I knew they added the soulbinds to the preview interface, i was under the impression you could see the full tree but apparently it’s only the main trait. I guess it wouldn’t be hard to make it so you can shift-click on them to reveal the tree, after all initially you weren’t able to see soulbinds at all, they seem to be working to improve this and it’s a minor fix.
Same goes for the conduit location, imo they should be in the same places, however i don’t see what this has to do with the talent trees, like i said they could have made it so the whole tree can be opened in the first week.
Again i don’t see what this has to do with the current talent system, the amount of power you get is irrelevant. How would the old talent trees make that conduit any different?
No, it shouldn’t. I really don’t understand your obsession with progression past max level. We always had that though gear. Why is there a rule that after you reach max level you shouldn’t be gaining any power? outside plain stats from gear. You really have no argument for this beside “this is how i got used to”.
If you were to play another game, or started to play during legion you wouldn’t be having this view.
Your list there can be translated into “more damage and more survivability” although many of those are easily acquired in the first week. How is that different from what we have in classic?
The OP is about the game having so many borrowed power systems it’d be easier (or at least possible) to have the old style talent trees.
I made a comparison between the two, how they interact with the game and how they feel.
It’s simple: the reason why those conduits have to do something with the talent tree is because you don’t have to wait weeks to unlock the full potential of your character, and instead, you can talent into anything you want when you hit max level. That is why it has to do something with the talent trees. Because these conduits should be talents, or passives or whatever - just have everything unlocked when you hit max level.
Conduits by nature are designed to be grinded and regrinded. Do you have to regrind Chaos Bolt as a Warlock constantly? No. Do you have to regrind having your Chaos Bolt be a guaranteed crit everytime? No. However you have to grind out the required character level for it, which lines up with an RPG’s progression.
Any modifiers that you can add to Chaos Bolt should be other talents or passives you can pick up as you level, and maybe the odd set bonus (and picking up set bonuses is in the natural gearing progression, you don’t have to wait weeks for a battle pass to implement that modifier).
It’s basically a barrier of entry to playing your class, and actively punishes playing alts as max level isn’t max level anymore.
I literally was never against gearing as a progression form, in fact, I said that gearing should be the only form of endgame power progression.
Again, you skipped over something that I said.
I picked up Diablo 3 in late 2017 and I am very critical of the Paragon levels, where it’s just a never ending grind for more damage and tankiness, and I’d be even more critical of the game if it wasn’t a complete joke - complete RNG fiesta gearing system where the only thing you can do is pushing Greater Rifts, but the only way you can push even higher is if you grind Paragon levels so you can do higher level Greater Rifts to have a better shot at getting Primal Ancient items but then you have to hope that the items you want drop, and then you have to hope that those items have the favored stats on them, but then you get unlucky so you get more Paragon Levels to have an even bigger chance, but you’re pushing so high that mobs oneshot you through all of your defensives so you have to grind Paragon Levels on lower difficulties to not get oneshotted but then since you’re grinding lower Greater Rifts you don’t have as good as a chance to get Primal Ancient items and this goes on repeat and repeat.
I’m not biased, I just hate design that is player unfriendly.
Yeah you got the budget version in like 1-2 weeks of playing, sure. But then these players would also have to grind islands for weeks because they got a 370 shoulder but they can’t use the traits on them because their neck isn’t high level enough, then they have to do Vision of Perfection which is timegated so you need to play for longer than a month and then they go on and grind Lucid Dreams which is another grind that takes a month and then in the meantime you have to grind your cloak level to have more corruption resistance and then you have to grind Visions even longer to get Echoes of Nyalotha because you also need Corruptions on your gear because they do 70% of your DPS and then you have to grind out Conflict and Strife but you can’t get to 1.6k because your gear is garbage so you go do m+ but you can only do the low keys because you barely have any borrowed power or gear in the first place
Hopefully wasn’t a long read. On Classic, you get max level, picking up the Class books is easy because you just have to do raids (and there is a huge stockpile of them in auction houses and guild banks), you buy a couple consumables and you go play the game.
The OP is objectively wrong about the cause and misses the point when it comes to the purpose of borrowed power.
If you want to make a comparison between the two then maybe you should be more specific because you can either talk about the old tree as it existed in a particular expansion, like cataclysm, and the new talents we have now.
Or you can talk about the base talents and the further improvements from future expansions.
This isn’t what you started out with, you point out different issues, like clarity of choice but never really touched how progression should work long-term. If borrowed power is your issue, then what exactly is your solution? I think it’s clear that the current course was set because the old tree couldn’t expand forever.
Also if those effects and abilities you listed there are permanent, not borrowed power, but gained after max level, would you be OK with them?
I have to mention that borrowed power DOES NOT EQUAL progression past max level. They are not the same thing.
This makes absolutely no sense, yet you claim is simple. You’re trying to contrast talents vs conduits by claiming that for conduits you have to wait. BUT if conduits were unlocked as soon as you reached level 60, would you be OK with them?
You claim to have an issue with the whole system yet you pick on minor bs that could change on a whim.
Also as i mentioned before, you could have the cataclysm talent tree, let’s say that blizzard throws out the current talents and copy/pastes cataclysm talents in the game. This doesn’t mean they can’t use soulbinds and conduits anymore, this is why i said it has nothing to do with eachother.
You can have both cataclysm talents, until level 60 and then you can have another progression path with soulbinds and conduits, they are not mutually exclusive.
I never said you were against gear progression, read that again. I challenged your notion that gear SHOULD be the only power progression in endgame.
I said that’s completely arbitrary and you have no reason for this. You came up with this:
You said another but don’t know which was the first one, however we shouldn’t have new things because it costs blizzards more money? I’m sorry but this isn’t acceptable and hope blizzard doesn’t resort to making gameplay decision based on whatever is most cost effective.
I just found it irrelevant, also trying to keep my posts shorter and more concice, it doesn’t matter what other games you playing, it matters what was the FIRST game you played, your anchor, because you are judging all games through that lens and anything different = bad.
When you say that something “SHOULD” be a certain way you need objective reasoning, i could very well say that there SHOULD be power progression past max level beside gear.
Really what’s there to stop me? why am i wrong?
ESO for example, i didn’t play it in a long time, has a progression path past max level aswell, it opens up like 6 different talent trees and you receive points by gaining veteran levels or something. If that was your introduction to MMOs you would have a different view on how things SHOULD be.
OP’s point was why not have one over the other if the resources are available. Sure, OP could have gone more in depth, but a common frustration is that the external progression systems aren’t player friendly, whereas talents used to be, so I assume that’s why OP didn’t go in depth.
Yes, I started out with clarity of choice but also about class progression and how the current systems compare with the old ones. I pointed out how having a balance change doesn’t completely invalidate the progression you made if you JUST have the talents + glyphs + set bonuses, as changing from them is easy, whereas with the current “grind for extra power that gets implemented into your class”, you end up with some Azerite powers being nerfed and others buffed, so now you have to regrind your Azerite gear.
As for long term progression, what we had before and have even now: gearing. It worked from Vanilla - WoD. If there is a fear that the players wouldn’t log in “because they are done”, first of all, the game should have an end goal in each patch, and second of all, you keep players logged in and paying by virtue of the game being fun, not by having some arbitrary power grind that you have to grind every day else you fall behind.
Get rid of any class power progression that goes beyond max leveling, reimplement those resources to develop an old-style talent tree that you don’t have to redo each expansion, saving up resources to produce better content overall. Imagine how fun the Covenants would be if they didn’t have power tied to them, and instead, it focused purely on lore and cosmetics.
It was actually set - according to actual responses from Blizzard - because they wanted to get rid of cookie cutting.
Quote from Ghostcrawler from ~8 years ago:
Fundamentally, taking into account what we’ve learned about talent trees over the years, we’ve come to the conclusion that the talent tree model where you pick up tiny performance increases here and there (and where there’s, mathematically, nearly always a ‘right’ answer and a ‘wrong’ answer) is not a great model. The Mists talent design is a major revamp that should fix this problem once and for all.
It didn’t fix the problem at all, there were still insanely strong options in there, you just had less overlap with the amount of talents being strong in all situations overall, because you had less talents to choose from. Blizzard’s new idea now was to lock players into making a Covenant Power choice, and guess what? Players don’t care, there are already tons of guides as to what covenants are best for each spec, including pvp and pve.
Again, it’s just muddying the waters because Blizzard, for whatever reason, hates cookie cutter builds so they want to punish players for making a choice based on power, which is fundamentally stupid with how competetive the game is. There is a major disconnect. Why do you punish players for making the best out of the sandbox they’re given?
No because we’d have a bloat of abilities. You’re missing my point - my issue is the constant redevelopment of the wheel in a way that makes the game less enjoyable overall, and is just a major money sink for Blizzard.
It’s simply better to settle for a talent tree and toy around with that each expansion (not neccesarily expanding or taking away, will depend on how the game goes), instead of having these arbitrary grinds, redoing them in a completely new setting and way, and then designing the entire endgame around that arbitrary progression system. It’s just feasting on the time and money of the developers instead of focusing on developing a better endgame - for example, content invalidation happens each patch, which has been a major criticism of the game.
If you want to come up with new stuff for each expansion, you could do it in the way you suggested, which I agree with to a degree:
But I think doing that through Enchants and Glyphs is a much easier solution, once again.
They are because Blizzard implemented it that way. Artifact weapon power grinding was a progression system beyond max level that affected how your class plays. Same for RNG legendaries, Azerite neck level, Azerite gear, Essences, and I’d put Corruption here as well, even if it doesn’t directly affect your class.
To circle back doing extra stuff through Enchanting and Glyphs, why not have Enchanters make Corrupted enchants instead? Same for Glyphs? And instead of having to grind Cloak levels, the Corrupted enchants just come with a fixed negative component? Again it just cuts down having to create a new progression system while at the same time making it more player and alt friendly.
First of all it won’t be changed because it’s tied to your already set endgame progression.
Second of all, yes, but you can just make them Glyphs at that point - you can even have them be accessible as you level!
Right, my bad. The reason for only having gear be the only form of power progression however, is that not only is it alt friendly, but there are other forms of progression in the game. You have PvP rating, achievements, transmogs, titles, etc, things that linger on after each patch. Easing the barrier of entry for those forms of progressions increases overall participation, including from alts.
On the Shadowlands Beta, playing a Disc Priest for premade 3s, I haven’t been able to find a single team to play with because I didn’t use Venthyr. Is that really that great? And no, it’s not because they’re rude or something, it’s because - and I’m sorry to say this - the other Covenants are absolute garbage compared to Venthyr.
Blizzard is a company and thus the end goal is to make a profit - you can make profit easier by finding what is fun for players and cost effective to develop. Imagine if Blizzard added an artifact power grind to Classic - people would be furious = you’ll have less players paying for your game while you spent more time developing the game.
Of course this is just something I came up with, but this is something that happened in Legion to a large scale: a lot of players ended up qutting the game (both ones I know and those who voiced their reasons on forums) because they couldn’t get their Legiondaries. So you have a system that you spent a lot of time developing, yet people are quitting the game over it. That isn’t cost effective. Same applies to Artifact Power, it took too long, the class only felt complete once you finished, it fell victim to the “5% increased dmg is boring” upgrades that Blizzard so wanted to avoid with the Mists talent trees.
Sure, Legion made it’s profits as proven by the Earnings Calls, but it could have made more if the endgame progression wasn’t unfun.
Because WoW used to be developed for a completely different audience, and funnily enough, even the new audience has loads of problems with the game. Sure, you had a lot of people complaining in the old days as well, a lot of feedback is generally arises from someone being salty or toxic etc, some just have stupid suggestions…
If you have a target audience, it becomes clear how to satisfy the target audience. If you don’t satisfy the target audience, it’s possible to objectively analyze where frustrations arise. I may have been too hasty to suggest how an MMORPG should function, but analyzing modern trends is also important. A lot of people like just logging in and playing the game and making meaningful progression. Is grinding Maw of Souls really a meaningful progression when after hundreds of runs, your whirlwind does 3% more damage? No it isn’t. Is it meaningful progression to hop into some arenas, get some conquest and up your rating? Yes, it is. Is it meaningful progression to go raid, and even though you didn’t get an item you wanted, you got Valor points so you could buy one of your set pieces? Yes, it is.
I’ll try to be brief but the OP made a major error in his premise so it doesn’t matter how deep he goes, he’s still wrong. He implied that the reason the talent tree changed from the old to new is because of complexity, that the intention was to make them more simple.
First of all when you say “you don’t have to redo each expansion” does that mean you don’t expand on them like we had in TBC and WotLK?
I’m assuming that you want them expanded, just like in TBC and WotLK, because that’s how it “should be” right? If that’s the case, it would lead to bloat, it can’t expand forever, a problem the dev team already had.
Secondly, do you use this “saving up resources” everywhere? is this a principle you ascribe to? Do you agree with the removal of tier sets? because not having to create a set for each class saves up resources. Although you mentioned that tier sets should be part of progression. Should blizz save resources when it comes to encounter design, i mean back in vanilla bosses had 2-3 abilities, in what other areas do you apply this principle?
I’m trying man but it really feels that you’re arguing in bad faith, that you’re making stuff up just because it suits your purpose.
Regarding covenants, i find them more fun with powers attached to them, if it’s just cosmetic then i don’t care about them and they don’t matter to me.
Yeah it didn’t fix anything, in hindsight, what i was talking about was the need for borrowed power, it doesn’t matter which version of talents you use, neither can expand forever, although the current one has better longevity. The old one showed its flaws in WotLK.
That was a rhetorical question, the answer was obvious however i’m not missing the point, my problem is that your point keeps shifting and you’re mashing issues together. The only thing i understood so far is your stance on progression past max level, which i find arbitrary.
They are not, warlords had borrowed power too in form of the “Draenor perks”, they were gained through leveling and you lost them in Legion. By definition they were borrowed power, but they weren’t presented as such, it was more subtle.
For example you said you are ok with conduits if they unlock during leveling, this means you’re fine with losing them at the end of SL? are you fine with them being borrowed power? if not how do you avoid bloat? cause you said you don’t want all the BFA effects to be permanent in order to avoid bloat.
So in the end it really is just cause that’s we’re used to. I’m aware some people prefer things that way, classic is fairly popular, but change is also perfectly fine, our views and expectations changed in the past 16 years, it’s perfectly normal that the game changes aswell.
I was more pointing towards creating a form of endgame progression that you have to create a new progression path for, you have to create a system where players don’t feel they fall behind, you have to come up with the items and quests that specifically progresses this system, and since the developers have a fear of the players not logging in every day, they have to increase and increase the amount of grind needed to keep engagement metrics satisfied. And then you recreate this progression in a completely new setting, and you have to once again come up with systems where players dont feel left behind if they dont log in for 2 days, and then you once again create the items and quests and whatnot needed to fuel the system, and then again, you once again create new grinds for the players to keep them logged in.
It’d just be simpler to use those resources spent on developing these systems to develop a class power progression system that doesn’t tie into endgame progression in every single way possible. With current systems players log in every day not to do PvE or PvP, which is supposed to be endgame, but instead, they have to go grind artifact power and whatnot.
No not neccesarily - even now with the systems we have, some gets left behind, some we just lose, and some we gain. F.e. Ret lost Avenger’s Might, Vision of Perfection, reduced CD on Divine Steed, etc. but we gained different things. The only difference here with the talent tree solution is that with the current systems you have to create stuff that goes beyond the classes - those resources can be spent on something else instead. Maybe create some class quests, maybe try fixing up the ilvl creep, maybe create content that doesn’t get invalidated as soon as the next patch hits.
You’re twisting what I say. I never said that saving resources should be about cutting corners in development, I advocated for proper reinvestment of those resources. Blizzard is running on time and money, and some solutions simply achieve more for less.
For example, creating a talent tree instead of a new form of endgame progression that forces players to log in every day. Another example would be coming up with a PvP Stat (preferably Resillience as it opened up more customization options than PvP Power) so you don’t have to constantly worry about balancing the acquisition of PvE and PvP gear, because with a PvP stat, the two gear doesn’t compete. Instead, if you have the PvP stat, you can reinvest those resources into better class balancing.
Sure it doesnt matter to you but you don’t need people to tell you that it matters to them or not, the issues create themselves:
Impossible to balance especially since you also have PvP in the game where numbers don’t matter as much as utility
The first time ever in WoW’s history where you are on a cooldown by changing specs - also the first time ever in WoW’s history where it takes 1 week to respec.
Creates an expectation within the community where players must have the needed Covenant. F.e. I tried playing Disc Priest on the beta, and there wasn’t a single Rogue Mage that didn’t want to take me in because I wasn’t Venthyr. I’m sorry but all the other covenants are garbage and even if they buff the rest, nothing is going to be as good as Mindgames
Rebalancing will eventually happen, one will become better than the other. Imagine if they nerf Mindgames where instead of the 100% reflect effect, it’s only 10%? Then yeah you’ll end up swapping as they buffed Necrolord, but there’s a catch - you’ll have to regrind your battle pass (after you waited 7 days ofc).
Remember how you could swapped specs if you wanted to, and the talents you wanted to take? Yeah, if you wanna do big aoe dam, you have to go Kyrian as Ret, and if you want to PvP, you have to go Night Fae, and if you want to raid, you have to go Venthyr - and not because I’m a 1%er, it’s because they’re that strong in their respective fields. But even if you weren’t minmaxing, what if you just wanted to use one of the abilities because it’s fun? You are punished, that’s what happens.
Yes, and that is handled currently pretty well. Some stuff we lose, some stuff we gain.
I don’t know where you got that impression from.
I’m fine with losing 90% of them because they’re just bad. This is also why I’m fine with losing 90% of my azerite traits: because they were bad.
I’m aware that developing a 16 year old game has it’s roadbumps, and while I’m personally fine rotating class power gain in and out, the developers have to settle on a goal. How much do they retain, how much they don’t. Right now we overall have more than what we had in BfA, so the challenge for 10.0 will be potentionally introducing bloat or pruning in a way where you have less but it still feels good.
What I’m not fine with is if they tie yet another progression system that you have to log in daily for after you already got to max level.
Man, you need consistency. If you’re gonna make something for one audience, and then make that product appeal to a new audience, but present it to the old, of course you’re gonna have people who tell you how the game should be. WoW used to be simpler - you didn’t have to log in every day to progress your powergrowth. None of the old fans want that. We want to be able to log in based on the fact that the game is fun, not based on the fact that if I don’t do my 8.3 dailies, I won’t be able to get a socket today.
Sure, there are some things within the game with FOMO: raiding is on a weekly lockout, PvP seasons dont last forever… however, THAT is fine, as the true endgame is where you have to throttle loot in a way where you don’t feel like you’re grinding constantly, but it also doesn’t feel like you can’t participate because the reset is too long. For PvP, it’s obvious: you need seasons for the prestige, but also to advance the gear, since its an MMORPG after all.
If ESO was developed for the audience that likes logging in each day to grind an arbitrary power grind, sure, I don’t care. That is the crowd the game was developed for. Not WoW though. It was always the casual MMORPG.
Yes, the game did change a lot, but it didn’t abandon it’s core until Legion: it’s not a hardcore experience. You don’t have to log in everyday to progress. WoW has always been a casual experience, an experience that some of course take more seriously, but that doesn’t make the game not casual.