Why refusing customization is a fallacy

[Delily]

Its not a false one..in essence you are saying exactly this. I wish people would read their own posts better. Mirrors are in short supply, I guess.


You are literally telling people that if they have something they would like to see happen, that they should just leave and not express their opinion or desire at all.

Something being unrealistic is no reason.
Do you know how much of science was unrealistic before it was made practice? All of it.
Do you know how many of big changes are unrealistic before they happen? All of it.
If it isnt a big change then it wouldnt be unrealistic, would it?

If you are not able to understand the difference between expressing a dissenting opinion in the arena of social justice and science vs. expressing a dissenting opinion in a video game forums, there's no point in even attempting explain it. Amazingly enough, there is a time and place when NOT expressing your opinion is appropriate.

[Delily]

I'm saddened when I consider this is the opinion of many these days.

To counter, KISS.

By, ignoring the hyperbole, the complexity for a group based game is found in the group content, and not in the individuals. Specialization are more suited to games like Diablo 3, Skyrim, and Minecraft; single to smaller groups.

[MageBlack]

We dont even have an elemental wheel and you want a complex customization system? You got some high hopes, prepare to be disappointed. The way people are talking about this it sounds like all SE has to do is flip a switch and we would have this new wonderful system ready to go but the devs are sitting on their thumbs and refusing to flip it. If you need a complete redo so the game can be something you want it to be, then maybe this isnt the game for you.

But whatever, if people want to continue to get worked up over theorycrafting, enjoy.

[Ditto]

Why is everyone throwing the word 'Fallacy' around now?

Did everyone just learn the word or something?

[StouterTaru]

Why is everyone throwing the word 'Fallacy' around now?

Did everyone just learn the word or something?

I think everyone just caught season 2 of Breaking Bad recently.

[Khalithar]

I'm personally not against skill trees, but the devs would have to very carefully implement it. The best way to do skill trees in my opinion, would be to balance them in such a way where the choices are legitimately competitive with one another and that there is no "best" or optimal way.

Now I've seen the sentiment thrown around of "who cares what's optimal?" and I certainly appreciate the thought, but what happens? Eventually some theorycrafter does the math and figures out what's optimal in a raid/group scenario and soon people begin to post about it. Someone asks in the game, "what should I spec?" and they are told to look it up online and they find the evidence of the optimal spec in that same thread.

Soon when someone asks them what's optimal they tell them what to spec and soon the whole thing snowballs until it reaches the point where everyone (whether they group or not) must be that spec or they are considered a bad player for not knowing how to spec their own class. This happens in every game and those in higher end group content will often do whatever it takes to max out their dps/hps even for something as paltry as a theoretical 1% gain.

So how can we do customization without that happening? I have to go by the suggestion of someone in another thread (I can't remember who you are but I applaud your idea) about making the customization purely aesthetic. Using BLM as an example, give them a talent tree to change the color of their fire, no changes to mechanics but let them have a choice of blue fire, purple fire, or green fire. That way there is customization but by keeping it purely aesthetic, the debate about "optimal" won't work.

[Reynhart]

Soon when someone asks them what's optimal they tell them what to spec and soon the whole thing snowballs until it reaches the point where everyone (whether they group or not) must be that spec or they are considered a bad player for not knowing how to spec their own class. This happens in every game and those in higher end group content will often do whatever it takes to max out their dps/hps even for something as paltry as a theoretical 1% gain.

Look at the numerous thread either here or on reddit where people ask "What is the best <insert_role_here> to play ?" or "How do I spec my Zeta ?", etc...
The answers are always the same "For endgame raiding, chose THIS (And then people start to insult each other because THIS is "bulls*t" or whatever) but for other content, play what you like because everything is fine"
And then realize that "endgame raiding" is the goal of, again, only 5 to 10% percent of the community.

People on this thread reacts like one spec will give uber-ultra-DPS-Turbo-Edition and the other will be only useful on killing critters...
For the BLM, what if only "Ice Mage" get the higher tiers of Umbral Ice, or a proc where after casting Blizzard, the next Blizzard III or Freeze spell has a chance to put a "Frozen" debuff for a set duration, and that a Frozen enemy receive additionnal damage when physically hit ?

Which one is better ? Well, one is a better pure self DPS, but the other can be better as a whole depending on the party DPS. You could easily create traits and alter spells to make specs different, and you'll create the same flame wars as now between different jobs...

The problem is most people don't see the forest for the trees. They see one or two systems and say, "Well that doesn't ever work."

And those purposely forgot that the meta changes several times through the lifespan of an online game. Isn't League Of Legends famous for switching back and forth what is the "best champion" because people still found new ways of playing them ?

And no MMOs have become bland because no developer wants to try to innovate. They want to 'play it safe' and use the same design concepts that have been employed for the last two decades.

They want to play it safe because players complain as soon as they have to "think".
Diablo 2 ? Let's imagine some buils and try lots of skills. Diablo 3 ? Let's have all the skills available because we don't want the "burden" of creating our own character.

FFXIV v1 ? Plz, remove the physical level, it's sooooo complicated to spend our stat points wisely if we wan't to create either a specialist or a jack-of-all-trades.
And yes, I realize the the physical level had flaws in v1, but instead of adjusting it, they decided to scrap it completely because people cried over and over. So, in v2, they gave stat point distribution back, yeah ! But it's useless, since almost every job use only one stat.

And they even remove the effect of STR and DEX on something else than attack power. Technically, they could fuse the two under "physical attack" and it would be the same, since gear are restricted, already.

[Havenae]

The real fallacy is ignoring that this game can't increase it's level cap indefinitely and alternate forms of advancement will be needed. Character progression is just as important of an aspect in MMO design as content progression 'can be'. Perhaps more so.

Then there's the sentiment that ALL skill/talent/AA systems have to be exactly like they are in WoW because most people have only played WoW or played FFXI. Systems can be developed that promote optimization while still giving players choices. It doesn't need to be all or nothing like so many perceive it to be. Things can be done differently, I assure you. Their ways are NOT the only ways. For instance WoW's underlying issues with their skill trees was an over-reliance on stat adjustments. Where in an MMO stats are basically everything in terms of performance, so of course there's only going to be one 'optimized' path to take.

The problem is most people don't see the forest for the trees. They see one or two systems and say, "Well that doesn't ever work." The believe they already know but fail to recognize their own short-sightedness in the matter. But they're right so nothing anyone tells them is going to change their mind because they're most definitely wrong. It's the ultimate form of ignorance and it's rampant like a raped ape with a fungal infection on these forums.

MMOs have become more bland, less interesting; because the audience they are intended for have no interest in challenge. They have no interest in something they have to but time or effort into figuring out.

And no MMOs have become bland because no developer wants to try to innovate. They want to 'play it safe' and use the same design concepts that have been employed for the last two decades. Meanwhile the audience really hasn't changed much. Except for the fact that most of us have gotten older. Got jobs, had kids, got married and no longer have the time to sit in front of a screen for hours on end to grind away at overly complicated content mechanics which are made so simply for the sake of over-complication and not in the interest of making content challenging. Complexity and challenge are not synonymous, although SE and Yoshida seem to be under the impression that they are.

[Aeyis]

Interesting. Perhaps its different when your ahead of the curve and actually make some of those ''BiS builds''. There is very rarely a true best build. Even more so if the abilities are not the same one with a different color.

I think its more a problem of some people wanting something to believe in. A ''skill build'' to believe in, haha.
Bit a little more serious, really people should get over themselves.

It's particular silly to require of people to ''spec like this because I read this in a PRO guide''.


If you've ever been part of any high level build/spec discussion then you would know there much of such builds are up for debate.
The only times there are clear distinctions is when something is clearly for an entirely different area of the game (IE PvP: raid bosses/mobs are usually immune to CC), or when one of the abilities is imbalanced compared to the others.

[Instrumentality]

The only times there are clear distinctions is when something is clearly for an entirely different area of the game (IE PvP: raid bosses/mobs are usually immune to CC), or when one of the abilities is imbalanced compared to the others.

That's it. You figured it out. This always always always happen. 3% more damage on combustion or an extra 30% on bleeds that increases your proc chance on a trinket or pyromancers gaining an extra damage buff if they spec 38 points in or anything that makes any of the selection of choices mathematically superior. And there is always a mathematically superior choice. You don't 'debate' which choices are best when you've simmed them out for millions of hours of play time to figure out precisely which is the superior choice for each kind of fight that you'll be participating in.

It's another step in the complexity chain of playing that gives you no actual choices and gives players another opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot by making obviously inferior choices. It is a bad idea. No one has ever done it correctly, and trying it once again is something I don't want to see any MMO dev wasting time on. Much less devs for a game that I actively play. Spend more time creating new raid bosses or new jobs to play or new gold saucer events or anything else.