Tanking feels unimportant

[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.