Talent tree (spec) suggestion

[Rithy255]

Yeah all of these ideas for "optional picks" just have one very clearly superior option. You are all just showcasing why these systems don't work.

Disagree. (outside of DPS options, because then you just pick whatever does more damage)

Things like Mitigation and/or healing will have more value in different situations and can actually be fight dependent.

[Carighan]

Things like Mitigation and/or healing will have more value in different situations and can actually be fight dependent.

Ah, that's what you meant.

Yeah, I don't think that can work either, since that just creates the problem WoW used to have with per-fight-talent-specs, but worse. If the value is actually different per spec, people will just default in their picks. Like the option with the Aurora above, there's very clearly one superior choice for each context. So for one fight you pick X, for the other you pick Y, but you just apply that like swapping a character job before joining a group.

But then you loop it back to the designers, what do they do now? Do they balance for the assumption that everyone has the superior pick, codifying the "pick superior for each fight" thing? Or do they not, making the fight easier if everyone does just go with the meta picks anyways?

There's no truly good option there. The only way out would be actually not offer any primary (and DPS is always a primary role for everyone I suppose, granted) power gain at all, but even that is something WoW (and GW2, too) tried, and neither could make it stick. GW2 actually did a bit better with it's strong focus away from traditional roles coupled with giving everyone a dedicated healing button. But even that immediately had meta picks for certain situations which were quite visibly outperforming other options.

But don't get me wrong, I love talent trees and picks and all that. I just don't see it ever working in a manner that isn't essentially the same as not having that choice in the first place. At least not in MMORPGs, it works fine in single-player games of course. More so if they're story-driven and hence most players don't get a second try at doing their talent setup anyways and have to pick while not knowing whether/how useful this'll be later.

[Rithy255]

Snip

I think when you look at it at your angle yeah, it wont work for people trying to optimise literally everything, I personally don't think the game should have to suffer because of people being against any sort of creativity.

If you look at the Jobs themselves, you could argue that it's pointless having more then one job of the same category, because one will almost always be less useful in the same category then another, but regardless people still play that job because it's fun for them. I see it the same if we could customise some aspects about jobs, then the more casual or even midcore side who doesn't worry too much about top end would be more free to be creative and have fun, while the upper end 1% can just go with whatever's meta, We see people still running suboptimal jobs that are clearly outclassed because a lot of people actually just go based off what they enjoy

I'm just honestly sad that this game is only balanced for savage and ultimate's because it's ruined any creativity the jobs themselves can have, I think it does work for MMO's it just doesn't work for whats "meta". It's really pointless to strive for only balance, FF14 needs to lean back into fun and creativity with jobs.

while I don't think talent trees would be the solution, I do think it would be something actually more fun and interesting then what we usually get (which is small number tweaks and/if a job feels unique it gets reworked so it can fit in line). I just rather they try with something interesting then the same old balance that we're getting, it's clearly not actually popular to just balance everything for the 1%

[Mikey_R]

Disagree. (outside of DPS options, because then you just pick whatever does more damage)

Things like Mitigation and/or healing will have more value in different situations and can actually be fight dependent.

But then you are choosing based on the fight and not what you want. Which is, again, an illusion of choice.