Except that no, they really aren’t. How is taking borrowed power from the past and adding it to a talent tree any different than keeping what we already have baseline and adding the next iteration of borrowed power? You aren’t actually gaining anything and oh boy if the tuning is off by even a millimeter on one of these mandatory “I don’t really want or need it but I’m being forced to take it because I genuinely need something after it” talents there will be hell to pay.
If you get convoke and adaptive swarm as well as autumn leaves does that then mean that rejuv gets nerfed into the ground so hard that these then become mandatory? Sounds like a fun and balanced way to design a game
Idk why you’re worried about how much or how little power they will have in the end, Blizz could go and put -20% less damage and healing that you do tomorrow if they deemed it that you have too much dmg and healing.
What you’re going to do is get several talents that you couldn’t combine before and see where it leads you.
Worrying about dmg and healing when a new expac is coming is silly.
Adding even 1 more legendary to each class can throw off power, what do you think will happen when you can take double legos, double covenants, double points on most talents in your current rows?
There will be balancing in the end stages as always.
Worry about gameplay not dmg or healing at this stage.
It sounds like people were expecting this system to be a class gameplay overhaul in addition to a system that merges all the disparate systems together into a cohesive whole.
I’m not sure that was ever the goal - in fact I strongly believe that it was not.
I like the talent tree system. System, specifically. Not necessarily the talents in it.
I think it should be at least considered if class design is in a good spot, because I would argue that it absolutely isn’t. Wrote about my most pressing concern here: Readability - an ongoing problem
Except this is what people say every time someone points out a fatal flaw in the system. They never fix it. It took them 2 years to nerf a dungeon boss to be more in line with every other dungeon.
Am I excited to have all these things that? Sure, absolutely, but I’d rather they make the base class fun to play than adding more layers of “choice” where there really is none.
So you’d rather have a lower number of choices?
Because that’s what you sound like.
Pick the stuff you want to pick, others will pick what they want to pick.
This talent tree is less restrictive than what we have.
I’d rather have a class that works and can be built upon than one that’s a mess out the gates and takes 2 years to tune.
The fact that none of this is new. I’ve already gone over this. It’s compounded borrowed power from the past and there is literally no difference to what we have now just the illusion of choice where the cookie cutter builds will prevail. We know this for a fact with how people chose their covenants in Shadowlands.
No they won’t
I don’t want to have to pick core spec and class abilities as talents and I don’t want to have to take stuff I don’t want to get to useful “talents” because that just defeats the purpose completely.
Yeah, nothing will work, thanks for clearing that up.
You can go and play a moba now, they require less tuning.
Certain players will go meta
Certain players will not
Other players will sometimes go meta, sometimes they won’t.
That will always occur.
You sound very ignorant to the new talent trees.
If you don’t want to use them, then don’t, you can stay with the base stuff you get up to lvl 10, enjoy!
Because reading what talents do is too much for you apparently.
Tl,dr: I made my own skills tree to give feedback:
The currently shown talent tree, for me are too complex and offers too little choice. Based on the feedback I gave, I made my own version of the skill tree.
What I changed:
I pruned redundant talents.
I pruned small % talents.
I have kept Output and Utility separate.
I created new abilities loosely based on older spells.
I used the following philosophies when making it:
Skill tree choice should be intuitive to avoid feeling the need for a guide as much as possible.
The Skill tree should grow Horizontally with expansions, to offer new gameplay options without removing the current one.
Skill tree should make class utility flexible to allow them to be efficient in all content.
Why those philosophies?
Skill trees, when well done, can be the perfect way to expand the class gameplay without adding or removing current abilities but rather offering new options. This is why the Moonkin spec tree includes a new branch. The two other branches represent the “current” Moonkin.
Class utility is essential to how a class performs today, the skill tree should be flexible enough to let you adapt to your group. For example if your group miss an aoe stun, you should be able to change your talents to complement by trading your Battle rez.
For the choices to be intuitive, they need to be meaningful. It will be hard for a player to say if a Haste buff or Crit Buff is better without simulation. However it is easy to make a choice between a clearly AoE spell and mono spell. Players also have an easier time making choices with preference related ability. A passive ability can be easier to deal with than an active one for a new player.
I hope the example I made give ideas to the WoW dev team on how to improve the skill trees.
Very well done!
That is some great feedback right there.
Personally I prefer more freedom that the blizzard version provides for mixing talents.
But I agree with your idea to have the spec trees grow horizontally with expansions for more ways to customize your gameplay.
I don’t play druid but your custom spells are pretty interesting and fit very well with the druid theme while at the same time moving away from the lunar solar astral theme, bringing it back to magical nature.
I hope blizzard checks this out and draw some inspiration from it!
I appreciate the great amount of work that went into this but I’m afraid to say that I am not impressed.
The first thing you do, in response to issues around railroading, is to literally make several talent trees have actually 0 possible choicecs. Like actually 0. Wanna play resto? Cool. Pick Rejuv to pick Swiftmend to pick Ward to pick Wild Growth, and that’s the end of that. Literally 0 choices, by design. That’s not even a tree, it’s a wire. Or a bamboo stick. It’s literally as straight as a railroad.
You throw abilities that are often used by Feral Druids aaaaaall the way in the bottom of balance/resto, forcing feral druids who want it to take resto affinity (or balance, but probably resto and without having any of the heals because we can’t afford them) and Innervate to get there (there is a useful choice in most other parts at least…) So now that I’ve spent 5 points on my rotational abilities, and after spending 6 more to get Cyclone I am left with 11 points spent and 5 remaining. I am railroaded to pick feral affinity because it’s just plain better for everything than bear and I must pick one, Skull Bash because there’s no contest for a feral. Now I’m offered a choice from Hell but I guess I’ll pick Bark, SI, and I need Bash or Roar for sure, and that’s it.
Literally every single choice I made was in the service of getting my base abilities and Cyclone - and as feral I am actually somehow less railroaded than balance and resto is, but still pretty darn railroaded.
And why the heck is Swipe a pre-requisite to Rip? I don’t want Swipe, Swipe is trash for anything but like +9 targets in M+.
I really don’t like this, sorry. It’s far more railroaded than what we have.
The choice that is being weighed is not merely the % talent but actually what that % talent unlocks.
And you know what? I’d like some more down-to-Earth and simple talents every now and then. Somehow people have confused meaningful with outrageously powerful. When you make those choices it’s to get to something else as well. I may very well have to pick some crit instead of the mastery I want in order to get a particular spell on the other side. That… well, it can be simmed. They can sim bloody everything. But there’s definitely some playstyle preferences there.
not good. if i pick all guardian talents in the class tree what my class has baseline now and want my also baseline utility back i can not pick any other talent. Not a single one! What is this? They split abilities we currently have into 2-3 other talents so we need to spend 3 points to get the current baseline ability back.
For example:
sunfire only targets 1 and +1 point 8m what we have now
bearform as guardian +1 point for the extra 20% stamina = 45%. what we have now baseline
beserk split into 3 points far away in feral tree.
stampeding roar split into 2 talents to get the 60sec cd back as feral/guardian
mangle slow from guardian not baseline anymore +1 point for it what we never going to pick then!
barskin nerf to split into +3 points to get from 8 to baseline 12 sec
a lot more spells in this list! Dont want to list everything!
The list is endless! This tree system is just for 1 reason here. PRUNING CLASSES! Not more not less just reduce the spells and nerf the baseline ability, without spend +3 points for each baseline spell, to the ground.
And baseline utility spells locked behind spells we never use. moonkin form as feral/guardian for hibernate. wtf?! Innvervate is so deep down that we need to spend so much points to get it as feral or guardian. We cant get our kit back and we cant get anything new.
Currently we need to give up more than we get new!
What i would change.
Decouple utility spells what we have baseline now from affinity stuff. Make it its own little tree or a new column.
Reduce this up to +3 talent points for the baseline stuff what we have and make the additinal point better like more range or damage or something new.
Add new stuff or old stuff from older expansions to the trees and fremove those +3 talent point pieces and bake it into the ability itselfe. Currently it is just copy pasta from shadowlands split into millions of “fake” choices.
Where’s the innovation and passion? I know we aren’t even in Alpha state of the game but giving out this for preview is just not what i was expecting. Don’t try to replicate what Shadowlands was when we come to talents and abilties such as Abomination Limb, Convoke. Just remove them completely. This game doesn’t need more instant casts as then you can copy paste every single ability and make em into passives which overtime does special effect, i’m borrowing warrior here: Arms: Your bladestorm now has a chance to do 2 mortal strikes to nearby targets… So where’s player interaction anymore? Done with passives, even it’s a legendary or anything, don’t just duplicate effects, go deeper into class fantasy and start from there.
I’m saying it’s better because you’re getting more choices and stuff in general.
Did you look at how much you’re gaining versus losing?
I did for Feral, here’s how it looks like:
So basically, you’re gaining 2 conduits, 2 covenant abilities, 1 lego, frenzied regen, 6% phys dmg and armor, 12% healing done and 6% healing taken, 6% crit, 3% speed and 3% dmg reduce. AND 4 talents extra versus live: Renewal, Heart of the Wild, Brutal Slash and Moment of Clarity (partial).
And you’re losing: Hibernate, Ironfur (bear), Mangle (bear) and Ysera’s Gift from Restoration Affinity.
Changed/Neutral: 20 energy less on Tiger’s Fury but 2% more damage done.
I’m sorry they’re losing bloody Hybernate but they’re gaining abilities and passives worth 30% dps increase easily.
That’s stuff over what Feral has on live with the talent tree choices it has.
What was the reason for switching up the original system?
To stop “cookie cutter builds”. And then they added a complete cookie cutter system.
Now…
Here’s what they say about the new talent system:
“Does this mean it’s possible to make very ‘bad’ builds?”
In short, yes. There are limits and guardrails here, such as those abilities that are automatically given. And furthermore, our goal in designing the trees is not to trap players in complicated choices in order to make a functional build; in fact, **it’s the opposite—it's to set up the trees with intuitive paths that lead you to reasonable builds.** But a key philosophy of this rework is to keep the player in the driver’s seat of their character’s growth within their class.
Does that sound like you have more “choices” or you will get destroyed if you make the wrong ones?
Stop believing the nonsense Blizzard keeps spewing every expansion.
They have no idea what they are doing. They are just doing.
