I spent some time playing Allods Online the other night. "some time" includes the opening quest chain that takes you from your beginning zone to your real beginning zone. they actually make it a little exciting (as opposed to wow's opening, where things seem a little static). The static leveling zone can be found at around level 3, after the intro. Obviously, it appears the intro zone cannot be revisited, so take a look around and breathe in the atmosphere, or whatevers.
Anyway, i downloaded a bunch of free to play games recently so that it will give my daughter of four years something to do on the computer. now i have to problems with letting her play eden eternal or dragon nest, although dragon nest may be a little too advanced for her age, and adding allods online may be a good addition. We started by picking races. She wanted to play a girl toon so we went through several races and classes. But she ultimately chose the faeries or elves of the game. she made it very clear that she wanted the Psionicist faerie. I named it for her but she chose the features (purple hair, etc). Now we go on and went through the entire opening chain quest until we finally hit the official starting zone. it appears to me that the starting chain quests are instanced and we do them solo. the beginning zone we end up in will have interaction with others.
Now here's what i found out about my elven psionocist. She floats. She uses a dagger. she also mind controls. she is hard to kill, even as melee. the intro sequence helped players understand the basic concepts of the game, how to heal, how to assign talents (the act of assigning talents itself, not where one should put talents), how to equip new gear and how to loot, etc. But my first roadblock is this. When i hit level 2 or 3, i got an option to assign my talent points to some stats. now first, i've never played a psionocist before, so having a big window with 20 different stats where i can place talent points (stat points, in this case) to any stat i want is daunting. i was figuratively lost (no, not literally lost. i was sitting in my chair at home. so no, not literally lost at all - more on the misuse of "literally" in another post). Without having played a psionocist before, and having never played this game before, i figured i had to have some background knowledge before i can actually assign a talent point. because people who use mind tricks to win battles probably use magic, i thought maybe add to intelect. but then, i thought, why the hell do i have a dagger? and a wand!??!?!!!.
Welcome to noobsville. Now for those who do not remember, when you first started WoW, it was the exact same thing. No one told me where to assign my talent points (although it wasnt stat points, since the stats are from gear, and some stats increase naturally), i just did it without really knowing or understanding. I did not read many blogs or guides on the internet. My first character was a mage--a frost mage at that. I decided that i needed to give him faster frost bolts and that was it. talent points werent stat points. and that was a great change from some of the other games i was playing. but even with talents points in wow, i can see how people can get confused and not understand them. back when i had 61 talent points to spend, and no talent tree lockout, i had a difficult time figuring out where to put what. granted, my mage only got to level 40, but even there, i was able to assign 31 points already, somewhere in various trees. No one told me that i should focus on one tree first, then move to the next. no one told me that i should focus on certain talents if i was going to quest instead of dungeon. no one told me that i shouldnt worry about this or that, and focus on that or the other. i had to learn this stuff on my own. but i did understand one thing. i knew that my intellect increased every time i leveled. so that was an important stat.
but here, in allods, i felt the exact same way i did when i first started wow. i looked at the stat allocation table and said, forget this. so now i am reading a bit about the psionocist on the internet and understand it a little more. i'll be better prepared to make my character better than i would have yesterday.
When blizz announced that they are going to revamp the entire talent tree system, i believe i understand why. They're not catering to those who have played for years. or those who have switched from other MMOs and understand the talent and stat allocation game. no, they're targeting those who do not care to understand that game. they're catering to those who enjoy killing monsters and complete quests. they dont want to have to stop players from playing because, instead of blowing things up with magic, they're now forced to decide whether they should be a mage with faster fireball casts, or harder hitting pyroblasts. or something. Blizz seem to be saying, we dont want players to focus on little things like cast speed, crit chance, etc. we just want them to go out the and cast the damn spells instead! play the game!
With that in mind, i can see how they want to take a lot of the theory-craft out of warcraft. the talents will come every 15 levels. 15 levels is way more than enough time for someone to get used to a spec/class combination and decide what they value more. let's look at a the hunter's 1st talent choices.
1. Frozen Arrows - Auto Shots decrease mob's movement by 30% for 10 secs.
2. Arcane Arrows - Your auto shots has a 50% chance to restore 5 focus each.
3. Poison-Tipped Arrows - Auto shots causes stacking poisons on your target.
Now all three talents affect one thing: your shots. They effect it in several ways. But the idea here is to kill your mob or opponent before it/he kills you. with frozen arrows, you're given more time to shoot at something before they gnaw at your face. means that, although the fight may just be as long as before, the mobs will not be at your face as quickly or as often, decrease bandage/eating time, increasing leveling speed, though indirectly, and adding more possible gameplay mechanics to your level 15 hunter.
With Arcane arrows. you will end up with more chances to fire off more shots, since you're eventually going to regain enough focus to add an extra special shot. Mobs will still get to you as fast as they would at level 14, but you may have an additional shot, therefore increasing the damage dealt.
With poison tipped arrows, it is essentially like arcane arrows in that it adds extra damage, but the extra damage comes not from a spell we chose when we gained enough focus, but from poison that stacks. for longer fights, both arcane arrows and poison tipped arrows will seem to be a better choice than frozen arrows. some will say frozen arrows is simply for pvp. but i can see how it is also a good talent to take when leveling.
Also understand that hunters usually have pets (or tanks) to tank their mobs for them. if this is the case, frozen arrow might not be needed at all. overall, the idea is this, Blizzard doesnt want you to have to decide whether a talent is good or bad for what you do. they want you to evaluate your play style and decide for yourself which talent is better -- for you. would you prefer to get an extra shot in every 10 seconds? well arcane arrow is for you. would you rather have extra damage instead? then poison tipped arrows works. are you a hunter who likes to run and shoot at the same time, grab five mobs, freeze trap it then multi shot them down because you like how they all die in the same area so it will make skinning them a lot easier with your pet only there as added bonus dps? well frozen arrows will help you do that better!
With the future talent choices, i see it more as playstyle tweakers instead of the talent points we see today. when standing there looking at the extra talent points to use, it can be a little difficult to know exactly what will benefit the class the most. however, blizz new take on talents will definitely remove all such thinking and simply let the player play the game. because, after all, we have many, many little games inside this big game we're trying to play. having complicated talent trees just slow everyone down. who needs that, right?
in all honesty, i do like the current talent point system we have now, minus one feature. you have to use 31 talents in one tree in order to move to a new tree. i remember then days of leveling a paladin and thought going into the first 15 or so points in the ret tree helped tremendously. since low level dungeons weren't that big of a challenge, and anyone with a pulse, and mail gear can tank in those days, adding talents to the ret tree was my best course of action. really, it was only because i was trying to get to one talent, Seal of Command, that made the trek down the ret tree even necessary.
but there it was, a ret paladin tank. but i knew that in dungeons like scarlet monastery, there was really no issues tanking in ret so long as i pulled intelligently (there wasnt even a difference between dps and tanking gear then). for those who are confused, seal of command allowed my seal to hit two other mobs. and since the flavor of the year was aoe tanking, this seal helped a lot when it comes to holding threat on mobs. before this, there was nothing. heck, i dont even think hammer of the righteous was even available before level 60. so besides consecration, this was our only aoe option. now i knew that as soon as i hit seal of command, every other talent point will be going into the protection tree. and when i reach level 60 and am able to get hammer of the righteous, i would then respec into it, in order to have a proper tanking build at level 60ish. this is where having a tanking spec actually mattered. then, i can slowly spec into seal of command again. this required one respec, plenty of planning, and lots of knowledge of how my class, as well as how dungeons work.
So i see a compromise in the works. Bliz will automagically upgrade our stats, that's how it worked before, that's how it will work now. All abilities and/or spells that we had to pick as we filled out our respective talent trees will be added automagically. there will be no more thought to this. also, abilities that we have to go to the trainers to learn will be added automagically as well. i can also assume that this will mean we will learn both our current pve and pvp abilities, since we're not given a choice in picking. so how exactly will that combat rogue sitting next to be be a completely different combat rogue than me? i am a little unsure now.
I do like having a choice. but i also do like having consequences when i pick one ability over another. i do like to be challenged and to think. what i see as the future, as far as talent trees are concerned, is that there really isnt much consequence to picking one of the three, for any situation. it is merely a playstyle preference, and picking one talent over another only goes to improve your own playstyle. on one hand, bliz is really helping those who like to play a certain way from being told they're doing it wrong. however, it is at the cost of dumbing down this game so much that even i wonder if i am playing an MMO Action game as opposed to an MMO-RPG game. Not that i dont like action games. i just have better options when it comes to action games with an rpg element and mmo element.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment