World of Warcraft: Current Year
- Thread starter hodj
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You never had people who did sub-par damage or even healing in a group, or didn't have the right spells memorized? Because that was also thing in EQ, back then: There were absolutely abysmal players. Had a ranger that thought she was god's gift to her group with her 50/60 Tantor's Tusk, but took 10 seconds to even attack a pulled ob. And god forbid the mob actually moved.
Well you were probably never really into parsing back then.
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Daidraco
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Im not in the same mind set as you
Khane
. Can you elaborate? Cause the way I look at it, Talent Trees are a great way to add different flavorful playstyles to an MMO RPG. The down fall imo comes from when they dont balance the trees properly between abilities. Currently in WoW, if a person chose the polar opposite of every single cookie cutter build available, then yea, they are a detriment to the group/raid. If they actually spent more time balancing individual talents, and I dont know.. play tested them? Then I dont think we would really be having this conversation. What has been constantly creeping up as a debate the last month or two is that the WoW devs constantly put in new shit, spend all their time on it and give fuck all about the base part of the game.
Using the very first talent tree option for a Shadow Priest, you can clearly see that they didnt even put a lot of thought into one of them, mild thought in the next, and the no brainer choice in the third. This even goes so far as to say whats wrong with them, and offer an option as to what could fix them. That, to me, is what the problem is. The devs arent given, or dont devote the time necesarry to make just basic changes that would allow for more specialized game play.
Is specialized gameplay necessary? No, of course not. But if a player's playstyle matches one better than the other, and they both come out roughly the same DPS - then I dont see why they shouldnt be viable and in turn, talent trees being viable.
Khane
. Can you elaborate? Cause the way I look at it, Talent Trees are a great way to add different flavorful playstyles to an MMO RPG. The down fall imo comes from when they dont balance the trees properly between abilities. Currently in WoW, if a person chose the polar opposite of every single cookie cutter build available, then yea, they are a detriment to the group/raid. If they actually spent more time balancing individual talents, and I dont know.. play tested them? Then I dont think we would really be having this conversation. What has been constantly creeping up as a debate the last month or two is that the WoW devs constantly put in new shit, spend all their time on it and give fuck all about the base part of the game. Is specialized gameplay necessary? No, of course not. But if a player's playstyle matches one better than the other, and they both come out roughly the same DPS - then I dont see why they shouldnt be viable and in turn, talent trees being viable.
Cinge
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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They wernt exciting. If anything it was just another progression on top of levels. All you did was play until you finally got to that 31 points to finally make your spec play like it is supposed to. You were basically half a playstyle until you got that final ability.
As for if talent trees belong in a MMO, that's up for debate. I will say no matter how hard a developer tries, there will always be a "Best" build that the majority will follow. You can't avoid it. It happens in any game or genre where there is talent trees.
Xerge
<Donor>
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That's due to shitty design and poor perspective. Quite a few WoW classes felt good as they leveled -- there's a difference between natural progression while leveling and not having the tools to do the job. I believe that's the essence of balance. Then that just leads us to who gives a fuck about balance until max level?
Cinge
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Lets hope not. Granted I am pretty sure I wont even make it near that far, so doesn't bother me much.
I could easily seem them letting you wear a 2nd legendary and adding more conduits though. As leveling up the latter seems like its going to be a ongoing thing for quite some time.
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Daidraco
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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The very thought of having to farm out relics or w/e to put into your soul binds each tier makes me a bit sick to my stomach. Especially if they are coming from the exact same dungeons, just +15 instead of +5. If thats how it ends up, that really will mean this expansion is just one tier for me. I cannot stand upgrading stuff like that. At least armor/trinkets/etc. have a graphical component instead of just a "Oh look, my dps went up .03%!"
Cinge
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Dont quote me but I dont think it works like that? You get the relics to drop from what seems like most content(dungeons, raids, pvp, WQs,reps etc) then you level them up with a currency from the maw(pretty sure?). You also have to earn renown or w/e to unlock the rows of conduits itself also. Basically something to keep people playing and such like AP/azerite etc.
Chris
Potato del Grande
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OK. How about everyone just starts at make level with preset gear and spec? Everyone makes the same choices so why bother?
Cinge
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Once you have done it once or twice, i bet most people wouldn't mind your suggestion, at least level wise(and a basic gear set to match max level). There's a reason boost are sold and so popular.
For new games or new expansions its fun to see everything the first time and progress though. You can do that maybe 1 or 2 more times before you are basically over it and just want to finish asap.
Xerge
<Donor>
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I've thought about this. Why not just build a game from the ground up that starts with end game complexity. moba+mmo=??? I already know I need to taunt shit, it's the same in every fucking game. move out of the red? gotya. Interrupt shit? yep. Eso, WoW, ff14 -- it's all the fucking same. Let's just get to point already and give me access to the gameplay you're just gating for no reason anyway. Those special tank busterlol moments in ff14 is just an elderscrolls online tank timing a right click block, or a WoW tank timing shield block ability. All dps across the genre come equipped with interrupts, stuns, and self heals, self dmg buffs, ohshit moment buffs, etc. The genre it's self is now a fucking recipe.
Once you've elimated the BS you can swing development to dungeons, raids, and what the fuck evver else multiplayer content. Like fishing and mount taming or s ome fuck shit
Happy Canadian thanksgiving.
Cinge
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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I mean a moba even has levels and progression. You start level 1 with 1 skill and no items and progress up while doing the same thing over and over.
Character progression, especially levels are not going away anytime soon. Especially as they have basically seeped into almost every other genre of games at this point. Even if you don't see that in the game itself, they now have it at the account level instead. Anything to keep people logging in and working towards something.
Chanur
Shit Posting Professional
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Or they could stop introducing all this stupid shit that gets dropped in the next expansion and spend the development time on something people would actually enjoy.
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Talent trees were shit in Vanilla but at least you had SOME choice on what and how you wanted to play your dude. The thing that sucked about talent trees is the respec fee and no way to have 2-3 specs saved so that you could change them on the fly depending what was needed. (dual spec was added later) So if you were a healer or tank type you were fucked with respec fees between guild and solo grind activities which were rather harsh considering all the other bullshit you had to buy or grind for while being in a raid guild. Not so much for DPS classes which could make a raid spec work for solo grind, although sometimes not optimal.