Curious what people think about the following quote (from World of Warcraft):
We want to focus the talent trees towards your chosen style of gameplay right away. That first point you spend in a tree should be very meaningful. If you choose Enhancement, we want you to feel like an Enhancement shaman right away, not thirty talent points later. When talent trees are unlocked at level 10, you will be asked to choose your specialization (e.g. whether you want to be an Arms, Fury or Protection warrior) before spending that first point. Making this choice comes with certain benefits, including whatever passive bonuses you need to be
effective in that role, and a signature ability that used to be buried deeper in the talent trees. These abilities and bonuses are only available by specializing in a specific tree. Each tree awards its own unique active ability and passives when chosen. The passive bonuses range from flat percentage increases, like a 20% increase to Fire damage for Fire mages or spell range increases for casters, to more interesting passives such as the passive rage regeneration of the former Anger Management talent for Arms warriors, Dual-Wield Specialization for Fury warriors and Combat rogues, or the ability to dual-wield itself for Enhancement shaman.
The initial talent tree selection unlocks active abilities that are core to the chosen role. Our goal is to choose abilities that let the specializations come into their own much earlier than was possible when a specialization-defining talent had to be buried deep enough that other talent trees couldn’t access them. For example, having Lava Lash and Dual-Wield right away lets an Enhancement shaman feel like an Enhancement shaman. Other role-defining examples of abilities players can now get for free at level 10 include Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Shield Slam, Mutilate, Shadow Step, Thunderstorm, Earth Shield, Water Elemental, and Penance.
Basically, Blizzard decided to do the equivalent of giving Shadowdancers HiPS at level 1...but then mandating they take Shadowdancer for the next 10 levels. They thought having HiPS made it feel like you were playing a Shadowdancer sooner and that was an important feeling to have...but realized that allowing anyone to take 1 level of Shadowdancer for it would be problematic.
So, using the HiPS for Shadowdancer as an example (since that seems to be a focus), which idea do people prefer and why?
1. Unlimited HiPS at level 1 but a mandated x levels in the class.
2. Unlimited HiPS at level x.
3. Limited uses of HiPS that scales with level progression, up to unlimited uses at level x.
x would probably be somewhere between 5 and 10 in this case.
Modifié par Magical Master, 23 juillet 2011 - 05:10 .
