The old talent system consisted of less than 25 nodes per spec.
The NEW talent system consists of close to 100 nodes combined (class + spec).
If you count the talents inside the choice nodes, it grows to 100 + nodes combined.
That is information overload.
I’m amazed everybody thinks this is an amazing idea. This is BfA all over again, I was complaining about Azerite traits before BfA pre-patch when everyone thought it was the greatest thing ever.
I’m parking this here so I can necro it later and say I told you so.
we had well over a decade of the dumbed down, one dimensional talent trees.
I’m glad they’re going towards incorporating all the lost borrowed powers, and abilities from eras past to be more permanent parts of our character power. i also like having more control over how my character is going to play (with the multitude of options)
My main concern is that even with just 30, there was countless useless ones which were never picked no matter the content you’re doing. I can only imagine how many useless choices there will be with 100+
I sat down to look at them the other day and I have to agree. These trees are going to cause a lot of problems for a lot of people who want to pick their own points.
I think I heard that Blizzard is adding suggested configurations for the trees… if true, that should help (assuming the suggested configs don’t suck).
even diablo 4 looks like it’s going that more complex route with all those nodes.
i’m a big fan of deep gameplay tbh
I can only speak for the druid tree…but it looks like because you’ll have the ability to change talents on the fly, that they want to encourage you to switch it up depending on the needs of your content/party/raid.
so i think everything brings something to the table in some scenario…which is more than what can be said about current talent trees
It makes inter-class output balancing highly problematic.
This is going to be a case study of poor game design for years to come.
Classic began with around 15 nodes and it grew to less than 25 nodes in a span of 5-6 years.
How on God’s green Earth did a human come up with the idea of replacing overnight a simple 21 node talent system, with a highly complex and interconnected 100+ node talent system.
Though between how it’s being executed and the fact that we’ll be able to make several loadouts we can switch between, I feel like it’s mostly just going to have the effect of doubling down on talents being less of a choice and more just “switch to whatever is optimal for this pull”.
For some, its not far enough. The bigger the tree the more fun it is to make builds and characters. I still play EQ1 primarily because of its AA system. PoExile is another game with a ludicriously large skill tree that is fun . No game with a class and role system will ever be balanced, might as well forgo balance and go for the fun factor which a complicated tree facilitates.
Blizzard is specifically building a system that holds your hand if you want it. I don’t know what to tell you because from what I’ve seen the choices aren’t that complicated. If you can’t figure out what you want out of your talent choices just from playing your class it’s probably a problem on your end and not the game’s. And if you just want the, “Show me the mathmatically best choices” option, that’s still there.
The people who want a cookie cutter build are doing that in current content already so it makes more sense to reward people who want that added complexity.
And at worst? Talent trees are not actually that complicated. At any given time instead of having your choice of one of three talents, you have anywhere from two to maybe six to pick.
EDIT: I will say that the success of the talent system wont lie in the system itself but instead Blizzard’s willingness to actually support it.
What we are getting for DF is closer to the old system then what we are getting out of.
What we have now didn’t start until Mists of Pandaria (the 4th expansion) . To be honest What we have had between MoP and BfA has been more cookie cutter then what we are getting .
No it’s not anything like Azerite gear or Artifact weapons or Soulbinds/Conduits.
What we get we get to keep after DF is over and we get to add to it .
Good luck because ever since Legion and the borrowed systems people have been asking for Blizz to go back to this style of talent trees.
