A talent system

[GDFletcher]

Totally in agreement with the whole Talent Tree system, the Vanilla WoW and TOR gave amazing options to customise the character and what they could and could not do well. I would be in total favour of it happening on FF14 too and would break open the meta completely.

A talent tree system could also play into the new resource bar, IE make Lillies useful for WHM

[loreleidiangelo]

I like the idea of talent choices in a general sense, but...I feel like they work in WoW because of a variety of factors that don't really exist in XIV. I suppose the biggest one would be tier/gear sets - in WoW you'll actually alter your current talent choices based around whether or not you have the full T20 set from Tomb of Sargeras, because gearsets in that game amplify certain abilities or resources that can have an impact on your build and rotation. It's not EXACTLY this super liberating perfect freedom scenario, but it does at least give some "if p then q" type variety which wouldn't be present in FFXIV. XIV would basically be, "am I doing a dungeon (AOE) or a raid (single target)? set talent appropriately" and move on.

I guess another factor would be that WoW raid bosses are actually frequently an AOE or two-target (what they call "cleave") scenario, whereas in XIV there might be one token fight every raid tier that is a bunch of trash mobs but no real opportunities for non-single target builds to shine.

And frankly, without big sweeping changes to how this game is designed, tanks and healers are gonna be pigeonholed into taking DPS-boosting talents every time.

[Raim]

People minmaxing out a best choice of talent doesn't mean you shouldn't have talents. Its not the same as putting things like Swiftcast or Dispel into role skills.

[Draxxion]

I don't think a talent system is needed. It is just another convoluted system to provide fake customization to your character that is a balancing nightmare for the design team. When I say "fake" customization I mean that there would end up being a single optimal spec for each class/job and if some one doesn't follow it they would end up ridiculed for it as it isn't "optimal" and then Square is going to struggle trying to balance talents and create the headache that is World of Warcraft. Lets face it as there will be a false sense of choice if they implemented a talents system that in the end will just be a nightmare.

[eschaton]

Noooooooo… Please let’s not fall back onto a 10++ years old leveling system, invest vast resources to change everything we have now into something ancient, because you feel 1-50 and/or 50-70 is slow before you get 'all skills'.

It isn’t! It isn’t slow at all and that wow stuff is old, please not again, pretty please noooo. Leveling 1-50 is really fast. What -is- slow is the MSQ.

Next expansion it might be time to make the 1-50 MSQ completely optional for brand new players. (Yes we have the MSQ skip potion already, maybe just make it very cheap or optional in-game or something, heck give some away for free with the expansion.)

Leveling 50-70 is bloody fast as well. If you take it slow you are looking at just a few days tops. And if you want to rush it, it can be crazy fast. Again what -is- slow is the MSQ line! Next expansion it might be time to make the HW part optional as well. (Still be able to do it at level 70... or 80 by then)

Nothing is wrong with the current system as you play through it so fast on any character that isn’t doing the MSQ. The MSQ is the -only- thing which makes leveling slow and gates your skills in the way it does. And it's only for your *first* character! After that you level to 70 with ease and you'll have all your skills, with ease.

Asking for an age old wow system to ‘fix’ this is beyond my ability to rationalize. Holy moly. Crazy haha. And really, if you wanted to to change *this all* with a dedicated team of Yoshi, at least let them think of something new! But again, DoW/DoM leveling isn't slow - at all. At all! Only the MSQ is, and that's only once!

[Age_of_Oblivion]

Having the grind to max level be quick is not a justification for it to be a poor experience, especially in an MMO. The process of levelling is the core gameplay that everything else revolves around or emulates. If grinding out levels in an MMO feels bad, then there is a crippling problem in design.

Many arguments against a talent system that I see here consist of "too difficult to balance" or "false progression". Setting aside whether or not these things are true at the moment, what kind of a system would you rather see in place to get around the button bloat/level cap dilemma? I've not seen a single alternative suggestion yet.

[Kazrah]

what kind of a system would you rather see in place to get around the button bloat/level cap dilemma? I've not seen a single alternative suggestion yet.

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.

You're welcome. Also, how about devs keep doing what they've been doing with certain spells by having them upgrade as you level?

[Mirch]

Soon this game will be moba. Oh wait. It already is. rofl

[s3ystic]

There are a handful of other games I play that have "builds" and "talents" those games are guided by a meta even more stringent than this game.If you do not build according to the best build, you are ridiculed right out of raid content. Here, I don't have to worry about it as much, leveling is pretty much on rails now and the meta is (generally) about what class preforms better versus another. The other thing is that with a system where one character can switch between all the classes at once, it becomes a nightmare to manage "builds" for them all on top of that. Most talent systems center around once class and what that class can do, not all classes at once. Now I get many people have a "main" or three and will focus primarily on those, but I still would be a bit annoyed having to spreadsheet my classes to get my performance numbers in line.

As for a suggestion, which you were asking for, and I by NO MEANS expect them to do this ... It is just a dream:

The PvP action bar has less bloat. I'm serious! How FF14 handles its actions in PvP should be how the PvE side of things should work; of course with PvE differences (I am by no means saying the two should merge.) You have your combos guided by one button. Special abilities on quite of few classes have alternate toggles, or modes to them, etc. I would like to see them move towards this. After condensing combos to a button press (let me clarify, 1 button tapped 3 times, does the 3 hit combo) I would also reduce the amount of action buttons available to 10 but allow players the ability to swap skills in between encounters on the fly as you need them (games i have seen do this have nice little drop down widows to do so.) You still have a bit of "crunch" and "build" because people will then argue what skills you need to have on your bar in whatever encounter, but you also start moving away from the need to hit all of your buttons at once during an encounter.

Again, I don't ever expect them to do this, I just like streamlined interfaces is all. The games that have used these minimalist UI I have enjoyed a lot for their own reasons; TSW (the old one, not the new garbage) and GW2 being examples. In a game like this "builds" should (in my opinion, not fact) be more about what skills to prioritize in a given encounter, when you reduce how many buttons can be on the screen at any given time, people have to get more creative with their priorities and skill choices, thus "builds." FF14 lets you do all your stuff at once, which is again nice for the fact you don't have to THINK about building, you just have to focus on rotations. There are pros and cons to both.

[Eli85]

Snip.

I think we aren't remembering WoD the same. Even if I accept your premise, no matter how close different setups may be, whatever does the most output is still better than any other selection. Also your anecdotal example from Wrath, while nice, has no real bearing on anything. Sims take player skill out of the equation completely. You cannot "play better" in a "muddied spec" (as you put it) and mathematically play better. If you went in the optimal spec, your numbers would be even higher. So to be clear, whatever your experience may or may not have been, you cannot argue against sims / math.
Sims / math is always right.

Ultimately, however, we're not going to agree. Mostly because I--and many others who are against talent-like systems--stipulate this: there is only the choice between optimal and non-optimal, and objectively, there is no rational, arguable reason for non-optimal.

Snip.

All that does is makes it more difficult to a) recruit for PUGs and b) put groups together. I don't see why allowing a handful of people to be "special snowflakes because i want to be different"--when in fact they are deliberately lowering their output potential--benefits the game and its players in any meaningful way. We are far beyond the days of players having endless time. My time in-game is very limited. I really don't want to deal with having to find players, hope they're in the right spec. Rather just force everyone into optimal. Reduces heaches.