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I've been reading some reviews and in most of them I'm seeing that the talent system has been dumbed down again and leaving players with very little to pick as they level. Most of the builds are cookie cutter even worst so now with MoP than it got in CAT. How do most of the players feel about the new talent system? would like to hear from players that played WOW at Vanilla.
Peace,
Lascer
Comments
I think it is fine. Many do not.
In the old system we got to push a lot more buttons creating the illusion of choice. I say illusion because there were just a few viable builds at end game. That meant that even though you pushed more buttons, you ended up just like everyone else in your class/spec by the end.
Now the stuff everyone got, everyone gets without button pushing. The choices you made in the old system are all made automatically now when you choose your spec.
Over the course of lvling you end up with six powers which can be unique to your build, more so than the old system.
However, the downsides include:
you only get a talent once every 15 lvls. As far as the talent system goes, it may give you more acutal choice then the last system, however, it feels like less.
also, there will definately be guilds who insist on what six talents your spec will have. So you may be in a guild that tells you what talents to get, thereby relinquishing all your control.
Thanks for the reply Zorgo, you seem to be right in line with what everyone is saying. I started to get a weird feeling at CAT and this system just seem more of the same.
The arguement of talent choices prior to MOP is moot as you still has some utility options in cata, but there was always a best spec. You have blizzard telling you what that is now.
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Have you actually used it?
Personally and has already been pointed out in this thread, previous incarnations of the talent tree gave the illusion of choice while not actually providing any because if you wanted a particular top tier talent you had no choice but to push all your points in that direction. Now, i have a choice of talents that can actually make a difference to my build without having to worry about all the talents that i should have anyway by picking a mastery. One prime example is that i am a PvE player who does a lot of quests and dailies, so i have now been able to equip my arcane mage with an ice barrier which is a big advantage to me in that play style. It may seem something small, but it makes a difference to 'me' as a player in the style that i choose to play and that is what was missing from the previous trees, a way to actually personalise as build for yourself.
As for choices overall, i am no math wiz as this will tell but your choices are 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 = 729 different combinations of the current talent tree which is a fair amount of choice i think although again as has already been pointed out you are bound to get some raiding guilds that insist on particular builds, but that will always be the way.
It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.
I was in some hardcore raiding guilds and never had anyone or have i told anyone how to build their toon, even when i was an officer. Thanks for you feedback on this and I'll look into it a little more before I think of getting and trying MoP. But for me I loved the tree's in Vanilla WoW, yes you had the cookie cutters but I always seems to have the build I wanted after spending a little gold and resetting it a few times. I think a better idea would have been to take the tree from Vanilla, take out the ones that kind of sucked and replace them with better one's giving the player even more options on picking their playing style. By doing this you don't dumb down the system like they have now you just fix the only part that was broken, the stupid ones taken out and replace with good ones, done.
Peace
Lascer
Again, it is a little harsh to say that it is 'dumbed down' if you haven't actually used it yet. The overall problem with all of the previous incarnations of the 'tree' format is exactly that, it is a 'tree' format so there is little choice in where you go when you take a particular route to get to a target skill and no matter how many stupid ones you replace with good ones you will still have to bury some of them further down the branches leading to the old cookie cutter problem.
It is just a personal view, but i believe that they have done something good with this new talent system and it does give a much wider choice of a personal build without having to mess about with the peripheral talents you would have to choose anyway.
It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.
I laughed when I first heard this is where they were going. After playing, I feel that it works. It would be one thing if you didn't still have all your spells. It feels like 15 new abilities have been added per class of which you get to choose 5.
This system is much akin to the GW2 utility system except you get the ability to use more abilities at one time in total. I can see them filling this in, maybe adding "minor" talents in between levels.
It's more that the choosing of new things only occurs every 15 levels, rather than what the talents themselves are.
Dear OP,
They changed the talent system because the old way was prone to being "the right way" or "the wrong way" there was no real CHOICE.
ANYONE who's played WoW for more than a few months knows this, it is a simple fact.
You can make any claims you'd like but there were always mandatory talents and there were always "traps" to the point in which if you speced wrong you were significantly weaker.
This system offers choice, it offers similar yet different talents that change the gameplay and offer you distinct choices rather than "pick this or you do less damage / healing"
Vast improvment across the board.
Edit: Old way in BC - Cataclysm 1 maybe 2 optional talent choices, the rest was mandatory.
New way, 3 unique different skills at each tier with 6 tiers. That's far more choice, its NOT dumbed down.
Frankly the old way was an idiot check.
The new way is REAL choice.
WoW has been about cookie cutter classes since pretty much BC, but especially Wrath on. There is easily more real choice now than in Cataclysm.
However, the system blows. It feels empty when you gain a level. It would actually be better if you had to go to your trainer and train new ranks of abilities like in the past because then it would actually feel like you got something new for your level.
I agree, less choice. 6 total choices that all share similiar function, spread across all trees. So, no different choices per tree. There were cookie cutter builds before, but you didn't have to follow them. Just like now, you don't to follow them, but there are going to be cookie cutter talent choices per build. This time, it'll be 6 cookies instead of 31..
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Again, i have to ask whether you guys have actually used it? Some of the choices within the level bands share a similar function (like living bomb and frost bomb i suppose), but i wouldn't say that different tier choices like Scorch & Invocation were similar in any way.
For me it does give me much more choice as i can go on my mage for example with my favourite specialization which arcane, but still have an Ice Barrier to help with my play style, something that was previously impossible given that ice barrier was buried 20 points into the frost tree.
As has been said before, just because there were more items in the previous trees didn't mean that you had more choice as you had to choose items that you neither wanted or needed just to get to a talent that you did want or needed to make your rotations work so i think there is a little confusion where simplification and real choice is being classed as 'dumbing down'.
It seems to me that a lot of people feel that some choice has been taken away when in all reality it was never really there in the first place, but the one thing that i can agree with is that maybe some of the immersion has been taken away, so maybe it would have been a good idea to replace that third tier of glyphs with some in between 'fluff' choices and leave the training requirement in place, but then again given the rate at which most people level these days is it really worth it?
It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Calling it a talent system is an insult to talent systems. But hey, obiviously having 3 skills to pick between every 15 levels is far more choice and build variety then the other way around. Not like any other game out there has proven you can have a vast amount of diversity in builds using 3 skill trees... you know LIKE RIFT.
Its basically dumbing down for the player and dumbing down for the devs so they have less work to do for 'balancing' and the likes as every character is now perfectly identicle with trivial skills mixed in which, btw, will always have an optimal choice to pick from.
At max level I have more choices now than I did with Cataclysm talents. The number of builds within one class specialization is now similar to how it was when I was max level in Vanilla.
I now use the Secondary/Dual Spec to give myself two builds within one Class Specialization. I have never wanted to do that with the old talent trees. For the first time, since perhaps BC, I now use different talent builds (same specialization) for PVP, Dungeons and soloing Rare Elites.
While levelling I do miss the 1 tick per level in the Talent Tree. But it was always more an illusion of choice than a reality.
I haven't heard any complaints from current WoW players. I think a lot of people would agree its an improvement. Infact, the only people I hear say the word "dumbed down" are those that aren't even playing the game atm /shrug
Two reasons come to mind:
We don't have to take up "useless" or atleast less desirable talents anymore just to gain access to good talents. In a sense, you could say the useless talents are built in now (all those +5% to hit, and +3% to reduce spell damage type abilities that were boring but necessary), leaving up space to pick really good talents.
In past expansions, there were "must have" talents you needed to have to perform your role well. But sometimes, ensuring that you had these "must have" talents meant you had to sacrifice a really cool ability or mechanic. Now everybody has those must have talents built in, and you can focus on other mechanics that just add to your role.
A perfect example would be disc priest who in cata never picked up Archangel despite the talent being pretty cool and helpful. The reason being is because everything else in the tree was a must have to heal efficiently in arena. Now, the Archangel mechanic is built in.
Same can be said for my resto druid and efflorence. Now its built in so I don't have to sacrifice its cool and helpful mechanic for something else like I would have in cata.
At the same time, I now have more options for things like slowing an enemy, disorienting a pack. Stunning somebody. Popping cat form and instantly prowling (think rogue's vanish).
I would say Blizzard has improved the game....again.
The fact that the majority of players that played wow from vanilla times have quitted its answer itself.Ofc they didnt stop playing wow only because of the talent system changes.But its a main complain if u ask them.I speak with many guys and rl friends that quitted wow and all agree on that part.
Some ppl claim that there wasnt real choise in the old system with so many talents on the trees and the working builds were again few and specific, plus there were many talents that were kinda not usefull and u had to pick them to reach to x talent.Agreed but only for specific expansions.
Back in vanilla and im speaking about my toon which was a hunter,i experimented with loads of combo specs that were working just fine for various combat situations (its always fun to beat good geared warriors/rogues in melee mode with your hunter,something that u cant even try nowdays since they made hunter a pew pew class aka L2, and i aint talk about just duels,but in the old ranked vanilla bg's ,specs that no other hunter used or at least very few. Freedom in choise is something not to be taken out lightly in a game.And blizzard yes they also did this so they can have less work in balancing things.
You wont hear many complaints from current wow players cause the ones that play it actually prefer it that way.
If u ask me the right way should be the old vanilla trees with the addition of more intresting talents replacing those telents that were not so intriguing.Over the course of expansions blizzard choosed the way of dumbing them instead of enriching. More choises in character development is always a good thing when we speak about rpg's. Dumbing down is the way of the consolized rpgs or fps excuse of rpg's.
Firstly, is it a fact or are you just making assumptions? I am a Vanilla player and i am still around as are several of my friends and guild members, but that is by the by.
Secondly, did the Vanilla trees give you more choice or again was it an illusion of choice because theoretically it was possible to get the top talent in one tree and go quite deeply into another, but at the cost of talent ranks and generally without the talent ranks maxed out the talents you chose weren't as effective as they could be, so you were back to the same problem. You are right that quite a few people found unique combinations that worked better than others, but that is how the whole cookie cutter culture started because once one person found that magic combination, everyone wanted the same build.
The other thing i don't think adds up is the argument about Blizzard making it easier to balance classes by making these changes because by making more of the previous talents automatic they have a bigger issue if something is out of whack as it affects all of that class and not just the ones that chose that particular talent as it would have previously. By bringing more of the talents out of the selection and into the permanant build of the class they have given themselves a harder task in essence when it comes to the balancing act.
Again, not everyone will like the changes, but I for one do think that it is a move in the right direction although i can also understand how much this has an effect on the RP aspects of the game by taking out the training.
It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.
I have to agree 100%. I liked making a hybred build before MOP, even if it wasn't the greatest build. Now I don't have a choice. And with Hunter pets it's even worse. All pet talent choice has been completly removed and all a Hunter has to do now is select one of three predetermined builds. It's on the scale of absurdity. I'm thinking the next expansion players won't even have to touch their keyboards to play WoW. Just login and the game will play itself. Gumbo for the drooling masses!
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
While I definitely agree that WoW needed to get away from cookie-cutter builds, I don't think the new talent system is the answer.
I still think Rift's talent system (Souls) is one of the best. It offers a lot of flexibility and variation between builds and starts granting talent points at level 2 as opposed to having to wait 15 levels for a talent choice.
Are there cookie-cutter builds in Rift? Sure, but I find that Rift offers a level of class customization that few other MMO's can rival.
Just had a look at those as i haven't played Rift (note to self: download that!), but they do remind me very much of the original talent trees on WoW, especially with filling one tree and using the oveflow in the other trees. I do like the idea of those roots as well, that would definately enrich the talent experience a little, but i suppose it is just a twist on reaching a particular level to get a talent, although a twist for the good so i can see why you like it. Then of course you do have the choice of soul mix which adds a lot of variation i would imagine, very nice system overall.
It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.
It basically saves me time from having to put silly points one by one into little percentages over time... much better imo.