Is Blizzards on to something?

[Zinovia]

It was my understanding that the biggest change we were going to see in Cataclysm was in how items work in relationship to your talent spec. They are doing away with tons of secondary stats such as spell power or mana regeneration and instead tying it to the base stats such as intellect and spirit. Stats on your gear will be applied based on your current spec.

Now I may be mistaken, but I didn't think they were changing how talent specializations work. Allowing people to have two specs and swap between them seems to cover the need for versatility in WoW. What may not be clear to people who haven't played WoW is that changing your specialization in WoW will often completely change what you can do as a character. A simple swap of gear and spec, and you go from a great raid healer to a solid tank. But you can't combine the two in any useful way; the jack of all trades character has no real place in WoW, at least not in the end-game. I don't see Cataclysm as changing this. What is the point of a raid tank that can heal better? I think Blizzard is only changing how gear interacts with your existing talent tree, so the change is to itemization rather than character talents.

Paper RPG's are a different beast entirely, and have always allowed a true hybrid character more readily than MMO's. The GM can adapt the challenges to fit the group, while an MMO has a static encounter design that must work well for whatever group attempts it. In WoW a hybrid is any class that can change roles when they change their talent specialization and gear. In D&D and other tabletop games, a hybrid is a character that has abilities from multiple classes, and can do any of them at a given time, trading focus for versatility. It's a worthwhile trade in D&D, but not at all in WoW.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I think the OP misunderstood the point of how they're changing talents.

They're removing talents that do something boring but are mathematically necessary to good performance like "Increases all damage by 2% per point" or "Increases chance to crit by 1% per point" and building that into the tree itself. The idea is that all your talents will be interesting.

And then they're going back and adding in those passive bonuses (called Mastery bonuses) just for investing in the tree.

To use the paladin example, Retribution, the damage spec, will have 3 bonuses that accrue just for spending points in the tree, 2 generic to the role, one specific to the tree theme. They might be:
1) Increases damage done by X per point spent
2) Increases chance to crit by Y per point spent
3) Decreases ability cooldowns by Z per point spent (Ret tends to be somewhat cooldown locked)

All three of these are all about doing what Retribution already does: damage.

Protection, on the other hand, might have:
1) Decreases damage taken by X per talent point
2) Increases threat generated by Y per talent point
3) Increases amount blocked by your shield by Z per talent point (Paladin prot is very shield-centric)

Again, this is all about doing what Protection is good at: tanking.

So, you definitely don't get substantially better at other jobs besides your main one. In fact, they're debating whether you're even going to get Mastery bonuses from more than one tree when you subspec.

If anything, this is WoW getting more like PnP games. When you spend a talent point in WoW right now, it's only occasionally something really cool, like "Avenger's Shield." Most of the time it's a boring decision: "I need to get deeper in this tree for something that is actually cool, and this talent over here is mathematically superior to my other options... Time for another boring +X to damage or +Y to armor. Whee." Whereas in 3rd edition feats or 4th edition powers, you more frequently are choosing cool options that differentiate your character.

 

[haakon1]

Well, if you look at .000001 of the population, you're still talking about 6,500 people.

* For all we know, there's a woman planting rice in a paddy in Asia who has as much of a gift for physics as Einstein, but has never gone to school because her family needed her to work on the farm.

Very Malcolm Gladwell thoughts. You should read his book "Outliers", if you haven't.

 

[Rechan]

WWhat sets guys like Jordan

He can't act and he can't play baseball. Where are his multitalents?

 

[Saeviomagy]

They're removing talents that do something boring but are mathematically necessary to good performance like "Increases all damage by 2% per point" or "Increases chance to crit by 1% per point" and building that into the tree itself. The idea is that all your talents will be interesting.

Which is similar to what the 4e strategy for feats was going to be before they screwed it up.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

He can't act and he can't play baseball. Where are his multitalents?

He's a master of endorsements!

Actually, we were talking about 23 in the context of being the best in the world at something.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So you see just as in the current version of WoW you have to invest your feats or skill points outside your focus if you want to cover or fill more than one roll within a party. People just don’t do one thing in life, they might have a single focus, but they still function in most other areas. So the question is; is Blizzard starting to get the design right while RPGs are still stuck with the single focus mentality? If so; how could RPGs adapt to correctly portray this? Should feats and maybe skills perhaps offer more than just one thing? Thoughts?

Coming at this more from a gamist angle...

I find that 4e already does this in some areas (and other editions did it, too). Your attack and skill bonuses go up with a "baseline." Even in 3e, you gained BAB points even if you never threw a punch, and 75% of classes gained some sort of spellcasting. In 4e, this extends to almost every element of gameplay -- everyone is good as they gain levels. You can choose focus (skill training or weapon focus feats).

This isn't done with roles, but I think that's mostly intentional. They don't want anyone doing near-striker damage, using marks like a defender, using area effects like a controller, or healing like a leader. The roles are exclusive, and meant to reinforce the group nature of the game -- you NEED OTHER PLAYERS. You can't just do this by yourself.

I think in that case, it's a fairly constructive choice, because it means that everyone contributes to success (in combat) in a unique way that nobody else (at least, if they didn't choose the exact same class and build) can really copy.

Multiclassing or hybriding is 4e's nod toward this direction, giving you a limited use of iconic powers from other roles (sometimes). But the niche protection here is intentionally strong, because it doesn't want copycats. It doesn't want you to be as good a defender as you are a striker (both of which are only slightly weaker than yourself as a controller).

In fact, I think a lack of this difference is part of what makes a good chunk of non-combat in 4e bland and same-y (to me). Everyone contributes the exact same d20 roll to success, in the same broad way, in skill challenges. There's not enough ways to uniquely contribute to success (your focus doesn't really matter).

So, I don't think it's that fresh or new of an idea. I do think it's a generally good idea, but that there needs to be enough room for difference. Perhaps the 4e roles err too much on the "different" side and the 4e skills err too much on the "same" side, but there are good reasons for both, I think.

 

[dm4hire]

It's possible I misread the summary on Blizzards site for Cataclysm. I agree that for the most part that RPGs and CRPGs are different. There are a lot of mechanics presented in WoW that you could never achieve in D&D unless everyone was math majors to figure the details. In the same reguard there are things that D&D holds that WoW doesn't. My biggest point in pointing it out is that the need for multiclassing to cover gaps could be lessened by expanding the system to allow more diversion within the individual classes. Giving each class a primary role and secondary and tetriary roles I think would account for that need.

 

[I'm A Banana]

My biggest point in pointing it out is that the need for multiclassing to cover gaps could be lessened by expanding the system to allow more diversion within the individual classes. Giving each class a primary role and secondary and tetriary roles I think would account for that need.

In 4e, at least, multiclassing isn't supposed to be needed to cover the gaps. You're supposed to have 5 players, and one player is supposed to cover each role.

It's also true that, in 4e at least, most classes do have secondary roles, depending on their build. Some classes even spell it out specifically.

Multiclassing is there mostly as a legacy option and a nod to flexibility, and it's been painstakingly balanced so that the roles are specifically not covered by anyone who isn't of that role, because the result of that is a lot of same-ness, as we see in Skill Challenges.

At least, this is what I can see from my POV.

 

[dm4hire]

In 4e, at least, multiclassing isn't supposed to be needed to cover the gaps. You're supposed to have 5 players, and one player is supposed to cover each role.

It's also true that, in 4e at least, most classes do have secondary roles, depending on their build. Some classes even spell it out specifically.

Multiclassing is there mostly as a legacy option and a nod to flexibility, and it's been painstakingly balanced so that the roles are specifically not covered by anyone who isn't of that role, because the result of that is a lot of same-ness, as we see in Skill Challenges.

At least, this is what I can see from my POV.

And there in is part of the problem in that the games set an expectation of a set number of players, which in some areas isn't achievable. Perhaps what is needed is to devise a system where in a balance due to absence can be achieved. How I'm not sure, but a start might be distribution of skills/feats that make up for the missing number. So a party of four would receive a bonus of x number of skills/feats to account for the missing person and so on.