So my question is, with only 6 'tiers' of talents after MoP, what is happening to all the other talents that are currently in game? Are they going to be skills you learn from your class trainer, either active or passive? Or removed from the game completely?

A little of both.

To better explain, let's divide the current talents into five categories: 1) mandatory, 2) very cool, but not mandatory, 3) sort of cool, 4) boring, and 5) useless.

We're going to give you all of the "mandatory" talents to your class spec, and you'll learn those talents at certain levels like you do with core class spells. Players who skip over what we consider mandatory talents today -- like Raging Blow or Hot Streak -- are unintentionally (or maybe even intentionally) gimping themselves, and that's not what we want to have happen. We want players to be able to experience the full power of their class, so we're going to award certain talents straight-out.

The second category of talents -- the cool, but not mandatory ones -- are really the heart of the new talent system (they're the talents you'll probably be choosing from in each of new six tiers). You may be glad you have talent A, but talent B and talent C are also compelling options, and it should ideally be an interesting choice about which one you take and when.

The third category of talents are still pretty cool, but they just aren't at the same level as other talents. These talents make good glyphs. For example, an early version of the warrior tree had Rude Interruption as a talent, but we feel it's too situational to compete with the other talents, so we'll likely make it a glyph.

The next category are boring talents -- the kind that reduce cooldowns or increase damage on some abilities. In most cases, we're just baking talents these right into the spells themselves. While there were occasionally situations where you got to decide which of these talents to take, the answers often relied on complex math problems that some other player ended up solving for most of us.

Finally, the current trees (despite our best efforts) still have some bad talents. They're the talents you almost inevtiably end up with when you have a talent tree with X rows and Y columns that you need to populate. In the end, not a lot of players end up taking these talents, so we'll just cut them. We don't think they'll be missed, but if turns out that players wind up actually missing some of the Cataclysm talents in the Mist of Pandaria design, then we've probably made a mistake somewhere. Ideally, you won't miss a thing and will have more fun picking talents that cater to your play style (or, at the very least, the current situation.)

Lylirra posted:

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We're going to give you all of the "mandatory" talents to your class spec, and you'll learn those talents at certain levels like you do with core class spells. Except that you won't be able to learn "split-spec" talents with a few choice goodies from other talent trees like you used to because we're trying to pigeonhole people into very specific roles. So if you decide to go Protection Paladin tank, don't expect to be able to have the tank talents and also grab a 5% boost to mana regen or stuff like mounted speed increases from Retribution, for example. We're not sure whether we are going to comprehend those missing "filler" talents that helped alleviate gear gaps and such but it's a good bet we will forget and severely gimp certain lines and have to hotfix things over the first few months.

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Vault_News posted:

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So my question is, with only 6 'tiers' of talents after MoP, what is happening to all the other talents that are currently in game? Are they going to be skills you learn from your class trainer, either active or passive? Or removed from the game completely?

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Lylirra posted:

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To better explain, let's divide the current talents into five categories: 1) mandatory, 2) very cool, but not mandatory, 3) sort of cool, 4) boring, and 5) useless.

We're going to give you all of the "mandatory" talents to your class spec, and you'll learn those talents at certain levels like you do with core class spells. Players who skip over what we consider mandatory talents today -- like Raging Blow or Hot Streak -- are unintentionally (or maybe even intentionally) gimping themselves, and that's not what we want to have happen. We want players to be able to experience the full power of their class, so we're going to award certain talents straight-out.

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Lylirra posted:

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The second category of talents -- the cool, but not mandatory ones -- are really the heart of the new talent system (they're the talents you'll probably be choosing from in each of new six tiers). You may be glad you have talent A, but talent B and talent C are also compelling options, and it should ideally be an interesting choice about which one you take and when.

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Lylirra posted:

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The third category of talents are still pretty cool, but they just aren't at the same level as other talents. These talents make good glyphs. For example, an early version of the warrior tree had Rude Interruption as a talent, but we feel it's too situational to compete with the other talents, so we'll likely make it a glyph.

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Lylirra posted:

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The next category are boring talents -- the kind that reduce cooldowns or increase damage on some abilities. In most cases, we're just baking talents these right into the spells themselves. While there were occasionally situations where you got to decide which of these talents to take, the answers often relied on complex math problems that some other player ended up solving for most of us.

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Lylirra posted:

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Finally, the current trees (despite our best efforts) still have some bad talents. They're the talents you almost inevtiably end up with when you have a talent tree with X rows and Y columns that you need to populate. In the end, not a lot of players end up taking these talents, so we'll just cut them. We don't think they'll be missed, but if turns out that players wind up actually missing some of the Cataclysm talents in the Mist of Pandaria design, then we've probably made a mistake somewhere. Ideally, you won't miss a thing and will have more fun picking talents that cater to your play style (or, at the very least, the current situation.)

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Lylirra posted:

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Don't forget gang:

PANDAS!!! WHEEE!!

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Sociop posted:

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I think the reason goes something like this;

Mike Morhaime: “Greg classes are not quite balanced as they could be”

Greg Street: “ Mike there are too many variables that is the problem”

Mike Morhaime : “ Ok then do what you think is necessary you are a brilliant man” pats Greg on the back

Greg Street nerfs some things and rips a bunch of stuff out of the game in BC.


Mike Morhaime: “ Greg the balance for classes is even worse been getting a lot of complaints ”

Greg Street : “ Mike there are too many variables that is the problem”

Mike Morhaime: “ Ok then do what you think is necessary you are a brilliant man” pats Greg on the back

Greg Street nerfs some things and rips a bunch more stuff out of the game in Wrath.


Mike Morhaime: “ Greg the balance for classes is steadily getting even worse I am getting a ton of complaints ”

Greg Street: “ Mike there are too many variables that is the problem”

Mike Morhaime: “ Ok then do what you think is necessary, your intelligence astounds me on this matter” pats Greg on the back

Greg Street nerfs some things and rips a bunch of stuff out of the game in Wrath.


Mike Morhaime: “ Greg the balance for classes is beyond belief the complaints are overwhelming ”

Greg Street: “ Mike there are too many variables that is the problem”

Mike Morhaime: “ Ok then do what you think is necessary, you are wise beyond your years” pats Greg on the back

Greg Street nerfs some things and rips even more stuff out of the game in CATA.


Mike Morhaime: “ Greg the balance for classes has reached catastrophic purportions and we are losing large numbers of accounts because of it ”

Greg Street: “ Mike there are too many variables that is the problem”

Mike Morhaime: “ Ok then do what you think is necessary, your are god’s gift to the MMO universe” pats Greg on the back

Greg Street now ripping a whole bunch stuff out of the game for MoP.

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Liquid741 posted:

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Sociop posted:

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LOTS AND LOTS OF TRUTH!

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honestly, i would have to vote this the post of the year so far!

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Road-Warrior posted:

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LOL.

Why are you guys still here, with all the bad stuff they're doing to WoW? I still have one account I haven't canceled, but I have not logged in for a couple months, and I've been busy playing SWTOR - so far it's lots of fun, even though they have their quirks too, like any other MMO.

When is MOP coming out, is there a release date yet (I obviously haven't kept up with the WoW news)? I may hang on to my account until then just to check it out, but every time I come here and read, I just want to immediately log in and cancel it once and for all...

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Spookysheep posted:

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And WTF is wrong with you IRL? Like seriously. Who keeps an active account for a game they haven't played in months?


o.0

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Wtf posted:

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We want players...

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Spookysheep posted:

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The real question is, why are you here, considering your last wow post was nearly two years ago.


Are you desperately seeking our validation?



And WTF is wrong with you IRL? Like seriously. Who keeps an active account for a game they haven't played in months?


o.0

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Road-Warrior posted:

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Spookysheep posted:

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The real question is, why are you here, considering your last wow post was nearly two years ago.


Are you desperately seeking our validation?



And WTF is wrong with you IRL? Like seriously. Who keeps an active account for a game they haven't played in months?


o.0

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1. My last WoW post was in 9/11, not 2 years ago

2. No thanks, validation for what?

3. I keep an active WoW acct because I still can't let go of characters I've grown since game release.

When MOP comes out, I'll probably buy it, try it for a month, and decide once and for all whether to stay w the game.

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Arcilite_I posted:

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The talent changes are stupid and Blizzard is an evil greedy corporation who will probably spearhead the financing of the inevitable marshal law global takeover.

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Quazimortal posted:

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I'm still shocked they are continuing to go through with it all...

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