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Blizzard’s lead systems designer Greg Street has tackled the controversial issue of World of Warcraft’s new talent system.
In a blog post on the official website, Street rebutted each of the common complaints regarding the much simplified talent system.
The new talent system has rid itself of the complexities of WoW’s earlier system in which users unlock and invest points in customisations every two levels. Now players will choose between three talents every 15 levels, which Blizzard believes allows users to make more meaningful choices.
“Look, we tried the talent tree model for seven years,” Street said. “We think it’s fundamentally flawed and unfixable. We know some of you have faith in us that someday we’ll eventually replace all of the boring +5% crit talents with interesting talents and give you 80 talent points that you can spend wherever, and that the game will still remain relatively balanced and fun. We greatly appreciate your faith, but we fear it is misplaced.
“It’s not a matter of coming up with enough fun mechanics, which is challenging but ultimately doable. The problem is the extreme number of combinations. When you have such a gigantic matrix, the chances of having unbeatable synergies, or combinations of talents that just don’t work together is really high. That’s not lazy design. That is recognising how math works.”
World of Warcraft’s next expansion, Mists of Pandaria, will release next year. Blizzard revealed its new talent calculator last month.
About the Author
World of Warcraft
- Platform(s): macOS, PC
- Genre(s): Fantasy, Massively Multiplayer, Massively Multiplayer Online, RPG
