Alpha WoW OG Talent System

[Xfraz]

Looking at early alpha WoW patch that has recently surfaced I cant help but feel like some of the best concepts where scrapped entirely due to time and business reasons. There are many features that were initially worked on that would have undoubtably enhanced the game but were never conceived due to limited time frames.

One thing in particular is the old talent system.
Now in direct comparison I see the talent system we got as the simplified yet more refined version. However I do not believe it to be the superior version more the easier to balance thus quicker to ship out rendition.

Now I do not propose a rework of our current systems but to add some depth and to further reinforce the fact that this game is an RPG.

My vision is likely far outside the realm of what is possible to achieve given the tools available to the Dev team however the team here has proven me wrong before so I will indulge my fantasy.

The Overhaul:
Further improving on weapon skills.
As a warrior must train to become proficient with their weapon of choice so must a spell caster for their schools of magic;

Skill ups for different schools of magic. A mage will have a chance to gain a skill up in Frost Magic when they deal damage to an enemy with a frost spell. Similarly a warlock will have a chance to gain a skill up in "Shadow" when dealing damage with shadow magic.

New/Improved ~"Combat or Weapon Master's"?
A new system to go hand in hand with existing talent system.

Using frost as an example again:
Seek out the master in the world of Azeroth, once found use a limited resource (which we will call for now (N)Talents) along side gold and perhaps even an initial quest(s) to receive small bonuses.
Without any levels in Frost due to an inability to cast frost magic one can still take various (N)talents from this Master.
A warrior for example could pursue "Frost Resistance" providing +4 frost resistance at the first rank.
Or an expert Mage with a high level in Frost Magic could take "Frost Penetration" or "Frost Precision" increasing penetration and decreasing resist chance respectively.

Reworked existing Weapon Master's,
"Sword Master" location SW:
Now any class without access to using swords be it 1h or 2h can spend the aforementioned resource to gain access to either 1h or 2h swords. Classes with innate access to a weapon skill will have a head start due to the fact they don't have to spend any resource to initially equip the weapon.

Example Sword Master progression:
Ability to equip 1h sword > 1h sword hit chance > 1h sword crit chance > 1h sword expertise.

Obviously this would be an overhaul to the existing game meaning alot of changes would be necessary to implement this kind of system. Certain talents would have to be removed from as they would now appear from the relative "Master" as (N)Talents. For example, a rogue or warriors "sword spec".

Perhaps allow any class to spend their resource to unlock the use of shields. Doing so would require the separation of shields into 2 categories for the purpose of balance, Small Shields and Large Shields.
Then warriors paladins and shamans have the innate ability to equip Small Shields and can further progress by unlocking Large Shields whilst any other class would first have to unlock Small Shields to progress down this path.

The idea is to emphasize the RPG aspect of WoW giving players more freedom in there progressive choices.
There is much room in the game for this system and I believe if done right would not impact the meta of the game only allow for more creativity and expression within the world.

Some fun examples of this system could be:
A Warlock who misses out on key shadow/fire (N)Talents and instead opts to delve down the path of Shields finally learning how to equip Large Shields.

A Rogue who learns how to equip 2h Swords however they will never achieve the same hit and crit rates as a rogue who further improves their innate ability to wield Daggers or 1h Swords. Or a Rogue who instead opts for a spell route increasing their potential when utilising various procs and effects.

A Warrior or Paladin who Instead of spending (N)Talent points on unlocking Plate Armour instead opts to spend them more offensively settling for their innate Mail and taking further crit/expertise.

Or a Mage who at a significant cost their magical prowess opts to spend all of their (N)Talents on eventually unlocking Plate Armour.

These are obviously just some fun suggestions and would require careful planning to not drastically change the way the game is played.
We wouldnt want all Rogues running around using 2h Weapons and all Mages in Plate Armour

[Equalrites]

Too much time investment required. I personally don't think it's realistic because you'll have to rebalance every aspects of the game if you want that change to actually have any meaningful impacts gameplay-wise (outside of the way we juggle with numbers). I nonetheless understand your desire to see improvements to the structures of the game that we are subjects to.

[Xfraz]

Too much time investment required. I personally don't think it's realistic because you'll have to rebalance every aspects of the game if you want that change to actually have any meaningful impacts gameplay-wise (outside of the way we juggle with numbers). I nonetheless understand your desire to see improvements to the structures of the game that we are subject to.

And I agree with you.
However I am a believer that WoW was never meant to head down the Hamster wheel path of the new expansion - level cap increase never ending grind for BiS gear that it did.
In the pursuit for a greater game via vanilla plus, a game that respects the player and his/her time and freedom I feel drastic changes and big leaps are necessary.
WoW for years has been quantity over quality. Instead of making the experience more enjoyable and filling in the blanks we just get more of the same designed to keep players on the hamster wheel with little to no innovation.
Here on turtle they are doing the opposite focusing on the quality which is why I will always preach for bold Ideas that enhance the gameplay and brighten the world.

[Esk]

There is indeed room for improvements that could diversify the possibilities of personalizing our characters and their gameplays. Nonetheless I don't think it would come from talents. If anything, removing skill trees in favor of fine tuning individual spells and adding equipments with unique perks would be a easiest way to achieve a better equilibrium, both in terms of work needed for the developers and creativity for the players. We could tune spell coefficient, cooldown and cost, add some new ones and remove others. We could also add equipments that do change how spells interacts, like some of those items we get from classes epic quests.

Some would argue that it's what they did on Retail, and correlate that to the poor state of the official WoW, that would be forgetting the implications of many other changes that lead to said state. I also understand that my point of view would be unpopular as peoples are emotively attached to the skill trees, which I concede is a perfectly fine reason to keep it.

A compromise would be to remove the verticality of the skill trees and provide enhancing talents for each spell, individually, and remove all talents that provide increases that can already be achieved using characters stats.

[Shaman111]

alpha as in talents that look like 1.12 hunter pet talents? no man, that was pretty shit

[Xfraz]

alpha as in talents that look like 1.12 hunter pet talents? no man, that was pretty shit

Forget how it looked. I am talking about the mindset which the developers of the time had.
If you read the post I propose adding masters around the world for each respective weapon, school of magic and armour masters which can be used to further develop your character.

[Xfraz]

There is indeed room for improvements that could diversify the possibilities of personalizing our characters and their gameplays. Nonetheless I don't think it would come from talents. If anything, removing skill trees in favor of fine tuning individual spells and adding equipments with unique perks would be a easiest way to achieve a better equilibrium, both in terms of work needed for the developers and creativity for the players. We could tune spell coefficient, cooldown and cost, add some new ones and remove others. We could also add equipments that do change how spells interacts, like some of those items we get from classes epic quests.

Some would argue that it's what they did on Retail, and correlate that to the poor state of the official WoW, that would be forgetting the implications of many other changes that lead to said state. I also understand that my point of view would be unpopular as peoples are emotively attached to the skill trees, which I concede is a perfectly fine reason to keep it.

A compromise would be to remove the verticality of the skill trees and provide enhancing talents for each spell, individually, and remove all talents that provide increases that can already be achieved using characters stats.

Personally I don't see how what I proposed would take much work.
They have already shown competence in reworking talents and all that would be needed is minor adjustments like removing certain talents (which I talked about) and adding some npcs to the world with new trainable skills like they already did with Survival.
On the simpler side of what I propose it would only be very minor like a little extra crit for a weapon or increased resistance to a school of magic.

On the more extreme side of what I talked about which is more of a personal fantasy comes the ability for classes to equip new weapons or even altar their armour class which would obviously take more work to balance but I don't see how it is a huge demand of developers time. I feel I and a few others who are very knowledgeable on vanilla WoW could see this balanced in a few sessions of theory crafting.