Quote Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard View Post
One thing I would say is a downgrade of quality for MMOs is the removal and streamlining of stuff like Talents and Specializations... Everyone is the exact same, the most you seem to get nowadays is pretty much choosing between 2-3 different skills...

But I do suppose it's very hard to make it so that it all stays relevant and balanced, those kinds of systems do often tend to run into the problem that there's things that are clearly better and everyone just does the same build...
It's hard to balance specializations when people use spreadsheet math and simulators to figure out the best combination for most scenarios. Then, players flock to those "build" and anyone not using -that- is seen as gimp/weak/useless. It becomes an illusion of choice. These kinds of things work well in offline games, but when playing with other people, players prefer metas rather than what's -fun-.

FFXI had a level cap of 75 for about 7 or 8 years, but they introcuced the "Merit System" to allow Lv75 players to accrue points to spec into new abilities, traits, spells for their jobs. Problem was, you couldn't max them all out. Instead, every job had 5 merit skills that ranged from level 0 (can't use) to level 5 (max). Spending 1 merit point unlocked the skill to use at it's weakest potency or shortest duration or longest recast. Subsequent merit points increased its efficacy or recast. Now, some players might want to spend all 10 merit points to unlock all 5 skills at level 1, while other players unlocked 2 skills at level 5 and left the other 3 locked. Regardless of what flavor you wanted, there was always a meta for every job, and 9/10 times it involved maxing out 2 skills to level 5. Any White Mage that came to party that didn't have Protectga V and Shellga V unlocked was gimped, a Dragoon without Angon maxed out to level 5 was useless, RDMs had to have at least 1 point in Dia III, Black Mages had to have 5 points in Burst II, and 5 points in Freeze II, etc.

The illusion of choice means you likely won't have a true talent/specialization system. That's why they removed attribute point allocation in FFXIV. You'd never put VIT on a DRG or MND on a BLM, so why even bother with them to begin with?