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10.2.5
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10.2.6
The Devolution of the Talent Point System:
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Post by
632964
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Orranis
What do you mean by no choice? You have 3 trees to choose from. Choose one. If you don't like any 3 of the choices, reroll your class.
I don't really think this deserves a reply.
Probably been said already, but the best explanation and support of the new system I have heard is this:
With the reduced trees you no longer have to appear at a raid or what not and have the scrutiny of your talents be looked at and people saying - oh, you put a talent point into this, and you should have done this instead, therefore you fail. Exactly! That's the entire point of the mastery system, to get rid of flat stat bonus talents that are considered mandatory, and replace them with more dynamic and interesting talents to choose from, where it's about your personal preference rather then a mathematically calculated best spec. However, instead of this, they took the easy way out by making one viable spec per tree, that not even the biggest idiot could fail to see. Instead of making talents less mandatory, they've made the cookie-cutter spec more mandatory, and sacrificed talents being actually interesting. Also, the idea of a pure PvP vs. Pure PvE vs. Pure Leveling vs. Pure Raid vs. Pure Heroic... get the point? Now, with reduced number of talents in your tree you have a set number you can put just about anywhere and still have the option to choose what you want, not just saying that the cookie cutter like now, is bestest. But the thing is that you CAN'T put them anywhere. Especially in PvE, because they're trying to balance PvP and PvE talents with 31 points, and leaving no room for beneficiary talents in other trees, there's really only two or three points you can choose to put where you want, and then you're just wasting them on PvP talents. In PvP, you've always had freedom to put the points where you will.
Bottom line, Blizzard appears to be heading towards a more simpler version of talents, with less bloating in them like before. I agree there heading for a simple talent idea, but I don't believe bloating is the right word for what we had before. How about dynamic, complex, synthesized between trees, etc.
Example: Today I respecced my boomkin because I run mostly LFD PuG's. I do a LOT of AoE. So instead of following the cookie cutter talent build for heroics, I moved a few points from places I did not
need
and placed them into a talent that would benefit me and my situation. However, if I were in a strict and serious raiding guild I assume, safely, that my talent build would be frowned upon.
You're actually supporting my argument here. The idea is with our current system you have the ability to CHOOSE to make an AOE spec, but with 31 point tiers there's really only one viable PvE spec. So for Heroics you can go AOE, then switch to single target for ICC. With 31 point trees, it's A. PvE spec or B. PvP spec.
Post by
Orranis
What I had hoped they would do is keep the number of talents high, keep many of the core talents earlier in the tree, and fill the rest with talents that are fun, or change how you play, or give you interesting utility in certain situations. Sadly, it looks like things are going to be more basic, removing the choice they wanted to give us in favor of simple trees.
i'll agree to that. the tree's as a whole feel too cluttered, like they're trying to fit in 6 years of game evolution into a 41 talent box and it doesn't fit, but that's what they've announced so they're just running with it. Not at all. Remember that their first announcement was that we'd have the same 51 point tier system, with 76 points? Things change.
i like that they're getting rid of some of the "filler" talents but there's too much there to cram into such a small tree. if they want to give us options, they need bigger trees. period. Exactly.
Post by
Pwntiff
Think of Beta testing as a peer review for a paper. You write a first draft and let everyone read it and find typos, grammar mistakes, and clumsy phrasing. You then write a revised rough draft and repeat the process.
Saying "This is horrible" does not help. Saying "You could do it this way" helps. It seems like you have a well-thought out argument as to why you dislike, but without a proposed solution, you are more akin to "This is horrible" than "Try it this way."
"Can we say '_____'?" is an idiom you must not be familiar with. It basically is a throw-back to teaching English to children just beginning to speak. You show a ball, "This is a ball. Can you say 'ball'?" The idea here being you must not be familiar with a "beta" and, therefore, must be taught.
Post by
362407
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Orranis
Think of Beta testing as a peer review for a paper. You write a first draft and let everyone read it and find typos, grammar mistakes, and clumsy phrasing. You then write a revised rough draft and repeat the process.
Saying "This is horrible" does not help. Saying "You could do it this way" helps. It seems like you have a well-thought out argument as to why you dislike, but without a proposed solution, you are more akin to "This is horrible" than "Try it this way." I've already stated that the reason I do not include a 'try it this way' is because they're trying to fix what isn't broken. My 'try it this way' is go back to their original concept of 51 point tiers with 76 points, or something around that number.
"Can we say '_____'?" is an idiom you must not be familiar with. It basically is a throw-back to teaching English to children just beginning to speak. You show a ball, "This is a ball. Can you say 'ball'?" The idea here being you must not be familiar with a "beta" and, therefore, must be taught. So I guess "'Can we say "Can we say '____'""' would be correct in this instance? The point I was trying to make was that I DID state that I understood the talents would be subject to change in my disclaimer, which was your point.
The problem with this new talent tree system for Cataclysm is that Blizzard said, "Okay, this is what we are going to do. This is why we are going to do it. Now, I don't have any specific examples to give you, but if you could just picture in your mind..."
Given the current trees in beta, its easy to conclude that they are doing the opposite of many of the things they stated they wanted to do with the talent trees in Cataclysm. Once they've fleshed them out a bit more, its possible we'll start to see that flexibility and choice they want us to have.
I think they need to fatten up the trees a bit instead of making them longer. Have in each tier (or every other tier) a talent or two that one would consider mandatory along with a few optional talents that can be selected depending on playstyle and preference. A good example being a talent that enhances AoE attacks versus a talent that enhances single target attacks. What you would essentially have is a cookie-cutter spec that is more skeletal in nature with talents around it that add diversity to how that particular build is played. Personally, how they give the choices doesn't matter to me, it's the idea that we only have such a limited number of points. Your ideas are the most I like so far, the problem is just that I don't think having a skeletal cookie-cutter spec (even that should be avoided, as mastery was intended to do) fleshing out into a number of different choices is going to be possible with 41 points total. I just don't see the point of dragging down how many points we have, I don't see any pro.
Making it so that 31pts is mandatory in a tree before moving into another one has its pros and cons. I think that if Blizzard wants to go that direction, they need to design it so that talents in other trees aren't as desirable for a particular spec until you've already spent those 31pts. As for PvE versus PvP, if they want to balance the two, they need to make it so that talents for one are just as useful for the other. I think that making it mandatory to fill out one talent tree first doesn't bother me that much, simply because the skeletal cookie-cutter spec we were talking about is inevitably going to use the 31 point talent, but I also think that they need to make the talents in other trees MORE desirable to the one your currently in. I'm going to drag back my example for this, which fits both are descriptions, Elemental Mastery. While being incredibly useful to Enhancement Shamans, it only becomes so after you've spent enough talents to get Maelstrom Weapon. The only adjustment I would make is to make something equally useful on the Restoration side, to give more choice as to where he wants to put his points.
Post by
GVHB
i like that they're getting rid of some of the "filler" talents but there's too much there to cram into such a small tree. if they want to give us options, they need bigger trees. period.
They can stick with this 31 pointer tree. To make space for more options they could add a fifth column to the talent tree.
Post by
54073
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
362407
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Gnub
Keep it in the blog, just like the other topics.
Indeed - or one of them for that matter. The more threads on the same topic, the harder it is to keep a focused discussion. If it's regarding a specific class - there's a thread in each of the classes' respectful forum.
It doesn't really make sense to do in depth-complains about the new talents yet, as they're - as it's obvious to see from the amount of changes each build - are still heavily into development. I'm sure they're going to end up being more interesting that they look at the moment - and more than they are in the current 51-trees.
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