The Illusion of Choice

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Originally Posted by Alahra

Personally, I don't want anything approaching WoW's level of customization in Vanilla/BC. But you can still have a controlled amount of customization without introducing grievous imbalance. WoW's current talent model (or FFXI's merit points) are examples of the sorts of things that I think could work here.

The big problem in early WoW's case was an over-emphasis on talents that increased general effectiveess (DPS, HPS, or mitigation) and that's definitely not what I'm looking for in FFXIV when it comes to customization.

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I wasn't even talking about early WoW. My experience is late wrath and all through cata and pandaria.

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Originally Posted by Malzian

However, if it's possible for two BRDs to have entirely the exact same gear set that you can see, but have a totally different set of skills at their disposal... and if I present that to you and say, 'Okay, one has a fantastic build with great skills and the other's build is complete crap, but I'm not telling you which'... well, are you just going to pick one at random and pray you get the best one?

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I would never advocate for any level of customization that allowed skills to be completely different. That would be madness and a nightmare to balance. It is incredibly frustrating that when one proposes the addition of modest customization, the counter-argument is always against a straw-man of heavy customization.

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Originally Posted by Malzian

If Route 1, 2 and 3 are all essentially the same in the end... why add on the complexity of tree that only leads you to the same destination in the end? Your choice in that is an illusion... it's an aesthetic and it is artificial in its complexity because it is ultimately meaningless. If you don't make the ends equal, then one end will always be chosen and then you also really have no choice. When all routes are equal, it is just as unfulfilling as if there was only one route.

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But again, this argument applies just as much against classes within the same role as it does against being able to customize to some degree within a specific class. If DRG, NIN, and MNK are all balanced (which, they pretty much are, when you factor the raid DPS gained by the utility DRG and NIN bring), the choice between them is "aesthetic and it is artificial in its complexity." There are numerous reasons a player might prefer various options over another, ranging from playstyle comfort, to aesthetic preferences (including sound, visuals, and thematic elements), or to performance value (i.e., optimization).

As an example, I would gladly choose a variant Shukuchi that had a slightly longer cooldown if it meant I didn't have to ground-target it. I'm just not quick enough with the mouse to get much mileage out of that skill. Even if the end result is the same ("I have a gap closer"), the flexibility provided by ground-targeting Shukuchi is not valuable to me as a player. As I alluded to earlier, I think the best areas to introduce customization options are usually going to be in places that don't directly impact "numbers" performance but instead focus on adjustments to utility, flexibility, and the like.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

I wasn't even talking about early WoW. My experience is late wrath and all through cata and pandaria.

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I shouldn't have mentioned BC specifically I suppose—it was still on my mind from my earlier post I guess. Wrath had the same issues with its talents, as did Cata (since it still pretty much kept the old trees, but just flattened them). However, in general, decrying the imbalance between Discipline/Holy is again similar to decrying the balance between BRD and MCH in FFXIV—and so the question is really one of how much imbalance is acceptable in pursuit of additional customization.

Personally I think we can stand to have just a little more imbalance without greatly upsetting things (and you, obviously don't). The classes in FFXIV are actually far more tightly balanced than anything in WoW ever was, which is why I have faith in the ability of the developers to craft some customization options for us that wouldn't cause disparate balance issues like those seen throughout WoW (the developers of which couldn't even get the Specializations balanced with one another).

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Originally Posted by Malzian

Rotations are a bit different from builds, though. A build is something you set up before a fight and you have to adhere to within a fight and it sets the very basic structure of how your character plays. A rotation is different in that what it is intended to do is maximize the capability of the skills you have available to you at any given point in time.

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What's the point of having 3 tanks, 3 healers, 2 ranged DPS, 2 Casters and 3 Melee ?
And probably more jobs incoming in the next expansion...

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Originally Posted by Malzian

I've gotten called out and kicked from Fractal for not pulling the whole damned first room because the healer was undergeared and I was worried about heals, so don't go telling me it's not something that doesn't happen outside of World First Prog.

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Boo hoo...let me cry on the 15 seconds it took for you to get a new group with less stupid people...without even mentionning that is has absolutely nothing to do with how you may have built your character...
I've been kicked out of Syrcus for staying in Sword Oath...as an OT...when no add was there. Will you tell me that they should remove stances ?
And I'm pretty sure you could tell more stupid stories about being kicked such as "I've been kicked out of an english group because I spoke german, so don't tell me that elitism is just in endgame..."

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Originally Posted by Malzian

'Okay, one has a fantastic build with great skills and the other's build is complete crap, but I'm not telling you which'...

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Again...why ? Why do you automatically thinks that one build will be great and the others complete crap ?
The game is far too simple in its design to be impossible to balance almost properly. You can't make a valid point with such a blatant overstatement.

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Originally Posted by Iagainsti

After thinking about it last night, I realized SE has done this before in FFXI. This is what choice looks like though.....

<snip skillchain chart>

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This is not what choice looked like at all.

Almost every party tried to set up a Distortion skillchain from the Dunes until the mid-60s and a Light or Dark skillchain from the mid-60s until skillchains went out of fashion with TP spam merit parties.

The skillchain chart is actually a far better example, once again, of illusion of choice. It looks like you can do a ton of different things, but one or two options were so much better than any alternatives that you effectively never used them. How often did you have a party go to a camp and start intentionally making Gravitation skillchains, for example?

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Originally Posted by Iagainsti

Which included massive amounts of macro gear swaps for abilities due to stat modifiers

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Again, not an example of choice. If you had a piece of gear in FFXI that enhanced an ability, you equipped that piece of gear for that ability every single time.

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Originally Posted by Iagainsti

hours upon hours of increasing weapon skills(picture desynth leveling, but your whacking rabbits and/or crabs)

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Not a choice. No one intentionally chose to have an under leveled weapon skill.

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Originally Posted by Iagainsti

studying the above chart so you're prepared no matter what your class composition is in any party, and hoping your party members have done the same.

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Almost no one actually memorized the full chart. Most people just learned if they could open/close Distortion and what jobs they could make Light/Dark with. Or they had a copy printed out or saved to their hard drive and pulled it up if they ever needed it.

Regardless, once again, you're not choosing between different options here, it's just Hobson's choice; either you learned parts of the chart or you didn't.

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Originally Posted by Malzian

However, in the vein of the title of this thread it comes down to this... in order for a true skill-tree system to be effective and viable it has to be created along with content that makes any choice you make in how you distribute your skills just as effective as any other.

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No, it doesn't. A distribution can be less effective, as long as you gain something in the trade off.

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Originally Posted by Malzian

That means that if you have 3 routes you can go down, in order to make it work so no one route is favored all routes must be equal. Route 1 must be as good as Route 2, which must be as good as Route 3. If Route 1, 2 and 3 are all essentially the same in the end... why add on the complexity of tree that only leads you to the same destination in the end? If you don't make the ends equal, then one end will always be chosen and then you also really have no choice.

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See the example of the three WoW druid talents that I mentioned in post #120 of this thread, back on page 12, for an example of why this is incorrect.

You do not need different options to be equal in order to have a meaningful choice.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

Almost every party tried to set up a Distortion skillchain from the Dunes until the mid-60s and a Light or Dark skillchain from the mid-60s until skillchains went out of fashion with TP spam merit parties.

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Fusion was fairly common depending on the XP camp and the party setup, too, though yes, Distortion was far and away the preferred choice.

Hell, in Vanilla WoW, warriors had FOUR viable build options in my opinion.

Fury
Arms
Protection
and what I used myself, which was a hybrid arms/protection. 31/5/15, just enough in Protection to be a decent tank, but still have mortal strike from arms, and the 5% crit from the fury tree.

First few pages of this thread were so painful to read... I never realized so many people respond to threads without actually reading or comprehending the original post.

Anyway, I really don't understand how people are content with the current bland system we have in place. I understand not wanting to have to worry about some massive talent tree where you need to allocate 60 points or whatever, but there are so many other less extreme possibilities. Lots of ideas were already mentioned elsewhere in this thread, so I'm not going to bother listing my own.

Going a little off topic here but kind of related: The way things are currently, they might as well get rid of STR/DEX/VIT etc. and just have "Power" and "Hit Points" on all gear too. Once you have enough accuracy, all that really matters anymore is item level except for a few cases (like needing a certain amount of skill speed to fit three geirskogul per minute, enough spell speed for BLM opener...). Speaking of which, accuracy requirements are just a pointless penalty that even WoW (since that's the game example of choice in this thread) got rid of it a long time ago.

I get that FFXIV is basically just a gear treadmill and that I'm probably going to be disappointed in hoping for more interesting gear, customization options, etc... but I still find myself feeling underwhelmed and like they could do so much more.

Did someone say illusion?

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/...6780-Aizen.jpg

Little test, if I may.
Let's say you can chose only one of those three upgrades:

• Increase Fast Blade's potency by 10
• Increase Savage Blade's potency by 15
• Increase Rage Of Halone's potency by 30

Which one would you chose ?

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Originally Posted by Aethaeryn

Speaking of which, accuracy requirements are just a pointless penalty that even WoW (since that's the game example of choice in this thread) got rid of it a long time ago.

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WoW at least has more stat variety on its gear. Removing Accuracy in FFXIV, at least right now, would make gearing up even more bland than it already is. :/

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Little test, if I may.
Let's say you can chose only one of those three upgrades:

• Increase Fast Blade's potency by 10
• Increase Savage Blade's potency by 15
• Increase Rage Of Halone's potency by 30

Which one would you chose ?

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The "best" option here is probably Rage of Halone, since it has a higher enmity modifier than Savage Blade (at least, as far as I recall, it does). This would allow you more Royal Authority combos while tanking since you wouldn't need as many Rage combos to hold hate. The best option for OT is probably the Fast Blade one.

But that's not really a very interesting choice (in terms of raw potency, they're all identical over a full 9-GCD rotation, and none of them would significantly make you different from the next PLD).

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Originally Posted by Alahra

The "best" option here is probably Rage of Halone, since it has a higher enmity modifier than Savage Blade (at least, as far as I recall, it does). This would allow you more Royal Authority combos while tanking since you wouldn't need as many Rage combos to hold hate. The best option for OT is probably the Fast Blade one.

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But, when doing Royal Authority, you don't use Rage Of Halone, so your additionnal potency is not used.
As for Fast Blade, unless you're OT all the time, it's the less effective boost since it only adds potency. But if you tend to spend a fair amount of time in Shield Oath, or are generally better geared than the average DPS, the enmity boost wouldn't be important.
Savage Blade could also be a good choice since it adds a little bit of enmity, and is on the path to RoH and RA, useful as a MT and as an OT.
Back to Rage Of Halone, you could also take critical hit into account. If you crit on a Fast Blade, you only apply the crit bonus for this 10 potency boost. If you crit on RoH, you could apply it on the full 30 potency.

And what if I added "Increase Riot Blade's potency by 30" ? Still the same overall increase for a 9-GCD rotation, but if you tend to use a lot of MP, you could end up with a higher (Or, should I say, a less low) potency for when you focus on refilling your MP.

You nailed one thing though. It's the OT vs MT. There could be traits that only a MT would use, like an enmity boost, or the ability to block magic, or traits that only an OT would use, like an increased DoT potency for Goring Blade when performed from the back. These two lasts traits could be a good start to make two PLD not really the same.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

There could be traits that only a MT would use, like an enmity boost, or the ability to block magic, or traits that only an OT would use, like an increased DoT potency for Goring Blade when performed from the back. These two lasts traits could be a good start to make two PLD not really the same.

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These are the sorts of things I think would be better than basic Potency increases, the option to block magic would obviously be mandatory, as would a raw potency increase to Goring Blade, so those would likely run into the problem that Yoshi-P talked about where everyone would simply gravitate toward the same choices.

For PLD, I'd much rather see something that, say, made Clemency an instant cast, or another choice that made Divine Veil trigger automatically (without the need for a heal). Another option might make Shield Swipe a GCD again (for players that preferred the old style, though this would need to be carefully balanced versus the oGCD option). Other skills to look at might include Cover or Tempered Will, or even Shield Bash.

I'm just very wary of customization choices that focus on DPS in any real capacity (outside of niche DPS stuff like improving AoE for melee classes, which is primarily useful in dungeon environments) given everything we learned about actual illusions of choice from WoW over the years—given the choice between a numbers increase and another type of choice that doesn't increase numbers (or doesn't increase them as much), the choice is always the numbers (or the choice that creates the biggest numbers). The same goes for mandatory talents (like having the ability to block magic, since magic damage is so prevalent in the game).

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Originally Posted by Alahra

These are the sorts of things I think would be better than basic Potency increases, the option to block magic would obviously be mandatory

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The option, yes. But if the trait had several tier, with increased Block Rate at each tier, perhaps you wouldn't buy them all if you're mostly playing OT.
As for the increased potency on Goring Blade, adding a positional would make it less appealing for some people (Look at the riot from NINs in 3.0 :p), especially for those who prefer MT.

My potency suggestion was just to show that, even with something simple as that, and, for all intent, balanced in regards to overall potency, each option has it pros and cons.
I think the best way to blur the line between builds is to take into account the context. Like I said, depending oh which stance you use most, or the people you play with, some traits might not been as useful.

There is also a way to please everyone ! (Yes, it's a very bold statement)
Make it so that, when capped, you gain something akin to Merit Points. With these Merit Points you could buy traits...ALL of them. But you could only equip a fragment of them at the same time, like you equip cross-class skills.
So, in the end, everybody will still be able to do everything, depending on the situation. And you could change your traits wether you play solo, in easy content, or in hard content. You just need to decide the order of which you'll buy your traits.

In the end, it's closer to the concept of Diablo III, but, for me, it's better than nothing.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

WoW at least has more stat variety on its gear. Removing Accuracy in FFXIV, at least right now, would make gearing up even more bland than it already is. :/



The "best" option here is probably Rage of Halone, since it has a higher enmity modifier than Savage Blade (at least, as far as I recall, it does). This would allow you more Royal Authority combos while tanking since you wouldn't need as many Rage combos to hold hate. The best option for OT is probably the Fast Blade one.

But that's not really a very interesting choice (in terms of raw potency, they're all identical over a full 9-GCD rotation, and none of them would significantly make you different from the next PLD).

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The highest DPS PLD rotation is Fast Blade - Riot - Goring, Fast - Savage - Royal, Fast - Savage - Royal -> repeat. This gives 3x fast blade uses, and 2x savage blade uses. Either option would give a total of 30 potency more per 3 combo's. Personally, I'd go the Fast Blade, as that is more likely to be used (if you kill it before you get to the second use), but otherwise they are the same.

IMO, if that was how they added traits though, I'd be fairly disappointed.

I'd be down for that, I hate no longer gaining any sort of experience as soon as you hit 60. Would give me more incentive to grind the same dungeons over and over again at least.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

The "best" option here is probably Rage of Halone, since it has a higher enmity modifier than Savage Blade (at least, as far as I recall, it does). This would allow you more Royal Authority combos while tanking since you wouldn't need as many Rage combos to hold hate. The best option for OT is probably the Fast Blade one.

But that's not really a very interesting choice (in terms of raw potency, they're all identical over a full 9-GCD rotation, and none of them would significantly make you different from the next PLD).

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Rage of Halone looks at first glance like it's a good choice if you're the main tank, because it'll boost your enmity the most (RoH has a 5x enmity mod, Savage Blade is 3x), but the main advantage of having higher enmity is that you can now use Royal Authority more... at which point you're no longer getting the bonus.

As a result, SB might be a better choice (because that will stay in your rotation if you switch from RoH to RA), but then you're generating more enmity when you're not the main tank, which isn't desirable, so maybe you really want to take Fast Blade instead so you can get the DPS increase without the enmity increase when you don't want it...

But then your enmity is the lowest of the three options when you are the main tank, so maybe you might need more RoH combos... and now we've circled back to the start.

Admittedly, the differences that a decision like this is going to make are relatively subtle and minor (basically resolving to how often you use RoH vs RA when main tanking), but it is an example of a balanced choice that doesn't have a clear, easily calculated solution.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

The highest DPS PLD rotation is Fast Blade - Riot - Goring, Fast - Savage - Royal, Fast - Savage - Royal -> repeat.

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But you can't dismiss Rage Of Halone altogether, either for the enmity you would want as a MT, or the STR debuff than can be very useful for physical hitting boss.

Not everything revolves around highest DPS...

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Originally Posted by Ibi

Admittedly, the differences that a decision like this is going to make are relatively subtle and minor (basically resolving to how often you use RoH vs RA when main tanking), but it is an example of a balanced choice that doesn't have a clear, easily calculated solution.

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Glad that you see it that way :)

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Originally Posted by Malzian

2 reasons: First, a bad rotation is easy to spot and usually can be something that is address -in progress-. A bad build can be as much as choosing one skill wrong and can either be quick to fix or require a lenghtly conversation and isn't something that can be altered within a dungeon. Second: It creates artificial complexity and introduces a wild card where-in if, say, I am playing with a WHM I will always know which skills they will have at a specific level. At 60 you will always have the same skillset regardless of the rest of gear or anything else. In a build-based system there's always the possibility of 'opting out' of a skill like Benediction, or for a PLD 'opting out' of Flash.

Imagine this conversation, the first is with guaranteed skills:
"Why don't you use Flash?"
"Because I don't like using it."

Second, with possible choice:
"Why don't you use Flash?"
"Because I chose <skill x> over it."

With option 1 you can explain why a tank can be using Flash and reason them into it. With option 2... you get into DF with that and you're stuck either kicking them, leaving or dealing with no AoE emnity control. Yes, I know that with careful planning on the Dev side this wouldn't be an issue, but it's something they would have to spend an inordinate amount of time on to make sure the content they have isn't broken when the skill system comes out..... or spend time rebalancing the old content to work with the new system.

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So essentially, the illusion of choice is not the issue. The issue is that you simply do not like the idea of not having the same access to everything as everyone else. Correct? TBH I am not sure what the issue with not having the exact same toolkit is. If I bring a SCH, I don't have benediction for this dungeon, but that doesn't mean the SCH is useless.

For your flash example, I see both as equally bad. The tank won't use flash either way, so the outcome for me is the same. As for discussion, I don't see why you cannot have a discussion about build. "Hey, let's stay out of combat for a second. Why are you not using flash?" ... etc etc.. "I recommend you change your build to include it." tank changes build. Continue. However, in both situations what is likely to happen is a tank that either ignores you or gets mad for being elitist and continues to not flash.

I think the devs would be smart enough to not remove vital skills such as flash though. They could do something more like this:
1. Flash does a 15 potency attack
2. Flash applies a debuff to attackers that reduces physical damage dealt 20%
3. Flash regenerates HP: Potency 10 for each mob hit

2 and 3 may allow for a PLD to pull a larger group for great AoE, or 1 would allow for the tank to supplement some AoE if they are confident in their healer and their CD's.

Then again, there are numerous ways they can add customization, and this was just off the top of my head right now.

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Originally Posted by Malzian

However, if it's possible for two BRDs to have entirely the exact same gear set that you can see, but have a totally different set of skills at their disposal... and if I present that to you and say, 'Okay, one has a fantastic build with great skills and the other's build is complete crap, but I'm not telling you which'... well, are you just going to pick one at random and pray you get the best one? Even if you're doing some dinky little dungeon that normally you can complete in 15 min? If I told you the one with the bad build would make you take twice as long? I highly doubt most people would just grab one and go hope for the best.

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I still don't see how this is different than our current set up where a BRD can pull 270 DPS or 1300 DPS in our current end-game. There is no way to tell what kind of bard they are going to be, because no one is going to walk up to you and say "Hey, I put out abysmal DPS, can I join your PF?". So, I ask again, why is it OK for our current game to have rotations that allow for players to be so horrible, but not OK for there to be builds which vary in DPS?

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However, in the vein of the title of this thread it comes down to this... in order for a true skill-tree system to be effective and viable it has to be created along with content that makes any choice you make in how you distribute your skills just as effective as any other. That means that if you have 3 routes you can go down, in order to make it work so no one route is favored all routes must be equal. Route 1 must be as good as Route 2, which must be as good as Route 3. If Route 1, 2 and 3 are all essentially the same in the end... why add on the complexity of tree that only leads you to the same destination in the end? Your choice in that is an illusion... it's an aesthetic and it is artificial in its complexity because it is ultimately meaningless. If you don't make the ends equal, then one end will always be chosen and then you also really have no choice. When all routes are equal, it is just as unfulfilling as if there was only one route. When one route is superior to all others then most people will eventually move to that one and no other routes become viable unless the devs design content specifically to make you use that route... and then you end up shuffling your builds for everything you do. We do this enough with jobs as it stands, we don't need to be doing it with builds on top of jobs, as far as I'm concerned.

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I fundamentally disagree, which I feel has largely gone ignored - despite me posting something to the contrary every few pages through this entire thread. All trees do not need to be equal, they need to excel in their own various ways. This could be damage oriented (but riskier) where build 1 has high burst, build 2 has high aoe, build 3 has high sustained. This could be done by utility/support where build 1 has strong team MP/TP refresh support, build 2 has team defense support, build 3 has high CC ability (bind/slow/stun. It could be mobility related such as a BLM has the option to have all spells have 1.5x the recast time, but 1/2 the cast time (or whatever it is to work out to the same spells/minute that we have now with downtime to move), a skill similar to current lightspeed, or a trait that makes scathe do much higher fire-based damage.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

But you can't dismiss Rage Of Halone altogether, either for the enmity you would want as a MT, or the STR debuff than can be very useful for physical hitting boss.

Not everything revolves around highest DPS...

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In which case, 30 potency every 22.5 seconds is nothing to concern yourself with.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

In which case, 30 potency every 22.5 seconds is nothing to concern yourself with.

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Noooo, don't say that, you fool !
For some people, losing 30 potency is probably being a complete crap :p

Jokes aside, the difference is not 30 potency, since, wherever you apply the bonus, you'll end with a 30 potency bonus. It's enmity/debuff vs 80 potency (340-260)

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Noooo, don't say that, you fool !
For some people, losing 30 potency is probably being a complete crap :p

Jokes aside, the difference is not 30 potency, since, wherever you apply the bonus, you'll end with a 30 potency bonus. It's enmity/debuff vs 80 potency (340-260)

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I mean I get the difference, I am just saying IF not everything revolves around highest DPS, then don't concern yourself with it. If it does, that's how you get the highest DPS. If you want a middle ground choose another option. Don't get me wrong, I agree it was a relatively balanced choice (with 2 options providing the same damage buff in the high DPS rotation and 1 providing a much higher enmity gain).

EDIT: Just re-read your post and missed the word 'not'. The difference is 30 potency, because in one situation you get a 10 potency buff 3x or a 15 potency buff 2x over 3 combos. If you work in Goring/Royal/Halone as your rotation, then the 30 on halone is also 30 per 3 combos.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

Picking apart my post to make the same point I was making about the illusion of choice, less articulate, very redundant

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All your points are exactly my point; while we were given a grand system with multiple paths to choose from, a horizontal gearing palette where lvl 5 pieces were sometimes still the best modifiers at lvl 75, etc. etc. This is a perfect example of the Illusion of Choice from SE. I hope if we get more choices, more customization bc I do agree with Kaurie's OP, but sadly the simplicity of the current FFXIV system caters to a wide audience, and I can't see changes happening anytime soon.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Make it so that, when capped, you gain something akin to Merit Points. With these Merit Points you could buy traits...ALL of them. But you could only equip a fragment of them at the same time, like you equip cross-class skills.

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This is essentially what I think the best option for customization would be. Merit Points generally worked pretty well in FFXI. They weren't all that well balanced across the jobs (compare SAM's unique ones to NIN's, for instance), but the FFXIV team has shown itself to have a much better eye (and concern) for balance than the FFXI team does. A system like that would also necessarily keep the number of options small, which would be ideal for balance. I don't want something even approaching WoW's current talents (where you have 9 or 10 choices to make)—five or so would be more than enough to allow for some variation without going too far off the rails.

(Also, regarding the hypothetical PLD Potency talents, I think the Savage Blade one would end up best for MT on reflection—I hadn't finished my coffee yet! Math was too much for me. ;; )

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

That image is pretty blurry and I can't really read specifics. Is this image evidence that choice is good or bad and why/how, I am unsure?

Also, I'd like to point out that just because 1 game did customization or choice 1 way doesn't mean every game will be the exact same. There are lots of MMO's out there and the majority of them have their own systems for customization and build choice.

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Admin definitely shrank it, but it is an example of SE and a prime example of the illusion of choice. I'd hope that any system they devise for FFXIV that granted more customization would differ from this.

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Originally Posted by Iagainsti

Admin definitely shrank it, but it is an example of SE and a prime example of the illusion of choice. I'd hope that any system they devise for FFXIV that granted more customization would differ from this.

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I don't really know that I would consider the Skillchain system customization, at least not in the traditional sense. It's more of a battle system, not unlike the Limit Break bar here. It does illustrate the illusion of choice fairly well, as you mentioned, but there are other examples in FFXI (from the Merit Points and Job Points systems) that are better examples of how SE could potentially do customization in FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Iagainsti

All your points are exactly my point; while we were given a grand system with multiple paths to choose from, a horizontal gearing palette where lvl 5 pieces were sometimes still the best modifiers at lvl 75, etc. etc. This is a perfect example of the Illusion of Choice from SE.

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Your exact words were "This is what choice looks like though...", so my assumption was that what followed was examples of what you thought choice looked like.

Since you did not, at any point in the post, actually mention illusion of choice, it wasn't inherently obvious as to what the point you were apparently trying to make was.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

The difference is 30 potency, because in one situation you get a 10 potency buff 3x or a 15 potency buff 2x over 3 combos. If you work in Goring/Royal/Halone as your rotation, then the 30 on halone is also 30 per 3 combos.

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Wether you do GB-RA-RA or GB-RoH-RA you always end up using the full +30 potency upgrade on 3 combos, either on 3 Fast Blade, 2 Savage Blade or 1 RoH...unless you put your bonus on RoH and still do GB-RA-RA, which is kind of a waste.
GB-RA-RA (with the bonus on Fast Blade) (160+230+220)+(160+200+340)+(160+200+340) = 2010 (Not counting DoT since they're not affected)
GB-RA-RA (with the bonus on Savage Blade) (150+230+220)+(150+215+340)+(150+215+340) = 2010

GB-RoH-RA would be either (160+230+220)+(160+200+260)+(160+200+340) = 1930
or (150+230+220)+(150+215+260)+(150+215+340) = 1930
or (150+230+220)+(150+200+290)+(150+200+340) = 1930

So, in the end, GB-RA-RA gives 80 more potency than GB-RoH-RA...as it does now.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

Merit Points generally worked pretty well in FFXI.

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Yes, they worked but what they offered was clearly not thought well enough. As you said, some skill were fantastic, others were garbage...but some, even on the same job. (Who would spend 220 000 Xp for an interruption rate down effect up for 30 seconds every 5 minutes...?)

Indeed, but that 80 potency is based off rotation, not based off of your trait choices. The trait choices give you a 30 potency bonus.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

Indeed, but that 80 potency is based off rotation, not based off of your trait choices. The trait choices give you a 30 potency bonus.

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That's the best part. You always end up with exactly a 30 potency bonus over a "proper" full 3 combos, unless you purposely mismatch your trait and your rotation. :)

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Originally Posted by Malzian

However, if it's possible for two BRDs to have entirely the exact same gear set that you can see, but have a totally different set of skills at their disposal... and if I present that to you and say, 'Okay, one has a fantastic build with great skills and the other's build is complete crap, but I'm not telling you which'... well, are you just going to pick one at random and pray you get the best one? Even if you're doing some dinky little dungeon that normally you can complete in 15 min? If I told you the one with the bad build would make you take twice as long? I highly doubt most people would just grab one and go hope for the best.

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You point this out like this would be a new problem. The same gear has never meant the same output. Even in our rather simple systems, not every player actually performs optimally, an issue that has nothing to do with combat preparation of equipment variation (including spec). Moreover, no well crafted spec choice is going to have this kind of range; you're giving an approximation of a Bard somehow wearing full caster gear. That's simply not the case with any choice of one of many DPS specs I've ever heard of. A player can easily be that bad, but a spec... that's unlikely even if there were a near total utility spec, and all of that utility wasted.

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Originally Posted by Malzian

Now all of this is just a player-side issue, how we as a community handle the 'choices' we're given. There's a whooole other side to the issue as well where the devs are concerned. As it stands, the devs already have a difficult time developing content that's tuned equally to all of the classes. Yes, all content can be done with all of the classes but some compositions inherently make things much, much more difficult than others. This is with the devs also knowing exactly how every single class will handle in every instance they make because those skills are pre-determined. They make decisions about this all of the time and we already see what comes from that. Throw this complexity on top of it and it's just making it even harder for the devs to tune the content appropriately to give everyone a chance and it just makes everything harder if even the devs can't be certain what skills any particular job can come into content with or without.

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Originally Posted by Malzian

However, in the vein of the title of this thread it comes down to this... in order for a true skill-tree system to be effective and viable it has to be created along with content that makes any choice you make in how you distribute your skills just as effective as any other. That means that if you have 3 routes you can go down, in order to make it work so no one route is favored all routes must be equal. Route 1 must be as good as Route 2, which must be as good as Route 3. If Route 1, 2 and 3 are all essentially the same in the end... why add on the complexity of tree that only leads you to the same destination in the end?

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Except this is almost never the case. All that balance is even attempted on is average dps in a mixed-mechanics fight, and then again on the pure dps level. Each spec's dynamics and ability to cope with each different mechanic or situation in such a fight may and almost certainly will differ significantly.

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Originally Posted by Malzian

Your choice in that is an illusion... it's an aesthetic and it is artificial in its complexity because it is ultimately meaningless. If you don't make the ends equal, then one end will always be chosen and then you also really have no choice. When all routes are equal, it is just as unfulfilling as if there was only one route. When one route is superior to all others then most people will eventually move to that one and no other routes become viable unless the devs design content specifically to make you use that route... and then you end up shuffling your builds for everything you do. We do this enough with jobs as it stands, we don't need to be doing it with builds on top of jobs, as far as I'm concerned.

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If that truly were the case, which would mean that the spec range was very poorly developed, then yes, it'd be an fulfilling waste of player and development time. But that is simply not the case when specs are done right, especially where undermechanics and acceptable play-styles allow for a larger range of strategy.

Take Wrath WoW for another example, especially when people were still undergeared -- pure dps was a hefty issue, but quite simply not dying was even larger. There were several bosses in which DPS needed to use things other than pure damage just for the tank to survive, no matter how well s/he and the healer were performing. As a Frost DK that commonly meant taking adds before they could reach the healer and slow-kiting them around the boss while melee dpsing. On Blood DK that meant swapping in periodically to take two vuln stacks for every four the tank took, etc. On Unholy that meant making use of my pet to hold new adds in place before they could destruct on the party, making use of my ghoul form to sac towards the end of the fight, or taking a single really hard TB with my CDs. That's all for one class, and differing further with each hybrid spec. In those situations, where fights actually warrant strategy and creativity (e.g. where both the classes and fight are well-constructed), these dynamics lead to very different playstyles. As we become continually overgeared, we turn to more pure dps-oriented strats or (longer) CD-based utility only to ignore mechanics completely, causing a shuffling of talents -- one weakness (depending on how you look at it) of any talent system where one can prioritize utility over dps, AoE over ST, etc.

Or, take class variance in early T5. DRG was sometimes favored simply because it could open with Full Thrust onto Conflagration, and then ID-DB for a 6-sec or FT combo again for an 8-sec, while Bards couldn't use anything but a 150 spam without 2-3 DoT ticks' time (contributing as much as any combo job only with Barrage up), and a SMN without an AF stack was useless (though with two stacks, almost as amazing as a BLM with SC and Convert, and pot at the ready and Flare pre-casting). Readied burst was necessary for mechanics. And yet Bards, the worst in that regard, excelled in general dps for that fight, and SMNs both performed well generally and could reverse a wipe. (In a min ilvl, no Echo fight now, a MCH would excel in both regards.)

Because of these small variances, whether in damage or utility dynamics, as much as they may look much the same when compiled onto a dps parser at the end of a fight, players can have the ability to pick how they want to rotate, how many little situations they wanted to be immune to or to dominate, what kind of things they want to prioritize to get more out of how they actually (like to) play. Jobs (XIV), sub-jobs (XI), sparsely-alterable specs (Mist/WoD), and highly-alterable specs (Wrath, B&S, and beyond) are just spectrum to that. And those choices, whatever their end product may be, feel really good. To cut them out of the game, isn't a failing of the talent system concept or that of any other player customization system; it's a failing of the game to support creative choices and interesting effects, and likely a general under-tuning that washes out actual performance dynamics.

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To put it another way, the only real problem with talent systems or combat gameplay player customization in XIV isn't actually those systems at all -- it's that there's so little to the game other than pure damage. All spec dynamics outside of their parser impact are dependent on both the game's undermechanics and the communities willingness to experiment. I'm not talking about tolerance for gimmicks or non-optimal play, either; I'm talking about actual optimal but non-conventional play. Much of the things we call non-optimal as a rule of thumb (e.g. shorterm dps tanks) already are actually because few people actually even tried learning strategies that make use of them. Single-tank Titan or (tank-and-Lancer) Garuda Ex are prime examples of when we actually did try these things, and they worked. We try to mass-pull during AoEs despite "poor" Ninja AoE and an undergeared healer, but then forget that a Warrior can Doton kite the entire pack while being hit by no more than a couple of the mobs at any time, without interruption to party AoE dps. There are the occasional WHMs who know how to stun a pack of room-AoEing mobs just before they can cast, or the (sadly) rarer still DPS who hold their stuns a few seconds for incoming necessary tank movement (positionals) or would-be mob damage, but generally our tolerance of anything outside of zerging is pretty low. We fall back to T&S in just about every situation we can, often forgetting about what little utility we do have. In that environment, by no fault of the specs themselves, yes, it may be hard for those specs to distinguish themselves. Though at least they'd provide a few more rotational options. But with some small changes, who knows... we might just feel like jobs instead of differently geared (in terms of clockwork, not necessarily ilvl) dps machines.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

Your exact words were "This is what choice looks like though...", so my assumption was that what followed was examples of what you thought choice looked like.

Since you did not, at any point in the post, actually mention illusion of choice, it wasn't inherently obvious as to what the point you were apparently trying to make was.

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You know what they say about assumption.