A talent system

[Age_of_Oblivion]

Right now, FFXIV has encountered a serious design flaw in character progression. In order to avoid increasing button bloat (thank you), SE trimmed back a lot of skills and stretched the power curve for levelling.While this has honestly had good results at level 70, the process of actually getting there has become increasingly painful. Many jobs are simply crippled by the lack of certain abilities early on, which make their playstyles mind-numbingly simple - especially sub 50. Dark Knight is an egregious example of this: the class only becomes complete at 70, when you acquire The Blackest Night (arguably it gets much better at 68 as well). Machinist suffers from a dearth of skills while levelling, and has a particularly bad stretch from 40 - 50 where they basically get nothing. Summoners have a similar problem to Dark Knight, in that they fail to live up to their class fantasy until they have unlocked Demi-Bahamut.

These issues will only get worse with additional increases to level cap.

Within the current progression system, SE is forced to choose between button bloat and a decent levelling system. While I appreciate that FFXIV is it's own game and does a lot of things right, it can very much stand to learn a lesson from World of Warcraft in this particular instance. In WoW, characters learn all of their skills about midway through the levelling process. They then can refine their playstyle through selection of (for the most part) passive abilities which drastically alter how certain actions function. This lends a sense of progression and development to each class archetype, while avoiding the problem of overwhelming players with buttons to press.

Obviously this would require a major overhaul of every class, and is thus not viable for the Stormblood expansion. However, I strongly feel that a system comparable to this should be implemented in the next expansion, and that now is the time to make that point.

[Zaene]

I agree completely.

It is obvious that SE re-balanced everything to point to level 70, which causes everything to essentially be build-up, which is nice, but I think the systems need to be better articulated. What the OP suggests is one branch, getting the class mechanics early and being able to tweak them with talents (which, admittedly, is crazy difficult to even think about balancing) I think another option is to make the classes more dynamic and add mechanics at different levels, for instance, for most all classes the gauge is introduced at 50 or 60, perhaps add it in earlier and just change the sorts of things you can do with it, such things becoming more epic as you reach 70 wherein you unlock your uber skill or whatnot.

I think the effect of such a change would be to make leveling unique and fun even at low levels, because right now all you can see is the skeleton of whatever you're going to be at 70 and that's really depressing.

[Kazrah]

Problem with this is that this usually results in cookie cutter builds, where players are going to want to know the absolute best options and then completely forgo the rest of them. If WoW can't even perfect this system to prevent that issue (after having many years to do that), why bother implementing it here? Not to mention the issue of maintenance and constantly having to tweak them so that they're equally viable, and the only reason WoW still does it is because of how their class system works since it's nothing like the job system of this game.

That being said though, the reason why this is an issue is because jobs are ONLY tested at 70 and not really tested for any point in the leveling process just because it would be far too time-consuming for testers at this point. it seems more like the issue could be addressed for now simply by rearranging when specific abilities are learned based on a priority system revolving around what abilities are used most often. Switch Blackest Night with a somewhat-powerful low-level ability that's not used as often (or just nerf it into oblivion because no single ability should completely make or break a job). Rearrange MCH skills so Cooldown comes earlier and the Heat resource system would make a bit more sense earlier in leveling.

In the MUCH longer run though, I could see something like this happening in the form of predominantly traits for skills and abilities that don't have them currently and then one final, powerful action at the end level of an expansion.

[Nerfworthy]

Might be an unpopular opinion but that's actually one of the things I like about this game is that I don't have talents. Everyone's just on the same playing field and you don't have to deal with cookie cutter crap all the time. The closest thing we have is cross role abilities now, which are quite enough for me thank you.

[Eli85]

Nope, no thank you. At the end of the day, MMOs are about output and to a lesser extent, survivability. All talent systems and alternate progression systems do is allow players to make sub-optimal choices. Namely because there is always ONE and ONE ALONE optimal talent choice per boss. If you're smart enough to figure it out, it just becomes tedium by changing talents for optimal output. And the downside? Well, if you run into players who can't figure it out, these under-performers get worse.

edit: We already have seen the negatives of a talent system with Cross Role. I.e., the healers who need to take esuna for a fight but don't. It's frustrating. I'd rather not deal with that and low output DPS, for example, because they don't take the talent that increases DPS substantively.

[Umbeliel]

Horizontal progression please. +1 OP

snip

A strawman that winds up also being an actual common failing of games. Just because it's often poorly implemented doesn't mean it has no potential.
Beyond that we'd get the argument that there's always one "best" way to play- this is most likely true and in reality, is perfectly fine. The meta will always be the meta and there's nothing actually wrong with that. Those of us NOT in the meta are not affected (directly) by playing the game in non-meta ways, as long as it remains not as a hindrance to our parties.

That being said, I'd actually be happier if they did botha spec system of some sort and reduced button bloat in a more... logical way.

There never was, isn't, and never will be any good reason for basic combo actions(Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder -> Butcher's Block) to be learned separately and have three different buttons. Branching combos can work just fine, as shown with the pvp changes. Many CDs are completely superfluous(why does Bulwark even exist? It serves the same purpose as Sheltron except it's unreliable.) and could pretty easily be made completely irrelevant with buffed versions of other skills that already exist. There's really no good reason why we don't have our entire basic kit being learned by like, 50(looking at you drk) and everything after that being utility or spec points or something.

[Shurrikhan]

Let's just keep in mind that choice is something resultant, not the number of (mostly unused) options. A talent system has the ability to offer variety without bloat, and to make gameplay more engaging prior to level 70 as well—seemingly the only level of design interest for many a class gimped, internally imbalanced, or otherwise clunky until then or nearly then. But variety depends on effective balance.

If balance across various fights can be managed, then it's a good idea. If it cannot, then it ends up a waste of development time.

One thing I think is absolutely vital either way is to bring out the core of each job's gameplay much sooner. Essentially, take the mistake that is Dark Knight—the gameplay for which feels incomplete until 70 and horribly so until 34/68—and don't do that ever again. It is fine for internal balances to tip one way or another, changing optimal rotations and so forth, based on upgrades or additions to one's abilities. It is not okay for there to be obvious resource shortages or no way at all to spend them, for any length of time. Finally, one need only remove the bloat. There is no need for Enochian or Blood of the Dragon at this point. Their effects are both to the deficit of their jobs. The first prevents use of until-then useful idiosyncrasy of the Black Mage, that you can start a double-speed cast and be able to finish it even if your elemental buff fades between. The latter simply makes the job not only entirely dependent on uptime, but diminishes its recent gains over any downtime, double-dipping on all that can go wrong, and for no improvement to the gameplay; the only window that matters is what you enter Life of the Dragon with. And then you have something like Gauss Barrel that is there only to offer a trait's worth of bonus damage alike to the Job Action Damage I/II traits of old, but requires that you repress a button with every overheat in order to benefit from it. ...Why?

[Eli85]

Snip.

The problem is we have seen talent-like systems emerge in almost every game over the history of the genre. In every single instance it is: if you don't choose X then you are doing less output (and output is essentially the only thing that matters). The only time it doesn't matter is when an entire line is say, survivability or utility, but that always comes down to "this gives you the most survivbility so take it" or "for this fight this utility is better so take it." It's so bland and boring.

As for the meta? I think all players should care about it. I PUG a lot. My problem, I know. It's because of my schedule. Anyway, I rather take the choice OUT of the individual players hand if they conform to the meta or not. Just want them in the meta anyway. Gives a greater chance of more successful groups and less trolling / griefing (lol nub you aren't picking the best talent choices, /kick).

[Shurrikhan]

Nope, no thank you. At the end of the day, MMOs are about output and to a lesser extent, survivability. All talent systems and alternate progression systems do is allow players to make sub-optimal choices. Namely because there is always ONE and ONE ALONE optimal talent choice per boss. If you're smart enough to figure it out, it just becomes tedium by changing talents for optimal output. And the downside? Well, if you run into players who can't figure it out, these under-performers get worse.

edit: We already have seen the negatives of a talent system with Cross Role. I.e., the healers who need to take esuna for a fight but don't. It's frustrating. I'd rather not deal with that and low output DPS, for example, because they don't take the talent that increases DPS substantively.

Consider WoD, rather than Legion, for a moment. Many of the talent setups performed, optimally, within 2% of each other, while the lower performing ones were often (a) more consistent, (b) better synced with mechanics, (c) required less attention, or (d) took better advantage of particular fight opportunities, reversing that balance yet again anywhere from among casual to even top players (at particular kill speeds).

So your "one" optimal choice depended on composition (how much AoE burst and cleave your group already has, general raid DPS, and how survivable you all will be generally), your skill, and perhaps even your healers' skill. ...That tended to make it at least... two ... choices. Hmm.

Heck, take Wrath and its abundance of talent choices that effectively pared down to some 3-5 builds per class. I regularly outperformed "optimal" specs with my "muddled" spec because I allowed for factors theirs did not, that lay outside their equations and simulations but were nonetheless prevalent in any real fight. In Mists and WoD this was again often the case.

Now, personally I feel that talent systems run into the same issue as the ability acquisitions have thus far in XIV, less an issue of necessary waste as simply that the self-afflicted need to give the same amount of choices to each class tends to actually hamper variety and the balance therein available to each class. I'd much rather have, say, 3-5 overarching traits available out of 5-8, depending on the class as to allow for individual balance of said choices—few but powerful options—rather than some sort of talent trees, talent grid, or PoE / FFX-style sphere grid. But that's not to say that choices themselves are destined to fail. Standardization... systematization... within those choices... those things may well fail due to some critical flaw. The choices themselves may yet be imbalanced. But the idea of choice is not inherently flawed. Not to any degree than a slightly higher percentage of direct hits would be unable to outperform, and at that point you're wailing over standard error.

[Umbeliel]

snippity snip

And that's totally fine and cool and good! We are friends here and you have my support- I'm just saying that if you don't want non meta people you can just make your own pf to exclude non meta people. Recruit people with specific specs.

The same way that non-meta people now(and, in most cases) wind up having to make their own friend circle or their own parties to do anything, because the meta is generally the norm.

That is, again, assuming squenix themselves completely fail to establish a rough balance with individual specs in the first place.