Tanking feels unimportant

[Shurrikhan]

Id like if they had a talent tree. It could be the answer to pruning. They could let you pick a handful of talented abilities you want to run with and that way you can spec out differently for different content. Give people some choice without overloading the amount of buttons.

Unless made incredibly well (as in, there are next to no functional examples available across all MMORPGs, even per a particular tier of a particular expansion for a particular class) where multiple builds are optimal. Even then, a talent tree on its own only gives you the choice of what you want to prune from yourself, and limits your options to, typically, the most exciting choices. You can have exciting choices 1 and 2 of the 8, or 3 and 6, or... so on. Isn't it better generally to just have more intelligent button usage designs in the first place, pick a theme and build, and make the most of it instead of spreading the class thin in attempting to support for the sake of choice?

To be clear, I am generally an advocate of things like talent trees... as tools of character progression, world-building, and character-world interactions. But, they are among the poorest solutions for combating bloat, which is the only way it'd be able to replace pruning anyways.

[Psytic]

Unless made incredibly well (as in, there are next to no functional examples available across all MMORPGs, even per a particular tier of a particular expansion for a particular class) where multiple builds are optimal. Even then, a talent tree on its own only gives you the choice of what you want to prune from yourself, and limits your options to, typically, the most exciting choices. You can have exciting choices 1 and 2 of the 8, or 3 and 6, or... so on. Isn't it better generally to just have more intelligent button usage designs in the first place, pick a theme and build, and make the most of it instead of spreading the class thin in attempting to support for the sake of choice?

To be clear, I am generally an advocate of things like talent trees... as tools of character progression, world-building, and character-world interactions. But, they are among the poorest solutions for combating bloat, which is the only way it'd be able to replace pruning anyways.

For me no. I don't like homogenization. Its why I like RPGs like Divinity 2 Original Sin, Fallout, Elder Scrolls etc. and Guild Wars 1 where you can theory craft up all sorts of different builds. Even non optimal builds can be fun. Guild Wars 1, Guild Wars 2 and ESO only let you have a handful of abilities at a time but there are lots of abilities to choose from and you could dual class even in GW1. I dont think its a poor solution at all to give your players choice many many games do it, its part of the RPG in MMORPG. This game doesn't even have to worry about pvp balance since its a separate skill set.

If people are bored why not have more choice? Asking for them to re-invent each class every patch to me seems like an even poorer solution to make everyone happy. The people that like the class the way it is or the way it was in a previous expansion are left in the dust as SE re-invent everything over and over to the extreme in some cases. Id rather add branching talent paths. If someone likes the class the class will still be there in some form but if they don't they can spec it differently. The way this game is now you come back for a new expac its like playing a new game for some classes it doesn't have to be that way imo. There is the other side of the coin that liked the way the classes were and want a small addition/ iterative design rather than a large sweeping change to their class. This way both sides can be happy.

[JumpnShootnMan]

Honestly stuff like that is great in MMOs, but then it leads to people only looking towards the most optimized builds and anyone that tries something different is looked down upon. I can't speak for those 3 MMOs, but a lot of people complain about the removal of talents in WoW but what was the point when Fire Mage was unplayable in Molten Core? Or you had to re-spec (costs gold after the 1st re-spec btw) as Warrior based on what you were doing. No one wants 2 handed Arms DPS Warrior in raids when fury dual-wielding is seen as the way to go. Maybe its great initially when people are learning and experimenting, but the choice becomes an illusion as time progresses. Would like to see more games with useful talents and fun ones being still playable but I lost a lot of hope when I could no longer go full money generating Katarina in LoL.

[Psytic]

Honestly stuff like that is great in MMOs, but then it leads to people only looking towards the most optimized builds and anyone that tries something different is looked down upon. I can't speak for those 3 MMOs, but a lot of people complain about the removal of talents in WoW but what was the point when Fire Mage was unplayable in Molten Core? Or you had to re-spec (costs gold after the 1st re-spec btw) as Warrior based on what you were doing. No one wants 2 handed Arms DPS Warrior in raids when fury dual-wielding is seen as the way to go. Maybe its great initially when people are learning and experimenting, but the choice becomes an illusion as time progresses. Would like to see more games with useful talents and fun ones being still playable but I lost a lot of hope when I could no longer go full money generating Katarina in LoL.

I prefer the games I mentioned above for examples but in terms of WoW if you look at it now even with the skill trees removed and pruned out each class gets two to 4 specs each with varying talent tiers. Some are good for mythic, some are good for raiding, some are good for dungeons etc. We shouldn't be looking at this as one build optimized for only for Savage content when there is other things to do in the game. When looking at other games or all content offered in WoW as a whole you take different talents for different content and sometimes different raid tiers or bosses. There is still some amount of choice even trying to run only the most optimal builds. I don't really want to use WoW as the standard though as that game is also known for its streamlining and pruning.

[Shurrikhan]

For me no. I don't like homogenization.

Homogenization and talent trees are not mutually exclusive, nor are homogenization and a lack of talent trees mutually inclusive. Good strawman, though?

If only one option in a talent tree is competitive with the better options of the classes your slot in party would compete with in a given setting, then you have no further diversity within your class for having included talent trees; you've merely pruned the class badly, made given it less direction, and forced players to spend more time in menus and in perusing third-party sites.

That's the point. I love Divinity 2, even if I have to mod the hell out of it to be able to play anything but physical-heavy damage meta builds. And, again, it is technically possible to achieve the results you seem to be looking for (though those would obviously have to be done better than baseline Divinity 2, since an MMO can't exactly mod its way out of its problems). It just takes immense effort for relatively little benefit in itself. If you're not also collecting the other things a talent system or the like could provide, such as fully milking its potential for character-building, world-building, and player-world interactions, it's just not an efficient use of resources. You'd be better off considering endgame customization as something to be integral to whatever level of horizontal vs. vertical progression you want from endgame and a finely-tuned byproduct of a world- and character-building system, rather than customization for the sake of customization.

As for modifying the base class here and there to enlarge its "strike zone" by which a player might find it attractive, or avoid annoyances that'd otherwise cost the class the player's affections, I agree, but that's a far cry from talent trees or what we seen from Divinity 2, GW1, Elder Scrolls, or the like. WoW's glyphs, if one could modify as many skills as they want in slight but gameplay-affecting manners, and no combination of those modifications was unfairly* more powerful, would be a much closer example.

(*What level of power increase due to narrowness of capacity, narrowness of application, or narrowness of player skills levels able to make full use of the set of modifications in their relevant situations, would be considered "unfair" will depend on the surrounding paradigms of the game.)

Tl;dr:
Giving players the choice of how to restrict their gameplay (e.g. via talent trees) is efficient only when the system contextualizes that system as a means of growth, rather than restriction. If its purpose is always seen as an answer to content, it will always be seen as restrictive and cumbersome (sacrificing gameplay for menu-play and paying for gameplay options that should be free). Building customization for the sake of customization builds it solely with endgame and content in mind, rather than as may be future-proofed for endgame. Only when it is seen first and foremost as an RPG element, for world- and character-building, will it feel like a system of growth and diversity, rather than of restraint, esoterics, and band-wagoning. Good endgame customization is possible, but it also at best only a byproduct of successes elsewhere.

[Psytic]

Snip


Snip too many characters

Tl;dr:
Giving players the choice of how to restrict their gameplay (e.g. via talent trees) is efficient only when the system contextualizes that system as a means of growth, rather than restriction. If its purpose is always seen as an answer to content, it will always be seen as restrictive and cumbersome (sacrificing gameplay for menu-play and paying for gameplay options that should be free). Building customization for the sake of customization builds it solely with endgame and content in mind, rather than as may be future-proofed for endgame. Only when it is seen first and foremost as an RPG element, for world- and character-building, will it feel like a system of growth and diversity, rather than of restraint, esoterics, and band-wagoning. Good endgame customization is possible, but it also at best only a byproduct of successes elsewhere.

I think you are strawmanning a bit in this as well if you're framing talent trees as "artificial restriction" and that i'm trying to restrict play by proposing user choice. That term is almost as good as EA's "surprise mechanics". You've come up with an interesting way to frame player choice as a negative. Never heard it described that way before. I think maybe you process player choice as a means to maximize your character and so things that are un-optimal have no use for you and there is nothing wrong with that if you fall into the "hardcore" group that's your main motivator. That's not my main motivator so I wouldn't call it an illusion of choice. For me choice breaks up monotony and stale play. I dont see the "restriction" it is not implied the rotation would be the same or class would play similarly to the point that all abilities could just be used at the same time rather than talented.

I'll play meme builds and non-optimal builds because they are fun and I play the game to have fun. Do I expect to bring it into high end raiding? No, but the fact remains choice that leads to multiple ways to play your character and new out of the box theory-crafted builds is fun for a lot of people. There is a fun aspect ontop of the optimization aspect, thats why we play games, and this is not to say there cant be multiple optimal builds depending on the content or scenario because there is for many games.

If people are "bored" this is a solution rather than wholesale re-making the class to the point its almost a new class every expac. If any of what I propose was a bad thing there wouldn't be lists of optimal builds for ESO or Guild Wars or any game for that matter. Different strokes for different folks I suppose as they say not everyone likes sandbox style tools to loadout their character and for some only the optimal build is fun for them. The point is having options equals more to do equals more fun. In Wow Classic as Druid I can do heart of the wild spec for healing or tanking, I can do switfmend spec for healing, I can do a spec with omen of clarity. They were even theory crafting up a melee moonkin balance spec at one point or I can farm manual crowd pummlers for the on use ability and play feral with mid pack dps in raids etc. for me thats exciting I dont care if its the L33t optimal spec for MC its fun and if im in a good guild they will let me run it anyway.

I say homogenization because no matter what you do with tanks in FFXIV the rotation will be the same with the same expected finisher and ogcds thrown in. Thats boring and I can see why people get sick of it after running the same thing 300 times and demand changes every patch. We cant just go respec we have to go play another Job if we want more flavour as it is now. Its a bit rediculous to re-invent the wheel every patch. For example there is a subset of people that do like the HW Drk, etc. those people end up screwed. The people that asked for the changes every patch are screwed as well because after another 300 runs they are bored again of the new version of drk and no one is happy for long. Giving us one rotation path is like giving us all these straight line dungeons with no nooks. Is it optimal sure? Is it necessarily fun though no. Its like a vicious circle. Id rather have multiple load outs or ways to spec out for the sake of boredom while also being fair to those that like it the way it is currently and want smaller additions each expac to their class.

[Shurrikhan]

I think you are strawmanning a bit in this as well if you're framing talent trees as "artificial restriction" and that i'm trying to restrict play by proposing user choice.

It's no strawman. The only thing a talent system necessarily does is pick what you don't have access to, making those expenditures in art and mechanical assets that much less worthwhile and the final product that players actually tend to experience that much less polished.

Strawmanning, on the other hand, is closely tied to ignoring the whole of another post and putting in quotes words they have never said. For instance, at no point have I said that the restriction provided by talent trees will feel inherently artificial; that is owed to its implementation and context. Nor have I at any point said that this game wasn't overly homogenized; it is, and I've made thread over thread suggesting corrections to the details and trends that I've thought most caused that situation. I've merely indicated why talent choices, specifically, will not necessarily, or even likely, fix that problem. (In fact, it historically had tended to make those issues worse because having more numerous or finer build choices means that class designs cannot compensate for a weakness elsewhere in the kit in order to embrace diversity; instead, the weakness is simply avoided entirely in favor of a more homogeneous, commonplace build option. If you think community preconceptions can overly dictate how jobs play now, just wait until they undoubtedly have to share some talent choices in order to meet your quota of build options (only a couple of which will likely ever be taken, each with narrow ranges of play than had they not been cut up into distinct slices).

Let's say we create the kind of game you might expect to use talent trees and make and implement everything... except the talent trees themselves. We have the art and mechanical assets for the abilities, we have the synergies, and we have the distinct playstyles and aesthetics within any one class; we just lack the condition (must have X points in Y) to bar their use. The result, since it was designed to be restrained by player choice, may be chaotic, but it is necessarily more stuff simultaneously available to the player than if talent trees had not been added. You just haven't been asked, out of everything to be bound to the system, whether you want your head and left foot, your right arm and neck, or just your thighs. Instead, you got everything, and whatever mess might come of that.

A talent tree, no matter what form it has taken, has only ever literally been a requirements system of currency that affords less (usually far less) than all that is available and thereby bars simultaneous use of the majority of the art and mechanical assets within said system. You get your thin slice. If you want any other slice, you must go back to a rest area. That is the whole of the system. It is a means of restriction. It exists to offer you choice A or choice B and to slap you when you answer "Why not both?"

Some things are better to make options than others. Some numbers of options (or "fine-ness" of options) are better than others. But the system is always a matter of excluding choices in order to cut down on what a player simultaneously has access to.

Now, let's talk about those benefits a bit, because for all you'd rather reiterate the same point that choices themselves are inherently good (to the point that shitsn'giggles experimentation, however bland the actual gameplay after its first, novel run may be seems for you to outweigh designing for sustainable gameplay value), you've ignored for three posts now that I've insisted that talent trees and similar customization can be a good thing -- only, as with all things, dependent on context and implementation, rather than being a inherent panacea.

There are some options that cannot coexist, for either of two reasons: they are either (1) redundant, performing the same task at the same time and/or in the same way, or (2) to feel compelling and cohesive, they each demand a certain amount of strength that there simply isn't enough power budget left for. Talent trees aid the first by offering different playstyles or different aesthetics. Of course, those two results can be accomplished as successfully, and with far less waste, through less invasive systems like direct and specifically balanced skill adaptations or anything which might adjust aesthetics. Talent trees aid the second by offering choice the choice between the two power bands. Of course, that could be fixed by something as simple as a shared cooldown or separate stances and resource system interplay, all without isolating you from the other half of your would-be gameplay. There's nothing that talent trees accomplish for gameplay (as opposed to menu-play) that cannot be accomplished more easily and with more polish by something else.

So why use a unifying system of customization? Why use a pervasive system that interacts with everything a player can do? For the same reason as you'd use any other system: for progression, for character-building, for world-building, and for building interactions between the player and the world. But even that doesn't demand that you take WoW-, GW-, or Rift-esque talent trees.

It's not a matter of talent trees or homogeneity. It's not a matter of talent trees or no customization. It just one of many, many systems, and probably one of the most prone to problems and inefficiencies. So please, stop tossing out a buzz-word and pretending it's going to suddenly solve everything. It won't. Awareness, foresight, and effort solves problems, not the systems they are applied through. If the devs can't manage the mindsets for good design, no system is going to save that. And talent trees, which see reward more significantly in virtually every other aspect of the game than diversity at end-game, are certainly not the best system at our disposal to manage what you're looking for.

_____________________________

As for meme builds, I understand completely. I pretty much refused to take a single standard build all through WotLK, save perhaps on my Prot Warrior, and that was across... 8(?) classes. If there were no non-standard builds that appealed to me, the class generally didn't appeal to me. But at least those builds each had something worthwhile that I did better than others, and I made sure that benefit wasn't wasted. If I took a heavy Feral who could run friends through dungeons and then raid without swapping talents, as "non-optimal" as that might be, I made sure that I could at least spare my tank or healer a cooldown or intensive span to decrease risk of a wipe at minimal rDPS less, if any. If the builds aren't capable of at least that, then you're cutting out a huge portion of each build's "strike zone" (the breadth of players who can enjoy it). Memes for meme's sake alone, as with talent trees sake with the sake of talent trees alone, give a very limited degree and duration of enjoyment. Finding out how to use things is great. Finding out how to optimize things is great. But finding out whether something even has a use is going to feel for many players a mere investment, rather than a joy in its own right, and even then the joy tends to be as short-lived as its answer is quickly found.

tl;dr:
XIV's homogenization is bad. But it doesn't take talent trees to fix it. Nor would talent trees even be able to unless they (1) were proceeded by increased depth and breadth of undermechanics, (2) pervaded the entirety of our actions and thereby replaced the entirety of what we have now, (3) somehow didn't fall prey to the same lack of awareness, foresight, and imagination as the prior sets of abilities, (4) didn't overly overlap mechanics among or reuse them between different class's build options, (5) had multiple competitive build options, and (6) triggered a revelation among the devs such that they became suddenly capable of maintaining better balance during diversity than they have been thus far. Worse, talent trees are neither a remotely efficient or particularly effective way to achieve diversity, even if you somehow mind-controlled the devs into greater ambition and competency at the drop of a term (for a system of historically mixed results entirely dependent upon implementation, with no real inherent merit except perhaps to character-building).

The "vicious cycle" will continue with or without whatever system we throw at it until design embraces awareness, foresight, and imagination. If you want to see a difference, those things have to be a part.