Almost every complaint about the ShB job changes could be solved with talents

[GrenGarm]

The thing is though most jobs in this game get balanced around high-end content because that is where it really matters, casual content not so much regardless of whether that is the majority.

Absolutely right, and as it should be. Balance between jobs should be relatively even. Balance within a job can be less so. The goal here would be to provide fun options or actual choice instead of precisely balanced options. Balance between jobs should use the most effective build as the basis for comparison.

[Nyoraii]

Absolutely right, and as it should be. Balance between jobs should be relatively even. Balance within a job can be less so. The goal here would be to provide fun options or actual choice instead of precisely balanced options. Balance between jobs should use the most effective build as the basis for comparison.

Honestly though, I don't think it's feasible with this game in particular, the devs already can't manage to balance and make classes fun when they have zero leeway (just look at SMN), imagine that with a talent system?

I swear it seems like the balance team works with a shoestring budget while their marketing department spends 100x more than what goes into actually developing the game.

[Xieldras]

Honestly though, I don't think it's feasible with this game in particular, the devs already can't manage to balance and make classes fun when they have zero leeway (just look at SMN), imagine that with a talent system?

I swear it seems like the balance team works with a shoestring budget while their marketing department spends 100x more than what goes into actually developing the game.

Don't forget Square is not sending back nearly enough revenue into its cashcow and spends it instead on wonderfully graphical-expensive games like XV, FF7 and KH3.
Wouldn't surprise me that the Devs are burned out or that the game is heavily mismanaged (seems to be a plague in the industry at large).

[TankHunter678]

A strawman argument. You give an example that assumes the devs would be stupid enough to design the talents that way and then reject the entire system as a result.

For NIN, all they have to do is design talents that make Trick Attack a net DPS gain over the other choices with a group of a certain size. This is basic math. I'm pretty sure the devs can manage to figure that out.

In other words there would be no point to not run Trick Attack as it is only very rarely that you are going after open world mobs. Since trick attack would be balanced for dungeon content and above which is the vast majority of content you run in the game. Making the talent option worthless and a noob trap.

[Archwizard]

SMN
Complaint: Egis feel useless now
Solution: Allow players to spec out of egis if they want to

*Looks at job name, "Summoner"*

*Looks at suggestion*

*Looks back at job name, "Summoner", not "Warlock"*

*Looks at the two other casters we have as petless alternatives*

*Looks back at OP*

... no.

[TheForce]

For a long time, one of the biggest turnoffs for me about this game has been the lack of job customization. I loved having the cross-class skills in the base game, even though every job pretty much had a standard setup for endgame, because it let me play the job the way I wanted to play to a small degree.

Now those are gone, but I think jobs would benefit greatly from some kind of customization. Let's walk through some examples:

NIN
Complaint: Job is too gimped on damage because of Trick Attack utility
Solution: Give us a choice between TA for group content or a new ability that increases our personal DPS when soloing

BRD
Complaint: Identity of the job was lost when the songs lost their group utility
Solution: Give us a choice between songs that provide utility and songs that provide personal damage

MCH
Complaint: High ping means the job is unplayable in certain regions
Solution: Make Overheat a talent and let players choose a different ability with less ping dependence

SCH
Complaint: SCH's identity as a more damage-focused healer has been lost
Solution: Allow players to spec into more damage-based abilities if they want to

SMN
Complaint: Egis feel useless now
Solution: Allow players to spec out of egis if they want to or allow them to spec into new spells that take more advantage of the egis if they like the egis

MNK
Complaint: Abilities like Tornado Kick, the new Six-Sided Star, and Riddle of Fire are unpopular with some players because they are situational or slow down the rotation
Solution: Make these abilities talents and let players opt in if they like them or choose a different style if they don't

They are many other examples.

Sure, high-end raiders will probably need to spec into the optimal talents, but for the rest of us, some job customization could solve just about every complaint that players have about jobs right now. The main problem with jobs (and I think most of them play just fine, but there's always room for improvement right?) is that we can't tweak them in any way to suit personal preference. This feels so weird to me in an MMO that we can't. It's been a staple of role-playing games, let alone MMOs, since their inception.

We shouldn't have to switch a job entirely because of ping depedence or some other controversial aspect. We should be able to tailor the job we love to suit our personal preference. I know this would take a lot of work for Square Enix to pull this off. My suggestion is to only make a new healer job for the next expansion and use the rest of the dev time to implement a basic talent system.

You're probably gonna catch some flak for this OP, but personally, I 100%, wholeheartedly agree with you.

[ZyrinMisharuji]

Well I was going to read through all of the comments to see what the discussion was like, but my opinion just on the initial post is that a system like that would breed so much toxicity. Every game has toxicity, yes, but if you implement a system which a BRD can choose utility to boost the entire group, or purely selfish DPS the majority of people are going to criticize the heck out of that BRD for not choosing its utility options. Those selfish BRDs will be kicked from most PFs for Savage raids or even some normal raids just because people view the "non Support BRD tree" as non optimal.

To go back a bit, skill trees will always have optimal routes, suboptimal paths, etc. That would be all well and good, if people couldn't see/tell what path you took. So using the BRD example, that's an extreme difference that people will take notice of and be quick to ridicule. Let's say that instead they have a "crit utility" path and a "Direct hit utility" path. This is less noticable and the difference just depends on your comp (which at this point would just be MNK vs no MNK). But even if they made 100% perfectly balanced trees, there would still be too much, at least in my opinion.

Shadowbringers has made a lot of jobs more straight-forward and less complicated (supposedly, SE wanted to make the game more appealing and easy to pick up for new players) so by adding skill trees it complicates this instead of having a linear progression. Now players would have to look at the various skills/traits on the tree and decide what sounds good, is optimal, sounds fun, etc. Versus just picking a job and playing. They would also have to devote more resources to making new tree skills/traits and balancing all the various trees instead of just balancing potencies on attacks, buff % increases, etc. One is far less stressful on the dev team and allows them to devote more time to the story (which is the main focus of the game) as well as other content, making raids challenging but not impossible (looking at you A3 and 4S).

Sometimes offering more is worse. It's like trying to help someone when you yourself are limping. I'm not saying it's impossible, but would it even be worth it? To use the jobs you listed in your post:

NIN: Honestly, give it Dripping Blades back. I feel like that alone would solve most of peoples' issues since most of what I hear is that they want to do more damage, they feel like a wet noodle now, etc, etc.

BRD: Just give songs a passive again. They want less job synergy, but they made DNC, so BRD should keep its utility since.... It's a Bard.... They're supposed to inspire allies and shit.... If not, reclass it as a ranger or something, idk.

MCH: Can't really fix ping, but they could do something with its interaction with SkS or something. I'm not actually sure how they could fix a ping issue, but I'm also not a game dev so most of what I'm saying probably has no merit.

SCH: Honestly, just give them a DPS Aetherflow spender and Bane, maybe 1 more DoT or something. I feel like a lot of the issue I've seen/heard is that lack of Aetherflow dump leads to overheal which isn't fun. You want to be actively using your resources, not sitting on them forever, so, give an Aetherflow dump and most of the complaints would be solved.

SMN: Give some more oomf to egis again. Ifrit: Increase EA potencies. Titan: Give Titan a taunt or something so it can actually tank or maybe give it CC so it can pseudo-tank in solo content (enemies can't hit you if they can't move.... unless they're ranged, then just focus them). Garuda I actually think is fine right now. She does good AoE damage.

MNK: Literally make TK function like Foul/Xenoglossy and make 6SS an oGCD that cycles the GCD when used... gg. Those changes alone would go a LONG way for MNKs.

So why add an entirely new system that players have to learn, devs have to spend time on and lessen resources to other aspects of the game... When you can just change a few skills?

[MagiusNecros]

How did I know OP was going to suggest a barebones Talent system that just serves to give you the illusion of choice and you'll just choose the best one in each tier anyway.

If you want a actual fun system give a actual crosclass system where you have AP to spend on job skills you can take from other job classes.

Like you do in FF 3/5/9/10-2/BDFF/Octopath.

Or spend Gil on learning new abilities like you had to spend gold in WoW classic for your kit.

Or take lessons from Blue Mage and learn stuff by doing content in PvE or in instances.

Would make too much sense.

[GrenGarm]

In other words there would be no point to not run Trick Attack as it is only very rarely that you are going after open world mobs. Since trick attack would be balanced for dungeon content and above which is the vast majority of content you run in the game. Making the talent option worthless and a noob trap.

Worthless to you does not mean worthless to all.

One man's "noob trap" is another man's fun alternative.

A 5% DPS loss is not going to make or break an encounter for the vast majority of situations in this game.

[battleshadow66]

Or or, lets not have a god awful talent system that would end up with clear cookie cutter choices and ultimately be a waste of Dev resources. There are obvious issues with some classes, but a talent system is not a good solution...