The Illusion of Choice

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Originally Posted by Pence

Illusion of choice is real...Yoshi acknowledges it, WOW has acknowledged it, everyone with half a brain has. Get on our level plx.

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Really? Because I'm pretty sure Diablo, Borderlands, Destiny and even ESO all give you the ability to choose how to play a class. Each of those games all fall under the mmo genre within a degree. Yoshi may acknowledged that there isn't any builds in this game but that obviously isn't entirety true, we in fact do have builds in very small scale. A DRG may choose to use the Gordian Trident over Rhongomiant simply because they rather have the 71 crit rate over the 102 skill speed. A WHM might want to choose the Majestas over the Gordian Cane, because they want the determination the Majestas has over the spell speed of the Gordian Cane. Choice doesn't just mean someone rather be a fire mage or ice mage, it also includes the gear the player utilizes as well.

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Originally Posted by Saccharin

I spent yesterday doing Void Ark, we wiped three times because fist of all people were not playing properly so damage was low and secondly, the most important they were not moving out of stuff they should. The other healer let the faerie do most of the healing so I had to do most of it.

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Is it possible we where in the same alliance yesterday. I had some terrible runs yesterday... The party was like filled with leechers.

If your argument is "ice Mage will be good one raid cycle and not the next thus "you're left out" as a counter argument to customizable abilities and gear stats because one option is always the best for every scenario. Then we should cut to the chase and stop making new jobs. A raid can only have 8 people. They're gonna just take the jobs that are Best in position right? If you have that mentality you should be against jobs too.

But people find new jobs to be fun. Why can't these people understand a skill tree can be fun, or various stats.

Everyone always takes the absolute worse case scenario as if that will be what happens everytime.

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Originally Posted by Jetstream_Fox

Really? Because I'm pretty sure Diablo, Borderlands, Destiny and even ESO all give you the ability to choose how to play a class. Each of those games all fall under the mmo genre within a degree.

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Borderlands and destiny mmo? That's like saying warfare is mmo. So no.
The problem with ''choice'' you mentioned, the weapons. One of the weapons will always be better. Weapon dmg> If you lets say have ilvl 220 but raid weapon is ilvl 230 and you obtain it, you rather use that, because weapon dmg> all. That's not a choice, that's something you want/have to use.

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Originally Posted by Jetstream_Fox

Really? Because I'm pretty sure Diablo, Borderlands, Destiny and even ESO all give you the ability to choose how to play a class.

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Diablo isn't an MMO, it's a Multiplayer Dungeon crawler. Borderlands isn't an MMO, it's a Multiplayer FPS. Destiny is an MMO (of sorts), but your freedom of choice there is more due to the fact that it is an FPS so freedom of play is generally inherent.

Now ESO is an MMO and it has some deeply seeded faults within its system which in some way or another can actually be tied back to your ability to 'choose' how your play, or at the very least the appearance that you get to choose how you play. Yes, you can choose whether or not you want to focus on one particular family of spells, or a particular type of weapon... but when you get into the actual gameplay it becomes almost immediately apparent that there are just some 'choices' you can make for your play that just plain don't work. My first attempt at playing ESO I decided to play my normal Elder Scrolls style which is stealth and ambush... it's my choice to play that and it's fully there. However if you actually try to play that style you soon find out it's completely unworkable since someone else is likely to come up and steamroll that mob you just spend the past minute working your way behind to do your ambush attacks.

Even if you have 100% freedom on stats and skills, people will find the most "optimal" or most used builds, so in the end it's an illusion too; everybody will use the exact same build on the exact same content.

Instead of making a double illusion system, they kept the base being the same, and then let you change stuff a bit, like letting you choose 35 stats. This way characters are always balanced and the raid team knows exactly how the jobs will work.


Maybe you've played games like Ragnarok Online, but that kind of freedom couldn't work here, because RO just has roaming MVPs and PVP, while FFXIV has dungeons,raids etc wich needs to be balanced and work properly for everyone, so the mechanics can work fine.

The choice is to change your job and/or use the rotation you want.

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Originally Posted by ChocoFeru

Even if you have 100% freedom on stats and skills, people will find the most "optimal" or most used builds, so in the end it's an illusion too; everybody will use the exact same build on the exact same content.

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I can see what you mean with that, merit points in FFXI was good and surprisingly alot of people there used different build even when most people lets say played SAM. So that's not always the case. The choice in job chase is ''limited'' you choose 1 class but you have to somewhat stick to it, if you want to gear it up. The fact you have weekly restriction of loots/tomestones makes it hard to build a second class good as first one. The rotation isn't a choice. If you wanna spam blizard over fire, that's bad :p.

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Originally Posted by ChocoFeru

Even if you have 100% freedom on stats and skills, people will find the most "optimal" or most used builds, so in the end it's an illusion too; everybody will use the exact same build on the exact same content.

Instead of making a double illusion system, they kept the base being the same, and then let you change stuff a bit, like letting you choose 35 stats. This way characters are always balanced and the raid team knows exactly how the jobs will work.

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Out of curiosity, did you read my initial post? The entirety of it was arguing against the use of the term Illusion.

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Originally Posted by Pence

No one is denying you to play how you want. You do you and roll that ice mage bae. It's your $15. But remember: it's the parties $45. If you don't play optimally because of your own enjoyment? Expect to be kicked. You're potentially ruining it for them.

I couldn't care less about your enjoyment. I find mine in clearing content and not taking 25m in a 15m dungeon.

Illusion of choice is real...Yoshi acknowledges it, WOW has acknowledged it, everyone with half a brain has. Get on our level plx.

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I find it odd that this post has the most upvotes, when the post was completely off topic. Are most people just not reading my initial post? I apologize for its length.

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Originally Posted by ChocoFeru

Even if you have 100% freedom on stats and skills, people will find the most "optimal" or most used builds, so in the end it's an illusion too; everybody will use the exact same build on the exact same content.

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I use to think like this when people attacked FFXiII. Plenty of FF
Gamea before xiii were linear. With the illusion of choice. To progress story you only had 1 destination. Same with battle. If it's weak to fire, why waste time finding out? Just let the auto attack Pick fire for you. Pointless to choose when the best choice is obvious right?

FFXIII is the extreme version of your way of thinking.

Some people enjoy illusion. Once again, Are you against new jobs? Because best in position will be found out anyway right? What's the point of new jobs if the beat jobs are the only ones people want.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

I find it odd that this post has the most upvotes, when the post was completely off topic. Are most people just not reading my initial post? I apologize for its length.

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Basically. Sorry, Kaurie.


You were wanting to be able to build your character within a job a certain way for a certain fight, and then be able to easily switch it so that if content changes you won't get locked out? And that the different builds would play better in slightly different circumstances, but not so much that they would be selected against in story mode content?

I said we basically had that with different accessories/materia which could stack different stats, but that content didn't give us an excuse to stack anything but (SCH prospective) Mind. They just need to give us a reason to equip different things.

And then everyone said that it still wouldn't be a choice, you'd just stack those things for the one fight and then switch.

But that's exactly what you were asking for...so I'm pretty convinced they missed your point altogether.

The bottom line is that you can either have balance through switching your build easily, although this homogenizes the players for any given fight, or you have exclusion because you lock yourself into a certain build, even though you have diversity. You cannot have meaningful, lasting diversity and balance to the point that every build is viable and included. For all practical purposes you have to pick one.

Yoshi has gone with balance + homogenization. Honestly I'm fine with that. I wish they gave us reason to play around with different substats: that's the only think I would change. More varied content which requires branching out from the "stack your main stat only" build and experiment; and/or play around with the weights of the substats and make them more effectual.

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Originally Posted by _slowpoke_

Of which about a third were unplayable, broken, or clearly inferior to another choice within the same class. Take Discipline Priests. Those became playable as an actual healer in WotLK, the second expansion. Before that, they were the tree you could take some talents from for PVP, and almost no one fully specced Discipline.

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Imbalance happens no matter what system an MMO uses. Even FFXIV, who has less to balance out of any MMO I've ever seen, can't get balance right (but we Paladins live in hope for the 3.2 changes). So since imbalance will always be there, wouldn't you prefer it come with fun choices?

But I see what you're saying, the more layers that get added the more chances there are for something to go massively out of whack like your examples from WoW, but adding choices to FFXIV wouldn't need to be as complex as what WoW uses. It could be something as simple as gear with some unique effect to it.

Imagine end game as a choice of three weapons and for one melee dps it could look like this: One weapon gives you 10% more movement speed constantly, one makes your sprint not cost any TP but increases its cool down, one has a built in cooldown ability that teleports you to the location of your selected target.

That's just one choice (Which weapon do I use?) and yet that one choice could greatly change how you go about playing your job. Imagine if there was just one or two gear slots in every patch that had a choice like this. It wouldn't change things much, but it would be miles ahead of what we have now. And if they're not balanced? The gear will be replaced in the standard patch cycle that increases the ilvl. At best that imbalance would be around for a couple patches or the Devs could change things earlier if they choose.

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Originally Posted by Pence

Illusion of choice is real...Yoshi acknowledges it, WOW has acknowledged it, everyone with half a brain has. Get on our level plx.

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Good parrotting.

Let's ignore games like The Secret World or Dungeons and Dragons Online, where customization works.
Let's also ignore other multiplayer games like Diablo 2 and 3 or Titan Quest who have a lot of different builds that can clear everything...

And let's all pretend that optimization is really what matters to the whole community when it has been proven that less than 10% of players have actually cleared Alex Savage.

Seriously, after creating Gold Saucer and Lords Of Verminion, they could really take the time to develop skill trees without worrying about all the elite players (Not as "elitist", real "elite" that have all the right to look for optimization) that will only focus on the best path.
The good thing is that, since players can use every job, they could decide to go for the optimal path on their "raid" job and be a little more creative for their others.

And let's stop overdramatizing skill trees as if one path is the absolute best while all the others only perform at 10% of the job capacity...

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Let's ignore games like The Secret World or Dungeons and Dragons Online, where customization works.
Let's also ignore other multiplayer games like Diablo 2 and 3 or Titan Quest who have a lot of different builds that can clear everything...

And let's all pretend that optimization is really what matters to the whole community when it has been proven that less than 10% of players have actually cleared Alex Savage.

And let's stop overdramatizing skill trees as if one path is the absolute best while all the others only perform at 10% of the job capacity...

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Agreed. Final Fantasy just isn't built to incorporate diversity. That doesn't mean it can't be done. The Secret World was designed to allow nearly any combination of weapons, abilities and traits to be successful in a multitude of roles.....and it works quite well.The game expects you to have multiple builds, gear and stat allocations for various scenarios such as solo, dungeons, raids, PVP, etc. Stas are 100% customizable and under your control. There is no "one build" that trumps all of the rest. Ate there balance issues? Occasionally, but they devs for The Secret World are extremely attentive to the community and make necessary adjustments if and when it is needed.

Diversity, customization and specialization can all be incorporated successfully, but the game design needs to allo it and promote it. That's just now how FFXIV works. It is build to be homogenized and overbalanced. It's not necessarily bad, it's just different. We would need it to be "reborn" again and have the whole system restructured for it to allow any real choice.

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Originally Posted by Pence

Illusion of choice is real...Yoshi acknowledges it, WOW has acknowledged it, everyone with half a brain has. Get on our level plx.

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This is one of the biggest bullshit i have ever seen. And this guy is the reason why capable players and people who can actually improve this game nowadays stay away from the OF.

You say WoW has acknowledged it? World of Warcraft? the same game that has 3 or more SPECS per class with a skill and trait tree? They even making their own version of relic weapons with a
dedicated trait system! Every big patch or expansion they kinda rework classes and specs to keep the game fresh.

Let me tell you something else mister: people like you are destroying the game

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Originally Posted by Critical-Limit

Some people enjoy illusion. Once again, Are you against new jobs? Because best in position will be found out anyway right? What's the point of new jobs if the beat jobs are the only ones people want.

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i'm against new jobs if they keep putting out stuff like Wanderer's Minuet and Gauss Barrel which makes BRD/MCH super similar, Nocturnal/Diurnal Sect which puts AST in WHM or SCH mode.

the point of new jobs is to have vastly different play styles. SMN and BLM do the same thing but they don't get there the same way, SCH/WHM, PLD/WAR/DRK, MNK/NIN/DRG.

i'm for new jobs for purely cosmetic reasons, it's good to have a gun wielding job, i want to see a Great Katana wielding job as well as Red Mage with White and Black magic in their rotation.

if they never made SMN and instead the Aetherflow mechanic with *Bane and Fester" was part of the Black Mage Thunder build, that would be a disservice to the community.

if there's a way to make a job play differently via a new build, they should go all the way and create a new job out of it with it's own set of gear, lore, storyline and NPCs.

to me that's what FFXIV is.

I think part of the issue is that in truth...Jobs in the FF franchise have always kind of been pardon the french..."1 Trick Ponies".

Each job does 1 thing the others don't and that makes them unique. Talents that morph/alter the jobs would essentially turn them into another Job period.

I always perceived the "Job Stone/Crystal" as the "Path/Tree" in this game.
It is boring to some extent as basically the devs/game basically dictates our growth.
But honestly...what imbalance there is amongst Jobs in this game is very low by MMO standards. It's honestly impressive.

We don't get flavor of the month Jobs/Classes like most other MMORPGs as a result. With how patch cycles tend to go...it'd be "Flavor of the Season/Quarter" here.

I understand you OP. As I said earlier I would not mind if they ripped ESO's skillpoint system and pasted it into this game.
That system when done right can turn your character into an Army of One.
To be able to solo any and all content like my Templar does in ESO would vastly improve my enjoyment of this game.

Honestly...I feel what little choice we get now is best.
Without specs we have very Job serving their purpose, no Hybrids, no Tanks that are actually DPS, no Healers who are only good at DPS, no dps who are now Tanks.

I know folks disagree but all specs would do is give people an excuse not to fulfil heir Job's role.
Let's be honest...
How many Dark Knights and Warriors would actually specialize to be Tanks?
(Take into account how many players want DRK to be DPS, and the obession WARs have with Fel Cleave.)
How many Bards do you think would specialize in Support/Songs versus pure ranged DPS?
How many White Mages do you see specializing to Heal? (Take into account the current meta/trend of Healer DPS and how focal/required it has become & the obsession with DPS many now have.)
How many Summoners do you think would specialize in Egi Summoning versus say...Trance?
(Thus being a BLM with shorter cast times...)

Even if it's just in gear and the secondary stats they provide. The game is decently balanced. We should all be grateful for that.
Most complaints are over QoL if anything. That's honestly a good place.

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Originally Posted by Noelzzz

This is one of the biggest bullshit i have ever seen. And this guy is the reason why capable players and people who can actually improve this game nowadays stay away from the OF.

You say WoW has acknowledged it? World of Warcraft? the same game that has 3 or more SPECS per class with a skill and trait tree? They even making their own version of relic weapons with a
dedicated trait system! Every big patch or expansion they kinda rework classes and specs to keep the game fresh.

Let me tell you something else mister: people like you are destroying the game

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Actually while WoW has 3 specs per class, they removed almost all the customization per spec. The term "Illusion of Choice" COMES from blizzard for crying out loud. Also the only thing you customize on the relic weapon in WoW is the order in which you get the traits. In the end you will have all the traits.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

i'm against new jobs if they keep putting out stuff like Wanderer's Minuet and Gauss Barrel which makes BRD/MCH super similar, Nocturnal/Diurnal Sect which puts AST in WHM or SCH mode.

the point of new jobs is to have vastly different play styles. SMN and BLM do the same thing but they don't get there the same way, SCH/WHM, PLD/WAR/DRK, MNK/NIN/DRG.
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We're in agreement. I'm just showing the hypocrisy of wanting new jobs, but not wanting "choice" anywhere else

If Jobs are the Builds for this game, it's sad that they've said no to more arcanist-like class-job trees.

As an arcanist, I have a healing "build" and a dps "build". It could work easily for other jobs if they'd only implement it: Archer has a support build as Bard and dps build as Ranger. Pugilist has a dps build as Monk and a tank build as Dancer. Conjurer has a magic build as White Mage and a physical build as Chemist. Just some ideas.

But yeah, they've said they won't do that. I see the flaws in the system (too many people getting lvl 60 playing only one job and then switching to the other in endgame all like watdoido?) and I respect Yoshi's choice, but there was a lot of potential lost there.

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Originally Posted by Defias

Each job does 1 thing the others don't and that makes them unique. Talents that morph/alter the jobs would essentially turn them into another Job period.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

if they never made SMN and instead the Aetherflow mechanic with *Bane and Fester" was part of the Black Mage Thunder build, that would be a disservice to the community.

if there's a way to make a job play differently via a new build, they should go all the way and create a new job out of it with it's own set of gear, lore, storyline and NPCs.

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You guys make good points against specific ways of customization (I too think it would probably be overboard to allow dark Knights to spec as a dps for example), but not customization in general. There are many ways to give us choices in gameplay without making the jobs carbon copies of one another or by fundamentally changing what each job is about.

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

Basically. Sorry, Kaurie.


You were wanting to be able to build your character within a job a certain way for a certain fight, and then be able to easily switch it so that if content changes you won't get locked out? And that the different builds would play better in slightly different circumstances, but not so much that they would be selected against in story mode content?

I said we basically had that with different accessories/materia which could stack different stats, but that content didn't give us an excuse to stack anything but (SCH prospective) Mind. They just need to give us a reason to equip different things.

And then everyone said that it still wouldn't be a choice, you'd just stack those things for the one fight and then switch.

But that's exactly what you were asking for...so I'm pretty convinced they missed your point altogether.

The bottom line is that you can either have balance through switching your build easily, although this homogenizes the players for any given fight, or you have exclusion because you lock yourself into a certain build, even though you have diversity. You cannot have meaningful, lasting diversity and balance to the point that every build is viable and included. For all practical purposes you have to pick one.

Yoshi has gone with balance + homogenization. Honestly I'm fine with that. I wish they gave us reason to play around with different substats: that's the only think I would change. More varied content which requires branching out from the "stack your main stat only" build and experiment; and/or play around with the weights of the substats and make them more effectual.

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Definitely. I can understand the desire to not want these things for balance, and think that is an acceptable argument. However, I think "Illusion of Choice" is a poor argument.

I made a thread about making all the stats affect every job, so that there would be reason to slot something other than your primary stat, but many argued against it with "The Illusion of Choice". I think that choice could be added in many ways, even within the scope of what is already in game (Attribute points, accessories not job bound, job changing with weapon swapping and encounter mechanics), but they are not really encouraging this. Attribute points go to your main stat, except BLM who may slot a PIE or two, and tanks who may slot STR vs VIT (but that will change shortly). There is no current reason in PvE for anyone to slot anything other than their main stat.

If, as you said, they created encounters which required different stat builds that would be something. That said, I think VIT vs MND is a rather boring choice. I suggested adding things like DEX improving accuracy, which WHMs with no accuracy gear may opt to slot in if they wanted to DPS (sacrifice 1% of healing ability, so that they hit accuracy cap). Perhaps STR could be CRIT focused, so a SCH who wants to crit more with adlo would slot that instead. The post was only made earlier this week if you care to see it.

Other options within the realm of what is in the game already (accessories not job bound, job changing and encounter mechanics) could be altered to make things more enjoyable. For example:

1. They could make it so you could gear more than 1 job at a time - i.e. put the 450 eso cap on purchases, rather than earning of tomestones. You can only spend 450 on SCH this week, but you can also spend 450 on SMN if you so choose. This would keep people from max gearing quickly, and provide incentive to run more roulettes throughout the week.

2. They could make secondary stats much more potent, so that you may opt to wear an accessory for another job due to the powerful 2ndary stats (45 MND 45 PIE 30 SS vs 45 INT 45 CRIT 30 DET -> if CRIT and DET were much more important, perhaps this would be more desirable, at least as your 2ndary ring)

That said, there wouldn't really be alternate builds that you can play with per encounter. There would still be one best option for your job. The great thing about adding variety and choice is that you can have multiple best options. As mentioned earlier in the thread, you could have a very high burst DPS build that rocks in Ravana EX due to the sword/shield swap, or you could have a great low TP/MP high sustained DPS that works well in long encounters, or you could have a high aoe but low single target build that rocks in A2S etc etc.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

SMN and BLM do the same thing but they don't get there the same way

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I strongly disagree with this statement. I am not sure how to argue it though. My only argument is that they don't do the same thing, with the only similarity that they do damage. In which case, a SMN also does the same thing as a WAR. Unless you mean they both use magic? In which case a NIN and a PLD are also identical, in that they both use physical damage. If you care to elaborate more on your point, that may be good, because perhaps I am missing something.

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if they never made SMN and instead the Aetherflow mechanic with *Bane and Fester" was part of the Black Mage Thunder build, that would be a disservice to the community.s.

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I completely agree, but removing an entire job to make a spec is not adding customization or variety, it is removing it.

As someone who hates BLM with an unknown passion, and finds every job outside of SMN, SCH and WHM to be utterly boring, if they made that change - I wouldn't be here.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

1. They could make it so you could gear more than 1 job at a time - i.e. put the 450 eso cap on purchases, rather than earning of tomestones.

2. They could make secondary stats much more potent, so that you may opt to wear an accessory for another job due to the powerful 2ndary stats

That said, there wouldn't really be alternate builds that you can play with per encounter.

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Agree, agree and agree.

1. Make encounters to where something other than "stack main" stat is encouraged
2. Make it easier to gear up secondaries at the same time as your main, while still retaining the time-gate in general
3. Make secondary stats mean something

All changes would be easy development wise and have never explicitly been denied. In fact, they've definitely done (1) in the past, and one could argue that the str -> vit thing they're doing and/or the changes to materia is something like (3). This would encourage different types of gameplay and flexibility within a job across encounters. Which is what you're asking for. Some might argue that there's still no "choice" for any one fight, but that's inevitable and unavoidable. I see no reason why it should be a reason for preventing something like this from being implemented.

The only thing is the weekly loot lockouts which would make it incredibly prohibitive to experiment with different gear builds and, by extension, melding. (2) addresses the issue. But without (2), the whole thing becomes needlessly time-locked and becomes to cumbersome to work.

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Originally Posted by Defias

How many Dark Knights and Warriors would actually specialize to be Tanks?

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Judging by the heat debate over Vit vs Str, and "We want turtle tanking" vs "I want moaaar DPS" a skill tree would actually be the solution to please all tanks.

And again, yes, maybe "I want moaaar DPS" is the optimal path for clearing savage quickly, but "I want turtle" will catch up eventually. To each player its purpose, to each player its choice.
And to all of those "Don't waste my time in raid by being sub-optimal" people, don't worry, I won't even try join your static or your party finder. Like I didn't join the WAR bandwagon just for the sake of the raid-race.

I still have yet to see this 'Ice Mage' person, ever.

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Originally Posted by Zetsumei_Tsunarashi

Figured this was relevant. Source

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It's relevant, sure, but it's also a bit contradictory.

He claims that they can't add different modes to each jobs because people would only ever play the strongest one and they'd have to design content around it, but how is that any different to the existing situation with regards to the different jobs in each role?

Part of the issue is that they're not clear (or are undecided) on how much imbalance they want to allow. They've been saying for months that paladin was in a good place and didn't need adjustments, it's just that Gordias' encounters weren't well-suited for their design intent. Even if that premise had been correct, they've now told us that paladin will be seeing significant adjustments in 3.2.

Is that because it wasn't being played enough? Is it because the perception is that it wasn't being played enough? Is it a change in their design concept for paladin? Is it because they found that theorycrafters were coming up with things they hadn't considered? We don't know, and we likely never will, but it shows that they a) don't actually have a problem with things being imbalanced between two ways to play for an entire tier of raiding and b) don't have a problem with making adjustments somewhere down the line to try to bring things back into alignment.

If they can do all of that for different jobs, it's not impossible to do it for different roles.

And the answer to "but if you can already play all the jobs in role, why do you need specs?" is "because I don't need to acquire a whole set of new equipment from weekly-limited sources in order to play to different specs of the same job, but I do need to do so to play different jobs of the same role."

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Originally Posted by ChocoFeru

Even if you have 100% freedom on stats and skills, people will find the most "optimal" or most used builds, so in the end it's an illusion too; everybody will use the exact same build on the exact same content.

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Only if you limit all the "choices" to being throughput-based. You can make people vary builds by adding utility or flexibility. WellFooled has the right of it:

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Originally Posted by WellFooled

Imagine end game as a choice of three weapons and for one melee dps it could look like this: One weapon gives you 10% more movement speed constantly, one makes your sprint not cost any TP but increases its cool down, one has a built in cooldown ability that teleports you to the location of your selected target.

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If you make the choices things that either don't have a mathematical best answer or that have a mathematical best answer on paper that's more difficult to achieve in practice, you can have actual choices.

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Originally Posted by Hix

Actually while WoW has 3 specs per class, they removed almost all the customization per spec. The term "Illusion of Choice" COMES from blizzard for crying out loud.

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You do know that the term "Illusion of Choice" very specifically referred to the old talent trees, and was the entire reason they got rid of them in favor of the current ones, right?

Unless you're doing mythic progression raiding, you can bring whatever specs you like, using more-or-less whatever talents you like, to any encounter in the game and be completely viable.

That's a complete turn-around from something like Wrath, where the talent trees had way more buttons to push but almost all came down to "Here's where you'll want to put the first 61 points, and the last 10 can be option A or option B."

Saying "it's for balance" as an excuse, also means you don't want jobs. What is the reason we love jobs? Because we can get a different experience trying to do the same objective. A MNK feels completely different from a BLM.

But they both DPS. The end result is the same goal. However one can outshine the other in specific situations. This is imbalance. The reason no one is upset is because they are "close enough" no one cares, as long as the jobs are done.

Why can't gear be the same way? Or skill trees?

Why is it everyone assumes skill trees and gear stats will never be balanced well enough that people can did the imbalance negligible.

Fighting games that have a top 8 balanced roster. You'll still find imbalance in small degrees but people wave it off because it's negligible. Why can't OP's proposition meet this standard if you guys are ok with it in the jobs department?

It is time we got our stats back that we've been told we're coming since alpha forums. That would at least add some depth and choice to the game back...

I'll never forget getting the alpha and seeing our relics/gear with all the wonderful stats missing. Everyone was saying on xivpads chat like.."This is a joke right?" "Yeah, dont worry..these are probably just place holders" then the game launched and we still had these mundane stats lol.

I would like to think eventually we will get some form of customization back but I am not holding my breath. It is hard to take it seriously when we are told there is nothing like that in this game because balance is important. This game has just as much balance issues as other MMO I have played.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

It's relevant, sure, but it's also a bit contradictory.

and snip

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Nice post Ibi :)

One thing I wanted to add on that Yoshi article. In my view, suggesting that there is 1 optimal build is essentially Yoshi admitting that the only thing that matters in this game is DPS.

Perhaps, prior to adding customization (hypothetically), the development team should work on adding encounters that favour more CC and other non-DPS related systems.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

Nice post Ibi :)

One thing I wanted to add on that Yoshi article. In my view, him suggesting that there is 1 optimal build is essentially Yoshi admitting that the only thing that matters in this game is DPS.

Perhaps, prior to adding customization (hypothetically), the development team should work on adding encounters that favour more CC and other non-DPS related systems.

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I would love to see actual CC have a use in this game. CC job and pure support are my two favorite jobs to play..this game has neither atm.

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Originally Posted by melisande

I still have yet to see this 'Ice Mage' person, ever.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_the_Plumber


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda-setting_theory

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Originally Posted by Ibi

He claims that they can't add different modes to each jobs because people would only ever play the strongest one and they'd have to design content around it, but how is that any different to the existing situation with regards to the different jobs in each role?

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And how is that different to the existing situation with regards to ilvl discrepancies ?

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Originally Posted by Iromi

I would love to see actual CC have a use in this game. CC job and pure support are my two favorite jobs to play..this game has neither atm.

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I would kill for a pure support class!

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

I strongly disagree with this statement. I am not sure how to argue it though. My only argument is that they don't do the same thing, with the only similarity that they do damage. In which case, a SMN also does the same thing as a WAR. Unless you mean they both use magic? In which case a NIN and a PLD are also identical, in that they both use physical damage. If you care to elaborate more on your point, that may be good, because perhaps I am missing something.

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they're both DPS that doesn't have to stand next to a mob to hit. and both ranged DPS that doesn't have to worry about being in front or behind a mob to get high accuracy.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

I completely agree, but removing an entire job to make a spec is not adding customization or variety, it is removing it.

As someone who hates BLM with an unknown passion, and finds every job outside of SMN, SCH and WHM to be utterly boring, if they made that change - I wouldn't be here.

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that wasn't the point. they didn't have to add Arcanist for 2.0, they could've added a Thunder Spec to BLM and a Shield spec to WHM,

they didn't have to add NIN, they could've added Mudras as a MNK spec that replaced GL. added Ammo to BRDs that replaced songs. added cards to WHM, added Dark Arts to PLD.

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Originally Posted by Critical-Limit

Why can't OP's proposition meet this standard if you guys are ok with it in the jobs department?

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because they've already started homogenizing jobs for the purpose of balance.

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Originally Posted by Critical-Limit

Saying "it's for balance" as an excuse, also means you don't want jobs.

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new jobs are cosmetic. skill trees are not.

@SendohJin

I guess I view things differently than yourself. There are a lot more different things between jobs than cosmeitc. For example, a SMN mechanically has to manage a pet. Further, a SMN is much stronger at AoE and a BLM is much stronger single target. They play very differently mechanically and excel in different things.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

I'd like to offer what I think makes a good analogy. Say you went to the grocery store and saw several blocks of cheese. One cheese is clearly cheaper per gram than the rest, and it is the obvious choice. There is an illusion of choice, because clearly the cheapest is the best.

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Neither, I just wait for something better to come along.

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Originally Posted by Hix

Actually while WoW has 3 specs per class, they removed almost all the customization per spec. The term "Illusion of Choice" COMES from blizzard for crying out loud. Also the only thing you customize on the relic weapon in WoW is the order in which you get the traits. In the end you will have all the traits.

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I'm pretty sure there is skill and trait tree, at lest it was till december (last time i played it). But yeah, even a simple multi jobs per class would be something cool and for extra jobs more roles per job

I like the idea of more customization. Games become deeper games the more theory crafting is possible. Theory crafting is a lot of fun for some players precisely because there is a best build (or a presumably best build). So I can get behind some of what the OP is saying - like it's okay for choice to exist even if one choice is best. Games have to shake things up to keep the theory crafting coming though. So one patch one set up might be best but every patch they have to figure it out again. For example, let's say a WAR wants enough skspd for a 9-hit Berserk, then the next patch comes out. Can they stack enough skspd for a 10-hit Berserk without sacrificing too much in other stats? These are the kinds of things that are fun to figure out. FFXIV does have some of that but really not enough.

I don't agree that people should play suboptimally just because of concept or whatever though. There is suboptimal in the sense that the average player cannot be expected to optimize (or know enough to optimize) to a certain level (e.g. advanced knowledge of stat weights, how the game calculates damage, or whatever). Then there is suboptimal in the sense that you're using your abilities in a clearly suboptimal way (e.g. ice mages). SE should have just made an ice rotation that is only slightly worse than a fire rotation, made the fact that it was worse non-obvious (i.e. you'd need a parser to detect it), and then given us a parser :)

Games are better when players have stuff to figure out. We have fight mechanics and that's something. Until a few groups clear and then everyone copies them. But, again, it is not enough for real depth.

Lastly, FFXIV has a system in place that allows for tremendous creativity with customization options: the materia system. But they've chosen to use it in the most boring way possible. What they should do is add in FFVII type materia (OMG Final Attack - Phoenix would be so sweet). We could have materia that gives us abilities from other jobs, enhances our own abilities (e.g. reduced Rampart CD, increased Riot Blade damage, using Foresight heals you for 5%, etc.), and we can have materia that provides other neat bonuses: increased movement speed, item drop rates, a currency earned, etc.

It is not hard to balance most of these bonuses. Giving an ability with a 90 second cooldown a small bonus heal, for example. SE just doesn't want to do it. The easy way has been working for them so far.

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Originally Posted by Pence

Illusion of choice is real...Yoshi acknowledges it, WOW has acknowledged it, everyone with half a brain has. Get on our level plx.

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It's funny that people reference WoW so often in this regard when at the time of the shift to streamlined talents (which, in Blizzard's words, was as much to move the uninteresting talents that were essentially bonuses for having spent x points in a given spec from actual talent choices to automatic gains based on, again, spending x points in a given spec and to decrease balancing costs as it was about the "illusion of choice") had at least a few specs per class, role, and setting that performed within 3% of each other, and forum-scorned "non-optimal" specs frequently outperforming the FotM specs.

If you want true illusion of choice, look no further than what followed that excuse: Mist talents. One dummy-style AoE, one burst ST, one gradual self-buff. In rare cases, a whole of two of these might be worth considering for the combat setting. Change to gameplay: bring a full-stack of talent-switching items to every raid, swap every fight. "Illusion" of choice gone.

Illusion of choice is not a universal law; it is a flaw in design, most often where differently weighted metas collide without providing built-in variance to make each choice valuable in a variety of settings (e.g. stun talents on unstunnable bosses, without a triggered damage bonus on resist).

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

It's funny that people reference WoW so often in this regard when at the time of the shift to streamlined talents [...] had at least a few specs per class, role, and setting that performed within 3% of each other, and forum-scorned "non-optimal" specs frequently outperforming the FotM specs.

If you want true illusion of choice, look no further than what followed that excuse: Mist talents. One dummy-style AoE, one burst ST, one gradual self-buff. [...] "Illusion" of choice gone.

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Illusion of choice does not mean "Choice where one outcome is generally superior". It doesn't even mean "Choice where one outcome is optimal".

To illustrate, let's look a assigning talent points for a feral cat druid in Wrath (since it was my main at the time), using this Wrath talent calculator.

When you first open it up, you have 7 talents to which you can assign points. You do technically have a choice to assign those points anywhere. But once you start actually looking at the talent descriptions, it's clear (if you're at all familiar with druid) that some of these are non-starters. In fact, I was able to assign 68 of the 71 (95.8%) points without having to make any actual decisions beyond:

1. Do I have a talent available that will increase my DPS?
2. If not, and there are talents on the next tier that will increase my DPS, what's the best available choice that will give me enough points to make that tier available?

I could make a choice to remove some of those points I've assigned and put them in, say, Starlight Wrath, but since feral cat druid doesn't ever cast Wrath or Starfire, there's no reason to ever do so.

This choice is effectively an illusion. I have an option available to me, but there's never any rational reason that I'd take it.

Now, let's take a look at the Warlords talents (because I can't find a working Mists one online and the principle behind it is the same as the Mists one). In fact, let's focus on the level 60 tier, because it's actually DPS-related talents and lets me illustrate the point.

There are three options available:

• Soul of the Forest: Provides a completely passive damage boost, by giving me some energy whenever I used a finisher.
• Incarnation: King of the Jungle: Provides a cooldown that, once activated, changes the way some of my abilities work, which changes what I'd actually be doing for its duration.
• Force of Nature: Provides a cooldown that, once activated, requires no further action from me.

All three increase my overall DPS, and if you go look at something like Icy Veins feral druid guide, it'll tell you that Incarnation is the best talent choice, and that, in terms of increasing your DPS, the other two cannot compete with it.

That does not mean that this is choice is an illusion.

Incarnation requires more of the player than Force of Nature, and both require more of the player than the entirely passive Soul of the Forest. There are pros and cons to each option.

Now, if someone is a mythic raider, their skill level is high enough that the pros of Incarnation vastly outweigh the cons, so it's a pretty easy decision for them.

But for the average player, who may find their performance takes a hit when they have to manage both their rotation and the mechanics of a fight? Maybe they'll opt to take one of the other two talents, so that they can focus more, or entirely, on the fight mechanics.

That's a completely legitimate option that many players would likely choose to take.