Why refusing customization is a fallacy

[Aeyis]

Calling people out on fallacies and promoting opinions as facts is a fallacy in it's own right. You keep saying that word yet I don't think you understand what it means.

Irony. Speaking of which, I once had a discussion about the song Ironic, with my english teacher. She said that pretty much none of anything mentioned in the song is ironic.

To which I replied: that entirely depends on what you expect.


Personally my memory is pretty bad. But it would have to be very bad indeed if I didnt know the meaning of fallacies.
Or the fact that people hold entirely too much stock to the archtypes, and not enough to proper discussion and conversation itself.

But since I seem to be the senpai in this conversation (it feels more that, then a discussion)


Then allow me to educate you:

"Its because people want enjoyable classes, and enjoyable stats."

That is no fallacy, because I am not giving a opinion. People implies atleast two 'person' qualified as a person. (this is up for debate actually, as one might argue a single person is enough to use the defination of 'people'

Since I personally want enjoyable classes, and enjoyable stats and I know of atleast one other person that does so as well; that makes this a fact.
Whether the reverse is true, IE: people simply not caring about stats; is not mentioned in my post.


Personally I welcome such conversations tho. It increases the level of each subsequent post of mine, and it would be interesting I think, if I could reach a level in my posts where I'm taking part in an actual intellectual conversation.

Now the above, that is a fallacy. See if you can find which one of the 'archtypes' it is! Shouldnt be too hard with this one.


But truly if you wish to call out fallacies, call out the right ones. Nothing more amusing as intentionally leaving your argumentation full of holes only to have people poke at all the wrong places. :P




Now then, in detail:

Individuals have individual values and needs all of which are of that individual.

Have you ever heard of the phrase: ''the country is the people, and the people are the country''?

People are made up of individuals. You cannot simply write off their individual well, anything; just for the sake of making your argument appear stronger.

"enjoyable" is completely subjective in every manner.[/quote]

Might I ask why you say ''completely subjective in every manner'', in a conversation about fallacies? It should be clear that most everyone that enjoyment has atleast some basis in the human physiology, which already makes your statement entirely invalid.

Simply saying something to gain favor with the 'public', or 'just because'; whichever your reason here: both are fallacies.

I find the current setup to be enjoyable and the stats to be enjoyable as do many others

This is not a counter argument for my argument, because the two can exist next to each other.

You're personal experiences and the extremely limited sample size they represent along with your opinion also do not equate to objective fact

I am disappointed. I made intentional fallacies there and yet you respond to all the wrong things in that part.

REALLY? (<- for clarity)






Since you seem to use fallacies to discredit other's argumentation but do not understand them all that well (yet), I will help out:

Dont stand in stuff so I will have to make up for you being bad

This is me trying to discredit the argument and redirect the flow of the argumentation. It redirects ofcourse, from the fact that objectively: having swiftcast is better then not having it.
Ofcourse since it is in response to the fallacy: [/quote] ''healing without swiftcast wouldnt be a good idea. Therefor customisation is bad''
To which I replied with my own fallacy (because I enjoy bullshitting people that bullshit), and after that replies in the correct way:

Swiftcast actually gives more customization, and would give much more if there were more then just 1-2 useful cross class abilities.

Noting that the argument I quoted was a bad one. The ability to have Swiftcast could potentially allow for a lot more customisation, rather then less.

You're personal experiences and the extremely limited sample size they represent along with your opinion also do not equate to objective fact.

I shall keep that in mind should I ever presume to speak for everyone. I would have to disagree with the second part of your statement however, as all experiences by default are fact. One set of data in a batch of 5 million, is still data.

his is objectively true, meaning that a healer without swiftcast has less potential and therefore less flexibility.

As I mentioned yes. I also earlier in the thread mentioned truly unique abilities, with true different effects.
The only reason why Swiftcast is objectively better in this case is because there is simply no other remotely comparable skill that you can take as a healer in terms of 'power level'.
This is due to a lack of customisation, rather then having customisation.

Which ironically for you (but not for me, since I 'expected it as normal') is precisely the OP's argument.

I wouldn't even allow a healer without swiftcast in my group for Savage Alex as they are a liability to the team.

And this right after saying personal experiences and opinions do not matter for the whole.
Put I will respond to the actual argument and ignore that:

My opinion is that I find this odd. A liability? Swiftcast+ res means you expect people to die. Dying means the person that died was a liability. (with rare exceptions in MMO fights where literally clearing an encounter required someone to die)
In addition, as I mentioned in my earlier post: it also means you take your healers MP for granted. Ressing in combat will kill a healers MP fast (altho some faster then others), and the person ressed will be less effective afterwards.

I would consider this person the opposite:
They have no intention of letting someone die, therefor this speaks of their will to clear the encounter.
Swiftcast is what they call a ''oh f'' skill, or panic button. People that dont blink have no cause to be scared of statues using abilities for recovering from screw ups.

And lets not pretend that you getting swiftcast is to make up for other peoples mistakes.

You seem to know a lot about others. Enough to speak for them. I believe you mentioned something about this earlier?

While it can be used for such this is not the sole purpose of having it

And I think we can safely say that 95% or more of people only use it for this, and only ever this. That is a guess, not a fact. (I put a disclaimer this time, perhaps I am too subtle in my meaning?)
But a reasonable guess, I think.

lets not pretend that it cannot be used to help recover from your own mistakes

My mistakes tend to involve me dying. The ability is called swiftcast, not Jesusholyselfres. (If you have to use a fallacy, make it a funny one) Most unfortunately I cannot use it to recover from the mistake I made in getting hit by something avoidable and dying.

The point here is that a healer without swift cast objectively has less flexibility and potential than one that does

No, that is the biggest fallacy you could possible make. You are rewriting the original base of argumentation here.
Swiftcast was used as an example that has little bearing (in the way it was used as argument) to the topic of 'customization'.
You are focusing on this example of Swiftcast and going away from the arguments used in this thread regarding 'unique and different abilities', by changing the base of argumentation by claiming that this example of Swiftcast is the very defination of customization.

You can do content without job crystals too.

Irrelevant. Give a real argument. One could easily counter this sham by saying something like: ''You could also use Swifcast poorly due to not knowing how to use it. That would decrease its effectiveness and make it's usefulness less objective''
In other words by saying something thats less out of context as what you wrote. Any real argument to the topic beats one thats entirely off-topic.

This doesn't make it efficient or a good idea and that certainly won't change individuals expectations on what they see as beneficial to their group or usuing that basis to rightfully decide against taking healers without swiftcast.

And what conclusion would be draw on this? That customization is bad?
A conclusion based on a fallacy. Literally.

Let us argue this final quote using the actual base of argumentation that was used in this thread's discussion before shall we:

Swiftcast is a very useful ability. Imagine if there were 1, 2 or 3 other abilities a player could choose from that were as useful.

This, is what customization is all about. This is what the topic is about.


Everyone uses fallacies. But try to avoid basing your entire argument on one. Unless your contro like me and you want people to call them out. In that case, here you go.

[gzuscry]

Customization is not the problem, ppl just fail to realize that this game and every other mmo who labels itself as rpg nowdays is designed in way where is is this one treshhold caled dps check. No skill/creativity/thinking is ever required to do active fighting. All the boss fights are desingned in rat labyrinth fashion, you just run in every direction until you find the food. You can argue that executing rotation is "da skill", but even that aspect is made cookie cutter aplication for EVERY single fight that happens, happened and will be introduces in future.
They way i feel the fighting is with hitting and recievieng if you boil it down is no different then juggling beads on abacus back and forth. In a way to me active combat healing class is mysterry to this day, there realy is no logical concept behind action of 'to be healed in active combat'. I think that healing class as part of holy trinity in the concepts it was concieved will die when humanity will adopt real virtual reality gaming as it is depicted in SAO. Healers in essence are just potions you spamed when you played diablo 2. Even if i look through roleplayers fantasy eyes, even then I cannot think of any logicaly acceptable reason how healer as he is in videogames could possibly function.

You can cry all you want about customization, but as long as there will be timed dps checks and every single job boiled down to bare bone functioning (all the fancy animations and graphical shinies removed) will be identical how they work and what they do, ppl will look past they shinies and will look for raw numbers to operate with. As those the real thing that matter.

[Aeyis]

Well you know how you queue for a roulette and you get Steps of Faith or Bismark and people start jumping ship immediately. Same reaction when they see Blizzard Mage.

Altho just my personal experience. I noticed the opposite when I played less attractive classes or specs in wow (or other games) and did well with them.

However, as someone else mentioned that we should think about others.
Perhaps thats a very wrong way of thinking.


Maybe we should be more considerate of others, and think more about ourselves.


As I used to say in WoW: ''I dont care what class or spec you bring, enjoy what you enjoy playing most. Just play your a game on whatever you do bring.''

Which I think is very reasonable since I personally always aimed to bring my SS game myself. (did not always work, but hey they arent proper standards if you can reach them reliably)


Frankly speaking I'd be more alarmed when a tank falls off, or in one attempt a guy uses LB on Bismarck while standing on the island.
You know, the kind thing that actually matters, and that you cant calculate beforehand?

for raw numbers to operate with. As those the real thing that matter.

Per defination, numbers are not real.
Unless you define reality itself as theoretical, I suppose.

Damn, I just killed my own argument.
Well nevermind that!

Eh, your topic is wrong, there is no fallacy in refusing customization, the fallacy is in not understanding the complexity of creating content for PVE based on all the variables you offer to PVE without alienating certain job setups from the game.

This is solved by having more then a single path of progression. More then a single endgame. Creating anything is complex. And its people that alienate others.

Unless content is literally balanced so that you cannot possible clear it with all of x class as dps, or without having a ''custom'' skill: jobs wont be alienated by the system.


For example in wow fire mages were not a thing in Molten Core. Because most mobs in there were immune to fire damage. That said, it was not like the frost tree was useless, as there were other parts of the game that could be played; not just MC Raid[s]er/[]ing.

This is ofcourse an extreme example, as this customization is more then just a different ability or effect, it tremendously changed the gameplay of the specs to the point where it literally effected where you could go.

Now as far as complexity goes. I will disrespectfully disagree with your statement that designing FFXIV endgame is (relatively) complex. Does it require more time and effort? Yes. Each variable you add increases the time you need to spend calculating and considering. But that doesnt really make it that much more complex.

For me, balance is fun. I come from Ragnarok Online, which had a huge degree of customization, but in the end it came down to exactly what other people who have played other MMOs with extensive customization have been saying: certain builds are deemed to be the best and then people either follow those builds or get given grief for not doing so.

Which is fine if you're only interested in doing solo content, but not much fun at all if you want to play in groups. The customization process itself wasn't fun, either: I spent literally hours on end grinding mobs to get the right cards to put on my gear so that I would have good stats and abilities.

There's no reason to add skill trees or different specs to a game that already allows you to play all of the classes on one character. If you want variety, you can simply pick up a different class-- you're not stuck with one thing. There's even a certain amount of customization you can already do with the classes themselves (VIT vs. STR on tanks, the examples other people have given for healers, etc.). Adding more stats/specs would be unnecessarily complicated and would bring no real benefit in exchange.

I came from RO as well. And ill say it again: its people causing grief. I played outlandish or ''standard'' builds all the time.
Im guessing your reason to give RO as an example comes down to personal experiences with this.
Because RO is actually a pretty good example of where customization worked:

-you had vit priests, agi priests, healing priests of various stats. And thats just general builds. Everyone would have their own idea on how much vit, int or str to add to their hunter for example; their own preferences. There was no ''ideal'' build.

VIT vs STR, the example you used is only possible on accessories, and only for tanks since VIT has added value for them.
There is virtually no customization in this game, so im not surprised you grasp for this straw.



Also im sorry you had to grind for hours for great rewards. Currently in HW the crafters have to grind for many hours each week, for virtually no reward.
That's off-topic yes. So is your argument, what does grinding have to do with customization?

[Reynhart]

Is this so called "ice mage" really a thing?

No, it's not a thing. But, I'm speaking of Frost Mage as an hypothetical spec where your Ice spells would be enchanced by traits.

You can cry all you want about customization, but as long as there will be timed dps checks and every single job boiled down to bare bone functioning (all the fancy animations and graphical shinies removed) will be identical how they work and what they do, ppl will look past they shinies and will look for raw numbers to operate with. As those the real thing that matter.

Thank you for this insight. And it's a real thank you, and let me explain why.

Nowadays, you see a lot of threads where PLD complains that they're left behind, especially when it comes to DPS. And a lot of answers pointing that their DPS is high enough for any content so that it's not a big deal.
It's exactly the same with specs. IF the "Frost Mage" can pass the DPS check in an "average" party setup, then it's not a big deal if the "Fire Mage" deals a little more damage (Keep in mind that a "Frost Mage" spec would offer something "better" than the Fire Mage, even if it's not raw damage).

As for extremely tight DPS check, the only content to use them is Alex Savage, and we come back to "only 5% of the playerbase will need that level of min-maxing".

Well you know how you queue for a roulette and you get Steps of Faith or Bismark and people start jumping ship immediately. Same reaction when they see Blizzard Mage.

Good, let them eat the 30 minutes penalty because they're morons.

And again, stop considering that a "Frost Mage" would do 50% less DPS than a "Fire Mage"...
People don't leave en masse the Duty Finder when they realize the healer is an Astro or that one DPS is a Machnist...


Oh, and now that I think of it, someone mentionned how FFXI was a proof that jobs would be excluded like DRG, or PUP...
I wonder if anyone realizes that those jobs were actually awesome and that people who didn't want them were just idiots following a trend by the toxic community ?

[Leshpar]

Let's talk about vanilla and BC WoW for a sec, back when things weren't balanced at all. Basically back then each class only had one respected spec. If you were any of the other specs you were either laughed at or not taken in parties at all (no dungeon finder existed either, so you had to join other people's parties or form your own in trade chat). My husband played a fury warrior back then. This is basically a dps version of the accepted tank (prot). The class offered good dps, but no crowd control (extremely important in dungeons back then) and ... well, wasn't a tank. So he got overlooked a lot in groups unless I insisted on bringing him with me.

There are tons more examples, but the basic point remains the same: choice doesn't matter if its not balanced properly. Everyone wants to have fun and be included. The only way to do that is either make the content so easy you could do it with a single player or balance everything extremely well.

I love the class system this game has. Its awesome that I'll never have to make an alt. I love being able to do everything on one character. I do not think this game needs specs for each class. Though, if they could balance it, it would be a welcome addition. I don't see it happening though.

[Reynhart]

Let's talk about vanilla and BC WoW for a sec, back when things weren't balanced at all. Basically back then each class only had one respected spec. If you were any of the other specs you were either laughed at or not taken in parties at all (no dungeon finder existed either, so you had to join other people's parties or form your own in trade chat). My husband played a fury warrior back then. This is basically a dps version of the accepted tank (prot). The class offered good dps, but no crowd control (extremely important in dungeons back then) and ... well, wasn't a tank. So he got overlooked a lot in groups unless I insisted on bringing him with me.

I've only played WoW for a little time and at low level, so I'm mostly speculating.
I think the difference is precisely because their wasn't any dungeon finder.

Like it or not, the Duty Finder implies more flexibility when you design dungeons. You can't make a dungeon where you'll assume that every party will have the "best" tank, the "best" healer or the "best DPS". So, their mechanics are focused on something else, wether it be dodging, focusing on the right target, etc...even the DPS check that you find in Duty Finder content are pretty forgiving, because they need to be doable by any party setup.

This is also why Coil was nerfed.
Why did they make ADS Paralyze weaker ? Because it's not uncommon to end with a DF party without any BRD of PLD so that you can't silence it.
Why didn't Renaud killed you in one hit ? Because you can end with a party without any ranged DPS, so you need to pick up Renauds at close range.
Why is Alex far easier than Coil at launch ? Because it's in the Duty Finder.

The ONLY content where optimal party setup is a real thing is out of the Duty Finder, so for now, Rav and Bis EX, and Alexander Savage.
Lots of people probaly didn't clear Rav/Bis Ex before gathering several i180 pieces, or even 190 (I cleared all floors of Alex before Bis EX), and now, the DPS check is far less demanding, as long as you know how to play your job.
I'd take a really competent BRD or MNK over a bad BLM or DRG, even if the "numbers" say that their max DPS is slightly weaker.

So, again, except for really hard and demanding content, a small discrepancy between jobs would not be a big thing, since it's ALREADY not a big thing.
And for those who participate in this demading content, please theorycraf all you want so you'll find what specs is the absolute best for each job. I'm sure you'll even like searching for it...

That's why I'm saying the fear of imbalance is a fallacy. Because it's already in the game (And it will always be, unless you have only one job per role) and yet the games work fine. And adding more jobs will create more discrepancy too, so your fear should be the same.

[CyrilLucifer]

Is this so called "ice mage" really a thing? I never seen any BLMs use Blizzard only and I won't understand why people would do it to begin with other than trolling.

I didn't think it was, but I saw one in DF in Darkhold about two days ago. It seemed quite serious, or at least very devoted to its trolling.

It was one of the slowest dungeon runs I've ever done.

[KaedrianLiang]

No, FFXI is proof that you're wrong.

FFXI's classes were an unbalanced mess, which is why so many jobs were discriminated against for pretty much all party content, not just hardcore raiding.

Job balance is important for everyone, stop trying to pretend that only hardcore raiders care about it because that's a blatant lie.

Tanks were even more scarce then than in ffxiv. So scarce that i was in a position to decline any party invite. LOL at the rage that follows after declining though :Q

Those unwanted classes were desperate for exp.

[Miscreant]

Customization is not the problem, ppl just fail to realize that this game and every other mmo who labels itself as rpg nowdays is designed in way where is is this one treshhold caled dps check. No skill/creativity/thinking is ever required to do active fighting. All the boss fights are desingned in rat labyrinth fashion, you just run in every direction until you find the food. You can argue that executing rotation is "da skill", but even that aspect is made cookie cutter aplication for EVERY single fight that happens, happened and will be introduces in future.
They way i feel the fighting is with hitting and recievieng if you boil it down is no different then juggling beads on abacus back and forth.

This really depends on what type of player you are, there are multiple ways of doing most fights. If you work on progression there is a hell of a lot more work that just doing a dps check. Players have to read over the tool tips of every ability the boss casts, watch every mechanic and hit closely and then debate the best method to handle each different aspect. Groups can spend a good 15-20 minutes just standing there in between pulls going over this stuff. Just because you watch guides and get spoon feed you the difficult part of the fights, doesn't mean that they are just dps checks for everyone else, it just means you took the easy way out. There's nothing wrong with watching guides if they are available for what you are working on, but figuring out mechanics is a lot harder than dps checks, and there is a lot of freedom with strategy in this game.

So in short, you are mistaken, this game isn't just one big dps check.

[Reynhart]

Dodging landslide was not a DPS check.
Killing both Caduceus at the same time was not a DPS check.
Placing Fireballs and Conflags was not a DPS check.
Placing Divebombs was not a DPS check.
Dodging Twisters was not a DPS check.
Killing adds far from bone dragon was not a DPS check.
Standing on platform to protect from Ancient Flare was not a DPS check.
Maneuveuring for Body Slam was not a DPS check.
Standing still for Blighted Bouquet was not a DPS check.
Dodging or being eaten by Rafflesia was not a DPS check.
Looking elsewhere for Cursed Voice and Petrifaction wasn't a DPS check.
Placing Homing missiles and Gaseous Bomb was not a DPS check.
Placing Meteors was not a DPS check.
Managing Fire-in, fire-out was not a DPS check.
Placing Divebombs (Again) was not a DPS check.
Grabing electric orbs was not a DPS check.
Tank swapping after Heat Lighting was not a DPS check.
Packing for Wild charge was not a DPS check.
Getting mini to enter Cerberus' belly was not a DPS check.

Damn, it's funny how many mechanics this game had where DPS don't need to be optimized...
And I'm sure the list goes on...