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

[Proxanna]

To address a few points:

--Players will do what hardcore raiders do. DPS is all that matters.
--Offering a choice will turn the community against you if you make the wrong choice.

The thing is, even if you're right for MOST players (and I'm not saying you are -- far from it), you're still generalizing. You're painting every player with the same brush. That's not how MMOs work. There are players in this game, and in every MMO, that play the game in ways that you never would or could even understand.

[EDIT: Typo]

So let's say that yes, MOST players will go with the optimal build and there's maybe 5% of the player base that wants to be a special snowflake and do their own wacky build. That's a lot of time, effort, and resources going into designing and balancing talent trees for 17 different jobs to cater to those 5% that want to feel unique. Every MMO that's started out with a cool and spanning talent tree system has simplified them and made them a lot more rigid over the years because it's too hard for them to balance. Now I'm not saying it wouldn't be cool to have more customization choices. I mean that's a big part of why we play MMOs is because of the customization right? I'm just saying I don't see them doing it because of the above mentioned issues.

That being said, instead of having unique talent trees for each job they could do talent trees based on role. So for example, there could be a Ranged DPS talent tree where you could spec to be more support oriented versus damage oriented, sort of similar to how they did role actions but with a bit more depth. That might be at least a LITTLE bit easier to balance. But again, I just don't see them doing it because of the work required.

[GrenGarm]

I again need to state I don't think you've raided that much, because it really is a common practice, try pugging for a group in WoW with the wrong talents and you will never get a response. Or Trying pugging in say Rift (old example I know) with a random assortment of talents and you will never get a response. The only way you'd feasibly able to get away with using a skill that's slightly worse, but more fun with you is if you join a guild and show them you can be good without it and they're willing to accept that.

I was a hardcore raider going back to the early 2000s, my friend. For five years I was also a guildmaster and raid leader. That's part of why I feel the way I do. I'm tired of playing a class/job the optimal way for that 3% DPS gain even if I don't find it fun. No, I wouldn't expect a raid group to take me if I did that.

Yes, I think it would be healthy for FFXIV to offer choices, because most of the content in this game is easily clearable without optimal anything. The reasonable players in this game understand that, and I do think that's most of us.

MMOs are an old genre now. There are a lot of people like me these days who are burned out on raiding and just want to play these types of game for fun. More and more of us every day.

[GrenGarm]

So let's say that yes, MOST players will go with the optimal build and there's maybe 5% of the player base that wants to be a special snowflake and do their own wacky build. That's a lot of time, effort, and resources going into designing and balancing talent trees for 17 different jobs to cater to those 5% that want to feel unique. Every MMO that's started out with a cool and spanning talent tree system has simplified them and made them a lot more rigid over the years because it's too hard for them to balance. Now I'm not saying it wouldn't be cool to have more customization choices. I mean that's a big part of why we play MMOs is because of the customization right? I'm just saying I don't see them doing it because of the above mentioned issues.

That being said, instead of having unique talent trees for each job they could do talent trees based on role. So for example, there could be a Ranged DPS talent tree where you could spec to be more support oriented versus damage oriented, sort of similar to how they did role actions but with a bit more depth. That might be at least a LITTLE bit easier to balance. But again, I just don't see them doing it because of the work required.

I think 5% is an extremely low estimate. That said, according to a recent poll (https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._according_to/), most jobs only have 5% of the player base maining them. So by your estimate not having talents is the equivalent of deleting an entire job.

I also think you would use different abilities for different situations, so I believe the vast majority of players would use the system because it actually would be "optimal" to switch abilities around for different bosses. That would give some variety in gameplay within a job even while you're doing your Savage runs over and over again.

[Proxanna]

I think 5% is an extremely low estimate. That said, according to a recent poll (https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._according_to/), most jobs only have 5% of the player base maining them. So by your estimate not having talents is the equivalent of deleting an entire job.

I also think you would use different abilities for different situations, so I believe the vast majority of players would use the system because it actually would be "optimal" to switch abilities around for different bosses. That would give some variety in gameplay within a job even while you're doing your Savage runs over and over again.

I don't see what that poll has to do with anything? That's not really a proper comparison since there's 17 jobs total, so of course the percentage per job is going to be lower. I also don't see how adding a completely new system with spanning talent trees for 17 different jobs is the equivalent of deleting one of the already existing jobs in the game. Can you elaborate on that?

[Jonnycbad]

Omega, what is the definition of "illusion of choice"?
Omega: The illusion of choice is having a decision to make where, it either makes no difference which choice you make, or there is clearly one option that is out of the question or objectively better than the other choices.

[Shucky]

Why not just do what PvP does with weaponskills and group them up?

That way we have more slots to abilities of each class and people wouldn't mess up their weaponskill combos sometimes. This leaves room for more abilities to help cover up some weaknesses in the class instead of doing a talent system.

Besides I don't trust Sqenix to get this right on the first try. It's better not to do it than to ATTEMPT to do it.

[Jonnycbad]

I wish weapon skills were consolidated too, but this would only work for jobs like melee, MCH, tanks, and RDM, really.

As for talent trees, yeah, no. They tried this in FFXI with "merit points" where you could purchase new abilities or traits with experience points. Every job had 5 skills/traits but you only had 10 points to allocate. So you could max out at most 2, or spend 10 to unlock all 5 and upgrade them to lv2 (max 5), etc. Problem was every job was math'd out to discover the most optimal merit points, and it usually involved maxing out 2 and if you didn't have that build, nobody wanted you. Especially for certain jobs like DRG that had what was in essence an FFXIV-style "Trick Attack" type ability that was essential for almost any fight for boosting raid DPS.

The game already has talent trees, they're called jobs. The main classes are: Tank, Physical Ranged, Magic Ranged, Healer, and melee DPS. Within those classes are different builds, some focus on fast GCD, slower GCD, utility, movement, etc. Think of the "jobs" as a talent tree of the larger "roles" mentioned above.

[Jonnycbad]

Multiple charges has also been a thing in a large number of RPGs, it is not exclusively a WoW thing, in fact it predates WoW as it is as old as DnD. Same thing with global cooldown which has been in final fantasy games for far longer then WoW has existed, same thing with dungeons, raids also pre-date WoW because WoW took a bunch of things from different MMOs at the time and just mashed them into one MMO. Persistent world is as old as RPGs are.

Multiple charged actions indeed dates back to D&D where there was no "MP" and spells could only be used X number of times per day. But more relevant is that jobs in FFXI also had charged actions. For example, Scholar in FFXI passively gained stacks of "Strategems", which for the sake of this discussion were similar to Aetherflow stacks. You did not need to use a skill to acquire the Strategem stacks, it was just a timer that was always counting down to your next refresh (I think it started at 2 min/charge; 1 max charge at level 10, to being 42s/charge; 5 max charges at 99). This resource was used to activate any of the dozen or so skills the Scholar had that modified their next spell (made it deal more damage, turn it into an AoE, increase its duration, halve its cast time)

[GrenGarm]

I don't see what that poll has to do with anything? That's not really a proper comparison since there's 17 jobs total, so of course the percentage per job is going to be lower. I also don't see how adding a completely new system with spanning talent trees for 17 different jobs is the equivalent of deleting one of the already existing jobs in the game. Can you elaborate on that?

I'm just saying, even if we take your 5% number at face value (which I wholeheartedly disagree with), that's still the same number of players who prefer an entire job. So if you design talents for the "5% of players" who will actually use them according to you, that's the same number who would main a new job. Square seems to think a new job is worth all the dev time just for those 5%.

[ItsDevinHere]

I'm just saying, even if we take your 5% number at face value (which I wholeheartedly disagree with), that's still the same number of players who prefer an entire job. So if you design talents for the "5% of players" who will actually use them according to you, that's the same number who would main a new job. Square seems to think a new job is worth all the dev time just for those 5%.

That is an incredible reach you trying for there Garm. You're really trying to win out with your argument. There's a big difference between talking about what percentage each class is played and whether to add something small and MAKING AN ENTIRE NEW SYSTEM. Do you really think those two are even comparable? You're again trying to compare something that effects few people versus something that would effect 100% of the playerbase. I don't think you're understanding that. Like it's been explained to you 100 times over this thread and you've refused to see it lmao. Adding a new job doesn't effect 100% of the playerbase, it only effects those 5% you're saying switch to it. But adding a talent system, it literally effects EVERYONE you make it seem like it's okay because those 5% want it and SE makes stuff for the 5% they don't make stuff for the 5% that effect the entire population of the game, like shit that's just simple logic. Like at this point I don't even know why I'm bothering to try and convince you that there's merits to other side of the argument. You clearly think you're 100% right and everyone who doesn't agree with you is 100% wrong. And a guildmaster? Really in WoW? Considering your comments about how not most people use optimal talents in WoW you're either lying out of your ass, or were in some weird guild and never interacted with literally anyone else in the game.