Cataclysm NDA Lifted! Beta Begins! Exclamation points abused!

[Mavfin]

Speaking of talents, what do folks think of what is quite possibly the biggest change of the expansion: the talent revamp?

New release of trees came out today.

I'm watching this process with a lot of interest, but I'm not going to take much time to look at it at the 'prospective build' level for now. Too many changes to come yet, I figure, in both mechanics and numbers.

I love the idea of playing as <spec> from level 10 on, with at least a few of the defining touches of your class/spec from that point, instead of the 'play to 40 and then you might get something neat' way.

[Tuftears]

It's important to look at prospective builds for classes you're interested in playing so Blizzard can get feedback early and often for what's wrong and what's right with the talent trees. No feedback = trees are just fine = ship it!

For example, resto druids still badly need something besides 'natural shapeshifter' and 'furor' for the remaining 3 points to let them get to tier 2.

[Jester]

There are 2 issues here.

1) Colour. You want purple to be a mark of exclusivity - only the best items are purple. But it's not just a novelty pet, or mount, or a title. It's a level of itemization. If you deny that to people lower down, you're locking them out of raiding, or at least locking raids into very exclusive tiers. If they changed the way they itemized, and made "colour" just a cosmetic thing, then I might agree with you. But until then, catchup has to be possible, and it won't be, without access to epic gear.

2) Gearscore. There is no way to turn back this clock. This is not a function of epics being common. Indeed, if epics were not common, the problem would be even worse, because then it would be even more accurate (and therefore tempting) to judge players by their gear level. This is simply a totally different issue.

-Jester

[Mavfin]

2) Gearscore. There is no way to turn back this clock.

-Jester

I can always hope that Blizzard finds a way to break it. Probably not easy, but possible. They broke AVR (it needed it), so maybe they'll toss this in, too.

[Jester]

I can always hope that Blizzard finds a way to break it. Probably not easy, but possible. They broke AVR (it needed it), so maybe they'll toss this in, too.

The problem is, it's just reading quickly what someone with half a brain and a calculator could do in a minute, and most people can eyeball anyway. Even if you broke it, it'd just change "lol ur gearscore isn't high enough" to "lol ur not in good gear".

-Jester

[Mavfin]

I can always hope that Blizzard finds a way to break it. Probably not easy, but possible. They broke AVR (it needed it), so maybe they'll toss this in, too.

The problem is, it's just reading quickly what someone with half a brain and a calculator could do in a minute, and most people can eyeball anyway. Even if you broke it, it'd just change "lol ur gearscore isn't high enough" to "lol ur not in good gear".

-Jester

True. The real problem with GS isn't the tool itself, it's the morons who use it badly. Asking for <average ilvl that instance drops> as a baseline is idiots talking, not the addon; i.e. 5600 for ICC-10 = asking for someone with average ilvl of 251 already, which is what the instance drops.

[Crushar]

I can always hope that Blizzard finds a way to break it. Probably not easy, but possible. They broke AVR (it needed it), so maybe they'll toss this in, too.

Hasn't blizzard broken GS by making 10 and 25 man raids share a raid lock? I suppose you can pug a raid with alts and non-guilded but it will be much more difficult. (As you noted there is a use for GS it's just used poorly by many.) There may be a slight chance that instance play will be challenging enough to really warrant a gear check but challenging instance content will be detrimental to the LFD tool. LFD, battlegroup pvp and now shared 10 and 25 man locks all limit your ability to interact on a social level with people outside your guild.

In some ways these changes are great but they do take away from the community feel of your server. Knowing the toons on your server (not the people) may be the reason that there is such nostalgia for Vanilla. Would there really be much difference in the game now if your instance or pvp experience was populated by NPCs?

[Mavfin]

Would there really be much difference in the game now if your instance or pvp experience was populated by NPCs?

Well, maybe if less people treated the people in LFD as NPCs/slaves for frost badges, it would help. As with GS, the problem is more people than anything.