A talent system

[Rymm]

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.

The OP makes a pretty good argument, I'll give him that, but Kazrah pretty much hit the nail on the head with this entire post as to why I wouldn't support such a system.
+1 for him

Talents, like the attribute points that recently went the way of the dinosaurs, are largely nothing more than the illusion of choice. The vast majority of players will simply google the "best" build and copy and paste that onto their character. Anything else and you are hindering yourself for the sake of being different and, by extension, hindering whatever party you join for group content. I'm perfectly aware that not every player (myself included) plays 100% optimally 100% of the time and I would never expect them to but, depending on how more or less balanced talents are, picking a sub-optimal option is shooting yourself in the foot before you even step into a dungeon or trial. Like not melding your gear or bothering to invest in food or potions- sure you can probably still succeed without it, but it would certainly be easier and increase your chances for success to do so with.

It also opens up the door to the type of elitism where people who use the "best" builds exclude (or worse, harass) those who do not. This is attitude is already pretty rampant in the game already in regards toward optimal classes in each role and which gear and melds they use. I would like to think that we as a playerbase could rise above it, but my above examples have already proven that patently false. A "This is why we can't have nice things." kind of argument.

In a perfect world, where they actually manage to perfectly balance all of the talents across all of the jobs, I would be less opposed to a talent system. Sadly, I have never once seen that happen in any of the various MMOs I have played over the years. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I'm not going to hold my breath, either. Often times, when devs have managed to bring them within a reasonable margin of each other, the end product talents are either so homogeneous or have so little influence over actual play that there really is no point to them when all is said and done.

In the end, I would rather the devs work trying to achieve better balance between the jobs as they are now and smooth out the leveling process for them than throw the whole system into chaos by trying to overhaul it (again) with the addition of talents. People are citing WoW as an example of a good talent system (which as an old WoW player, is actually pretty hilarious to me) but it took Blizz years of reworking and polishing their system to approach anything even resembling balance. I shudder to imagine the hot mess that FF14 would be if they tried to shoe-horn talents onto our jobs at this stage in the game.

TL;DR-
I don't think talents are inherently bad but I have absolutely no faith whatsoever in the devs being able to make meaningful talent choices that are perfectly (or even reasonably) balanced across all the jobs and therefore can't support taking resources from other aspects of development or throwing the game into disarray for however many years of developing, reworking, and polishing it may take them to get it even decent, let alone "right."

[Furiea]

it makes the calculation too complicated to design and balance jobs. imo.
plus i'm OCD... it will annoying the heck out of me when I don't get all the talents/skills.

[Zarabeth]

No thanks, every game I've played with "talent" systems just end up with everyone using the exact same "talents" because they are considered "the best". FFXIV just got rid of attribute points as they were pointless, why add it back in and call it something else?

[LalaRu]

XIV made its glory by removing complexity, and you want add it again? You hate XIV so much?

And, as countless times said above me, any kind of "customization" you will add, will ends up with "use this one or get kicked" so...
thank you but no, thank you.
a million times.

[Ametrine]

With the explanations given here, I look at the jobs we have per each role and think, "The devs can't even balance these."

So, no thanks.

[Jybril]

Illusion of Choice is what the term most people here are saying.
I wouldn't mind picking things just to be different but with how SE
balances things, it won't work and we're all be the same exact thing.
Something would be far more OP, useful and better in every way than the other side.

[Shurrikhan]

With the explanations given here, I look at the jobs we have per each role and think, "The devs can't even balance these."

So, no thanks.

Illusion of Choice is what the term most people here are saying.
I wouldn't mind picking things just to be different but with how SE
balances things, it won't work and we're all be the same exact thing.
Something would be far more OP, useful and better in every way than the other side.

With SE, it often extends beyond the "Illusion of Choice" into the realm of "Illusion of having done something"...

<see below>

Bet's on Zero Faith.

[Umbeliel]

Three factions:
Don't want choice
Illusion of choice
Zero faith in Squenix

Choose your fighter lmao

[Archamgel]

I'm not entirely for or against the idea, but as for the "cookie cutter" argument, it's already like that with only one optimal rotation, and most cross roles being clearly better than what's left. I would, however, like to see multiple roles of some classes, like a tank Sam or dps Drk.

[Krotoan]

I'm only gonna vote against this because of the "there can be only one" attitude that always develops with talent trees. As stated before, people will discriminate if you go with a fist weapon rogue instead of a backstab rogue or whatever. It invites divisiveness.