Tanking feels unimportant

[Shurrikhan]

Check Path of Exile

The game that devolves into 90% theorycrafting, 10% hitting two buttons?

That's hardly a point in the idea's favor. Nor an MMO, for that matter.

I suppose we could say PoE's sphere-grid-like system does a... kind of decent job(?) of exploring its world's undermechanics and finding crafty and/or practical solutions through that system, but in terms of gameplay it's just a weirdly convoluted system of limitation. Rather than having many abilities to play around with, the way builds work in that game funnels you into a very narrow skill focus and rather few near-optimal choices. Only a sliver of its complexity even affects gameplay; the rest is "menu-play".

Let's take another game with similarly few action choices, Overwatch. To be more fair, let's also take the least FPS-like DPS we can from that game, Doomfist. He has only 3 abilities and an ultimate. But because the design of each of those abilities lends each deliberately different uses, be it escape, setup positioning, punishing, displacing, or pure damage, the character has many ways he can be played -- the "Batman" assassin (solo-kill DPS), the vanguard (psuedo maintank), the enforcer (psuedo offtank), the besieger (initiator), etc., etc. -- even if one manner might be more effective than others in a given match-up. Now, that last bit is always going to happen -- there will always be a more effective solution -- which is why it's fun to learn or to gamble on which strategy will be the most effective. The difference is, Doomfist can be designed to have more flexibility in his kit, which is the opposite of the goal of min-maxing in anything like PoE, where all capacity should be focused on a very particular goal, usually pure damage simultaneous with some manner of soft CC to ease mass slaughter. Heavily system/menu-derived games like PoE don't allow the player to change how they play so much as solely what they play. If you want to change with the circumstances, you must leave combat, possible even go to town, possibly even spend a bunch of gold, and change how you're allowed to play through a menu.

Now, do I think customization can work? Yes, but they must be designed...

1. in a game with numerous and balanced undermechanics to allow for a diverse desirable effects and flexibility in how skills are used,
   
   
2. enough short-term gameplay goals (via things like Stagger or suppression by damage, etc), and enough long-term tension (via things like Enrage) to make both burst and sustained outputs feel powerful and necessary,
   
   
3. with a priority on the gameplay they provide, rather than merely being a sandbox on which to build a higher-throughput build than the next guy until he copies your build anyways, and therefore a relatively tight balance between choices to allow for many builds within close performance of each other in the context of a given fight, and changes in fights to bring new builds into the lead without obliging them, and
   
   
4. via a system in which players are not obliged to spend time in menu, even if that means denying them optimal choices at certain times (e.g. they must build their spec around the entire raid, rather than on a per-boss or per-hallway basis).

And that is a very tall order (though points 1 and 2 really should happen regardless), to the point that unless the system is highly lucrative in terms of character-building, world-building, and player-world interactions, I would sooner recommend just making flexible classes/jobs without customization.

[Kabooa]

Check Path of Exile

"how can I stack enough eHP to not be one shot while also stacking enough damage to one shot everything that isn't the current end game boss?"

[JumpnShootnMan]

Thats because in this game, there is no need to sacrifice DPS for the sake of tanking and no random situations in which that would happen. Even when tank stances were a thing, you would barely use them as they were a means of generating initial threat before going to DPS stance as practically everything in the game was tankable without those stances (further made redundant by Shade Shift and Provoke+Shirk).

With every fight being scripted, its mostly a case following a dance where the most random occurrences never warrant the necessity of sacrificing DPS for mitigation, or calling for a situation where your tank tools could save the day since you should be using them (unless your in a terrible party but you could only do so much even then.) This isn't like how in WoW where stuff is often tied to a fast GCD, and that fast GCD makes OGCDs still tough to use without quick thinking. In XIV, you press a button between a 2.3-2.5s GCD, you don't sacrifice anything other than possibly delay an OGCD damage ability which you could double weave anyway.

Most of my enjoyment from playing tank is 1) I can play something akin to a "fighter" role as I can deal the damage and also take it, which is a role I love to play in most games; and 2) Simply having the boss or enemies look at me gives a greater sense of heroism that you would expect from a standard hero adventure, something that constantly looking at the back of the boss doesn't give. (Love all of my DRG, MNK, NIN, and even SAM friends). 3) Doing the job no-one really wants to do. After the hype for ShB ended, most people dropped DRK and GNB after realizing the role they actually are and went to another job. Getting my instant queues again feels all the more satisfying again.

[Psytic]

Unless made incredibly well (as in, there are next to no functional examples available across all MMORPGs, even per a particular tier of a particular expansion for a particular class) where multiple builds are optimal. Even then, a talent tree on its own only gives you the choice of what you want to prune from yourself, and limits your options to, typically, the most exciting choices. You can have exciting choices 1 and 2 of the 8, or 3 and 6, or... so on. Isn't it better generally to just have more intelligent button usage designs in the first place, pick a theme and build, and make the most of it instead of spreading the class thin in attempting to support for the sake of choice?

To be clear, I am generally an advocate of things like talent trees... as tools of character progression, world-building, and character-world interactions. But, they are among the poorest solutions for combating bloat, which is the only way it'd be able to replace pruning anyways.

For me no. I don't like homogenization. Its why I like RPGs like Divinity 2 Original Sin, Fallout, Elder Scrolls etc. and Guild Wars 1 where you can theory craft up all sorts of different builds. Even non optimal builds can be fun. Guild Wars 1, Guild Wars 2 and ESO only let you have a handful of abilities at a time but there are lots of abilities to choose from and you could dual class even in GW1. I dont think its a poor solution at all to give your players choice many many games do it, its part of the RPG in MMORPG. This game doesn't even have to worry about pvp balance since its a separate skill set.

If people are bored why not have more choice? Asking for them to re-invent each class every patch to me seems like an even poorer solution to make everyone happy. The people that like the class the way it is or the way it was in a previous expansion are left in the dust as SE re-invent everything over and over to the extreme in some cases. Id rather add branching talent paths. If someone likes the class the class will still be there in some form but if they don't they can spec it differently. The way this game is now you come back for a new expac its like playing a new game for some classes it doesn't have to be that way imo. There is the other side of the coin that liked the way the classes were and want a small addition/ iterative design rather than a large sweeping change to their class. This way both sides can be happy.

[JumpnShootnMan]

Honestly stuff like that is great in MMOs, but then it leads to people only looking towards the most optimized builds and anyone that tries something different is looked down upon. I can't speak for those 3 MMOs, but a lot of people complain about the removal of talents in WoW but what was the point when Fire Mage was unplayable in Molten Core? Or you had to re-spec (costs gold after the 1st re-spec btw) as Warrior based on what you were doing. No one wants 2 handed Arms DPS Warrior in raids when fury dual-wielding is seen as the way to go. Maybe its great initially when people are learning and experimenting, but the choice becomes an illusion as time progresses. Would like to see more games with useful talents and fun ones being still playable but I lost a lot of hope when I could no longer go full money generating Katarina in LoL.

[Psytic]

Honestly stuff like that is great in MMOs, but then it leads to people only looking towards the most optimized builds and anyone that tries something different is looked down upon. I can't speak for those 3 MMOs, but a lot of people complain about the removal of talents in WoW but what was the point when Fire Mage was unplayable in Molten Core? Or you had to re-spec (costs gold after the 1st re-spec btw) as Warrior based on what you were doing. No one wants 2 handed Arms DPS Warrior in raids when fury dual-wielding is seen as the way to go. Maybe its great initially when people are learning and experimenting, but the choice becomes an illusion as time progresses. Would like to see more games with useful talents and fun ones being still playable but I lost a lot of hope when I could no longer go full money generating Katarina in LoL.

I prefer the games I mentioned above for examples but in terms of WoW if you look at it now even with the skill trees removed and pruned out each class gets two to 4 specs each with varying talent tiers. Some are good for mythic, some are good for raiding, some are good for dungeons etc. We shouldn't be looking at this as one build optimized for only for Savage content when there is other things to do in the game. When looking at other games or all content offered in WoW as a whole you take different talents for different content and sometimes different raid tiers or bosses. There is still some amount of choice even trying to run only the most optimal builds. I don't really want to use WoW as the standard though as that game is also known for its streamlining and pruning.

[kujoestars]

I'm still fairly new to the game, so I can't comment on how things used to be. But I can say as a WoW refugee that tanking in this game feels a lot easier than tanking in WoW because all tanks can hold aggro equally well provided appropriate gear and rotations are used. And I personally appreciate that because I feel less stressed on aggro and can focus more on mitigation and mechanics, etc. Maybe I'll eventually change my mind when I'm finally caught up on content and have played a while more, but for the time being I appreciate that all classes are more or less equal in this game as long as the player knows what they're doing.

Personally, I ALWAYS am grateful to good tanks and good healers because they make all the difference between whether you can just cruise right through a dungeon or be stuck on it for 2 hours straight. And I think most people are more or less the same way, at least at higher level/difficulty dungeons.

[BluexBird]

Came back after a year to see tank stances are gone. TBH I was upset about that at first, but then I remembered that tank stance was literally only there when you started the fight, and then you dropped it indefinitely. Maybe you turned it back on to help out the healers, but that was it.

But I wouldn't say tanks feel unimportant now. You're still the one leading the boss around and picking up extra targets. You still have to use cooldowns, and the partnership with the healers are still there. One thing I like is how Reprisal is always there now, no more cross-class skill bullshit.

Maybe they should give tanks a few more tools to add with party damage mitigation though? As it stands, the cooldowns are too long, so at times we feel like just another weaker DPS class.

[Shurrikhan]

For me no. I don't like homogenization.

Homogenization and talent trees are not mutually exclusive, nor are homogenization and a lack of talent trees mutually inclusive. Good strawman, though?

If only one option in a talent tree is competitive with the better options of the classes your slot in party would compete with in a given setting, then you have no further diversity within your class for having included talent trees; you've merely pruned the class badly, made given it less direction, and forced players to spend more time in menus and in perusing third-party sites.

That's the point. I love Divinity 2, even if I have to mod the hell out of it to be able to play anything but physical-heavy damage meta builds. And, again, it is technically possible to achieve the results you seem to be looking for (though those would obviously have to be done better than baseline Divinity 2, since an MMO can't exactly mod its way out of its problems). It just takes immense effort for relatively little benefit in itself. If you're not also collecting the other things a talent system or the like could provide, such as fully milking its potential for character-building, world-building, and player-world interactions, it's just not an efficient use of resources. You'd be better off considering endgame customization as something to be integral to whatever level of horizontal vs. vertical progression you want from endgame and a finely-tuned byproduct of a world- and character-building system, rather than customization for the sake of customization.

As for modifying the base class here and there to enlarge its "strike zone" by which a player might find it attractive, or avoid annoyances that'd otherwise cost the class the player's affections, I agree, but that's a far cry from talent trees or what we seen from Divinity 2, GW1, Elder Scrolls, or the like. WoW's glyphs, if one could modify as many skills as they want in slight but gameplay-affecting manners, and no combination of those modifications was unfairly* more powerful, would be a much closer example.

(*What level of power increase due to narrowness of capacity, narrowness of application, or narrowness of player skills levels able to make full use of the set of modifications in their relevant situations, would be considered "unfair" will depend on the surrounding paradigms of the game.)

Tl;dr:
Giving players the choice of how to restrict their gameplay (e.g. via talent trees) is efficient only when the system contextualizes that system as a means of growth, rather than restriction. If its purpose is always seen as an answer to content, it will always be seen as restrictive and cumbersome (sacrificing gameplay for menu-play and paying for gameplay options that should be free). Building customization for the sake of customization builds it solely with endgame and content in mind, rather than as may be future-proofed for endgame. Only when it is seen first and foremost as an RPG element, for world- and character-building, will it feel like a system of growth and diversity, rather than of restraint, esoterics, and band-wagoning. Good endgame customization is possible, but it also at best only a byproduct of successes elsewhere.

[MerlinCross]

Yeah a talent tree wouldn't fix the issues. We'd only get one of 3 things; 1) Spending amble time looking at menus and third party sites/programs(I spend half my PoE time on Path of Builder because otherwise I'll hit that wall and have to restart), 2) Following the meta paths because it what gets through raids and damage is king, or 3) Possibly hit the brick wall and have to refund the skill points(Which could be as easy as free outside of your time to a potion that says 5 bucks for a respec). We're going to end up with 2 most often. Because there's nothing to care about but damage.

Which you know that's kinda where I was going with the "Paladins should cast Clemancy" statement I made earlier. No, they shouldn't cast it, it's a DPS loss. But if it was somehow shown to earn just a small amount of extra raid damage, would the argument be there in the first place? Heck if Clemancy gave a damage buff, you'd see it on every guide in a week if it was mathed out to increase rDPS. Damage is currently the only thing we have control over. You're expected to dodge these, you're expected to Heal and or Tank CD here, here, and here. Any tricks for pushing more damage or skipping phases is up to the players though, and most of the time this is damage. So any action that is deemed "Less damage" is tossed aside and any process that earns "More damage" is going to be used and held higher up.

In such a community, adding talents without changing the battle system will do..., what? Oh sure, I can select the Tank focused talents that lets me do less damage, throw a Debuff that makes the enemy deal less(And stacks with Feint) and possibly lets me get my CDs a few seconds faster. But it's not dealing the damage of the meta talent picks and no one is going to go full tank talents past progression/learning. Better to just throw all talent picks into the Meta build so I don't shoot myself in the foot later on or get stonewalled by groups because I'm already swinging lower than other tanks.

A talent system will be solved in a month, two at most. And gets resolved possibly each Savage/EX cycle(Which if it has some sort of charge, could be insane to deal with). Choice becomes conformity, options become instant locks, and the system that was supposed to add more freedom is instead used to make sure everyone is playing the same way or get out.

And I speak as someone that has played Path of Exile. A game that sells itself as Freedom, Choice, and Options. And at one point, had more unpromoted Witch characters than they did Promoted Berzerkers cause that class was so laughed at by the mechanics of the game. You can have fun with Talent trees and choices but then you hit that wall of numbers set up by the game and or community. And then you have to reset or start over depending on the game. Without an overhaul to fit the new trait system in, I don't see adding it into FF14 as fixing anything; Tank problems or otherwise.