
The biggest dillusion with Blizzard's decision to change the talent tree was they think, with Totalitarian attitude, that PvE players runs Raids...a lot of PvE players don't. And I bet most of them already left the game. I wonder how many, in the recent WoW exodus of hundreds of thousands who left the game, are as disgruntled as I was because of this Totalitarian, "Father knows best", attitude.
I think the new talent system is a step forward, if implemented as it's supposed to. As they say: In theory there should not be any difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is. The concepts and philosophy behind the changes, however, are spot on; so we'll see if they can pull it off.
The Cata talent changes was a bust, what makes you think that they got it right this time? What they forget is the meaning why it was called "talent" in the first place. It should be sets of skills which separates you from others, thus dubbed "talent"...not make you all like clones from the same vat.
Ready for GW2!!!
One agreement more here. Too bad flexible systems like that are kinda hard to handle on the developer's end. And if the number of skills go up with expansions, it could become overwhelming for new players.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Oh I loved how in SWG you could be whatever you wanted. I personally loved to be an architect gunslinger. I think part of the problem with today's MMO landscape is not only on the game's side, but on the player's side. Nowdays everyone has to do that 1% more DPS, or be the best AoE healer, or be the tank that can mitigate 3% more damage than others. Everyone min/maxes, and so cookie cutter builds appear.
But if you were to compare the current "talent tree" system (not skill systems like in some MMOs, like SWG had) you'd find that because of this min/maxing whatever customization they could offer is lost already. Changing from talent trees to the new system really does no harm in that regard, and might actually add a bit more customization if they make the new talents really hard to choose from.
I also like the CONCEPT of the simplification in the talents. The trees as they are have all the problems mentioned here: wasted talents, too many 'must have' talents, and cookie cutter builds.
These new trees look like they should overcome those issues. As far as 'changing on the fly', Blizz has already said this won't be the case. You will have to go to a town or something similar to change up. They're already doing this in D3 because too many people were literally playing the game with their talent window open and changing skills in battle constantly.
That said, I do have to admit that not seeing anything NEW for your character for 15 levels is just way too long. In place of the talent points you used to be able to spend, they need to come up with some other type of reward. Take a look at how STO does levelling: you only rank up every 10 levels. And, when you rank up you gain significant rewards. But, within those 10 levels there are varying rewards each level. I think without this 'carrot', you lose a lot of player interest/desire.
Right, thats kind of the point, as it stands now, you will ALWAYS have the same spec, for every fight, and every boss, and every dungeon at level cap. Here there may be a fight that requires you to change it up a bit, or the fact that in PvP a lot of the times just because you see a shadow priest doesn't mean you already know what he is bringing to the table. This is for sure a step forward for WoW, and more than likely going to be analyzed by other developers.
Not exactly, you clearly have not looked over any of the new talent system.
http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/21/blizzcon-2011-new-talent-design-for-all-classes/
This is a huge step toward individuality within your same class. Where as only a fire mage could get cauterize in the current talent system, after the revamp ANY spec mage can cauterize. The other choices are Greater invis or Cold Snap also 2 amazing talents that many people will have a hard time choosing between. In the end your choice will boil down to what you feel is most usefull to YOU and the way you play. None of the talents are mandotory must haves "omg rofl your spec bad /gkick."
Also IMO the new talents are directed towards PVP not so much the PVE side of things.
C
Well you will be gaining new class abilities as you level up. They said they are looking at adding a level 87 ability to the classes. As for leveling from 1-90 You will get a talent every 15 levels, but we will also be gaining new abilities to use
I perfectly agree with you in regards to the leveling carrot problem. I think one thing they could do specifically for this, is change the existing planned talents to have "ranks" much like the talents we have now. So for example, instead of Kil'Jaeden's Cunning being a 1 point talent, it could have 5 ranks, each one reducing the casting time penalty further until you end up with what they have now. So that way they can give you 1 point every 3 levels. Of course, when you are 90, all of that would've just been fluff, but at least it could make things "feel" more interesting while leveling.
lets see, Burning Crusades: Take down the burning legions from an unknown world. Wrath of the Lich King: Destroy an evil dark lord and his undead army. Cataclysm: Fight the monstrous Dragon who destroyed azeroth. Mists of Pandaria: Attack of the Panda's....ZOMGWTFKJAFDJFSDKJFJ
I find that statement really funny, seeing how Blizzards are analyzing everybody else's ideas. DOTA in WoW just because League of Legend is successful, and changing skill in town because GW1 does it better...lawl!
Give credits where it is appropriate, not steal them to the glory of the gluttunous copy cat WoW.
Ready for GW2!!!
I'm not a raider. I'm not a min-maxer. I play for fun. WoW lost me with the changes during Cata. I could no longer play some of the diverse and perverse builds that I used to play. Things started becoming canned. It is one of the reasons that I moved over to RIFT (though I left there after seven months).
By forcing players to take cookie cutter builds, you are losing something. You are not gaining anything.
While in essence, the options in RIFT appeared to offer a plethora of choices - yes, the min/maxers would still end up with cookie cutter builds. That is the same in many games, as you have stated.
However, there is a vast difference between having the option to take that cookie cutter build and being forced to take it. By having both options, you appease both sides. You support both sides. Remove an option - you remove the player that preferred that option.
As an aside, you'll also lose those players that enjoyed all the theorycrafting involved in figuring out each new FotM with each patch. There are those players that enjoyed that aspect as part of being min/maxers. They lose that...and thus, you risk losing that player as well.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
It's pretty bad when they can take choices away from you, and convince you that it's for your own good.
I was always one to have a slightly different build that catered to my slightly different playstyle, and that's the way it should be. If anything, the talents should be expanded. That's one reason I'm really looking forward to TSW... no class restrictions, it's all about your choice in talents/skills.
I understand that. I think the problem arose when everyone wanted to be viable. People who spec differently for fun is perfectly fine, but when you get thousands of players who want to have that "unique" spec on a raid and do competitive DPS as everyone else's "unique" spec, the developers are left with a huge problem. I don't think that in today's world of damage meters, fight loggers, etc., a developer can balance so many unique specs properly. Thus, the "cookie cutter build" is inevitable.
However, IF they make this work, it could add a level of customization that was lost a long time ago. With 6 talent tiers, each having 3 "supposedly viable" talents, you can have 3^6= 729 combinations. They stated that the plan is to make every one of those talents viable for every spec of the class. IF (and a big IF) they pull that off, it could give you a much bigger degree of customization than what talent trees ever did in WoW, and still be competitive.
How interesting!
Of all the cheesiness that is MoP expansion, the one part I happened to think is a "plus" is that new talent system.
At first glance, all I could think was "holy hell they have no shame in regards to dumbing this game down" but, after further research and finding that the system basically lets a player further customize their character instead of sticking to the
"tree a,b,c - pick one" mentality
I think there are going to be more unique playstyles now, and more flavor added to PVP. Unfortunately, there will always be cookie cutter fotm builds, and as long as there's scripted PVE/raid mechanics, that will never change. Still, I think this is the best and most thought out talent change they've brought to the table thus far...
PS: I don't play WoW anymore, and this Panda nonsense makes me laugh really hard and feel good about my decision to stop giving Blizzard my time and money - BUT that doesn't mean I won't give credit where credit is due. I wish they would have implimented this talent change long ago
In fact, at least for now, they have clearly stated you can change on the fly more then ones eg. on the main page:
As a result, talents can be changed out when switching specs, as well as when running dungeons, raids, and battlegrounds. While re-talenting will most likely be disabled during combat and will incur a small fee (either in the form of gold or a reagent), it will still give players more opportunities to adapt their characters to better meet the challenges they expect to face while playing.
It may be subject to change like in d3 but for now their plan is to handle it like the glyph system.
I think players need to accept some responsibility. There is no way that I would have expected most of my builds to be viable in a dungeon, raid, or in PvP. There would be builds for tooling around doing this or that - just plain fun. Developers do not need to coddle folks that want to get drunk, fall down some stairs, and then come up with what they think is the best build...
No doubt though, I've seen much of said whining take place in several games from certain players.
As for the possible options, I do not know - I just have a difficult time looking through the talent calculator over at Wowhead and doing anything but a /facepalm...
http://www.wowhead.com/mists-of-pandaria-talent-calculator is the link, btw.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%