Hate this new skill tree

[CrutchCricket]

My only problem with disciplines is that the game didn't launch with it.

 

i can objectively agree that if it had, none of this would be happening. Never having something isn't as bad as having it then having it taken away.

 

I expect new players won't give a damn either way.

[Lotharofxev]

I logged in.

 

I disliked the changes to my main, spent an hour trying to get somewhere close to where my Merc was in 2.10 (and failing due to the new utility system) I got to Rishi, suffered a load of lag, DC'd a few times, swore profusely and unsubbed.

 

Cost me £12 to preorder SoR, took me ~2 hours to decide to save the sub and not bother any more. Saving me roughly £108 a year.

 

At least it wasn't a complete waste of money.

 

Sighs. Me too. Subscription runs out in January. We'll see if I decide to re-up.

[TUXs]

Not really. There are several options better than what we have that destroy neither hybridization nor balance. Things like:

a) restricting the amount of points spent laterally across trees, effectively locking out the higher echelon of trees other than your main without sacrificing some cross-trained passives and abilities.

b) designing hybrid disciplines, if you must have such a system. All the dev control, none of the guilt.

First off, there was NO BALANCE and Hybrids were never intended...allowed because of the system, but not intended.

 

Your option a) is the terrible 'fix' that only promotes adding in another tier of useless fluff skills...which hurts players while leveling as their top tier ability is pushed out another 5 levels...like it was with 2.0...making it now 10 levels beyond where the game was designed for you to get it.

 

Disciplines isn't perfect, but it's far better than what we had.

[Jadescythe]

First off, there was NO BALANCE and Hybrids were never intended...allowed because of the system, but not intended.

 

Your option a) is the terrible 'fix' that only promotes adding in another tier of useless fluff skills...which hurts players while leveling as their top tier ability is pushed out another 5 levels...like it was with 2.0...making it now 10 levels beyond where the game was designed for you to get it.

 

Disciplines isn't perfect, but it's far better than what we had.

 

This is the key point that most people complaining about the new system are not taking into account. We would have another tier added in to the skill trees had Disciplines not come along. Personally, I don't want my rotation completed at level 50 on a character.

[FlamingoChest]

First off, there was NO BALANCE and Hybrids were never intended...allowed because of the system, but not intended.

 

Your option a) is the terrible 'fix' that only promotes adding in another tier of useless fluff skills...which hurts players while leveling as their top tier ability is pushed out another 5 levels...like it was with 2.0...making it now 10 levels beyond where the game was designed for you to get it.

 

Disciplines isn't perfect, but it's far better than what we had.

 

no it not its really not so ****

[KyaniteD]

LoL all the QQ here is funny. To the OP who said she did not like the sett-up..where have you been? Under a rock? This information has been out since OCTOBER!!

 

You could have NOT pre-ordered...

 

YOU COULD HAVE Cancelled your sub...

 

Instead you complain on opening day you knew nothing about it?

 

Oh and Hybrids are gone...good riddance.

 

Frankly this is a great Expac and I am very happy with it!

 

Well, details of the changes were officially announced much later after pre-order become available, many details even only after the deadline for the first preorder rewards, then preorder wasn't refundable and any sub other than the monthly payment options is a prepayment for months in advance, meaning canceling doesn't refund you the time you already paid for.

 

I for myself was hoping until I logged in today that the changes wouldn't be as bad as some made them sound. (I was crushed.)

 

It was clever of them to combine the changes with some new story content, so people are forced to play the new system if they want to see the story. That's basically forcing them to test what some of them otherwise might not have bothered to test at all. Some will make their peace with it, some won't.

 

Personally, I'm just sad that it's my main that suffered the most. If it had been any other toon or class I wouldn't be bothered at all. But my main is the one that I RP and the spec and playstyle was part of that character. So I'll see how it goes now, but just reading what I'm stuck with now doesn't have me very excited.

 

I realize that it's entirely personal and I'll have to decide how to deal with it. What people so easily dismissing the discontented seem to miss is that many (well, all, obviously) of those have preordered and are playing, therefore, must be part of the paying player base. I'm not saying it's going to destroy the game, but that attitude of "I have my fun and eff you if you don't" is detrimental to a game that survives on many players having their fun and paying for it.

[CrutchCricket]

First off, there was NO BALANCE and Hybrids were never intended...allowed because of the system, but not intended.

 

Your option a) is the terrible 'fix' that only promotes adding in another tier of useless fluff skills...which hurts players while leveling as their top tier ability is pushed out another 5 levels...like it was with 2.0...making it now 10 levels beyond where the game was designed for you to get it.

 

Disciplines isn't perfect, but it's far better than what we had.

And therein lies the wall I hit before. "Hybrids were never intended". So what? Some people enjoy them, go ahead and "intend" them now. Discussion of how that might work is more interesting than just repeating this over and over. Not to mention that the mentality of "we didn't intend it therefore **** you you're not getting it" isn't very encouraging in terms of sticking around.

 

And there would be no adding of fluff skills. If each tree gets its first ability with 15 points put into it (roughly) that's 45 points for the first "tier" let's say. Just add a restriction that the first three rows of said "tier" can only contain 30 points across the trees and that's a lockout right there no matter how many points increased level caps give you. The details would obviously need to be worked out but the underlying idea is simple and effective.

[TUXs]

no it not its really not so ****

 

Huh? Please retry that...I don't get the point you tried to make...

[sloasdaylight]

And therein lies the wall I hit before. "Hybrids were never intended". So what? Some people enjoy them, go ahead and "intend" them now. Discussion of how that might work is more interesting than just repeating this over and over. Not to mention that the mentality of "we didn't intend it therefore **** you you're not getting it" isn't very encouraging in terms of sticking around.

 

And there would be no adding of fluff skills. If each tree gets its first ability with 15 points put into it (roughly) that's 45 points for the first "tier" let's say. Just add a restriction that the first three rows of said "tier" can only contain 30 points across the trees and that's a lockout right there no matter how many points increased level caps give you. The details would obviously need to be worked out but the underlying idea is simple and effective.

 

I'm not sure you fully appreciate what that part of your sentence entails.

[TUXs]

And therein lies the wall I hit before. "Hybrids were never intended". So what? Some people enjoy them, go ahead and "intend" them now. Discussion of how that might work is more interesting than just repeating this over and over. Not to mention that the mentality of "we didn't intend it therefore **** you you're not getting it" isn't very encouraging in terms of sticking around.

 

And there would be no adding of fluff skills. If each tree gets its first ability with 15 points put into it (roughly) that's 45 points for the first "tier" let's say. Just add a restriction that the first three rows of said "tier" can only contain 30 points across the trees and that's a lockout right there no matter how many points increased level caps give you. The details would obviously need to be worked out but the underlying idea is simple and effective.

 

So what? So suck it up...that's what. They weren't intended, this is an online game with multilayer interactions...your terrible choices impacted others. Had you hybrid fanatics stuck to yourselves, maybe this wouldn't have happened...but thanks to the crappy hybrid tank who would queue as a tank for HM GF missions or the guy clever enough to figure out a rotation, skills and stance that gave him superior damage and damage reduction - they're gone. This is simply a fix for unintended builds...the OP ones and the terribly crappy ones.

[LordArtemis]

I think you are misinterpreting the 3rd point you made. It wasn't that taking pieces from each tree was an issue, it was more just players having a hard time with classes because they were taking abilities that really weren't helping them. Like any spec that had a % endurance increase. Even at 30k HP, 3% is 900 extra HP.

 

But skills like this were at the bottom of trees and players were having issues leveling early on because they had an extra 50 HP instead of abilities that helped their spec. It isn't strictly necessary, but is a nice benefit to new players. I am yet to see something about the devs not wanting players to use some combination of abilities they find fun simply because they have the power to take them away.

 

Flyby/OS. They specifically stated, if I remember correctly, the reason they removed it was because they did not feel that operatives and scoundrels should be using that ability. If I am correct he said it didn't FEEL right.

 

That is the kind of toxic change I am speaking of. A change for not other reason other than the devs feel it is not a good "fit" for the class, especially if it is a popular "iconic" ability.

[LordArtemis]

My only problem with disciplines is that the game didn't launch with it.

 

I absolutely agree this is how it should have been from day one.

[Jadescythe]

So what? So suck it up...that's what. They weren't intended, this is an online game with multilayer interactions...your terrible choices impacted others. Had you hybrid fanatics stuck to yourselves, maybe this wouldn't have happened...but thanks to the crappy hybrid tank who would queue as a tank for HM GF missions or the guy clever enough to figure out a rotation, skills and stance that gave him superior damage and damage reduction - they're gone. This is simply a fix for unintended builds...the OP ones and the terribly crappy ones.

 

You keep saying this, but it isn't true. The devs stated many times they were fine with hyrbids so long as they didn't outperform pure specs. The issue was that they have no idea how their game works and therefore the top tier abilities were hardly core to some specs. Deception is an excellent example. Dark Maul was a thing because Voltaic Slash was hardly essential to the rotation, so you could pass it up and go up the tank tree instead after getting Low Slash.

 

Had the top talent in the tree been more meaningful to the spec, players would not run hybrids unless they were doing so for a reason other than to be as effective as possible. Then there would be no harm in keeping hybrids around, but still other reasons to switch to Disciplines. Mainly the extension of trees again with the level cap increase.

[SiegePro]

I've only really had time to muck about with my gunnery commando so far, but in actual play (where you spend 99.9% of your time vs. the maybe 0.1% you spent looking at skill trees) the only practical difference I've got is I lost my 2.5 second no cooldown heal for an instant heal with a 15 second cooldown, I've replaced hammer shot with medshot on my main bar, and I've got to a find new spot on my hotkeys for high impact bolt because the new vortex shot (or whatever its called) has basically eaten its place in my priorities-based keybinds.

 

That's not horrible (its more about needing to find new spots to put hot-keys on my keyboard within convenient finger distance of the current ones than anything else). Now my preferred playstyle with my sage was a bit more hybrid-ized but I suspect I'll adapt one way or the other (whether I go balance or tk is still open... I need to see what options TK gives that might replace my no-cooldown TK throw as my ranged basic attack).

 

For those who have lost something... well, it sucks and I can actually relate. But the most productive angle at this stage isn't complaining to put things back as they were, but to work within the system and figure out what the key points of your preferred playstyle you lost (ex. I loved TK Wave because it wasn't a mouse-based AoE and so skipped Force in Balance to start working up the TK tree as soon as I got TK-throw to where it didn't have a recharge) and then put together a suggestion to add a new discipline with that playstyle to the game (something that should be easier now since they don't have to fight the multitude of potentially unbalancing permutations the skill trees created and just have to balance the numbers of the new disciplines against the performance of the finite number of other disciplines).

 

Not liking the change is understandable, but there are productive and unproductive methods of dealing with said change. After I get a serious look at the Sage disciplines I probably WILL put together a serious suggestion for a new discipline based off the hybrid playstyle (i.e. tk throw until your disturbance procs, then disturbance procs TK wave, etc) because that's at least something the Devs will consider implementing (especially if they can charge CC's for it).

[Eldrenath]

Well, details of the changes were officially announced much later after pre-order become available, many details even only after the deadline for the first preorder rewards, then preorder wasn't refundable and any sub other than the monthly payment options is a prepayment for months in advance, meaning canceling doesn't refund you the time you already paid for.

 

I for myself was hoping until I logged in today that the changes wouldn't be as bad as some made them sound. (I was crushed.)

 

It was clever of them to combine the changes with some new story content, so people are forced to play the new system if they want to see the story. That's basically forcing them to test what some of them otherwise might not have bothered to test at all. Some will make their peace with it, some won't.

 

Personally, I'm just sad that it's my main that suffered the most. If it had been any other toon or class I wouldn't be bothered at all. But my main is the one that I RP and the spec and playstyle was part of that character. So I'll see how it goes now, but just reading what I'm stuck with now doesn't have me very excited.

 

I realize that it's entirely personal and I'll have to decide how to deal with it. What people so easily dismissing the discontented seem to miss is that many (well, all, obviously) of those have preordered and are playing, therefore, must be part of the paying player base. I'm not saying it's going to destroy the game, but that attitude of "I have my fun and eff you if you don't" is detrimental to a game that survives on many players having their fun and paying for it.

 

You have some good points, but you have to also understand that keeping hybrids is also the attitude of "I have my fun and eff you if you don't". It messes up balance for PvPers, it messes up balance for ops players. It causes frustrating leveling because there have to be tiers of fluff to keep skills away from hybrids, so you don't get skills until way later. It ties up developer resources figuring out balance and thus slows down development. It isn't scalable, so it slows down level cap increases.

 

As far as the complaints about the pre-order, well /shrug. They said up front there would be a completely overhaul and skill trees are going away. That was known. If people pre-ordered anyway, despite that, then they assumed a risk. If they never said that they would be removing skill trees until after pre-orders then that would be no good. But even though they didn't give the details, they did say it was going to happen. Everyone knew very early on that hybrids were being completely removed, it's been a hot topic on these forums for quite a while. No one playing hybrids should have been surprised today. I'm sorry those players were disappointed, but this absolutely shouldn't be a surprise.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Eldrenath

[Candor]

My only problem with disciplines is that the game didn't launch with it.

Impossible. It wasn't in WoW yet.

[Eldrenath]

Impossible. It wasn't in WoW yet.

 

Ha! Ok, I recognize a good one when I see it. Very funny.

[KyaniteD]

You have some good points, but you have to also understand that keeping hybrids is also the attitude of "I have my fun and eff you if you don't". It messes up balance for PvPers, it messes up balance for ops players. It causes frustrating leveling because there have to be tiers of fluff to keep skills away from hybrids, so you don't get skills until way later. It ties up developer resources figuring out balance and thus slows down development. It isn't scalable, so it slows down level cap increases.

 

As far as the complaints about the pre-order, well /shrug. They said up front there would be a completely overhaul and skill trees are going away. That was known. If people pre-ordered anyway, despite that, then they assumed a risk. If they never said that they would be removing skill trees until after pre-orders then that would be no good. But even though they didn't give the details, they did say it was going to happen. Everyone knew very early on that hybrids were being completely removed, it's been a hot topic on these forums for quite a while. No one playing hybrids should have been surprised today. I'm sorry those players were disappointed, but this absolutely shouldn't be a surprise.

 

I'm sorry those players were disappointed

Thank you. That doesn't change anything, but it still means a lot.

 

I don't really care about hybrids as hybrids per se, I understand that the extent of the variety had to be cut down as the trees were growing longer and more points became available. I have known they'd be gone for 2 months now, yet I was still hopeful that the devs' statement about utilities bringing fun and choice meant they took the known hybrids into consideration and might consider that they were played for a reason, in both pve and pvp (for different reasons). I was hoping that I could choose maybe one or two of my fav skills from the other tree. Yet it reads like most of the utilities are more useful in pvp than pve and I have a hard time spending the 6 points when I think of how I like to play and what would be useful to me. On top of that the skills I still have have been altered and I'm a bit alienated.

 

I understand that hybrids endangered pvp balance, but what I still don't understand is how hybrids affected ops negatively. The more efficient the combination of skills, the more successful the group would be? And i have never seen anyone being pressured into a certain spec or declined because of their spec. (Well except Sents/Maras post-launch and ops/scoundrels for a long while after that, but that was not due to hybrids.) Everybody got the chance to show that they can play their spec and pull their weight.

Edited December 2, 2014 by KyaniteD

[Nmyownworld]

wat

I've spent the past half hour punching a dummy with my vanguard trying to figure how the hell this rotation is supposed to work.

I LOL'd.

 

Do I hate Disciplines or like it? I don't know. I just got it, and haven't done much with it on my toons.

 

Nothing jumps out to me about Disciplines being really great or really horrid (except the loss of Kolto Bomb on my DPS Commando. That was a great animation. Like spiking a football after a touchdown, when getting a touchdown involves shooting NPCs with an assault cannon.).

 

I'm comfortable saying that I'm not excited about being back on a learning curve when it comes to playing a class, but that'll change as I practice. The idea of Disciplines doesn't excite me. The reality of Disciplines is yet to be determined.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Nmyownworld

[Jadescythe]

Thank you. That doesn't change anything, but it still means a lot.

 

I don't really care about hybrids as hybrids per se, I understand that the extent of the variety had to be cut down as the trees were growing longer and more points became available. I have known they'd be gone for 2 months now, yet I was still hopeful that the devs' statement about utilities bringing fun and choice meant they took the known hybrids into consideration and might consider that they were played for a reason, in both pve and pvp (for different reasons). I was hoping that I could choose maybe one or two of my fav skills from the other tree. Yet it reads like most of the utilities are more useful in pvp than pve and I have a hard time spending the 6 points when I think of how I like to play and what would be useful to me. On top of that the skills I still have have been altered and I'm a bit alienated.

 

I understand that hybrids endangered pvp balance, but what I still don't understand is how hybrids affected ops negatively. The more efficient the combination of skills, the more successful the group would be? And i have never seen anyone being pressured into a certain spec or declined because of their spec. (Well except Sents/Maras post-launch and ops/scoundrels for a long while after that, but that was not due to hybrids.) Everybody got the chance to show that they can play their spec and pull their weight.

 

Because you aren't doing Operations for the challenge most likely. NiM Ops had very strict DPS requirements and it is designed with a certain number in mind. They want all specs to perform within 5% of that number so the fights won't be too easy and you can bring a variety of classes to complete the content. Hybrids that outperform that number, make it too easy and so they would either have to nerf the hybrid so the content isn't too easy or they have to buff the fight and expect that the hybrid will be used, thus eliminating other options for players in order to get through it.

[TheSupaCoopa]

Skill Trees didn't fit into the dev's idea of the game. That's why they changed it.

 

Games like Rift have Skill Trees because the game is designed around them. The classes are much more versatile than your standard MMOs'. If you make a Tank in Rift, you can pick between which trees you want to build off of. In ToR you couldn't. Rift had better freedom of choice for your builds because the game was designed to have it. ToR's skill trees didn't feel like the game was designed for them. Rift was designed to have Hybrids(Though they do get penalized a bit due to stat bonuses and abilities being linked to skill trees).

 

TL;DR: Skill trees need to be integrated into the game well. IG they aren't, they are less effective and aren't a good mechanic. Good game design is integral to making them work.

 

-Duran'del

Edited December 2, 2014 by TheSupaCoopa

[Khryn]

So most of the changes are aesthetic. The skill tree display looks different, RAGE!!!!111

 

And it does seem that the only people complaining about losing "Major" abilities are hybrid spec'd.

[LordArtemis]

Skill Trees didn't fit into the dev's idea of the game. That's why they changed it.

 

Games like Rift have Skill Trees because the game is designed around them. The classes are much more versatile than your standard MMOs'. If you make a Tank in Rift, you can pick between which trees you want to build off of. In ToR you couldn't. Rift had better freedom of choice for your builds because the game was designed to have it. ToR's skill trees didn't feel like the game was designed for them. Rift was designed to have Hybrids(Though they do get penalized a bit due to stat bonuses and abilities being linked to skill trees).

 

TL;DR: Skill trees need to be integrated into the game well. IG they aren't, they are less effective and aren't a good mechanic. Good game design is integral to making them work.

 

-Duran'del

 

Well, to be fair that is not the only reason they changed the system and abilities, though it is certainly one of the major ones.

[Sorwen]

Rift has trees with at least twice as many abilities and fairly balanced(any mmo is only ever going to manage fairly even with a railroad). Then each classes can swap out any of the 3 trees creating exponentially more combinations. It is sad that the devs here are so blinded by WoW or simply just not as good that they can't deal with even less options on totally predetermined characters with predetermined trees.

 

What I find hilarious is this is basically a step back for an MMO and people seem to think everything will magically balance now. As if there were no balance issues with MMOs before they started allowing trees. As if nothing existed before their perceptions of it.

[Max_Killjoy]

My only problem with disciplines is that the game didn't launch with it.

 

You're right, only in the sense that if the game had launched with it, some of us would have looked at it, and not wasted our time and money, and wouldn't be invested (in the non-monetary sense) in the characters we created, etc.

 

The choice now is, do we grit our teeth and endure the new junk for the sake of the things we still like about the game, the characters we've spent so much time on, etc.

 

Of course, the idea of getting attached to a character in an MMO is probably foreign, or even laughable, to some players in this debate -- to them, the character is just a mathematical avatar that must be optimized and maximized to engage in defeating the game in the most efficient and expedient manner possible.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Max_Killjoy