A talent system

The problem with a talent system in this game is that if you create an alternate route of skills for a different build, you are essentially making a new job and naming it the same as one that already exists. Might as well just keep it a new job.

Playing characters under max level at this point is a terrible game play experience. It really is awful and huge complaint of mine for the game. If they could just scale better or figure out a way to make it less boring it would make the whole experience so much better.

I wouldn't use WoW as an example. WoW has a habit of completely overhauling its progression system and job design every expansion. I am not sure that is a model I want to see FF14 emulate.

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Originally Posted by Nerfworthy

Might be an unpopular opinion but that's actually one of the things I like about this game is that I don't have talents. Everyone's just on the same playing field and you don't have to deal with cookie cutter crap all the time. The closest thing we have is cross role abilities now, which are quite enough for me thank you.

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You hit the nail on the head. I remember people looking down there nose at players who didn't pick the "correct" Skill Tree, Talents, or AA depending which game it was. You don't know what misery is until people tell you that you can't experience the game because your choices led to 1% less DPS or the like.

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Originally Posted by BubblyBoar

The problem with a talent system in this game is that if you create an alternate route of skills for a different build, you are essentially making a new job and naming it the same as one that already exists. Might as well just keep it a new job.

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Why, though? What difference does it make how many top-of-the-umbrella job names we have, as compared to... job names and suffixes? There is truly no difference.

You're either going to have different shades of the same mechanics via a greater number of jobs, or you'll have different shades of the same mechanics across different specs of fewer jobs. If the latter idea is so misguided, then similarly why have new jobs, even? Customization is customization. How closely it clusters to prior motifs or mechanics, or how packaged the differences are in order to prevent perfect choice (the paradoxical enemy of balanced spread of choices), makes far more of a difference than whether the additions are called "specs" or "aspects" or "mutations" or "sub-classes" or simple "new jobs".

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Originally Posted by Elfidan

You hit the nail on the head. I remember people looking down there nose at players who didn't pick the "correct" Skill Tree, Talents, or AA depending which game it was. You don't know what misery is until people tell you that you can't experience the game because your choices led to 1% less DPS or the like.

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I've played with some very, very toxic and elitist people over the years on WoW, but 1% has never been enough of a difference to be called out on, especially if the higher parsing choice is more vulnerable to lost potential. At some point, insistence will occur, be it at 3 or 5 or 10, but let's cut back on the hyperbole here.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Couldn't we say the same thing about AST, but with a different name.

I mean really, you're going to have different shades of the same mechanics via a greater number of jobs, or you have different shades of the same mechanics across different specs of fewer jobs. If the latter idea is so misguided, then similarly why have new jobs, even? Customization is customization. How closely it clusters to prior motifs or mechanics, or how packaged the differences are in order to prevent perfect choice (the paradoxical enemy of balanced spread of choices), makes far more of a difference than whether the additions are called "specs" or "aspects" or "mutations" or "sub-classes" or simple "new jobs".

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While WHM and AST and for that matter BRD and MCH played quite similarly they are quite different Jobs now. Infact the comparison is pretty apt. In both cases, while both sets of jobs hold similarities due to holding similar roles but their gameplay is quite different.

Yoshi P shot down specs because the time it takes to add, adjust and balance additional specs is such that it makes more sense just to add more Jobs. At least in the case of Jobs its far easier to provide distinct themes and Job mechanics since you don't have overlap. After all, just look at the issues with SMN/SCH. That is the closest we have to a class with specs and people want the two separated.

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Originally Posted by Belhi

While WHM and AST and for that matter BRD and MCH played quite similarly they are quite different Jobs now. Infact the comparison is pretty apt. In both cases, while both sets of jobs hold similarities due to holding similar roles but their gameplay is quite different.

Yoshi P shot down specs because the time it takes to add, adjust and balance additional specs is such that it makes more sense just to add more Jobs. At least in the case of Jobs its far easier to provide distinct themes and Job mechanics since you don't have overlap. After all, just look at the issues with SMN/SCH. That is the closest we have to a class with specs and people want the two separated.

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I'll agree with all but that example parading as anecdotal evidence. Pointing at SMN/SCH as a reason why specs don't work is about as apt as saying a wallet won't work because it doesn't hold money when you don't put it in the pocket. There was no need to link their experience, no reason they couldn't add job traits to differentiate how the skills work between the two jobs, no reason they couldn't give separate bonus stat allotments. Every single thing that was complained about the SMN/SCH duality wasn't due to their simply having stemmed from a shared 1-30 experience. It was all of the most basic of basic decisions thereafter.

Let's go ahead and look at some other shared class ideas others, albeit not as numerous as the "split SCH/SMN" outcry that followed the pitiful excuses to particular balancing concerns and the consumptive need for Tomes of the Keeper, e.g. Thief or Assassin from Rogue. Some considered Mug too tangential and underdeveloped to feel appropriate on NIN. Their response: move it to a new job and build around it in order to create a new synergist/saboteur in the form of Thief. The same was often said of poisons, which amounted to no more than Job Action I and II traits. Rather than suggesting they be removed outright, others suggested they become a core concept for a new Assassin. Daggers and the core skills would still be appropriate for all three, but now you manage to flesh out and center previously tacked-on components.

Or let's take another idea: adaptations, wherein just a few core skills can be modified in order to change up the way rotations and very particular mechanics work for a job. No huge aesthetic effect, but you potentially take something that may have previously turned them off to the job and changed it instead into a raison de jouer. The time (or really, understanding) necessary for balance is an understandable concern there, but I'd find it hard to see how enlarging the strike zone in such a manner would be inherently less efficient than making an entirely new job, all its animation, lore, and quests, from scratch, or could even that it could be obviously replaced by that procedure.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Why, though? What difference does it make how many top-of-the-umbrella job names we have, as compared to... job names and suffixes? There is truly no difference.

You're either going to have different shades of the same mechanics via a greater number of jobs, or you'll have different shades of the same mechanics across different specs of fewer jobs. If the latter idea is so misguided, then similarly why have new jobs, even? Customization is customization. How closely it clusters to prior motifs or mechanics, or how packaged the differences are in order to prevent perfect choice (the paradoxical enemy of balanced spread of choices), makes far more of a difference than whether the additions are called "specs" or "aspects" or "mutations" or "sub-classes" or simple "new jobs".

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It's because jobs are thematic. PLD and WAR are not the same job. Sure, they could have had PLD with 2 specs. One spec that was defensive heavy and focused on blocking and some magic or a spec that was offensive heavy that built up a gauge for offensive attacks. And then come HW, they could have a PLD that ate up MP to buff their attacks and abilities. Then we'd have 1 tank, PLD, but 3 different specs,a ll the customization you'd want right? But you'd also only have 1 tank. What if that person doesn't like swords and shields? What if they don't like PLD's aesthetic? I guess they are SoL cause there's only 1 tank in the game, just pick a build you feel like using right?

OR, each one of those specs could be a job itself and boom, 3 choices for you to use, more that aren't the sword and shield you don't really like. In this game, jobs are essentially your specs while roles are your job. You have the tanks, with 3 choices from there. You want to be a different style tank their your PLD friend? Play WAR or DRK.

The point is, if you are going to make specs so different as to mean something, even if a different spec could use a different weapon, you might as well make a new job. FF has a long list of famous jobs and there is no need to take away what could be more jobs for the sake of specs. There is literally no need for that kind of customization other for the sake of it. Imagine the number of people that would be upset, that a game that is a love letter the the whole franchise made one of it's most iconic jobs a sword spec of BLM.

If it makes no difference to have it be a spec or a new job, then what exactly is wrong with the system we have now? The only difference is that you'd have to level that spec specifically. And I don't think this is a subtle "let me level all tanks at the same time" topic.

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Originally Posted by BubblyBoar

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I'm not saying that creating new jobs are somehow always inferior to other means of customization. I'm just saying that if customization via new specs is always doomed to fail, not just by execution but by some underlying principal, so too are new jobs.

Or, again, that—

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How closely it clusters to prior motifs or mechanics, or how packaged the differences are in order to prevent perfect choice (the paradoxical enemy of balanced spread of choices), makes far more of a difference than whether the additions are called "specs" or "aspects" or "mutations" or "sub-classes" or simple "new jobs".

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I never said specs were always doomed to fail, I said that they don't make sense in this game. As I said previously, New jobs are present over a spec system in FFXIV because the FF franchise has so many job that people want to see. Please read my whole post.

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Originally Posted by BubblyBoar

I never said specs were always doomed to fail, I said that they don't make sense in this game. As I said previously, New jobs are present over a spec system in FFXIV because the FF franchise has so many job that people want to see.
Please read my whole post.

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I simply took the extreme of the warrant to which I was originally responding in order to clarify my previously stated position, little of which had to do with your reply as I've never argued against its contents in the first place. Restatement, not argument.

Yes, I have closely read:

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It's because jobs are thematic. PLD and WAR are not the same job. Sure, they could have had PLD with 2 specs. One spec that was defensive heavy and focused on blocking and some magic or a spec that was offensive heavy that built up a gauge for offensive attacks. And then come HW, they could have a PLD that ate up MP to buff their attacks and abilities. Then we'd have 1 tank, PLD, but 3 different specs,a ll the customization you'd want right? But you'd also only have 1 tank. What if that person doesn't like swords and shields? What if they don't like PLD's aesthetic? I guess they are SoL cause there's only 1 tank in the game, just pick a build you feel like using right?

OR, each one of those specs could be a job itself and boom, 3 choices for you to use, more that aren't the sword and shield you don't really like. In this game, jobs are essentially your specs while roles are your job. You have the tanks, with 3 choices from there. You want to be a different style tank their your PLD friend? Play WAR or DRK.

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And

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The point is, if you are going to make specs so different as to mean something, even if a different spec could use a different weapon, you might as well make a new job. FF has a long list of famous jobs and there is no need to take away what could be more jobs for the sake of specs. There is literally no need for that kind of customization other for the sake of it. Imagine the number of people that would be upset, that a game that is a love letter the the whole franchise made one of it's most iconic jobs a sword spec of BLM.

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And every part you've posted. That I did not requote them does not mean I did not read them. It means that it was irrelevant to what followed—a mere restatement.

To be clear:
Over this thread I have only stated consistently that customization has little to do with its title, systems, or level of complexity, and that its only actual take-away will be the amount of increased appeal to gameplay it can provide. Consequently, yes, why people would be predisposed to solely one mode of customization is beyond me. I have never said jobs aren't a totally reasonable way to go about adding customization. I simply said (to Belhi) that making a new job can be many steps more than was necessary to increase appeal through customization, and to others that the same issues that would cripple choices in, say, specs, due to performance differences in current content, also and already cripple jobs almost identically in XIV (after all, you can change jobs just as easily here as a spec elsewhere). All I have said to you is that the best means of delivering customization depend on how close the intended result and source resources fall, and how much separate control you want to give players over their adjustment, or, for a third time—

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[that] how closely [the intended extent of customization] clusters to prior motifs or mechanics, or how packaged the differences are in order to prevent perfect choice (the paradoxical enemy of balanced spread of choices), makes far more of a difference than whether the additions are called "specs" or "aspects" or "mutations" or "sub-classes" or simple "new jobs".

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—(i.e.) to "pick the right tool", where that won't always be one answer over an entire MMO.

I wholly agree that that will typically be a new job. I disagree that it will always be a new job. And I heartily disagree that at the point at which surrounding design, thematics, etc., allows developers to effect significant increase to the gameplay possible for a given job at very little asset cost that they "might as well make a new job". That idea assumes that you're spending preset amounts of development time under preset goals, regardless of how much "fun" you can actually create and how efficiently.

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Originally Posted by Age_of_Oblivion

A couple of points:

1) The inability of players to come up with solid design and balance suggestions should not be seen as making balance impossible. If you play Legion endgame content right now, many classes have great examples of a talent system which offers true choice in playstyle. Will there always be an optimal setup for a given fight? Absolutely. But that's a strawman argument, especially when right now every class is the spitting image of every other player in the same class.

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Let me explain the illusion of choice right now in Legion, It's true that now there are players of the same spec picking different talents and pulling simillar numbers, but players are not actually choosing these talents on their own free will:


Let's say there is trinket A and trinket B, trinket A synergizes better with talent X and is usually the better option, trinket B synergizes better with trinket Y and is usually a worse option. That is assuming that both A and B are on the same ilvl but thanks to the rng fieast that wow has become it is possible for someone to have a trinket B 40 or 50 ilvls higher than trinket A, and thanks to that the player will end up performing better with the (B,Y) build than the otherwise better (A,X).

But ffxiv has very poor itemization, items are just flat out dmg increase at the end of the day, so we probably would end up with talents that are better 100% of the time or like happened in MoP/WoD and still happens to some degree in legion "pick this talent for single target, this other one for aoe, and this last one for cleave". In ffxiv the only way the talent system could be balanced would be if each talent had a completely different objective(which is what Blizzard was aiming for when they first anounced the new talent tree), for example: put Vercure and Impact on the same tier of talents for RDM, the healers are struggling to keep people alive during certain mechanics? Take Vercure. Heal is not a problem? Take Impact for the extra damage.

On another note, I will say that a big issue if the class design right now is that they are trying sooooo hard to make every classes have a similar number of buttons to press to the point that it is hurting the game. Like... There are many skills that look like they are there simply because they needed something to remove in 5.0(looking at you heavy trust and hot shot), I think they should not worry about the number of spells as long as it does not go beyond the range of 10 buttons from one class to another, in which point they should take a look at the class to see if it needs some tweeks here and there.

Tbh you could say that the job system is the talent system of FF

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I've played with some very, very toxic and elitist people over the years on WoW, but 1% has never been enough of a difference to be called out on, especially if the higher parsing choice is more vulnerable to lost potential. At some point, insistence will occur, be it at 3 or 5 or 10, but let's cut back on the hyperbole here.

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It isn't about being called out Shurri. It's about not being taken to begin with ,or outright excluded for choosing the "wrong" spec, talent , merit, or alternate advancement. It literally isn't hyperbole which you seem to enjoy using often. Hyperbole would be to say people checked you in town and began a lynching in shout concerning your choices, when in fact that all happened in other chat channels such as guild or party.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

Tbh you could say that the job system is the talent system of FF

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I think jobs in FFXIV are more like specializations in WoW myself. But I still say the two games have too many differentiating factors for a talent tree to be needed or wanted here.

Gear set bonuses, on the other hand, I think wouldn't be too hard of a starting point, and IIRC Yoshi P himself even said they were rethinking their original "no" position on them.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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The problem here is that you assume putting a system for specs in place is somehow less work than working on a new job. FFXIV just isn't built for that kind of system, as I said before. Not only this, but it circumvents the original purpose of said system with its armory system. Things like builds and customization is that way because in most, not all, games, you are limited to the single class you pick at the start of the game. In FFXIV, you instead have access to them all. This is them "picking the right tool" and it IS their answer for this MMO. And again, adding customization for the sake o customization is not satisfactory, aside from appealing to the very few fringe players. The appeal in gameplay isn't really there when it is literally the same thing as adding a new job. All that is really changing is that you don't have to level that "spec" up like you would have to do jobs now.

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

I think jobs in FFXIV are more like specializations in WoW myself. But I still say the two games have too many differentiating factors for a talent tree to be needed or wanted here.

Gear set bonuses, on the other hand, I think wouldn't be too hard of a starting point, and IIRC Yoshi P himself even said they were rethinking their original "no" position on them.

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I suppose it'll sound a bit unpopular but I wouldn't mind for savage weapons to have some sort of bonus effect on them, I think it would make savage a bit more enticing and who knows making so that savage weapons won't be replaced asap by a crafted weapon in the next tier

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Originally Posted by Elfidan

It isn't about being called out Shurri. It's about not being taken to begin with, or outright excluded for choosing the "wrong" spec, talent , merit, or alternate advancement. It literally isn't hyperbole which you seem to enjoy using often. Hyperbole would be to say people checked you in town and began a lynching in shout concerning your choices, when in fact that all happened in other chat channels such as guild or party.

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If it's not about being excluded by others, then just what is it about? Self-exclusion? Feeling bad that your 1% dps differential by your own talent choice might require that you crit a few more times not to be seen evenly on the dps charts? Because if it's harassment from other players, then apparently we've just seen very different sides of:

• 10 years' (active time) of playing WoW, through party, raid, and guild chat, across every expansion and talent system
• The WoW official forums
• WoW reddit threads
• Reddit threads from those who have swapped from WoW to other MMOs, often even citing the latest talent system shifts as their reason.

I have never been harassed over a talent choice. Admittedly, I didn't pick single-target talents to enter a 20+ mob fight, or the like as to actively and obviously hamper my own performance, which WOULD be a red troll flag that people SHOULD harass you in return for, but even in heroic/mythic raiding, wherein raid leaders regularly check the gear, achievements, and would sometimes seemingly like to micromanage the talents of every player they admit, I have never been told to change a talent except to specifically mesh with (other) healers (not doubling up on a passive or to cover burst, etc.), i.e. where of a real and vital concern. At most I have been advised that add spawn timings mesh better with one talent, or are frequent enough to allow a rarely viable AoE talent to pull ahead, etc. I have been advised to grow accustomed to less lenient but potentially higher performing talents. Apart from that, there are two concerns only: output performance and mechanical performance. While I rarely have exactly any recommended spec, the last time my talent choices were joked about was back in Cataclysm, and Wrath before that, and only among close friends of the same class competing with me for top DPS per gear weight.

This may be anecdotal evidence vs. anecdotal evidence, but I have not seen any of this harassment "because your choices led to 1% less DPS", ever.

20%? Sure. That's a point of blatant neglect, wherein you did unnecessarily bad and should feel bad accordingly. But unless that choice is actively screwing others over, such as by neglecting an AoE when mass-pulling as a tank, and causing DPS to get when charging up mid-run, the first comment isn't going to be your talents. It'll be your parse. If the talents, as with to rotations or CD pacing, are mentioned afterwards, it's more than a mere dismissal; it's approaching advice. Even if rudely.

So yes, at least in my experience, that

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Originally Posted by Elfidan

people tell you that you can't experience the game because your choices led to 1% less DPS or the like

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seems like hyperbole.

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Originally Posted by BubblyBoar

The problem here is that you assume putting a system for specs in place is somehow less work than working on a new job. FFXIV just isn't built for that kind of system, as I said before. Not only this, but it circumvents the original purpose of said system with its armory system. Things like builds and customization is that way because in most, not all, games, you are limited to the single class you pick at the start of the game. In FFXIV, you instead have access to them all. This is them "picking the right tool" and it IS their answer for this MMO. And again, adding customization for the sake o customization is not satisfactory, aside from appealing to the very few fringe players. The appeal in gameplay isn't really there when it is literally the same thing as adding a new job. All that is really changing is that you don't have to level that "spec" up like you would have to do jobs now.

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1. It wasn't even "built" to allow jobs, if you're looking at the extant original structure of the game. So just what do you mean by "built for"?
2. The "original" purpose of the armory system was to create your own job. Yoshida has already removed this. And by now there is no longer even any advantage to having multiple gear types on one character apart from not having to trudge through MSQ. Opportunity-wise, there are only disadvantages for placing all on one character. The armory system's sole contribution at this point is a restriction, limiting each class to one general weapon-type, and each weapon-type to one class. No more, no less.
3. I believe I just said as much in multiple forms in the post you just quoted?...
4. As long as you mean literally as in figuratively, sure. Otherwise two different things cannot literally be the same.
5. Why would that be a guarantee? There's no reason that because something is tentatively labelled a "spec" that it couldn't have attached exp, any more than only separate jobs cannot. They're both design decisions, not necessities.

Let me just get this straight, though. The purpose of your responses have since been to declare any and all forms of customization other than new jobs, as an absolute rule, nonviable? Not that new jobs are the most sensible, which I have already agreed to, but absolutely the only form of customization viable? If so we're just going to have to agree to disagree at that particular degree.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

This may be anecdotal evidence vs. anecdotal evidence, but I have not seen any of this harassment "because your choices led to 1% less DPS", ever.

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See, now in my WoW days, I have. Granted, this was back in much earlier expansions where people were ridiculed for picking talents (or even specs) that were considered "wrong" because they felt more comfortable playing them rather than going for what was deemed the most optimal. The last couple of expansions though, it doesn't seem like players there have the time or effort to harass you and just kick you instead without any warning. Playing a mage in WoW, I was blocked from joining some raid groups for preferring to play a spec that was never the most optimal at that time (by like 5-10%) just because I couldn't stand playing a spec that was deemed the absolute best.

You're also not factoring in the labor involved since there's about as much detail to any job in FFXIV as one spec of one class in WoW. When you think WoW is trying to balance classes, what they're really doing is trying to balance every talent (21 per spec) of every spec (36 in total) of every class (all 12 of them). Given how hard it is to balance 15 jobs in this game, do you REALLY think we need that much more that would require balancing?

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Originally Posted by Kazrah

See, now in my WoW days, I have. Granted, this was back in much earlier expansions where people were ridiculed for picking talents (or even specs) that were considered "wrong" because they felt more comfortable playing them rather than going for what was deemed the most optimal. The last couple of expansions though, it doesn't seem like players there have the time or effort to harass you and just kick you instead without any warning. Playing a mage in WoW, I was blocked from joining some raid groups for preferring to play a spec that was never the most optimal at that time (by like 5-10%) just because I couldn't stand playing a spec that was deemed the absolute best.

You're also not factoring in the labor involved since there's about as much detail to any job in FFXIV as one spec of one class in WoW. When you think WoW is trying to balance classes, what they're really doing is trying to balance every talent (21 per spec) of every spec (36 in total) of every class (all 12 of them). Given how hard it is to balance 15 jobs in this game, do you REALLY think we need that much more that would require balancing?

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I mean, that was the case for "specs" in Cataclysm, not since. Were that the only example of specs, or more importantly the only way they could ever be designed, I too would have to say "gods no". But it isn't, luckily, the only example and certainly not the only possibility. Cataclysm was like the bastard child of a confused liminal era. Mists has since been the basis of the latter three iterations, and drastically different (though not universally better by any means). And there have been varying renditions and "fits" therein even since that major shift (to the 10x3 grid, or a mere 30 choices per class, which is still more than necessary).

If I recall correctly, Cataclysm went something like Fire for trash, Arcane for bosses, and then Fire eventually eclipsing Arcane around 4.3? It's been a while and I was only really maintaining a few different classes at that time, though almost all were leveled. In my era it was lolcane or bust, but I still managed to make the few people who'd ask "Fire?" or "Frost?" eat their question marks. Even if I fell the few percent behind, it was never enough to get harassed.

Nonetheless, I'm sorry that was the case for you, and respect your decision to play what you like! If our top theorycrafters were likewise persistent, and all the gameplay-driven players more vocal, I feel like the speed of balance increases regardless of MMOs. The core, though, of potential variance is always people who like what they like and play what they like. On behalf whichever mage specs were shafted at that time, I thank you.

Again, though, let's move away from the idea of "spec" as being necessarily proportionate to (in the above case one expansion of) iterations in one other MMO. Heck, I'd argue that none of the designs of specs in WoW have been particularly efficient. Wrath lay at the end of a older generation of design, similar to the "build-a-job" concept prior to 1.2. Cataclysm was a mixed message. Legion while great for some classes is for many others mere UI bloat, similar to Reprisal vs. Low Blow, Protect, and typically Esuna are in our Role Skills here, requiring constant swapping (and at cost to-boot). That doesn't, however, mean that they have to be. The whole concept of making adjustments to existing frameworks in order to maximize the attraction of those frameworks is a frequently explored but still mostly uncharted territory. We understand that it has use as an analog to the RPG components of an MMO, to discovery, experimentation, and self-improvement. We understand that these entire wings of the game, essentially the whole "game" before "end-game" are usually soon sublimated by the spreedsheet-style optimization that is end-game. And we know that people will often still refuse to play what they don't enjoy, shockingly enough, and that what causes a given class not to attract them can vary from general aesthetic or lore (which no "spec" even loosely speaking can typically solve), to dynamics (more directly influenced by in-class customization), to small snaggly details (as have sometimes been fixed in WoW, for example, with mere glyphs).

Now, personally, I relished the promises of pre-1.2, to be able to design one's own job. I actually think their failure to take it far enough is what doomed the idea. But, that's a bygone era. Similarly, though, I actually feel like Role Skills aren't just a particularly poor idea in execution, but in concept: whatever their name, they are the movement of 5 skills out of the hands of jobs to include in a better integrated manner. As a replacement for cross-class skills their only change has been to increase the number of mandatory abilities per minute and often a decrease of free personal survivability tools (replaced by more effective rotational raid skills). In this instance, I actually think we'd be better off without Role Skills. If then SE feels that a new method of customization is required, I hope that it can be more than customization in name alone, and I feel like a certain blend of concepts for "spec", "adaptations", or whatever one wishes to name it, would be a good fit. Now, my preferred method of customization is actually simply just multiple ways, rotationally, to play the exact same build and gear loadout of the same class/job. But at present, that will rarely feel distinct. Simple skill adjustments next expansion may be enough to make it so, or it might come in pairing with few but effective choices through a new, more-than-nominal customization system, but I hope that those two concepts can be sufficient enough to maximize the attractiveness of each job. For the rest—for attempting to establish something truly new—I do think new jobs are best. I just wish they'd be better integrated with the world story of whatever new areas, cultures, and lore sources they're released with.

Shurrikhan I feel like you didn't read the reply I gave you. I also played WOW for 10 years and ffxi for 15. Do you recall when frost DK was the spec to raid with , and most groups wouldn't take an unholy because they did not pump out the same numbers? In the early vanilla days there were lots of classes that were one spec or gtfo. This actually happened , and it happened often across many of the jobs ,and classes. In final fantasy XI people wouldn't take you based on racial choices... let that one sink in for a second. I'm not sure how you missed these behaviors they were common place even back in vanilla. More than likely this is what brought about dual specialization. But I am actually happy for you to have never experienced any of this ,although I am unsure how you completely missed it.

It's ok I take no offense, I just think you missed my meaning.

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Originally Posted by Elfidan

Shurrikhan I feel like you didn't read the reply I gave you.

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Give me a second. I may have confused you with another red-hatted lalafell.

Edit: No, it's there... Every word you've written on this thread until this last post has ended up inside a quote box on one of my posts as well.

As for the new:

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Originally Posted by Elfidan

Do you recall when frost DK was the spec to raid with , and most groups wouldn't take an unholy because they did not pump out the same numbers? In the early vanilla days there were lots of classes that were one spec or gtfo. This actually happened , and it happened often across many of the jobs ,and classes. In final fantasy XI people wouldn't take you based on racial choices... let that one sink in for a second. I'm not sure how you missed these behaviors they were common place even back in vanilla. More than likely this is what brought about dual specialization. But I am actually happy for you to have never experienced any of this ,although I am unsure how you completely missed it.

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In Vanilla, balance was atrocious, though. Certain specs could actually outperform each other by a good 40%, so there was decent reason for these reactions. Class balance was a mess, too. And gear-scaling, of all things (naked rogues killing raid-gear players). Racial traits were also huge compared to now. Forget being held back by specs... ANYTHING could get you removed; lack of BossMods addon nonexempt (and probably for the best reason of them all, at least in large raids with large friendly fire potential). It's not exactly a fair situation to blame on the concept, or even the execution, of specs alone. But end-game also wasn't the point of the game back then, which is what allowed such abysmal balance at the time. If you could actually just assemble the 40-man raid, and not have over a quarter d/c, and had the majority clicking buttons, and the bomb-guy didn't blow you up (even if it meant giving him penalty corner time for the entire encounter), you cleared content. A very different time. I mean, have you seen Nefarion? There is no way the end-boss of Vanilla was intended for anything more, at core, than shits and giggles. You do not murder people with class-based irony and giraffe transformations in serious content. And yet... people will try seriously to clear it, if only to make up for those few d/cs and mechanical failures more. And kudos to them.

Also I simply missed it by coincidentally really enjoying all forms of Warrior, Combat Rogue, and Marksmanship Hunter. Lucky break.

The cross role system is the FFXIV equivalent to talents.

The fact that you would want to add more moving parts to a system that is horribly skewed is what baffles me. Yes I remember Nefarian , but more importantly paying someone to mind control the goblin to teach me how to make the ingot, You don't see details like these nowadays... Back to the topic specializations would cause rifts for the player base because people like what they like , and sometimes it isn't the best which makes them the odd man/woman out. So yes I remain fervently opposed to the idea. #Jobpointssuckedbeforesomeoneelsebringsthosenightmaresup

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Originally Posted by Elfidan

The fact that you would want to add more moving parts to a system that is horribly skewed is what baffles me. #Jobpointssuckedbeforesomeoneelsebringsthosenightmaresup

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Again, I'm not promoting MORE moving parts (unless there were just some massive obvious design opportunity where not doing so would be blatant waste, and that's just not the case right now), and certainly not for their own sake. I'm saying that I think there are some possibilities that would provide choice in more than name alone if we were to replace Roll Skills (i.e. choice in name alone) that could augment the game experience. To me the best options are either (a) merely axe Role Skills, or (b) replace Role Skills, and I personally favor (b). Simply put, I just don't think that all customization-other-than-jobs ideas are necessarily bad for XIV, as long as the customization is used efficiently (typically by NOT systemizing it to the same 51 or 21 points across 3 trees or a 10x3 grid or skills acquired at 1,2,4,8,12,18,22,26... for every job despite their extant differences).

And yes, those should have died when physical levels did. But they're gone and now we can forget.

They can't even balance three tanks properly though. Why would you want them to try it with nine or more variants? Say they do , and one is the "TOP WAR" etc. , then why ever take any of the others? This causes player choices to become trivial. The reason Role Action works so well for so many is that it isn't set in stone. For example me and you are in a party and you are heavily AOE DPSing so on the fly I swap my provoke out for the AOE version. This honestly feels really good in practice. If anything there needs to be more role action variety to allow more of this to happen.

The arguements for talents both for and against all have valid points and concerns. Personally, I feel if they are going to do talents then it needs to be more like vanilla/bs wow rather than current wow. Current wow doesn't really have choices outside of a couple tiers in certain specific instances.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

The cross role system is the FFXIV equivalent to talents.

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No it's not. It began as a way for others of the role to get things they should have had in the first place. I mean seriously how are they going to put into the game tank swap mechanics but war had no taunt/provoke? They had to lvl glad to get it when they should have had it all along. The role actions are not really choices. Each role has the same set they take which maybe 1 that is swapped based on the fight.

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Originally Posted by Ariyn

Personally, I feel if they are going to do talents then it needs to be more like vanilla/bs wow rather than current wow.

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Even then, you still had the cookie cutter dilemma, where providing more option would ultimately lead to less option. Sure, you might find one or two builds that may break the meta, but at the end of the day, if you didn't have the absolute best build, you weren't worth bringing into content.

You also said one thing that promotes the argument against choice:

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Originally Posted by Ariyn

The role actions are not really choices. Each role has the same set they take which maybe 1 that is swapped based on the fight.

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Although you refer to the current system, the fact that choice is an illusion in this regard just as easily applies to anything that offers choice in regards to character development, including talents.

People talk about the Meta and what's optimal but how many of you do Savage Raiding, the only place where the Meta actually matters?
And even then, you have groups clearing Savage content with jobs or party comps that are suboptimal.
I'm not saying we need Talent System or anything but talking about what's optimal in this game is a moot point. :B

To get on the topic of a Talent System, I wouldn't mind them adding one in IF they did it with two-or-three builds in mind versus just throwing in a bunch of abilities at random.
Granted, I don't think the Dev team would want to do that much work...

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Originally Posted by BubblyBoar

The problem with a talent system in this game is that if you create an alternate route of skills for a different build, you are essentially making a new job and naming it the same as one that already exists. Might as well just keep it a new job.

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This I have to agree with. :B

You know, for everything that World of Warcraft did right, it did equal amounts of things wrong. WoW's talent system was and still is Abysmal(i guess, dunno how it is in legion). I've played it all the way from CB to Cataclysm and frankly, the most hated thing in WoW for me was the Talent system. The cookie cutter builds or GTFO mentality really sucks.

The system in FF14 is simply better, it allows for a lot of flexability and can easily be improved on.

As it is currently implemented, calling the job system an analog to horizontal progression from a talent/spec system is foolish. Jobs are a continuation of a class, and nothing more. Cross role skills are somewhat comparable to a talent system, or could be. The problem with the cross role skills is that they are a band-aid solution to inexplicably poor design choices in base classes (i.e. Provoke).

Additionally, I am not sure how specs wound up in this discussion. Those serve a very different role in WoW from the talent system, and would frankly be better emulated by more effective use of the Class/Job system.

The primary argument against talent builds as a cookie-cutter is a patsy. Right now, every class is played at an identical manner at cap. A talent system would not necessarily change that (though it might, if it was done exceptionally well. I have no hope of that tbh though). What it would do is give variety and steady change during the levelling process, which nearly every class in the game desperately needs.

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Originally Posted by Mimilu

People talk about the Meta and what's optimal but how many of you do Savage Raiding, the only place where the Meta actually matters?
And even then, you have groups clearing Savage content with jobs or party comps that are suboptimal.
I'm not saying we need Talent System or anything but talking about what's optimal in this game is a moot point. :B

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Not to get on your case specifically. But we all know how much "Muh Meta" has a trickle down effect on non raiders.

Remember 3.0? How inexperienced, undergeared tanks where being slaughtered in the DF because wearing Slaying accessories was "what the raiders do"?

So in summation, the meta in cutting edge raids does have an effect on the lower content.

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Originally Posted by Kazrah

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They are tested below as well you are just looking at it from the perspective of what the class lost at 60 what is irrelevant to balance the classes are different now what you played for two years no longer exists. Look at what each of the jobs roles are at 60 and compare them among each other not to what you used to know but to what they are now.

I would be all for talents, but I would fear that it would need to be so minimal in change one way or another or you risk the whole "This talent set is best! Anything less and kicked". I would almost say something along the lines of healers having a choice of a slight MP decrease in spells or lettings HoTs have an extra 3 seconds for that extra tick.

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Originally Posted by Age_of_Oblivion

As it is currently implemented, calling the job system an analog to horizontal progression from a talent/spec system is foolish. Jobs are a continuation of a class, and nothing more. Cross role skills are somewhat comparable to a talent system, or could be. The problem with the cross role skills is that they are a band-aid solution to inexplicably poor design choices in base classes (i.e. Provoke). .

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First of all with job system I believe ppl include the base classes in it, the point is that a talent system defines what you in a game and the jobs here are somewhat that in a more straightforward and uncumstomizable way.
I agree that the cross role system could be a talent system for us and in fact I would like to know if SE is planning to expand that in the future

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Originally Posted by Kazrah

Although you refer to the current system, the fact that choice is an illusion in this regard just as easily applies to anything that offers choice in regards to character development, including talents.

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And jobs. Balance is crucial to all choice, not just choice-within-choice... I can think of far more times when an entire job was subtly unlisted from PF openings for their given roll in XIV (and not due to one already being present) or party members asked why I was playing a given job than, say, a different build thereof was in WoW/GW2/Rift.

The weird thing is XIV is in a place where they could actually embrace a different (more lenient) sense of balance, because people could swap to any enjoy any various job in a given role quite nearly at will due to the all-in-one structure of the game, so that jobs could perform equally on a general level, but aren't destined to be homogenized over time due to fight-specific imbalances; variance can be partly forced (by players being wholly able to swap), rather than invariance (by reduced accessibility making players entirely unwilling to swap). Unless fights are designed to someone advantage different jobs at equal efficiency despite different compositions, strategies, and gear levels, that is your spectrum for "perfect play". Variance or homogeneity forced upon players.

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Originally Posted by Age_of_Oblivion

As it is currently implemented, calling the job system an analog to horizontal progression from a talent/spec system is foolish. Jobs are a continuation of a class, and nothing more. Cross role skills are somewhat comparable to a talent system, or could be. The problem with the cross role skills is that they are a band-aid solution to inexplicably poor design choices in base classes (i.e. Provoke).

Additionally, I am not sure how specs wound up in this discussion. Those serve a very different role in WoW from the talent system, and would frankly be better emulated by more effective use of the Class/Job system.

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Sadly all the ideas as to how to make classes viable or allowing for a second job option for most classes mostly fell on deaf ears, having been allegedly covered already by the "cross-class" system. And since then classes have just been left as "jobs in diapers".

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Originally Posted by Age_of_Oblivion

The primary argument against talent builds as a cookie-cutter is a patsy. Right now, every class is played at an identical manner at cap. A talent system would not necessarily change that (though it might, if it was done exceptionally well. I have no hope of that tbh though). What it would do is give variety and steady change during the levelling process, which nearly every class in the game desperately needs.

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I feel like people forget that even in the cases where a choice set (e.g. a class, or a specialization therein) has a further level of choice forced on it at a particular gear level of a particular form of content, that's still all gear levels and class levels prior for which the customization does have at least some effect. That can't be said, however, for an entire class falling out of optimal play.

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Originally Posted by thegreatonemal

They are tested below as well you are just looking at it from the perspective of what the class lost at 60 what is irrelevant to balance the classes are different now what you played for two years no longer exists. Look at what each of the jobs roles are at 60 and compare them among each other not to what you used to know but to what they are now.

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No, they're not tested below max level, and even Yoshi has admitted to that. Testing all 15 jobs from the bottom up would just take too much time and effort when those testers could instead use that time to test other content in the game.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

And jobs. Balance is crucial to all choice, not just choice-within-choice... I can think of far more times when an entire job was subtly unlisted from PF openings for their given roll in XIV (and not due to one already being present) or party members asked why I was playing a given job than, say, a different build thereof was in WoW/GW2/Rift.

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What do you think the meta is?

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Originally Posted by Kazrah

What do you think the meta is?

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The dominant or broadly preferred method of engaging x content, or, the range of y builds determined acceptable for x content.

Jobs, too, are builds, and can likewise be excluded. It just excludes a much larger portion of players and/or wastes a much larger portion player hours when they are, as compared to smaller areas of customization being the deciding factor.

Now, that's not to say the issues can't compound. Yes, SE should simply learn how to balance their stuff better as is. All else is dependent on that first being the case. But there is nothing that makes specs any more an illusion of choice than classes (or, jobs) are. Here the latter simply carries mitigating gimmicks such as limit gauge accretion, which disadvantages stacking a lead choice, but makes the stragglers no more desirable. That's it.

I wouldn't want to see specs or skill trees or anything that affects things that much, but it would be nice to see some merit points like in XI or alternate advancement like in EQ just to feel like you're working toward something at level cap beyond whatever gear you get that will be replaced in 3 or 4 months anyway.