Tobold's Blog: A more varied World of Warcraft

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

A more varied World of Warcraft

In recent discussions here we heard a lot of opinions on how class X owns class Y in PvP, up to the point where people had a hard time to believe that I'd lose to a rogue in PvP, or that my warrior isn't very good in PvP. Do I just suck in PvP with whatever I play? That is perfectly possible (hey, I'm an old man), but I have another explanation. The thing is that not every character of the same class is the same. Every class has three talent trees, and there is usually one among these trees that is very good in PvP, and others that are better for PvE. And with the Burning Crusade adding more talents to each tree, people can specialize even more in either PvE or PvP. And it isn't only the talents, but also the gear.

Now take the statement "class X owns class Y in PvP". What if the character of class X is specialized in PvE, put all his talent points in PvE-specific talents, and is wearing PvE gear? And the guy playing class Y is specialized in PvP, took all the best PvP talents, and took all the best PvP gear? Wanna bet that in that particular duel the guy from class Y wins, although he should be "owned" by class X?

It isn't "priests" or "warriors" that are bad in PvP. Its "holy priests" and "tank warriors" that are bad, while "shadow priests" and "dps warriors" do quite well. And the same is true for most other classes, you can PvP-gimp your character, or make him really good in PvP.

Even if you respec'd to something more suited for PvP, you'd still need to gather a different set of gear. Most tier 1 raid gear gives great bonuses for raid PvE, but these bonuses usually aren't all that great for PvP. For example PvE cloth wearers usually have much lower stamina and therefore hitpoints than PvP cloth wearers in specific PvP gear. Group PvE works by having a tank taunt the monsters away from the casters, so they don't really need to have a lot of hitpoints. In PvP there is no such thing as taunt.

That there is perfect gear for different purposes is probably inevitable. But why do players have to chose between PvE and PvP talents? Ideally you'd chose to do PvP this night, and spec accordingly, while next night there is a raid planned and you go back to a PvE talent build. But Blizzard made that impossible by making changing your talents increasingly expensive, the more often you do it. The cost goes down again after a month, but having a different talent build every day is certainly not viable right now.

Because you have to chose a talent build, you get stuck in one style of play. If you are PvP spec'd, you'll be less useful in groups and raids, and might even have problems getting invited, being passed over in favor of somebody with a PvE talent build. And by being PvP spec'd you end up getting PvP rewards, and end up in a set of gear which is only good in PvP. And the same thing is true the other way round, if you specialize in PvE you will have problems doing well in PvP, and by getting mainly PvE raid rewards, your gear will also favor PvE over PvP.

I think Blizzard could make World of Warcraft a lot more varied, and PvP a lot more popular, by allowing cheaper or even free talent respecs. So on the one evening where there is no raid planned, you could go doing PvP instead, and not be totally gimped. With socketed items from the Burning Crusade you even have some freedom to "respec" your gear. Even the tier 4 raid gear isn't automatically PvE any more, instead the raid boss mobs drop tokens which you can exchange for different types of items with different sets of stats. So if somebody raided enough, he might well acquire a PvP set of gear from playing PvE.
- posted by Tobold @ 9:28 AM Permanent Link

Comments:

As far as PvP comparisons, isn't everyone talking about dueling? Dueling comparisions don't translate well to the current pvp system, however, it will emerge in the new 2v2 pvp arenas.

# posted by

Anonymous : 8/11/06 15:09

This is one aspect that Guild wars handles in a number of bold but brilliant ways. PVE and PVP characters are totally seperate so it is much easier to specialise a character for the correct job. Even more innovative is the fact that total respecs are free and unlimited both in PVE and in PVP. Any time a character is in a town they can redistribute skills and attributes as they see fit for no charge (originally there was a a limit to this but not anymore). There is also a low limit of only 8 skills that can be carried at any one time depite there being many many skills to choose from for each class. This has led to great variety in character builds. Players often adjust their build depending on the type of opponents they will face. There are no "uber" pvp or pve builds although there are some well known choices.

If you haven't looked at Guild Wars since its inception you might be surprised to learn that it has built quite a strong PVE community. It is not a full blown MMORPG of course and content is instanced. However three chapters have now been released and some elite missions so there is enough PVE content to keep a casual player entertained for quite a while without the need to sell your soul to a raiding guild.

# posted by

mbp : 8/11/06 15:52

Cheap or free respecs would increase the enjoyment of the game for me immensely.

It would be the difference between me only logging on my priest for raids, versus me logging on, speccing shadow and having a blast (pardon the pun) in pvp or actually (gasp) grinding for cash and not relying on help!!!

I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing at the moment - leveling up a hunter so I have something that can actually kill things with ease. Because I would be perfectly happy with my priest. Because she would be able to heal in raids and kill everywhere else.

# posted by

Yane (Yet another night elf) : 8/11/06 16:02

There was actually a blue tagged thread on the WoW board about this last week or so. A good amount of people have the same concern. What was being tossed around was the idea of having a pvp build and a pve build, and being able to swap back and forth at need on them.

I'd love to see that. Normally I avoid pvp at all costs, but in WoW, AV morons aside, it's fun. That element of unknown action really adds to the experience.

# posted by

Anonymous : 8/11/06 16:20

Personally I prefer the setup as is. If respecs were free, or even really cheap, everyone would simply spec for PvP everytime the queued. That would make for a much less varied PvP game. It would also make for a less varied PvE game if every priest could go holy at the drop of a hat. I think part of the fun in the game stems from adapting to situations with a less than ideal build or group composition.

Your thread title seems to indicate that you are wanting a varied WoW experience, doing away with steep respec costs would only make it less varied.

# posted by

Anonymous : 8/11/06 17:12

I like the current WoW system, where PvE and PvP are inter-mingled and traded off. It feels more like real-life. If I am a cash farmer, specced for PvE and grinding away, and I'm attacked by a PvP ganker, naturally he will have the combat advantage. Because I have the advantage in generating faster cash flow. It's a classic tradeoff of economy vs. military. :)

As for gear, I think the best PvE gear does quite well in PvP, and vice-versa. The biggest problem now is the grind required in both cases (time > skill), but hopefully they will fix that with the arena system and smaller raid dungeons.

# posted by

changed : 8/11/06 17:19

If the Outlands stays as it is, respeccing wouldn't be a trivial affair, since you have to port back to a city to respec then hearth or travel back to the Outlands.

To s4dfish, funny thing is, I would take more chances speccing differently if the costs were not so prohibitive. Some encounters I would try out disc, or shadow or holy or some mix.

I guess I'm not sure what you mean by less variety.

# posted by

Yane (Yet another night elf) : 8/11/06 18:47

I agree with that free respecs would be bad. You'd just end up with cookie cutter PVP and PVE designs whenever you needed it. No more making hard choices and balancing your spec.

On a side note, it would FANTASTIC if there was some sort of 'are you sure?' when distributing talent points. It sucks to hurry and misclick when respeccing. That one mistake can cost a lot of gold.

# posted by

Anonymous : 8/11/06 18:49

I'd love to see free or low cost respecs. This would stop forcing people to compromise their personal preferences to be viable in raids. We all know that what you'd spec in a raid is very different than what you'd do for PVP. It's so obvious that it's stupid that Blizzard hasn't addressed this problem.

I'd even be very happy with Alex's suggestion. I get two specs that I can change between for free. However, to modifiy the specs costs me money. GW handles this situation very nicely. There is no way to have all of the uber skills in a single spec anyway so that's not a worry. Therefore this high cost of changing specs isn't necessary.

# posted by

Anonymous : 8/11/06 21:01

Making talent respecs trivial defeats the entire purpose of talents, and would lead to even _less_ variation. If you can switch between specs with no significant penalty, why not just give everyone all the talents anyway?

# posted by

Anonymous : 8/11/06 21:09

I'm not sure I'd like having free respecs.

Guild Wars is a bad comparion because even though you have free respecs, you're only allowed 8 skills per instance. And with several hundred skills available, almost no 2 classes would be a mirror image of each other.

WOW does not have this advantage and free respecs might essentially kill character creation. But I think I would be ok with 1-2 free respecs a month. That would be nice.

# posted by

emyln : 8/11/06 21:39

Interesting discussion.

I share the same problem as everyone else who wants to solo PvE, run instances, and PvP too -- balancing the spec.

Currently I have a 58 Undead warrior, Prot-spec.
I'm PvP-ing successfully (in spite of the spec) by doing the following:
-- In AV, I typically run with shield in defensive stance, with the offensive group, looking for NPCs to tank, and use my tanking skills to get aggro, hold aggro, and stay alive while either pulling to friendly NPCs or letting fellow players do the dps
-- In AB, I typically dual-wield in berserker stance, and try to stun and deal as much damage as possible, and find that I can hold my own (better than I expected)
-- (I don't play WSG; I don't enjoy it)

There is some strategy, too -- I'd love to take this tank to level 60, but I strongly suspect that I'm better off to be at the high end in AB 50-59 than to be the AB 60 in blues and greens; if I earn my rep with the Defilers and Frostwolf now plus gain rank, when I hit 60 I can be in some decent PvP gear. And I think that in AB people are expecting me to be Arms or Fury specced, so I get treated accordingly. But when I see a caster and intercept, they don't expect the Concussion Blow. And I think that with Concussion Blow plus the Defiler trinket and being at the top end of the level range, my play style may be similar in some ways to that of a pally; stun, able to take a lot of damage, grind the enemy down -- but with an Intercept to close and an Execute up my sleeve!

# posted by

Doeg : 9/11/06 17:10

I prefer the current system. Choices are a good thing in games, not a bad thing. I play a Feral druid, I've worked my butt off to succeed with the class and get geared properly, my spec really defines my character compared to balance or resto druids. Free respecs would just mean that I'm no different than anyone else, my character loses any amount of uniqueness or definition it might have because of it.

This is one case where Blizzard knows better than the players in my opinion.

# posted by

Anonymous : 12/11/06 21:08