Almost every complaint about the ShB job changes could be solved with talents

[Xyr]

Did we even play the same game?

I don't know why you posted that, because it contradicts your point. According to your chart, you can pick 1 talent in each tier, which means a total of 7 talents in your chart. There's 4 ? talents which means viable depending on the situation, and 10 check marked talents which means optimal. 14 viable talents for 7 that's 14!/(7!(14-7)!) = 3432 combinations. Although, some choices are locked out as there are only a single choice for that tier so the total combinations is probably around 100, but I'm too lazy to look up the formula. However, even 10 choices is still better than 1.

Did you even look at the logs you linked? If you looked closer at the talents of same classes literally almost all of their talents are the exact same. The mages are using the same talents, warriors using the same talents, druids using the same talents. There's only like 1 or 2 SINGLE talent differences, but the other 15 are exactly the same as everyone else. It's exactly an illusion of choice.

Nope, they aren't using the same talents. Did you look at different bosses? The same class might be using the same talents for 1 boss, but they are using different talents for a different boss, hence choice, and not illusion either. Also, again, there's many more classes in the top ranking whereas FFXIV logs consists of Black mages only. That's a diversity ratio of 10-1.

[DarkEiraStar]

I don't know why you posted that, because it contradicts your point. According to your chart, you can pick 1 talent in each tier, which means a total of 7 talents in your chart. There's 4 ? talents which means viable depending on the situation, and 10 check marked talents which means optimal. 14 viable talents for 7 that's 14!/(7!(14-7)!) = 3432 combinations. Although, some choices are locked out as there are only a single choice for that tier so the total combinations is probably around 500, but I'm too lazy to look up the formula. However, 500 choices is still better than 1.

1 choice in almost every tier that is considered "viable" while the rest are considered trash or only better in niche circumstances. That is the very definition of illusion of choice. And that is just for 1 spec on 1 class. Every single one of them is like that.

[ItsDevinHere]

Nope, they aren't using the same talents. Did you look at different bosses? The same class might be using the same talents for 1 boss, but they are using different talents for a different boss, hence choice, and not illusion either. Also, again, there's many more classes in the top ranking whereas FFXIV logs consists of Black mages only. That's a diversity ratio of 10-1.

Yes I did, and my point stands, the majority of the talents stay the same with only a few changing. Between different bosses it's like 2 or 3 talent changes, but then the next boss they go back to the previous used ones, so there's still only like 1 or 2 options for fights. I will concede to you that there's a small choice, but overall for the whole talent system it's an illusion of choice, the fact that the majority of the talents are set in stone is my point that it's an illusion of choice. What is even the point of having an option for those talents that never change if you never change them.

I will give it to you based on those logs Black Mage is always on top, but the other classes at least seem to be more diversified. Though I would rather take that then a useless talent system.

[Xyr]

Yes I did, and my point stands, the majority of the talents stay the same with only a few changing. Between different bosses it's like 2 or 3 talent changes, but then the next boss they go back to the previous used ones, so there's still only like 1 or 2 options for fights. I will concede to you that there's a small choice, but overall for the whole talent system it's an illusion of choice, the fact that the majority of the talents are set in stone is my point that it's an illusion of choice. What is even the point of having an option for those talents that never change if you never change them.

I will give it to you based on those logs Black Mage is always on top, but the other classes at least seem to be more diversified. Though I would rather take that then a useless talent system.

It's not a useless system if it adds significant diversity to their roster. Again, 10-1 ratio on diversity. If you rather have Black Mage dominate every single boss than have a talent system. That's your choice, but for me, I rather have diversity than monopolization.

Considering how bad of a spot WoW is in lately I'd say anything from it should be lessons other developers learn from vs blindly implementing into their game that's not been balanced for it for nearly a decade. There's a reason we even have the WoW Refugee memes, the game is going downhill so maybe keep it's garbage out of FFXIV?

WoW has been going down hill because it's old. It's the natural course of progression. Games don't last forever. WoW's talent system existed since their classic, during the height of their game, each class had around 90 talents to pick 40-50 from. By your logic their "talent system" would be amazing and should be implemented if it was at the height of their game, while at the low of their game their talent system is terrible? The lack of consistency in your logic is terrible.

[Xia_Thas]

WoW has been going down hill because it's old. It's the natural course of progression. Games don't last forever. WoW's talent system existed since their classic, during the height of their game, each class had around 90 talents to pick 40-50 from. By your logic their "talent system" would be amazing and should be implemented if it was at the height of their game, while at the low of their game their talent system is terrible? The lack of consistency in your logic is terrible.

I'm saying as someone who's played since 1.0 on both games that WoW's talent system has always been a nightmare to balance resulting in many a period of "God Tier Talents' that broke gameplay balance or caused exploits. My point is it was a bad system at the start that only provided fluff and only got worse as time went on.

[Xyr]

I'm saying as someone who's played since 1.0 on both games that WoW's talent system has always been a nightmare to balance resulting in many a period of "God Tier Talents' that broke gameplay balance or caused exploits. My point is it was a bad system at the start that only provided fluff and only got worse as time went on.

If you've been playing since 1.0 then you should know that FFXIV has never been balanced any better than WoW had. So, balancing or not was not because of talents. Even now, AGAIN, WoW has a diversity of top dps of 10 different classes versus only 1 in FFXIV that is the black mage. Your point is moot.

[Xia_Thas]

If you've been playing since 1.0 then you should know that FFXIV has never been balanced any better than WoW had. So, balancing or not was not because of talents. Moot point.

I never said it was about balance, I was saying WoW's Talent system is not good (providing an example why) so don't put it into FFXIV which hasn't had it and does not need it. I'm not glorifying FFXIV's balance and development as superior to WoW so if you can refrain from putting words in my mouth I'd appreciate it. You are so focused on deconstructing my statements I don't think you are actually reading them.

[Xyr]

I never said it was about balance, I was saying WoW's Talent system is not good (providing an example why) so don't put it into FFXIV which hasn't had it and does not need it. I'm not glorifying FFXIV's balance and development as superior to WoW so if you can refrain from putting words in my mouth I'd appreciate it. You are so focused on deconstructing my statements I don't think you are actually reading them.

Except you are using balance as a excuse when FFXIV has way worse balance and is probably one of the worst balanced games in MMORPG history.

So far, your reasonings for saying the talent system is bad are:
Bad balance (moot because many games, including FFXIV has way worse balance and does not possess a talent system.)
WoW has not been doing good (moot because regardless of whether WoW was doing good or bad, it always had talents.)

Unless you can give another example or another reasoning as to why the talent system is bad and FFXIV shouldn't use it. I really don't see any valid points so far.

As for my points, I already stated numerous times:
Talents bring more diversity(statistically true)
Gives more choices( also true even if the number of choices are not high due to optimization)
Is more fun( personal preference)

[Avyiur]

It's not a useless system if it adds significant diversity to their roster. Again, 10-1 ratio on diversity. If you rather have Black Mage dominate every single boss than have a talent system. That's your choice, but for me, I rather have diversity than monopolization.

This is off topic of the post but in regards to balance, keep in mind FFXIV and WoW balance their jobs/classes differently. You say theres a 10-1 ratio of diversity between the dominate specs but how many other specs are left in the dumpster because WoW can't balance their jobs accordingly, even after butchering the vast majority of class and spec identity and making the majority of jobs have a builder into spender rotation, essentially making gameplay overly homogenized.

Where as with FFXIV, the reason Blackmage (and Samurai but they need a buff at the moment) are at the top is because of how they balance their jobs. Jobs with little to no party buffs have more personal dps, where as jobs like Dancer and Ninja that offer more party dps have lower personal DPS. They have to balance BLM and SAM to have high personal DPS because they offer nothing to the raid group aside from Addle and Feint.

Where as for WoW, they have butchered so much of party/raid composition with buffs that party dps doesn't matter (and frankly has never mattered) in WoW. It's all about personal DPS.

If they were to add more party utility to BLM and SAM, I would see them drop their DPS to be more in line with the other jobs that offer party-wide utility, but that just isn't going to happen at the moment. Also executing BLM gameplay at a high level to be top DPS can be difficult, even with the new ShB changes.

WoW has been going down hill because it's old. It's the natural course of progression. Games don't last forever. WoW's talent system existed since their classic, during the height of their game, each class had around 90 talents to pick 40-50 from. By your logic their "talent system" would be amazing and should be implemented if it was at the height of their game, while at the low of their game their talent system is terrible? The lack of consistency in ur logic is terrible.

The talent tree was even more cookie cutter back then than it is now because you had to have so many points put into a single tree to get your final ability. Having played since Vanilla, every revision of WoWs talent tree has either been incredibly boring (see pre-MoP), to getting some talents that are legitimately game breaking or other talents that should have been in the core of the class but were ripped away into a talent that it became the only choice to take.