Officers' Quarters: In defense of guild talents
by Scott Andrews 
Jun 21st 2010 at 2:00PM
About a week ago, Blizzard revealed all the latest updates concerning their gameplan for Cataclysm. Among them were a host of changes to the new guild systems and UI overhaul that were originally announced at BlizzCon 2009. Today I'd like to focus on the removal of guild talents. In future columns, I'll address other changes.
Guild talents get the axe
Two of the biggest announcements from last week were not new features but the cancellation of previously announced features: Path of the Titans and guild talents. I've heard a lot of complaints from people about removing the Path, which is to be expected -- it was considered a key feature of the expansion and a long-awaited means to customize your character beyond talents after glyphs, in the words of Ghostcrawler, "didn't live up to what they could have been." It's a shame they couldn't make the Path work, but I'm hopeful that the revised glyph system will compensate for its loss.
On the other hand, I'm not hearing nearly as many complaints about the removal of guild talents. Again, perhaps, this is to be expected. After all, Blizzard's plan is to replace them with unlocked perks that you receive automatically as your guild levels up. In other words, every guild will get every talent. Awesome, right? For guild members, yes. For officers, not as much.
I'm sure many people will disagree with me on this point. Ghostcrawler had this to say:
Ghostcrawler -- Guild TalentsGuilds are, for the most part, groups of friends. We don't want features to drive wedges between them. We don't want you to guild hop looking for the talents that suit you best; we want you to play (or in many cases keep playing) with your friends. With a talent tree, guilds would naturally have different talent trees, which creates a reason to bail or guild hop that doesn't exist today. If you didn't like the direction the guild was taking (for example, you were a PvP guy with a GM focused on raid-progression) you might feel like you should leave. That can happen today of course, but you can also stay in a PvE guild just because you like the members even if you don't participate in the same content because you're not losing out on inherent guild benefits.
I agree with him in theory. There is a risk (as well as a benefit) inherent to making your guild different from others, and it's not impossible to imagine that spec'ing your guild a certain way could have caused this scenario. In practice, though, I wonder if such a thing would really happen.
I mean, what sorts of talents was Blizzard planning such that choosing one over another could actually drive people out of your guild? During BlizzCon, they listed examples such as increased gold drops, removal of reagents for raid-wide buffs, mass summon, mass resurrection, and reduced repair bills. If someone gquits over whether they get more gold per kill instead of foregoing reagents, I'm pretty sure there are additional factors at play.
Yes, if there were talents that gave you 10% more damage and healing in battlegrounds but not in raids, then I could see people moving to another guild if they wanted that extra 10% to apply to their raiding instead. I strongly doubt Blizzard would have implemented such game-breaking talents though.
I wish Ghostcrawler had provided a few examples of talents that might have had a negative impact on your guild, because I just don't see how a realistic "perk" talent choice could make such a big difference that people would actually gquit.
Why do I care?
As I explain in Chapter 1 of The Guild Leader's Handbook, it's important to define your guild, to give your guild an identity that sets your organization apart from others on the server. Doing so provides a number of benefits, not the least of which is more effective, targeted recruiting. Of course, there will always be guilds who want to be all things to all people, but it's vastly easier to run a guild with a focused purpose and a strong idea of the types of players who would want to join.
To date, all such differentiators have been external, by which I mean they are chosen by the officers but they have no actual representation in the game itself. You need to speak to guild members or read the guild's policies on its website in order to understand what the guild is all about.
With talents, Blizzard had a means for allowing officers to differentiate their guilds using the game's own interface. For that reason, talents could have been a huge win for officers, but now it looks like we won't get this functionality in WoW. (I should mention that the new recruiting feature in the UI may allow you to choose from one of several labels that describe your guild, which is a small step in the right direction.)
In my opinion, it is possible to provide talented differentiators that don't necessarily drive away players who aren't part of a guild's major activities. For example, in a progression-oriented raiding guild, you might choose a talent that provides 5% increased reputation gains for PvE factions (i.e., Sons of Hodir) over one that provides the same gains for PvP factions (let's assume Cataclysm has PvP factions that actually matter). While it's true that a player in your guild who PvPs rather than raids may not benefit as much, she still does benefit. It's hard to imagine that the cumulative difference of talent choices would affect her game experience to the point that she would leave a guild she was happy with and players she liked for the sake of minor convenience. Perhaps I'm giving too little credit to a player's desire to min/max her time, but I just don't buy it.
The risk of drama
Ghostcrawler's other reason for removing guild talents is this:
Ghostcrawler -- Guild TalentsFurthermore, we felt like the decision-making, for many guilds, would be up to a relatively few people, possibly as few as the guild master. Talent trees work for classes because the decision is up to you. We didn't want to create the risk of drama over choosing those talents or even not being consulted in choosing them.
GC, I take umbrage with you here. Call me sensitive, but this statement is an insult to your game's officers. You're pretty much saying, "We don't trust you to make decisions that won't cause problems."
Officers have to make difficult decisions all the time. Sometimes it's better to talk to your players and achieve a consensus. Sometimes it's better to act alone for the benefit of the guild as a whole. Good officers know when to move forward with either method. By taking this power out of our hands, Ghostcrawler is telling us that we don't know how to do our jobs.
Beyond that, I was honestly shocked by this statement. Never before has Blizzard so much as batted an eye at whether their game design would "create the risk of drama." Where was this concern when they decided to create a 5 > 10 > 25 progression path in Burning Crusade? Where was this concern when they were implementing the Immortal achievement? Or restricting Algalon access to individual players rather than the guild as a whole? Or creating four separate lockouts for Trial of the Crusader? Or designing the Tribute to Immortality achievement? Or making cool and purely aesthetic rewards such as the Amani War Bear, Mimiron's Head, and Invincible -- rewards, by the way, that take the dedication and hard work of everyone involved for months at a time in order to earn -- drop one. at. a. time?
C'mon, GC. Some days I feel like you guys do nothing but sit around your office inventing new ways to "create the risk of drama." Seriously, that is not card you get to play at this point. Don't get me wrong: I love that it's finally occurring to you and I hope that this represents a shift in thinking. However, I'll believe you actually care about that when I see it over the course of an entire expansion.
Ghostcrawler also goes on to say that it's easier for Blizzard to make adjustments and add more perks over time without worrying about a talent tree, and that is completely understandable. At this point, anything they can do to get Cataclysm into our eager hands faster is a good thing. Even so, I also feel like the dumping of guild talents is a missed opportunity for officers, and I don't think Blizzard's reasons for this decision, beyond the basic logistics of it, are particularly strong.
What do you think?
/salute
Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas, and suggestions at scott@wow.com. You may find your question the subject of next week's Officers' Quarters!Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Lotheron Jun 21st 2010 2:07PM
Exactly. I don't understand the author's complaint. So instead of only getting a few of the talents, you get them all and the complaint is as a GM you can't choose them?
If the choice meant you lose out of talents instead of all of them, why do you care? You'd be worse off as you miss on the talents you are now getting.
Dahk Jun 21st 2010 2:08PM
Hit the nail on the head Scott..
Pat Jun 21st 2010 2:10PM
Where was this concern when they decided to create a 5 > 10 > 25 progression path in Burning Crusade? Where was this concern when they were implementing the Immortal achievement? Or restricting Algalon access to individual players rather than the guild as a whole? Or creating four separate lockouts for Trial of the Crusader? Or designing the Tribute to Immortality achievement? Or making cool and purely aesthetic rewards such as the Amani War Bear, Mimiron's Head, and Invincible -- rewards, by the way, that take the dedication and hard work of everyone involved for months at a time in order to earn -- drop one. at. a. time?
Gosh, I can't see why the developers would suddenly start taking drama into consideration. Perhaps due to all the problems you outlined above?
Kylenne Jun 21st 2010 4:06PM
Amen to this. I expect this sort of selective QQ from trolls on the official forums. Here? Not so much.
Frankly, if people don't understand what a horrible idea this was in terms of the sheer, pointless drama it would cause, I'd hate to be a non-officer in their guild.
Zanathos Jun 21st 2010 4:09PM
I'm sure they did take the drama into consideration when switching from 40 to 25 mans. Just because you take it into account doesn't mean it stops you. In that case, the positive of getting more players into raiding, outweighed the negative of causing drama for existing 40 man guilds. In some situations, like TOC's 4 lockouts and the Immortal, they were experimenting and concluding that wasn't the way to go.
In the cause of guild talents, it seems the cost/benefit analysis ruled against them, no doubt cause they could be easily implemented in a different forum with less obvious problems.
Meiam Jun 21st 2010 2:10PM
I agree 100%, furthermore if the talent system was still used, it would allow for better perk, lets say instead of having 5% increase rep for PvP and 5% increase rep for PvE, you could instead have 10% for one or the other with talent since it would be more specialized. Overall I feel like blizzard is just trying to cut the amount of staff they need to run WoW during the cata expansion even more.
Lotheron Jun 21st 2010 2:12PM
So you'd rather miss out on available talents, for a perk?!
I'm not seeing the logic here.
Meiam Jun 21st 2010 2:17PM
I'd rather miss out on stuff I'll never use for stuff I never use for better stuff I use all the time. It's also like normal class talent tree, if blizzard gave everybody all the talent in the tree, there would be no specialization, I find that boring. Saying yu dont like guild talent tree is akin to saying theres should be no class talent tree, heck that there should be no class, since its more convenient for you to be able to access everything anytime.
Meiam Jun 21st 2010 2:45PM
Now we have a classic example of a pretty deep problem, my original comment is currently getting down ranked because it goes against the general opinion of the people reading this article, not because there's no argumentation in it or it's inappropriate, but because it's different (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQqq3e03EBQ is a good example). While people who are going with the general flow are getting promoted, even thought some have no argument.
Now this is a problem since if someone was to read the comment section to have a general view of the current opinion, but wouldn't read the gray out comment thinking they were inappropriate, they would think that 100% of reader think this article is wrong. Lets not forget that sometime the minority is right, when people started saying the earth was round, the church threaten them even thought they were right.
Thatacus Jun 21st 2010 3:43PM
Getting your comment downranked doesn't necessarily mean that your post was spam/inappropriate/wrong, all it simply means is people do not like/agree with what you're saying. People who get their posts upranked just means people agree with their opinion.
Imagine it like you're at a conference and someone says something that everyone agrees to and everyone around him/her is clapping and cheering, that's the equivalent to upranking. Downranking is just people booing him/her.
No one is saying your comment lacks argument, it's just not what people agree to.
Alithoe Jun 21st 2010 2:13PM
But they're not talents in the sense that you get a choice, and you have to give up some of them to reach the ones you like more. Yes you'll get all of the perks (eventually), but what Mr. Andrews was mourning was the loss of the opportunity for guild identity in the manner of which talents your guild picks.
While I can't say perks in general aren't a bad thing for being in a guild (I'm all for less expensive candles), I can only think of even longer guild recruitment spam in trade where "Guild level x" is now tacked on after "Has guild tabard and y bank tabs". But at least you'll be able to tell if you have someone joining for the fact that you have a high guild level over the fact that you have great guild members.
Adeany Jun 21st 2010 2:16PM
Everyone is getting all the cool toys. Do you really want other people to not get all the cool toys enough to be willing to not have all the cool toys yourself?
flint Jun 21st 2010 3:15PM
To most people, that would be called "egocentric". To WoW players, that's called "individualism".
Awwjwah Jun 21st 2010 2:16PM
Personally the only thing I agree with you on is your statement concerning Blizz wanting to cause less drama. You are right there, there are many factors in this game that cause drama that is by design and this simply would have been another that could be altered by the gm of a guild.
As for removing them and going with an "all" talent option? I don't think it is bad. The defining characteristics of a guild should be the players, not minor, mediocre or major talents and bonuses the guild brings to the table based on a talent build. The characteristics should be based purely on the players themselves. If you find yourself in a guild full of asshats then you should leave the guild to find likable players, not spend days, weeks, months finding another guild with the same no amount of perks yours has. Then you are basing your choices off of mechanics and not people.
Lilithsblood Jun 21st 2010 2:19PM
Seriously man? We're gettin all those perks as baseline instead of talents. Thats awesome! As an officer of a big raiding guild, I love this over the talents.
Its not an insult to the officers, its giving the officers free cake.
You know in between bosses, and during the day in guild chat, how people argue over how to do their talents and which piece of gear is better and other things. Those arguments are going to go straight over to the talent system if it was implemented. People would be bugging the GM and officers: "Dude, why do we have X talent? We could get Y talent and it would be so much better dude zomg! You officers are stupid!"
I'm sorry I don't wanna deal with that. Now we can certainly make our guild rules and they have to deal with them all the same, but its more of a subjective thing. While talents would be subjective as well, you KNOW guildies wouldn't see it that way. They'd just say there's a cookie cutter spec.
Regardless of what we can argue, if your pissed and think GC is out to nerf YOU, then your being silly. At the end of the day we're gettin all the talents instead of just a few, which is the best scenario.
This article just reeks of a parody of "Blizz hates my class" and is now "Blizz hates me as an officer, me personally."
N-train Jun 21st 2010 2:39PM
I agree with you, especially on the point that as a GM, I /DON'T/ want to be the one that has to make that call. The reason being that these were points that the group worked up to, and then were put in my hands to decide how all that effort was spent. At least with loot or rare drops, the RNG (at least in my guild) decides who gets that reward objectively.
That being said, I don't get everyone's QQ at Scott here. He made a sound argument and his opinion just differs from most other people (which is strange because last week it seemed like everyone and their mother was crying foul at guild talents removal, and only a couple people were pointing out the advantages).
I think his points were valid and his opinions backed up. I, as well, would have liked to see an example of some of the bigger and smaller talents they were planning on adding, and I enjoy the idea of being able to customize a guild.
So its fine to disagree with the writer here, but let's not attack him. There may have been some QQ-y parts in his article, but he's miles above the shit you see on the forums.
ptarn Jun 21st 2010 2:22PM
Excuse me people, but I think you are reading this article all wrong. Compare:
* A Guild Talent Tree where a guild can choose which talents to pick. Ergo: Not all talents can ever be picked, you must decide which ones will benefit the guild most. Take pvp over pve? Take gold over reagents? Take a mass res over mass summon? You can't have them all. Now, in this model you may have a potential of, say, 30 talents. A guild can only choose to have, oh, I don't know, 20 at any given time. That means that 10 talents can't be picked.
* A Guild Perk System where the end result for a guild is that you have, let's say for the sake of argument, 20 perks. Hey, now, what's that? That's 10 talents/perks LESS to choose from! So some of those talents/perks will GO AWAY. You cannot differentiate your guild anymore by choosing one of the other, you get everything, whether you want it or not.
Now... See where the writer was going with this? Instead of an X amount of talents that you could potentially choose Xminus10 from, you get Y amount of perks. All of them. So somewhere along the line 'stuff gets lost'. Hence the 'QQ' as you so eloquently put it by someone who was actually looking forward to be able to give a guild more of a disctinct personality.
It would be the same if Blizzard would decide tomorrow to forego talent trees, where you can choose which talents to pick to try and create a somewhat unique combination of talents for your character, and instead give everyone three choices of 'perk paths'. Once you choose one path, you cannot choose any talent/perk in any other tree. You get ALL of the perks in that tree, but there will be less perks than there every were talents per tree.
Where would be the fun in that?
Galestrom Jun 21st 2010 3:21PM
So the basis of the article lies in how much stuff we theoretically won't be getting? If so, then the community's reaction is spot on, imho.
Also, I gotta say, the myriad attempts to apply real math to features that haven't even seen the light of beta yet is as annoying as it is completely inapplicable.
Josin Jun 21st 2010 3:41PM
Eloquently put.
Natsumi Jun 21st 2010 4:26PM
Except that GC SPECIFICALLY STATED that NO CONTENT WOULD BE CUT. So, using your numbers, if there were 30 Talents to choose from, and you could only get 20 there would be 10 "wasted" abilities, BUT with the Talents being removed and your guild getting EVERYTHING you now get 30 abilities due to the fact that NOTHING was removed.
You, and everyone else that is crying about customization, are refusing to think about the REST of your guild. "QQ I don't PvP, why would we ever want PvP abilities?" You may not PvP, but what about the 4 guys in your guild that ONLY PvP or your Main Tank or Healer that LOVES to PvP on off nights, they are going to leave your guild and go to one that has better talents for what THEY like, screwing your guild out of content and even people that you like.
"I'm sorry, this guild's Talent build doesn't suit my play style" followed by /gquit could destroy guilds. I've seen it happen, a healer or tank decides they want to move faster than the guild they are in and /gquit and several DPS follow, gutting your raid team, making you unable to do even 10s. You have to scramble to recruit, but in the end you just get people that don't know the fights, stand in fire, or can't get back to where you were. Your guild is DEAD, all because YOU wanted to spec your guild a certain way. THAT is why Blizzard cut the Guild Talents, not because they feel that officers can't handle the choices or their guild members, but because the officers can't CONTROL their guild members' CHOICES. If you are my GM or Officer, you cannot stop me from making a choice that your guild is wrong for me based on the choices YOU made over MY hard work.
tl:dr It's not because Blizzard can't trust YOU to make the "right" choices, it's because Blizzard knows you can't make EVERYONE in your guild happy.