Title says it all, i'm just looking for some reasoning behind it. I don't like being pigeon holed into using cookie cutter builds. What do mmo developers have against creative freedom in talent trees???

I don't know, I actually love the option of being able to hybridize and make for a mix of skills.

 

I mean you'll still see some form of hybridization, the only way they will ever get rid of that is doing what WoW did and lock u into one tree up until you fill it up

 

the real problem TBQH is.

 

look at how ****** most of the final pt talents are... madness creeping terror is the most garbage thing i've ever seen for a 31 pt talent

 

they want to encourage going fully into one tree? then make the final boxes worth a damn

Edited February 1, 2012 by DarthVenizen

In their vision, the game is meant to be played by spec'ing into one of the 31 talents.

 

Why you would directly start killing builds is beyond me. Tweak them if need be so they aren't better than pure builds, but at least keep them viable.

 

Wouldn't you want MORE variety in builds, not the same cookie cutter spec.

 

Makes it quite straight forward and boring to be fair.

I think its just stupid, its like buying a car from a dealer and them telling you you can't paint it a different color because its "not one of the intended colors".

The talent tree design, which is obviously inspired by WoW, is imo the most stupid specialization design around.

 

All from the beginning this design is always a "you think you have choices, but you don't"-design. They only reason why hybrid specs are/were viable in both WoW and SWTOR is actually bad design of the 31 point talents.

 

Actually, it pretty much doesn't matter if they force you to go fully into a tree by tailoring the 10pt+ talents towards their own tree or by making the 31pt talents so strong that they are obligative to be viable, or (like WoW) directly force you into the 31pt talent.

 

By design, the choice between going hybrid or going fully into a tree is basically, the 31pt talent of one tree vs. the 11pt talent of another tree, or the points 25-31 of one tree against the points 11-16 of another, and so on. If the design proclamates that talents deeper in the trees should be more powerful than the early ones, than there is no choice in reality.

 

If, on the other hand, the design doesn't proclamate this, the whole design of structuring the specialization into trees is unreasonable.

 

The reason for this is quite clear for me. It is much harder to balance like 70 possible builds vs. balancing only 24. They force you into one tree while keeping the illusion of choice. In WoW they have recognized this and in the next expansion they will completely remove the trees for that reason. Many people complained that speccing is simplified by this, but they don't recognize that specialization in WoW is currently even more simplified, the tree structure just implies an illusion of choice and the new structure openly shows that there is actually only a choice between filler-abilites, which don't have much impact, at least in pve.

 

Imo, the best spec design in the MMO world is still that of Dark Age of Camelot. For those who don't know. In this game the talents deeper in the trees are more powerful, but also cost more than the lower talents. In SWTOR and WoW every talent costs 1 point. In DAoC, the first talent costs 1 point, the second one costs 2 points, the 3rd one 3 points.

 

So in this game there was the option to go fully into one tree and almost completely negleting the other trees, or the option to go 2/3rds into two trees.

 

In SWTOR the respective system would be to be able to go 31/10 or to go something like 25/20, so the choice is now the talents 25-31 of one tree against the talents 11-20 of another, which is not atomaticlly won by the first option even though the deeper talents should be stronger by design.

To add something: Another interesting spec system is that of Guild Wars, which is a quite interesting approach to balance.

 

In GW your are limited to 8 abilites, which however, you can basically choose freely among all abilities available. This creates an extremely large number of possible builds.

 

The balance goal in this game is not to make all specs equal in strength, but just to make sure every ability has one or several counters. This way, sometimes builds emerge that are considered OP, but it is always possible to just design another build that utterly destroys this OP build, so balance is actually kept by the player community.

 

You can see a similar "balance design" in WoW Arena. Often there emerge some FOTM arena comps that are really strong. But quite soon, players start to form teams that are not good in general but specifically good at beating just that one strong composition. However, this is not as dynamic as in GW, because in WoW you can't freely change your class, while in GW you can freely change all your abilities.

The reason hybrids fail in a pve raid environment is that you don't have a hybrid function, you are a dps, healer or tank. Sure there are situations where a plate dps my be able to switch to tanking stance and blow cds while you burn down that last 8k if the tank goes down or a healer can throw up some dots but hybridization by and large doesn't aid in this to a sufficient level to be worth the talent investment over the negative effect on your primary role.

 

In response to your disappointment of the existence of 'cookie cutter' specs look at it this way. There is always going to be a mathematically optimal spec in pve (less so in pvp) now would you rather play a madness sin and play objectivity differently then a deception sin? If a hybrid spec is the most optimal then everyone will be playing toons that play the same with all the same abilities and play styles (madness/deception hybrid).

 

 

Hybrids can be good for soloing/dicking around/pvp but if people are bringing hybrid builds to raids then it's a balance problem, you feeling like a special unique little snow flake is likely going to have to take a back seat here to making the trees function as intended (especially the deep talents as they're the ones often sacrificed in hybrid builds).

Edited February 1, 2012 by Invitcted

The reason hybrids fail in a pve raid environment is that you don't have a hybrid function, you are a dps, healer or tank. Sure there are situations where a plate dps my be able to switch to tanking stance and blow cds while you burn down that last 8k if the tank goes down or a healer can throw up some dots but hybridization by and large doesn't aid in this to a sufficient level to be worth the talent investment over the negative effect on your primary role.

 

There's no inherent reason why hybrids should be so bad. They suck, typically, because developers often take steps to ensure they are unviable, which is what's happening here.

 

If you take a game like DDO (that has considerably more build options than other MMOs), there are numerous examples of hybrids that beat out pure builds: for instance, a Blitz or Monster versus a pure Fighter. But that's a game where the devs are quite open about not caring for perfect balance (just look at the eSOS, lol!).

 

When balance is your goal (which is probably how it should be for a more commercial MMO), hybrids are a pain for the devs. If a hybrid spec is overperforming you can't nerf it without nerfing one of the pure builds. The easiest thing for the devs is to have set builds with distinct things they can buff/nerf as needed. Say if Darkness is underperforming in threat, they can buff Wither. If they're underperforming in mitigation; they buff Dark Charge. They can do this knowing the other specs aren't going to be affected.

 

Not saying it's right btw, but that's why they do it.

They're killing hybrids because they noticed almost every sin spec was running with dark charge in PvP, giving sin's actually some needed survability... and we can't have that.

Um, non "cookie cutter" specs are always clearly inferior. Being a snowflake doesn't stop you from under performing and pulling down your group. The rare solid hybrid spec that does come about makes the class impossible to balance. You really should have learned that by now, all of you. Don't ask for things that don't make sense.

 

After 8 years WoW is giving more customization a shot in MoP, and I'm telling you right now that 1 of 2 things will happen: 1. Optimal "optional" talents will be found and thus just more cookie cutter specs. Or 2: Balance will be more chaotic than at any point in WoW's history. WoW in for another rough expansion, you really want that here? The more options you have the harder it is to balance. It's not rocket science.

 

I'm really not as angry as I seem, it's just late and some forum ideas make my head hurt. The "No add ons!!!!" thread in particular makes me want to punch a kitten.

have i missed something?

 

are they forcing 31 point talent specs all of a sudden? when? where's the notes?

have i missed something?

 

are they forcing 31 point talent specs all of a sudden? when? where's the notes?

Not forcing just making your hybrid sucks )) Is it not enought for you ? )))

have i missed something?

 

are they forcing 31 point talent specs all of a sudden? when? where's the notes?

 

There are no notes. They made changes to tooltips which suggest that in the future even more abilities will be bound to the stance of their respective tree.

And, iirc, BW has stated that they do not want people to go for hybrid builds, so these changes would make sense from their point of view.

Edited February 1, 2012 by _cisco

They're killing hybrids because they noticed almost every sin spec was running with dark charge in PvP, giving sin's actually some needed survability... and we can't have that.

 

Exactly this!!

 

With the exception though i dont see this in a negative light as it is a OBVIOUS design of what charges are to be used in what tree.

 

DPS were all running in DC which should have told you something was very wrong from that point.

DPS were all running in DC which should have told you something was very wrong from that point.

 

Yeah. I just hope they don't decide that what is wrong is DC itself and nerf it into the ground.

Nerfing hybrids is one thing. Not showing those nerfs in the changelog and not buffing pure builds for an already weak class is another... Edited February 1, 2012 by sjeg

Nerfing hybrids is one thing. Not showing those nerfs in the changelog and not buffing pure builds for an already weak class is another...

 

This x9000

Nerfing hybrids is one thing. Not showing those nerfs in the changelog and not buffing pure builds for an already weak class is another...

 

Maybe I missed it but I though this "nerf" was only in the description and not in function yet?

 

Only reason it bugs me is I was just learning how to handle something one way and now I will have to go back and change what I am doing. Not that big of a deal, really. But maybe by changing just the description; maybe they are still looking at why a pure build is not as desirable and thats why they haven't changed the function yet?

Apparently they nerfed raze for darkness/madness hybrids too:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=258441

 

Pretty hefty for the not uncommon 23/0/18 or 23/2/16 build if you ask me.

Yeah. I just hope they don't decide that what is wrong is DC itself and nerf it into the ground.

 

Completely agree with that, and it would ruin tankasins if they did as they stand close to other tanks atm.

Apparently they nerfed raze for darkness/madness hybrids too:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=258441

 

Pretty hefty for the not uncommon 23/0/18 or 23/2/16 build if you ask me.

 

When the majority of your points are in one tree, you should really be performing that tree as a hybrid role. So the specs you mention, you should be acting more like a OT than dps that gets the benefits of a tank.

If they make changes(aka hybrid nerfs), but make our freakin passive work(+25% base dmg to Project).

 

I'll sing songs and rejoice upon the BW name.

The changes haven't taken effect yet so itss not a nerf yet... I've been playing MMO's for a long time and one thing I hate is when they take away talent tree hybrids. As long as they perform on equal terms with the 31 point trees I don't see a problem. If they do perform above the 31 point trees then buff the 31 pointer. Choice should never be taken away from the player. One thing they could of done was just add more lightning charge synergy into madness to make it useful. Like say change deathmarks to increase damage of DOTS by 20% and restore 5 force everytime lightning charge procs. And then they could replace consume deathmark with a talent that increases the proc chance of lightning charges proc chance by 30%

I've defended BW through most of their decisions, and such - but nerfing a play style

of a class that isn't overpowered is a bit ridiculous.

 

I see a lot of the arguments that are for the hybrid massacre movement that are more

PvE focused. The thing is, not everyone focuses on PvE. In PvP most of the better builds

were hybrid, and they were balanced.

 

This decision, in my eyes, is big enough to make me consider finding recreation elsewhere.

I believe that nerfs should be warranted by how strong a class is, not by how the developers

want to force their users to play that class.

Bah i sometimes use dark charge as deception assassin so that i can tank and rely on healing companion and vol-slash + shock to do damage. cant use discharge because without surging its just a weak AoE debuff attack.

 

And so much for the great darkness/madness raze combo for pvp