It is clearly another 1 expansion temporary system designed for Dragonflight’s level 70 chars (talent points). It is again an unnecessarily complicated system and decrease in QoL, compared to current talents.
Currently: large spellbook + small talent tree = more baseline + less variables
DF: small spellbook + big talent trees = less baseline + more variables
DF’s “more choice” is at the cost of sacrificing baseline abilities. Baseline abilities are just put into talent trees from spellbook.
If current specs with less variables can’t be balanced by devs, the class/spec balance will only be worse in DF with new talent trees.
We know that, with the removal of borrowed power, they need to make another complicated system somewhere else. But, repeating a reused old system is not the correct method.
In future expansion, when we get more levels and talent points, it will inevitably become bloated and meaningless, when this kind of tree is expanded unlimitedly, the same reason why it failed before and was removed.
They periodically bring back old reused system and pack it as a new feature for expansions. And this new talent trees will likely be removed after DF and replaced by another talent system again.
When DF ends you don’t lose those abilities like you did with the systems of Legion -SL .
They will carry forward with you , like the abilities from Vanilla carried forward to TBC and the abilities fron TBC carried forward into Wrath.
The abilities remaining doesn’t mean the system will carry forward.
The tree shape talents are based on character levels and points. If this system carry forward, they have to expand the trees with passive or boring talents like +1%/2%/3% again, since they can’t unlimitedly expand spellbooks every expansion.
That is why the old talent trees didn’t last long and removed, when we got higher and higher levels.
From the Hazelnutty interview of Ion back in April .
The talent system is being built to last and expand into future expansions, though like in the past, it probably isn’t sustainable for more than a few expansions - that’s a future dev problem.
Eh, I am more of a fan of normal MMORPGs than ARPGs, so I am biased towards liking talent trees, nothing seems too bad about it so far, but then again I haven’t seen them for any of the classes I play as, so I am not overly invested on whether they are good, bad, boring or fun yet.
Isn’t the simple solution to have regular level squishes bring back down the point total and/or maintain a constant point total by distributing the points at different levels?
Sure, a little bit of maintenance is required to prune or balance things out every expansion or two - that’s to be expected. No reason for paranoid pre-emptive outrage, however.
Why so pessimistic? I think all the trees revealed so far look great, and expect more of the same from the rest. This is much better than borrowed systems, and I think will largely be received better than most recent expansions methods.
To me in the future say 3 or 4 xpansions down the road maybe a system like ESO has with their champion system .
You earn abilities as you level and once you hit max , you get champion point levels and the points are used to enhance the active abilities you already have .
But like I said maybe in the future.
Edit : Champion point enhancements do not go away when a new xpac comes out , they are expanded on and do not create bloat.
Now I haven’t done the latest xpac , so I don’t know if any new abilities have come out for it but if not then the Champion system is a good possible way to increase player power without losing it every 2 years.
Nah, as I mentioned, the trees are based on character levels and points. When Blizzard couldn’t add more active abilities or spells every expansions, they had to fill the trees with more and more boring talents like +1%/2%/3%.
That “boring stuff” is the heart of old school RPGs. I am sorry you are unhappy with it, but I for one I am glad it is FINALLY starting to resemble an rpg again.
Well, there’s still things they could put back in. Just as an example for Shadow, they could reintroduce Mind Spike with support for a WoD style Clarity of Power rotation, for those who liked it. They could also add a talent for a Sephuz style “haste buff when you dispel/interrupt”. For Holy, they could add the old ToS tier set bonus of “Heal improves your next Prayer of Healing, Prayer of Healing improves your next Heal”.
Plenty of balanced effects to poach from previous:
Spells and Talents
Tier sets
Artefacts
Legendaries
Covenants
However, what they need is to add choice. Horizontal progression. Not necessarily many more points. Just more possible builds to choose from.
One red light for me is that right now the trees look like they are 100% built to bring us back where we were at the end of Shadowlands, balanced for level 70. In other words, currently they do not look like they are built with expandability in mind, or at least not without moving everything’s place again comes next xpac.
I’m not really sure what people were expecting from old style talent trees coming back exactly? Seems like every one of these threads is “these aren’t talent trees! they’re just us filling in talents to unlock deeper talents!”
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