What is it about button bloat discussions that causes some people to go absolutely feral?
With the introduction of talent trees some people have brought up the fact that their action bars have begun to feel a bit overloaded again. When expressing these concerns, many people in the replies will automatically judge these people based on their skill in the game. They will come off as extremely defensive and combative about it. Almost protective in a way. They seem to really not want even one spell pruned from the game ever again. They aren’t even open to the idea of condensing active spells into choice nodes in the talent trees. They would prefer to be able to put every active spell on their bars. Attacks, heals, utility. They want it all.
I’ve considered that it’s due to some people having a more conservative oriented mindset on the game. Perhaps they have been long time players and always preferred when the game was overflowing with spells on their bars. Maybe they consider the Legion pruning event to be one of the worst things that happened to the game.
I’m not really totally sure. But they must realize this isn’t sustainable over multiple future expansions right? I suppose with the introduction of Hero Talents in War Within, this will aim to solve that future problem.
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They are worried about removing skill expression. I don’t buy it, as MOBAs and even FPS games have a lot of skill expression with vastly less buttons.
I definitely think the spellbook could be modernized a bit, and the game could go further in helping you setup help/harm macros, but yeah, some classes like Resto Shaman have way too many key binds even with help/harm binds. PvPers have it worse because of arena 1,2,3 and healers even more so due to party 1,2,3 targeting.
I think the daunting number of abilities to learn and understand is part of the barrier to entry in pvp, and will also be part of its demise. We aren’t gaining new players, at least not in arena. The UI needs worked still to be useful for new players in PvP, and the number of spells in game is far too many, both to balance, and to understand if you are brand new.
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My thoughts exactly about the game being unfriendly to new players. It’s like the current playerbase just wants to covet the “way the game is and has been for years”, while having no regard or sentiment for its future.
I feel similarly about addons and WeakAuras. Imagine being a brand new player and you’re told you have to set up hours of these extras to compete in the game at the same level as other players (on top of learning every single spell and interaction).
They would simply quit and move on.
It’s not 2008 anymore.
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Huh what’s button bloat? Asking for a friend.
Because last time they pruned abilities from classes, they took away integral parts of many specs kit, then dumbed them down. They lost their class identity and a bunch of specs started feeling the same.
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That’s essentially what I suspected.
I don’t think you need 20 different damaging abilities to have skill expression. As someone else said I’d rather have 3-5 different offensive damaging abilities and 10 utility spells if anything
I don’t need 20 variants of a fire or ice skill really. I’d prefer 5 REALLY well designed ones at most.
IF we are going to go the massive spellbook route I’d prefer a cleaner system like Blade and Soul where each ability has its own talent tree you pick from basically. Like really customize your setup.
So yes you would have some you aren’t using, but ones you choose to tailor to a playsyle and go around is fine.
For those unfamiliar, the MMO Blade and Soul basically has a skill point system like each ability has its own talent tree and you can customize it.
So you could play around fireball, pyroblast, meteor and cone of cold right and living bomb and set up your kit the way you prefer and what you wanna play around. IF we are gonna have a dozen abilities on our bars I’d strongly prefer more depth and uniqueness to a playstyle individually.
TLDR imagine a quadruple choice node for each ability the radically changes it and playing with our kits that way. That adds a ton more depth
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I agree. Many people do not. I think they have the “more the better” mindset.
I personally think Frost Mage has so many spells now. For example, I think Glacial Spike and Ray of Frost should be on a choice node. I think they both essentially are “nuke” style spells that operate differently, but the end result is the same being a nuke.
Honestly, if they are going to prune abilities again, I’d rather they just do a complete top to bottom class design overhaul and start fresh with a different design philosophy for class gameplay.
Trying to skirt the line by trimming the fat just ends up making people angry because you take away something that players consider absolutely integral to their class.
Screw it, just wipe it clean at that point and tell everyone it’s time to learn a new version of the game.
I say this as someone that does not want pruning and plays with 38 keybinds and has never / would never use a mouse with more than 4 total buttons.
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I’d be super down for this. A big fear is that classes will become and are currently too homogenized. This could be an interesting way to solve that, and avoid that.
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they can start with “if it can be macroed to another ability, it can be removed” and continue with removing CC from classes
there are also examples of silly additions. legion feral had 2 charges of SI, now we have 1 charge of SI and barkskin. 2 charges of SI were just fine. one button.
I think there is a middle ground everyone would like to see. There is quite a few specs that have too many keybinds that dont interact fluently together and feel incredibly clunky to play.
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because some ppl want utility pruned as well which is the last thing this game should get
(utility is fun)
also the last time one of my classes got “fixed” because of “button bloat XDDDD” it became infinitely less fun (miss u season 1 sp)
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Shadow was reworked twice as a result of Blizzard wanting Spriests to hard cast more spells, and have fewer instant procs. Not due to too much button bloat. I know a lot people miss Mind Sear though.
Button bloat is not the issue.
The issue is the poor user interface that doesn’t combine damage against opponents with beneficial spells that help your own team. You need obscure macros to do this in order to save about 3 to 5 keybinds depending on class. If I have an enemy targeted, the keybind should cast a damage spell. If I have a teammate targetted, the same keybind should cast a heal spell or shield for example.
And not only that, nobody is telling you to use every ability in the game. Just because the ability exists, doesn’t mean it needs to be on your toolbar taking up space.
But one thing they should address is easing up on what can be allowed in a macro. For example, there should be a way to to combine moonfire and sunfire into a single keybind but keep the global cooldown between them. Sure, this can get out of hand with everyone creating a macro for everything, but I’m not saying that check should be removed for everything. Just the instant spells, especially the ones that can be spammed again and again with no timer on them.
oh idc about mindsear but im referring to mind spike getting shot
instant cast was half true, shadow having “two fillers” was the other half (even though you only pressed spike when you had a surge proc or kicked on shadow)
I expressly disagree with this idea. If you’re not running the most optimal talent build in game, you will be doing “unviable” DPS and most likely suffer being removed or not accepted to groups as a result. So yes, many players are forced into using many spells that bloat their bars.
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That is madness mind sear was horrid, I would be surpised to hear most dont prefer the single target rotation cleaving as they seem to with fire mage ignite.
hmm, not necessarily the prune needs to be done right this time with this I mean don’t prune core spells like demonic teleport, blink, frost bomb glacial spike blade storm etc, prune the other stuff that is not so central, and is kinda situational or “extra” example destro its ok with cataclysms rain of fire chaos bolt confla havoc and incinerate, CDF/Shdowburn/soul fire are kinda over the top, you could put one of them into the rotation and would be fine but all 3 Jesus no.
also, stuff like 2 charges of shadow steps and everyone having a spring 40000000 micro cc needs to get the hell out, warriors do not need Stormbolt/shockwave freedom and a spring removes the freedom the spring and leaves them with shockwave.
actual cc needs to be buff clone/poly/fear needs to be buff, well not clone but fear is in a not worth casting state poly it a meh hunters trap aren’t meaningful anymore these kinda of cc need to be buffed and prune/nerf the micro cc, all melees abilities needs to be MELEE not having monks using para at 30 yards
it’s not only the amount of dmgs abilities and utility it’s the EXTRA things that every stuff does, for example, heroic leap spring freedom warlocks Soulburn/teleport why? just let the warrior leap and the lock port no need for freedom effects on those abilities
I know right. Just what I read often. Many Spriests say that they found it very fun and rewarding.