Classic Talent Trees to Battle for Azeroth

Community General Discussion
43

No I don’t particularly want them back, I’ll just play classic when it’s released tbh and enjoy it on that instead. The current talent system works for the way the game is now.

2 Likes
44

Let me expand on the point, then.

I don’t mean that they were harder to design in the first instance, but the devs rely on arbitrarily rolling specs around in cycles of buffs and nerfs “to keep the game fresh”, and I can see how restricting the choices made that a lot easier.

I may be unduly influenced by my background, but any programmer will tell you that it’s much harder to safely and correctly change a 300-line chunk of code than 6 50-line chunks. By isolating function into smaller modules, we make it easier to understand and work with. (And yes, that can go wrong sometimes, and have uinintended consequences, but on the average it holds well.)

In TBC, mages had 61 points they could put into 67 talents. In Wrath, mages had 71 points they could put into 86 talents. Taking into account different numbers of points in various talents, and dependencies, I’m not going to try to calculate how many possible builds there were, but it’s a lot.

Most of these builds would have been junk, of course. I don’t mean suboptimal; I mean really, really bad. Some could have led to emergent gameplay the devs had not predicted; it was possible for mages to be competent dungeon tanks, for example. (Not easy, but possible.)

But predictng the performance and utility of all of them, which is what the devs would have wanted to do, would get exponentially more difficult each expansion, with more points and more talents. And, of course, then add glyphs on top of that.

And then add the requirement to roll specs wound in the barrel all the time, while still professing a commitment to balance, and I think it would truly have become increasingly difficult for the devs to keep up.

So they sectioned us into neat little modules, with just a few choices. Much neater and easier to manage.

45

They should add things back as well. We had a choice of three different movement speed methods for example. Now for my paladin I have one choice and I have two non movement speed talents to take it.

They could introduce more rows at various levels to give more choice of things.

Levelling on the whole it’s ridiculous how long we have to wait to get basic abilities like an interrupt. Or how high you have to be on many classes before you get the ability to AoE.

3 Likes
46

NIce joke have you read any of them/do you remember any of them/ do you ever seen them since you put them all in ?How many times you changed them fro X Y Z situation mindless boring just stat 1% increas in X is joke and not talent.

2 Likes
47

The fact that they adressed the issue is enough for me to thinking they will atleast try to making it more enjoyable. You talk in that way because you probably are in hate with Blizzard right now.
But think a this: why should you constantly lie to all your costumers, wich are the ones that actually gives you the money? You “could” if you publish something like 10 games at year at minimum (it’s not a good thing to do obviously, but you could tecnically), but Blizzard publish something like 1 / 2 games at year (and not always), so it would make no sense for them.

Just wait for Blizzcon, maybe they will do it, maybe they will not, but i’m pretty sure they will try to do something atleast

48

I played wotlk,cata no F clue what you mean by saying anything everyone played same thing and changed talents little to none in pvp only.

49

No ty, current talent system offers much more options, with specific choices that work best according to the situation.

Old talent tree was similar to Legion artifact ones, basically fill in the gaps and keep them as are forever.

3 Likes
50

Wow.

Thank you for saying that.

I don’t understand why people find that hard to understand.

All Blizzard does is find stuff players like, and then change it.

There is no master plan or logic behind it.

The game is more cookie cutter than it’s ever been.

You literally use like four skills.

Yet , somehow, people think Classic is easy. Most people were BAD in Classic. Even I was until I learned the ropes but it was a learning process that took months to be good. Your talents and gear meant something if YOU were good which is why I destroyed people with Thunderfury while I was in blues or killing level 50s when I was level 30.

You’ll be in for a surprise when theory crafting returns and you cant figure out why you’re being destroyed.

3 Likes
51

lol

Then there’s no solid argument for the old trees as you just said they were cookie cutter.

Proof please. Post a proper rotation where you ONLY use four skills.

Theory crafting still exists just that most people ignore it and just jump on Mr Robot or whatever is the ignore-that-customisation-you-wanted-to-be-told-how-to-gear website.

And you’ll find a lot of people in that position as they’ve learned what to do. Old raids mechanically are much simpler. As long as people are geared it’ll be a snooze.

1 Like
52

intresting readin this one. I do not think the old talent tree is a good idea eighter, or it is to some extent but would need tweaking.

what we now have is not good eighter, problem is now you realy have no true choise, do you play BM hunter or MM hunter, then you can only choose from those talents, this is not realy fun eighter.

But what if there where only 1 spec, but the old talent tree, whit a twist, where you get every level or every second level, a choise what you want to take from all 3 specs as we have now, meening me as BM hunter could choose to not want chimeara shot, but in stead I want Aimed shot, due to now I can get that skill if so wanted to, or I am Playing Suv hunter, but I want to have a bow instead of a 2 hander, then I take surv trapps and MM hunter ranged skills for example, or I want to be a melee BM hunter, I take 2 hander skills but I also take skills that boost my pet, I now can not do range attacks, but I got nice pet and I do melee instead.
this would give people the freedom of choise again, a little bit like it is now, but isntead you can choose from start what skills you want, no need to put 5 points there to unlock that.
would some things be ubalanced probably but I do think it could be realy fun, Cookie cutter builds would still be a thing, becuse that will always happen.

53

What a load of nonsense. :joy:

Theorycrafting never went away. It’s better and more sophisticated than ever. And automated. That people don’t utilize it is their fault.

Most of vanilla talents are filler to sink points in order to get some key ability. You will often find yourself putting points into stuff that makes you think “which one is less garbage”. Pinnacle of game design :thinking:

1 Like
54

Untrue especially at ret paladins, depending on your choices you differed alot from others. the one ret maybe didn’t gain a lot of slows, spped boosts or CC but man he gained alot of healing. Meanwhile the ret after went full on dps.

Also we still do, so get rid of azerite armour, the 8.2 neck and current talents aswell. We just simulate or go to sites like Bloodmallet anyhow.

55

We would do exactly the same with the old trees today. We would just sim them, which is essentially how the cookie cutters existed.

If you raid you do this, if you pvp you do that. Choice is merely an illusion and hybrids were possible but not really great at anything in most cases.

3 Likes
56

No. Old talent trees didn’t offer anything in terms of gameplay changes after you choose specialization. Most were just passive bonuses that are now baked into specialization and active ones were mostly abilities that should have been baseline anyway.

57

You mean like the class I’m playing now that can literally be played with one hand and still get top DPS despite me not playing this game for like four months?

Or do you mean like almost every other class which damage rotation consist of four buttons?

Let’s not pretend you’re not playing the same game I am.

Theorycrafting DOES NOT exist in this current version of WoW.

That was the whole point of dumbing WoW down, removing stats and simplifying everything.

I didn’t get much time in the beta stress test, work and all but, you can instantly feel the difference in the classic gameplay vs. Blizzard Super Fun Cash Grab Microshop gameplay.

There is a reason Classic WoW felt like another game because it almost is at this point.

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58

And when was hunter more complex?

Watch from 0:50 for maximum fun

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59

Let’s watch the whole video and then look at the description:

MM: 16/51/4

25 man Naxx

Is OBVIOUSLY not a Classic hunter.

/rolleyes

60

Well Classic hunter only used 1 ability. You couldn’t even use traps in combat. I was nice and used Wrath as example as thats where hunters started using more than 1 ability. You could raid Naxx 40 using only your feet as hunter.

1 Like
61

Because we got too many levels and the talent trees became too small to fit all the levels?

Because they wanted to try something new?

Because it was too much work to keep the old trees up to date?

There could be many reasons. Either way the new system’s way worse.

1 Like
62

Number buttons on action bar does not define complexity, there is also encounter design. BoD lfr is more complex and difficult than MC. Take away usual 2-3 410+ deeps carrying raid and you will be wiping on every boss, because random heroes can’t execute even dumbed down lfr mechanic. You won’t live long enough during todays raid encounter if play with just one hand, despite having “dumbed down” rotation.

1 Like