Anyone else disappointed with the new Talent Trees?

[Eldrenath]

Can someone explain what changed? I am at work and patch notes aren't clear

 

I don't get to pick where I spend skill points anymore? AKA every Gunslinger who picks Sharpshooter will be the same in terms of skills?

 

Is that right?

 

Short version: skill trees are gone. The idea is that all the stuff you already took you now get automatically as you level, and instead you "get" most of your stuff automatically, which utility points to spend on other things, across three tiers. The stated goal of this is to remove the choices that we all make anyway while allowing more freedom: some things that used to be buried at tier 4 or 5 on the old skill tree now might appear on utilities, so you can get some stuff you couldn't get before. That's the BW stated goal. The actual situation is more up for debate. But in essence, skill trees are completely removed and there is now no such thing as a hybrid spec. You pick which line you want (which are exactly the old skill trees) and are restricted to abilities in that skill tree. Utilities are universal and can be picked regardless of main spec.

 

Some people love the change, some hate it. So far I really like it, but I reserve final judgement until I've used it a bit. I HIGHLY recommend you log in and try it and make up your mind for yourself rather than relying on the ranting on these forums (and yes, I mean the ranting on BOTH sides! )

[TUXs]

Can someone explain what changed? I am at work and patch notes aren't clear

 

I don't get to pick where I spend skill points anymore? AKA every Gunslinger who picks Sharpshooter will be the same in terms of skills?

 

Is that right?

Base skills, yes...but there will be 3 pools that you'll be able to dump 7 points into at 60 (you get the 7th point at 60, the other 6 earlier) that give you unique skills of your choice.

Take a look at this link for an interactive look at it: link to Dulfy

[mrarnold]

The ability to use Full Auto, its replacement for Gunnery, or the new heal, all while on the run... is drastic.

Double tech override being available to healers and assault commandos, instead of just gunnery... is drastic.

The ability to decrease periodic damage taken by using your cleanse on yourself on gunnery and healing commandos instead of just assault... is drastic.

Cell Capacitor being available to assault without losing out on other points... is drastic.

 

Picking whether you wanted 1% alacrity or 1% tech crit... not drastic and one was clearly superior to the other; not to mention that 1% stat makes absolutely no difference from any character development aspect.

 

I guess we have different opinions on what drastic means. No offense meant. Hybrids were able to make drastic changes to combat effectiveness. The passives are drastic because most characters of a certain build will now take almost identical skills.

 

For example, if you are a tank, you will likely choose an ability that increases your damage resistance, or aoe or something that will help out that type of game play. You aren't likely to choose an ability that gives extra crit chance on a single ability, as that won't be as helpful to you.

 

So what I'm saying is, that by giving me all of my skills and only giving me 7 utility options, how much customization can I really have. How much different are my 7 utility choices going to be from another tank's utility choices. Not much I would assume. Sure they might pick a couple of abilities that are different, but it won't be a drastic differences between 2 similar play types, Heal/DPS/Tank

[mrarnold]

I think the last bit of feverish leveling I did during 12x xp drove home for me something that will be really great with the discipline system.

 

People keep talking about loosing choice with their talent trees, when in reality to play effectively people would use one of a couple specs for each tree, with a little bit of tweaks situational to PVP or the fight in PVE situations. Leveling to get to these places is pretty boring. *DING* oh great, I have 1% more mainstat or deal 2% more damage on something. Realistically from level to level, the process of building the specs up might feel like bold new choices, but outside of a few levels where you unlock certain procs or our active abilities (getting the procs piecemeal building up 50%/100% or 33/66/100) really isn't all that exciting. Most of the steps on the discipline tree give substantive things from what I've seen, and then utilities provide you an opportunity to make some situational choices based on pvp, leveling, or fight specific demands.

 

It's going to be OK. You click different things at different times, but please don't sit here and tell me it was soooo rewarding to pick up an extra 1% mainstat when you leveled. Is it part of crafting an effective spec in previous game build? yes. DId that one little point feel impactful when you selected it? No.

 

But please, let's have another 5 threads QQing about the disciplines system which has been developed and rolled out and had lots of information shown over the past 2 months leading up to it through biowares blogs and twitch feeds.

 

I'm going to go back to leveling to 60 and enjoying the new content the game has to offer. Looking forward to it!

 

I'm not sure about what choices you made while leveling, but mine were signifant to me. It wasn't about an extra 1% here or there, and no individual skill point usually made a difference. But every few levels I would feel significantly stronger than before. Because 3 or 4 skill points can make a significant short term difference. And over the course of 55 levels all of those skill points allowed for some very unique changes.

 

I was never the type to use online builds or rotations. I always had fun just picking skills that I liked for me. Now I only have 7 choices. And that is not fun. I'm not against the Discipline System in general, I only have a problem with the severely limited amout of utility points that I get.

 

I mean lets be honest here, this game is not strong in the character developement or uniqueness side. As a tank, I use the same starting and leveling stats, same gear, same abilities and now I don't even have the choice to pick up anything really different from them. As most tanks will likely have the same 7 utility choices with a couple of differences.

[_NovaBlast_]

 

Anyone else feel the same outrage?

 

 

Nope finding the new tree more efficient and streamlined and i am liking the way ti plays so far personally I Think it was an improvement

[azudelphi]

For example, if you are a tank, you will likely choose an ability that increases your damage resistance, or aoe or something that will help out that type of game play. You aren't likely to choose an ability that gives extra crit chance on a single ability, as that won't be as helpful to you.

 

So what I'm saying is, that by giving me all of my skills and only giving me 7 utility options, how much customization can I really have. How much different are my 7 utility choices going to be from another tank's utility choices. Not much I would assume. Sure they might pick a couple of abilities that are different, but it won't be a drastic differences between 2 similar play types, Heal/DPS/Tank

 

How much choice did a tank have? They either were the purebuild or an unintended hybrid that was cheesing the system to gain extra aoe DR. At most, there were maybe 5 points that you could spend outside of the obvious ones for tanking. Those 5 points do not translate to 5 choices either; most of the time it all went to stat points or something similar.

 

Again, generally speaking you didn't have a choice other than the order in which you gained what you were going to gain. Even then, there was generally a fairly obvious order that was optimal.

 

Fine, we can say that technically there is less customization. But in reality the same specs are going to be used today as were used yesterday; except hybrids.

[Rafaman]

Nah. Not disappointed. Although... I'm not "appointed" either. All the core skills are the same the secondary ones are now divided by points via a new interface. There have been some tweaks to certain skills, some consolidation an some removals. But over all the classes are still the same and play fundamentally the same.

 

So it rates a big Meh. You can argue about the skills but the discipline system isn't an issue in my book. The only plus either way is that now respec takes less then a minute. So... I'll give it a pass.

[Spor]

Not with the trees necessarily, but with some of the lost core stuff from Slinger. I will get over it, but I do miss the aoe on my grenade and Sabotage Charge (even though I only ever used Sabotage Charge in certain circumstances in PvP).

[Scorpiova]

Is it just me... or is sage completely broken now?

[Larsenex]

Nope finding the new tree more efficient and streamlined and i am liking the way ti plays so far personally I Think it was an improvement

 

I am with this guy on how I feel about the new system.

[Quraswren]

Is it just me... or is sage completely broken now?

 

I can't decide yet. Still playing around with it.

 

I know hybrids have been killed off and I'm getting more and more OK with that as it was really needed.

 

But I mainly play the sage and I'm trying it out a bit longer before a make a decision on it.

 

I'm not a fan of the disciplines as they are and it focuses way to much on PVP for my tastes but I can give it more than a day.

[Pirana]

It was dumb-downed just as I thought it would be.

 

Disappointed? No.

[jsmc]

Not disappointed at all. It's just something new, and it's kind of fun. This is coming from a pre-launch player which apparently immediately makes my opinion matter more.

[LordArtemis]

You're completely ignoring the fact that the effect it caused on those players reverberated down to ALL players. More dev time balancing is less dev time making content. More developer time trying to figure out how to keep skill trees viable as more expansions are released and level caps are increased means slower development time and problems increasing exponentially as levels go higher. New players have to wait longer and longer and longer to get their cool skills as hybrids force stuff deeper and deeper into the trees and levels go up and up. This problem was already causing issues to other players through it's ripple effect. It was a gutsy choice for them to make, and I view the change as "a stitch in time saves nine". This was a problem already that was going to get worse every time they ever wanted to do an expansion.

 

Plus, my classes are all playing more or less the same. ONLY hybrids are completely gutted. There were definitely some other changes some don't like, like Orbital Strike. But those will pass. People freaked out just as much about it when Orbital Strike got a massive nerf a few months back. That's a legit complaint, losing skills. But on the whole, I lost very few skills. All I really lost was the illusion of choice. All the stuff I always took before I now just get. Now I don't have to choose increased accuracy vs. increased alacrity on my melee DPS character, I just get it. Guess what? Very few players before were going to take alacrity anyway. So where's the lost choice? The illusion is gone

 

There is certainly a cost. I believe it. Some players don't like it, and won't ever like it. Some (many?) will unsub and move on. But they're thinking of the long term health of the game here, not the short term. They're ripping the band-aid off. It stings, but in the long run it will likely be better. How many times have we heard "cash grab" as a complaint in this forum? They're taking a risk here of losing players in the short run so that they can deliver a better product (and hopefully more and better content) in the future. And I admit--maybe it won't work out. But I applaud them at least trying.

 

Well, I can not argue against the idea that a trickle down cost was involved. I will only argue that it was likely minimal.

 

I also applaud the audacity of it, and the fact that a few of the changes made do mitigate the impact for casuals IMO.

[mrarnold]

How much choice did a tank have? They either were the purebuild or an unintended hybrid that was cheesing the system to gain extra aoe DR. At most, there were maybe 5 points that you could spend outside of the obvious ones for tanking. Those 5 points do not translate to 5 choices either; most of the time it all went to stat points or something similar.

 

Again, generally speaking you didn't have a choice other than the order in which you gained what you were going to gain. Even then, there was generally a fairly obvious order that was optimal.

 

Fine, we can say that technically there is less customization. But in reality the same specs are going to be used today as were used yesterday; except hybrids.

 

I wasn't the world's best tank, I'll admit that, but I got the job done. And I always had the option of switching things up for raids vs flashpoints vs pvp and I felt unique. I'm sure there were cookie cutter builds but I didn't play that way. I especially didn't have a set rotation from a site. I kind of just had fun and used the abilities that made the most sense in the situation.

 

You are assuming that everyone in the game played for optimal efficiency. I was not that type and the people that I play with most often aren't that type. We just play to have fun. So I never felt obligated to go all the way up the tank tree, I might save 10 points to put into other trees, or 7 points or however I felt like doing it.

 

And those 7-10 points make a huge difference, individually no single point was that big, but combined it was a big deal. Now I really only have 2 major utility points, because the heroic utility points in the Juggernaut tree are the only big deal skills. And even then it isn't something that is extremely drastic. I'm pretty sure I didn't even see any abilities in the Juggernaut tree, just passives. Before I had the option of 6 different extra abilities with the skill trees.

 

I'm not going to quit, and I'm not complaining for the sake of it. Just sharing my thoughts and disappointment. I'll keep playing and hopefully I'll like it. If not I would unsubscribe and come right back on the next patch anyway

[azudelphi]

You are assuming that everyone in the game played for optimal efficiency. I was not that type and the people that I play with most often aren't that type. We just play to have fun. So I never felt obligated to go all the way up the tank tree, I might save 10 points to put into other trees, or 7 points or however I felt like doing it.

 

Not really. My assumption is that the game should be as balanced as the devs can make it. That is to say roughly the same statistical TTD for tanks, TTK for dps, and eHPS for healers. With those stats in mind, the devs have to ensure that the level process is tuned, as well as end game, and beyond. When it comes to end game and beyond, the balance is focused around the people who do achieve optimal efficiency, especially given what impact that has on group content. And the people at that level, had at most 1-2 optimal builds per fight...

 

To that end, this system (from at least my engineering perspective) makes balancing less of a resource drain for the devs.

Edited December 2, 2014 by azudelphi

[Sorwen]

Game was broken before. Now it's fixed.

If you mean as in neutered, then yes it has been "fixed".

[Scorpiova]

I can't decide yet. Still playing around with it.

 

I know hybrids have been killed off and I'm getting more and more OK with that as it was really needed.

 

But I mainly play the sage and I'm trying it out a bit longer before a make a decision on it.

 

I'm not a fan of the disciplines as they are and it focuses way to much on PVP for my tastes but I can give it more than a day.

 

Yeah I'm still not sure what I think of it. I just find my character useless solo now.

 

I guess I simply gotta learn the class over again.

[Chazcon]

Free choice. Unique builds. Individuality.

 

First generation MMO - Asheron's Call. You had a certain number of starting points and with those you could build ANY type of character from the complete assortment of skills and attributes. Sword mage? No-magics melee? Debuffing glass cannon crossbow? Crafter main with no combat skills? Cook/Archer? Literally anything under the sun. No skill trees, no skill railroad. And the builds were awesome. The players loved the freedom.

 

Of course this was before WoW and the introduction of casual gamers into the MMO player base. Casual gamers = revenue. Lots of revenue. Blizzard figured this out first. The suits took over the MMO gaming genre as soon as they smelled money. From that greed we now have F2P (lol), Easy Mode, 'balance' (lol again), and really bland, boring games.

 

The business model now is release as a sub game, later difficulty being dialed down, soon enough F2P, and then a long relaxing slide into easy mode. Seen it too many times and we will see it again.

 

It's a shame that a game company couldn't produce a game and stay true to their vision, instead of it being only a cash cow. Yes, yes, business and all that, right? But there is more to life than money and greed.

[Max_Killjoy]

Ok, so I love SWTOR and I play a lot. I've just gotten back on it from a little hiatus but I'm playing it a lot again.

 

Usually I embrace the 'updates' because BW tend to know what they are doing. But these Talent Trees...what was their thinking?!

 

World of Warcraft brought these in a couple years ago and it's a big reason why I left. We don't need our hands holding through these games. The developers seem to think we're a bunch of morons facepalming the keyboard until we get lucky and level. Well, we're not. Most of us are mature players who can easily understand a game such as this.

 

So, considering no one seemed to like this talent tree system when WoW brought it in, BW thought it wise to copy them? I don't understand.

 

Yet another case of changing things for the sake of it for a new expansion.

 

BIOWARE - Things were fine!! New content is great but you don't have to completely reinvent the entire game. We're here, we like it as it is!!

 

Anyone else feel the same outrage?

 

I can't say I'm disappointed, I knew along that the new system would be terrible.

 

Those of us who understand that are going to have to decide whether it's worth enduring a significant reduction in the quality of SWTOR to keep going with the parts of the game we still enjoy.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Max_Killjoy

[Lachoneous]

Free choice. Unique builds. Individuality.

 

First generation MMO - Asheron's Call. You had a certain number of starting points and with those you could build ANY type of character from the complete assortment of skills and attributes. Sword mage? No-magics melee? Debuffing glass cannon crossbow? Crafter main with no combat skills? Cook/Archer? Literally anything under the sun. No skill trees, no skill railroad. And the builds were awesome. The players loved the freedom.

 

Of course this was before WoW and the introduction of casual gamers into the MMO player base. Casual gamers = revenue. Lots of revenue. Blizzard figured this out first. The suits took over the MMO gaming genre as soon as they smelled money. From that greed we now have F2P (lol), Easy Mode, 'balance' (lol again), and really bland, boring games.

 

The business model now is release as a sub game, later difficulty being dialed down, soon enough F2P, and then a long relaxing slide into easy mode. Seen it too many times and we will see it again.

 

It's a shame that a game company couldn't produce a game and stay true to their vision, instead of it being only a cash cow. Yes, yes, business and all that, right? But there is more to life than money and greed.

 

Could not agree more, I find it silly how many people are saying it is better because it is more "balanced" it is an RPG.... it is not supposed to be "balanced" if everyone does the same DPS and takes the same damage etc then why even play.... I don't care of my character does the most damage possible, he is the way I want him to be.

 

If one build is more powerful then nearly any other DPS wise for example... so what? if you want DPS then go for that build, and no matter what there are going to be ways to kill that guy, team up on that build, use strategies or don't fight him... It is a role playing game let people customize their characters and stop worrying about "balance"

[Turajin]

I don't care of my character does the most damage possible, he is the way I want him to be.[...] It is a role playing game let people customize their characters and stop worrying about "balance"

This. This is what a rpg is about, or should be about. This new discipline-system prevents any character custom,ization and individualization. It's a stupid, dumbed down "1 built fits all" dictatorship of how to develop your character, stripped of any freedom to develop past boundaries so narrow even an fly can't fit through. If anything should have been changed about the sill trees, it should have been adding more choices, giving more freedom, more possibilities to develop the characters, not less as done with this atrocity.

[MurgenStormcrow]

Feels like SWG all over again.

 

"Star Wars on Rails!"

[Max_Killjoy]

If some of you guys like it that is fine however I have been a subscriber since day of release and they have now ruined the game and taken out any type of customization that was in the game... does not even feel like an RPG now.

 

Yupp, that's the point. It's the customization, the options, the feeling to develop a character that's gone missing. Now we can make 7 or 8 picks along the whole 60 levels... yeah, that's character development. Boring as hell, no decisions, no choices. And no, not in the slightest way are those 8 new choices "more meaningful" than the 46 we had before. The system was just dumbed down, so that the pvp'ers can have their fun, while everyone elese's fun is spoiled.

 

Exactly, I play MMORPGs for the RPG as well as the MMO... I like customizing and at least feeling like I have a somewhat unique characters. If I level and the game just gives me the new skills I can use and does not give me any chance to customize my character that is a problem in my opinion...

 

Well said.

 

As I noted elsewhere, I think a lot of the people who belittling opposition to the new system don't grasp the RPG part, and come at the game as a purely mathematical exercise in optimizing and maximizing. Or, they come into SWTOR with most of their gaming experience in the sort of games where your character is entirely handed to you.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Max_Killjoy

[vaktirio]

I love it when you nerds fight and feed me with your tears

 

this!!!!!