What do you (dis)like about the existing talent system, and how (if at all) would you ideally change it, be that…
merely in application,
via change in ruleset,
by adding some new feature,
through some removal of constraint,
through a something more fundamental,
etc.?
Though here are also some bonus questions for starting up discourse, if anyone wants:
On a scale of 1—5...
(+ whatever comments after)…
Do you agree that…
The current system is not particularly complicated?
Customization is important?
The current talent system gives a decently satisfying degree of customization?
The talent system is well-leveraged (i.e., that it gives choice, customization, or whatever you’d imagine as a good thing coming from leveling customization system… proportionate to whatever complexity it requires to give that benefit)?
Almost all talent points have a reason to exist (even if only to provide ways for players to opt out of complexity or make very small adjustments that might only be favorable to some)?
The talent system should offer more choice, even if it means that it might be slightly more complex?
(I.e., it should provide more control over playflow and rotational options, perhaps even replacing a nearly “core” skill, and/or greater breadth of theme or motif still within the bounds of the spec description or community imagination surrounding the spec)?
The talent system should be more streamlined, even if that means reducing the degrees of choice provided?
Improvements to the talent system or a replacement for it could and should allow for simultaneously more choice with less hassle (if you see it as a “hassle”, else just “input”)?
I prefer having control over when I gain access to unavoidable skills (choosing at which level to pick up what would otherwise be baseline and, as an eventually forced pick, still comes at relatively no cost anyways) over necessarily limiting what I have to click on just to choices between what I can truly choose to take or not take.
My own $0.02:
My own $0.02:
I feel like talent trees are mostly a decent enough design, but would prefer…
To baseline core functionality like interrupts that would otherwise cause needless swapping even for mixed-AoE raid content vs. M+/PvP/Delves/etc5. .
Allow players to path through nodes after 1 point. In turn, increase the number of upgrade options available to skills (capstones, especially) that have become newly available so that one would still want to concentrate their points mostly around just one such active rather than feeling obliged to ‘overload’ their kit.
Allow for denser clustering of skills, such as by having a “Pick 2 of 3” choice node or allowing for an optional damage amp (Improved such and such) within the same node as a follow-up point to the active it buffs, thereby vastly improving pathability.
Where not mergeable in order not to limit pathing due to % throughput nodes not that noticeable through gameplay, be they general or skill specific, remove them or move them to positions that allow them to be pathed around (not even 1 point sunk into them).
In general, increase pathability somewhat via new connections between adjacent spaces or those gapped by only one opening, except where not doing so forces a choice of utility skill that we’d still necessarily want to be a choice of one, the either, or both (similar to taking both defensives leading to some core throughput talent, as sometimes done for PvP, delves, and/or edge cases in M+ in less healer-friendly eras).
To answer my own survey questions, though…
Mostly agree. Given that many are non-choices (except perhaps in when you acquire the skill, rather than a choice relevant to endgame) in what is ostensibly otherwise a system built to provide choice, it can feel just a tad convoluted.
Fully agree.
Ehh, somewhat agree. Better on some specs than others, often without quite as much control over playflow or theme (within reason for the spec as described) as I would like.
Can’t quite agree. The fundamentals of the system itself (tiers for which you need X points to get to the next tier plus fixed pathing) seems to often overly constrain itself as if content to mostly be just a system build for progression-visibility rather than customization. There are a few low-hanging fruit that could improve its functionality as a customization system that have been mentioned since Dragonflight release, to no avail beyond point-changes and talent shuffles (i.e., application of the system rather than even the tiniest tweaks to the system, at least until capstone requirements increasing from 20 points to 23 points soon)
Fully agree, if it doesn’t much make the system any less intuitive. If it would, then only mostly.
Disagree. If it would cost choice, then there’d be little point in having such a high-input system in the first place; we’d be better off with a talent grid or something new.
Fully agree. I suspect large improvements could be made simultaneously to choice and intuitiveness both.
Somewhat agree. I don’t see anything wrong per se with a choice in when we get our formerly baseline skills (rushing this and delaying that per our preferences), even if such does come off awkwardly in not being relevant to endgame.
Exception: I would prefer to baseline or prefill basic AoE, interrupts, or anything else that does not offer a choice or is core utility but would otherwise carry relative talent cost by not being forced onto a player regardless. Outside of CE, one should be free to swap their talents only insofar as they want a difference in playflow, theme, or gameplay focus, not to be merely decent in ST vs. AoE or to regain a talent point that’d otherwise go to waste.
I like the current system generally. Although I think some specs need a lot more of their stuff to be baseline. Shadow priests are a standout there. They have some much of their basic functionality requiring talents that there is no real choice for about half of it. I think it’s because their baseline class stuff leans towards healing.
In the midnight iterations I find myself annoyed looking at apex talents that require particular talent choices. If it is so fundamental that it can be a part of an apex talent then it should be baseline.
I generally like it, just wish the Hero Talents were more open in terms of fantasy.
There shouldn’t be any reason why two-thirds of all Hunter specs are Elven-themed with the hero talents (Sentinel and Dark Ranger) when we’ve got all these other races that also play Hunter.
Pack Leader is neat, but I don’t like the pre-selected pets it summons, feels like a Warlock or something. I should be using my animals, not random ones. (What Dire Stable glyph did for BM, but applied to Hero Talents, I’d like to see.)
Midnight doesn’t seem to be solving my issues with that, unfortunately.
But Surv Hunters are being able to dual-wield 1h which makes me happy.
It really irks me. A hero spec so obviously perfect to celebrate the unique hunter ability to tame your own pets, and they completely botched it.
I mean there are three animals that come out with that spec. They could easily be substituted with our stabled pets of each of the three pet specs. A tenacity pet instead of the bear. A ferocity pet instead of the wyvern. And a cunning pet instead of the boar.
Maybe not at midnight’s launch, but at some point WoW will join other MMORPGs on console, when they do they want it to be easily accessible to that demographic and retain them. This is the long-term goal for whatever happens with the talents overhaul.
Saying consoles won’t have addons, that’s not true. Elder Scrolls Online just this year added support for PC addons to be ported to console.
In order of your questions (and I won’t do a scale):
The system isn’t complicated. If there’s an issue with it, the issue lies in players not wanting to read the tooltips or use the search bar to figure out connecting abilities and talents.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Mostly yes, there’s very few exceptions but they do exist.
We are getting more choice, and we have been getting more choices since Dragonflight, and Hero talents have worked well and the Apex talents we are getting seem perfectly reasonable.
They are streamlining it, but not by reducing number of choices but by removing the areas where it is superfluous in.
I reject this question’s premise as it has several negative framings and this system isn’t a “hassle” meaning that neither agreeing or disagreeing with the question would be honest. As both would be agreeing with a false premise.
The system is good, and how they are building on it look like it is going to work exceedingly well.
I dislike the fact previously baseline utility spells and talents have to be spec’d into.
Paladins without Cleanse, other specs not running offensive/defensive dispels, and - NZoth forbid - no interrupts when so much of endgame uses those buttons makes no sense at all. Couple that with players often running cookie-cutter, min-max specs without giving the slightest thought to group utility and you have a recipe for migraines.
Im a bigger fan of having your toolkit baseline and having a lot of utility choices or simplicity vs complexity choices. To me the talent trees have too much in them related to simply adding dps. Mop talent trees worked better for me for that and I also liked the glyph system for the utility choices it brough.
There would be ways to change current talent trees to something I like more by adding much more exclusive choice nodes and removing the baseline abilities from them. I dont think people should have to talent for their interrupt or to have a simple aoe spell. It makes sense that some key choice matter for dps but it should be much more limited to me.
So, quick related question made perhaps a bit more relevant from some specs getting literally just 8 or 9 talents within their entry tier (so, skipping 1 or none).
What more appeals to you:
You just get A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H across levels 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24…
…or…
You get some choice over which ability you get at which level, allowing you to take A, C, D, B, E, H, G, F if you so please over levels 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24?
Not rhetorical; I’m on the fence myself.
(“Why should I have to click it if I can’t avoid taking it anyways?”
—vs.—
“Well, may as well keep it all in one place so I don’t miss that I got some new power and can at least very mildly rush one aspect or another as I please?”)
In case I misworded something / was ambiguous, I meant this just to ask what you would like, not what Midnight is doing or how you necessarily felt about that specifically.
If meant along the lines of "This question seems out of sorts because this isn’t a sacrifice we’d have to make nor a possible consequence that streamlining might have to balance itself against…
I can only note for you that a number of my specs, are objectively seeing reductions in the number of choices and, especially, the degree of choice overall in theme, playflow, or especially kit. For better, one could say — but that much is objective.
Fair. It could have been worded better. It was aimed at people who might not feel as positively towards said inputs if they were seen as unrewarding / out of the intent of a customization system (if they saw it more as that than as a progression system that doubles as a customization one).
But they also had access to a basic utility kit that didn’t require points.
All Paladins had a baseline Cleanse, which could be upgraded to Purify (or maybe it’s the other way around). Mages had decurse. And so on. Now we have specs that don’t run certain utility abilities. Like the Arcane M+ spec that doesn’t have Spell Steal.
I’ve always felt that the talent system is an illusion of choice. The game designers create encounters that almost require some gamers to pivot from one choice to the other, simply to be successful in a different encounter. Personally, I think the smarter choice would have been to create every encounter to have a vast array of potential outcomes and remove the talent tree by turning specific choices into passive options and then turning active choices into procs. For me at least the talent tree seems to overcomplicate matters.
Every row was independent, so you weren’t locked out of certain options unless you took other options previously. And because there were fewer choices, abilities had to work out of the box instead of having their functionality spread across half a dozen nodes.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than the mess we have now.
I feel like talent trees are mostly a decent enough design, but would prefer…
To baseline core functionality like interrupts that would otherwise cause needless swapping even for mixed-AoE raid content vs. M+/PvP/Delves/etc5. .
Allow players to path through nodes after 1 point. In turn, increase the number of upgrade options available to skills (capstones, especially) that have become newly available so that one would still want to concentrate their points mostly around just one such active rather than feeling obliged to ‘overload’ their kit.
Allow for denser clustering of skills, such as by having a “Pick 2 of 3” choice node or allowing for an optional damage amp (Improved such and such) within the same node as a follow-up point to the active it buffs, thereby vastly improving pathability.
Where not mergeable in order not to limit pathing due to % throughput nodes not that noticeable through gameplay, be they general or skill specific, remove them or move them to positions that allow them to be pathed around (not even 1 point sunk into them).
In general, increase pathability somewhat via new connections between adjacent spaces or those gapped by only one opening, except where not doing so forces a choice of utility skill that we’d still necessarily want to be a choice of one, the either, or both (similar to taking both defensives leading to some core throughput talent, as sometimes done for PvP, delves, and/or edge cases in M+ in less healer-friendly eras).
To answer my own survey questions, though…
Mostly agree. Given that many are non-choices (except perhaps in when you acquire the skill, rather than a choice relevant to endgame) in what is ostensibly otherwise a system built to provide choice, it can feel just a tad convoluted.
Fully agree.
Ehh, somewhat agree. Better on some specs than others, often without quite as much control over playflow or theme (within reason for the spec as described) as I would like.
Can’t quite agree. The fundamentals of the system itself (tiers for which you need X points to get to the next tier plus fixed pathing) seems to often overly constrain itself as if content to mostly be just a system build for progression-visibility rather than customization. There are a few low-hanging fruit that could improve its functionality as a customization system that have been mentioned since Dragonflight release, to no avail beyond point-changes and talent shuffles (i.e., application of the system rather than even the tiniest tweaks to the system, at least until capstone requirements increasing from 20 points to 23 points soon)
Fully agree, if it doesn’t much make the system any less intuitive. If it would, then only mostly.
Disagree. If it would cost choice, then there’d be little point in having such a high-input system in the first place; we’d be better off with a talent grid or something new.
Fully agree. I suspect large improvements could be made simultaneously to choice and intuitiveness both.
Somewhat agree. I don’t see anything wrong per se with a choice in when we get our formerly baseline skills (rushing this and delaying that per our preferences), even if such does come off awkwardly in not being relevant to endgame.
Exception: I would prefer to baseline or prefill basic AoE, interrupts, or anything else that does not offer a choice or is core utility but would otherwise carry relative talent cost by not being forced onto a player regardless. Outside of CE, one should be free to swap their talents only insofar as they want a difference in playflow, theme, or gameplay focus, not to be merely decent in ST vs. AoE or to regain a talent point that’d otherwise go to waste.
I don’t mind the current system. The ability to make some gameplay choices that weren’t possible before (like choosing to not be Combustion-centered as fire) is nice, but I wonder how much players who are deeper into competitive content actually get to enjoy that… seems like the “you must select the numerically best option, nobody cares about your preferences” attitude is still in effect, as it’s always been.