[Suggestion] MoP style talents!

Hello. I've played this game off and on for a few years and while I enjoy it, I've always (not exclusively to this but still) that FFXIV's jobs felt as if they were a bit of an on-a-rail experience.

You play Warrior, you are a tank. You play White Mage, you are a healer / off DPS. You play Black Mage - you are a BLM that uses the same rotation as anyone else. And unless a player finds something others haven't, such as a way to squeeze in an extra cast by stacking speed, there's really no variety in how you play or build your character, and this makes for a fairly dry playing experience at least IMO.

So I suggest as the title would imply, a talent system akin to what WoW's Mists of Pandaria implemented.

https://i.imgur.com/sRwQAwp.jpg

Basically, for given levels, let's say 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90 (note this is totally changeable but still) we would get a talent point to choose a major talent for our class with. Let's say in our example we are a Warrior. And with our talent options we could either build ourselves to be Tanky, DPS, CC, AOE damage oriented, etc. What this does is open the door to how a person could play their Warrior and maybe even let them play Warrior as a different role such as DPS with the correct talents. Or, say a given raid needs a particular CC or lots of adds. CC/AOE spec could be viable there. Of course, you could reset your talents when needed. Perhaps from a tomestone item.

Honestly, implementing something like this rather than 2-3 extra jobs for a new expansion would offer players way more in terms of gameplay value because we have a lot of classes as is just a massive lack of diversity.

This was attempted with the SCH/SMN split off of ARC, but became too unwieldy to balance. The way FFXIV's encounters work is that only the "strongest" build matters. You want the illusion of choice because nothing else but the highest damage dealing build will be accepted/used to kill the boss faster.

This topic comes up again and again and it's just people want to feel special or have some kind of "broken build". Not gonna happen in this game.

There wouldn't be an illusion of choice when you could take a tank job and make it into a viable melee DPS or even take Ninja and make an evasion tank out of it again if the player wanted to.

Balancing would require more yes but Square Enix makes enough money from this game to hire another person or two to achieve it.

It doesn't matter what the player wants to do. If the community has decided on the "best" build.... it will be the "only" build accepted by the community. the community is slave to meta comp. what's the point of making tank into a dps if the damage output is lower than an actual dps role? that person will be excluded from 99% of groups.

Just because Square Enix might have the money, it's still a matter of dev time, cost and even if it's worth it. And judging by the history of this game, going down this route is def not worth it, otherwise there would be more of this already by now.

Lack of a talent system is one of the reasons I like this game.

Well, you are assuming a worst case. The DPS potential for a Warrior DPS doesn't necessarily have to be less than other classes. Off specs could be equal to or greater than what other jobs could achieve and it would be fine. Diversity in how you play this game is healthy.

The community clinging to meta compositions when they don't do speed kills on fflogs or race for firsts is not only a fallacy on their behalf but also a skill issue. You don't need meta anything to clear.

you're pretty much asking for a whole new game at that point then. The devs have shown ZERO interest in doing even anything remotely what you're suggesting.

It would take just about as much effort to implement as it would take for 2-3 new jobs, and overall would probably be less work because no need for new gear sets for new jobs, existing ones could already work. In terms of balancing again yeah it'd require more effort from the developers but being honest here they should probably invest more into that anyway.

well you're gonna have to make a way stronger case than this thread to see any kind of action you're looking for here lol. The devs are way more interested in creating something new than tweaking older things that could possibly break things. Balance is VERY important to them (up to a certain point of cost and return).

You are assuming again. Balance is implied as being important but seeing people can do healer-less Ultimates now I'm going to say they need to try a bit harder.

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Originally Posted by EggRollBandit

You are assuming again. Balance is implied as being important but seeing people can do healer-less Ultimates now I'm going to say they need to try a bit harder.

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Go play WoW.

Or I could just play a game that is heavily inspired by MoP era WoW and make reasonable suggestions to enhance its gameplay. >_>
https://i.imgur.com/39bO23w.png

Inspired doesn't mean it has to be a carbon copy. Talent trees do not enhance gameplay, they hinder it and I have no interest in advocating for bringing that garbage into this game.

It doesn't have to be a carbon copy. It could be called something else entirely but the core issue here right now is there is very little choice with how you play a job. Issues that WoW had fewer problems with compared to FFXIV and it is the inspiration.

WoW aside, customizing how you play has been a fundamental part of Final Fantasy since the early titles. FFV was ALL about it, FFVI you could boost stats with Espers and had a myriad of characters to play with. FF7 had materia's and some weapons that had interesting synergy with certain materia. (Sniper Rifle/God Hand + Deathblow materia) FFT much like FFV was big on customization as well. It's honestly un-Final Fantasy for this game to be so cut and dried as it is as far as builds and customization go.

There are 19 jobs to play. That is your choice in style. We do not need a pointless talent system that will just be cookie cutter immediately.

Well obviously I disagree but am humble enough to speak on only my behalf and not "we's". That aside it would not be either cookie cutter or pointless it would serve for sake of diversity. Cookie cutter is getting a job to max level, using the same rotation, gear and materia as everyone else with no alternatives being possible whatsoever. Why even have materia in this game when it doesn't serve a purpose of real customization but rather a Gil sink..

this is a game where balance is top priority. (ish)
the point of whatever it is you're doing is to kill the boss, and do it as quickly as possible.
diverse builds are good in single player RPG where you can have that balance be broken and it's ok. people who think that that kind of gameplay is fun want it in the mmo too.
but in the mmo it doesn't matter because every will want the same build, the most "powerful" build possible to kill the boss quicker.
illusion of choice is no choice, because there is no point to diversity in builds because why would you want to kill the boss slower?
if you make everything the same, then what is ultimately the most limiting factor is, and always will be....

PLAYER SKILL

If you are not good, you need to get better to kill the boss.

People think they want "diversity in builds" so that they can find some kind of theoretical broken build that will cover for their lack of player skill.
If you want to get better at the game to kill the boss, then you have to put the work in to get better. But people don't want to do that because most people are inherently lazy. So they look for alternatives to getting better and begin to want ways to cheat the system.

To give you a sincere answer, they want to save whatever design space they got into new jobs.
Like if talents can create two different feeling warriors, that can also be packaged as two different warrior-like jobs.

Again, I don't really believe in the "Balance is a top priority" thing. I've already gone over that all in a prior post and gave a good reason why that is false and could use some work.

That aside, you are incorrect in saying diverse builds are good for single-player but good for MMO because builds can have both a point where it's better to use one build over the other. Let's use WoW Classic's Mage as an example. The highest DPS spec possible for Mage late game is Fire, but if you were a new player and thinking of using that spec in early phase raids you're gonna be dropped hard on your head. The reason is the Fire resistance of enemies in Molten Core & BWL. Now that is just an example but a good one because it illustrates that some inferior specs can be the optimal spec depending on the content at hand.

And again, a BIG NO at you constantly saying people want diversity so they can find broken builds. It's more about people wanting a different playstyle for a job they love every now and then just so they can do something else with it. And that isn't possible right now because again, one of the traditional items that enables people to do that in Final Fantasy games -- Materia, doesn't really enable that here. It really serves as nothing else but a Gil tax for players whenever they get new gear.

You're just flat out in the wrong here. The devs aren't going to do a 180 and do what you're suggesting because you're just mad/upset that TOP was cleared without a healer (but let's face it, that's not how 99% of the players even attempting TOP is going to play that way.) because you think that means the game needs your style of fixing.

Like others have said, if talent changes were going to change a job in how it plays, they'll just make a new job. (or completely redesign it).

And if people want a game that lets them have different play styles, then go play that game instead. If materia was going to anything like you're suggesting it would have been designed like that from the get go. Remember how they started out with elemental materia and even main stat materia, and even then it did barely anything? And it's been long since removed from the game.

Give it up. Unless you can get so many people on board with this topic nothing about it is going to change.
And this topic has come up again and again and again and every time it goes nowhere, because not enough people want it bad enough to make it an issue big enough to make the devs notice.

No one is made you have way too many assumptions. When I see ToP was cleared without a healer -- PVE content that's supposed to be the hardest possible in this game, that tells me that balance right now definitely needs a serious looking into. Elemental Materia was always useless yes, however that's not to say interesting Materia can't be made. Also, the main stat Materia used to have its uses even if it was limited to tanks.

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Originally Posted by EggRollBandit

Well obviously I disagree but am humble enough to speak on only my behalf and not "we's". That aside it would not be either cookie cutter or pointless it would serve for sake of diversity. Cookie cutter is getting a job to max level, using the same rotation, gear and materia as everyone else with no alternatives being possible whatsoever. Why even have materia in this game when it doesn't serve a purpose of real customization but rather a Gil sink..

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I have been playing MMO's since 1999. I promise you when I say that diversity is a lie. Every single MMO that has copied WoW's skill tree system has followed the exact same pattern. Most of the tree's are trash and there's generally one path that is optimal or some weird hybrid that breaks balance which ALWAYS leads to the developers removing skill trees down the road (especially as they raise the level cap) for some talent system that equally has the exact same problems where there is one set path and everything is worthless. "Diversity" in skill/talent trees is a complete lie.