Ability Points, Skill Trees & Talents being considered to replace leveling. Thoughts?

[Jeeqbit]

Ability Points, Skill Trees or Talents being considered to replace leveling. Thoughts?

https://youtu.be/6PIxQPKBf0E?t=1012

I'm sure the developers will be interested to know what players think about these things before they do them.

[Myrany]

I say no thanks.

I have played several games who used skill points/talent trees. In the end you always end up with exactly ONE viable build that everyone has to use. No thanks.

[Kes13a]

I say no thanks.

I have played several games who used skill points/talent trees. In the end you always end up with exactly ONE viable build that everyone has to use. No thanks.

I would have to add my no as well.

we already have too much log shaming, with this there would be build shaming, and you wouldnt even have to go to a third party site to do it, since I imagine it would be visible in game.

[Eraden]

I say no thanks.

I have played several games who used skill points/talent trees. In the end you always end up with exactly ONE viable build that everyone has to use. No thanks.

Is TRUE! Mao has same experience in GW2 and WoW. In theory is should works buts in practice is never implementeds well enoughs to makes more than one build FOTMs.

[TaleraRistain]

I say no thanks.

I have played several games who used skill points/talent trees. In the end you always end up with exactly ONE viable build that everyone has to use. No thanks.

Pretty much this. We even saw it here with cross-class skills.

Some games can start out with some flexibility. I played a ranger back in EverQuest II and there were some choices to make along the way and there was some variability that didn't completely lock you out of certain content. But even that eventually degraded down into the one true build.

I think it will be very challenging for them to have true balance and not make this something that is only superficial or cosmetic.

[Aidorouge]

I say no thanks.

I have played several games who used skill points/talent trees. In the end you always end up with exactly ONE viable build that everyone has to use. No thanks.

This, it *always* comes down to this. The idea of "freedom of choice" just ends up "illusion of choice" with systems like this in MMO settings because you either end up with options that don't matter to make sure groups can function, or everyone gets forced into a meta or else.

[Reimmi]

I say no thanks.

I have played several games who used skill points/talent trees. In the end you always end up with exactly ONE viable build that everyone has to use. No thanks.

Yeah, that. despite all the "praise" dragonflight gets, every spec i played came down to the single target build, or aoe build. No choice at all.

[Burmecia]

In the end you always end up with exactly ONE viable build that everyone has to use.

This seems to be the thing always hiding behind innocuous looking idea of "skill trees" and "freedom and choice".

[Tunda]

We can't have a unique stat/attribute system.. you can't sell me the idea that we can have a skill tree system that is actually balanced.

[ReynTime]

Sounds better than what they have currently.

The focus on balance and homogenization is anti fun.

Depending on what they opt to, they're going to have to change the endgame gearing cycle, because as is you don't have much flexibility in job swapping in time to keep up.
"Some jobs not being very good for certain fights" has always been completely normal in any video game with multiple characters, builds, weapon styles and classes. It's only a problem in XIV now (leveling doesn't take anywhere near as long as it did back in pre StB days) because with a lot of effort you can get 2 archetypes geared up in 2nd to best in slot in a matter of months. Which discourages the idea of flexing whichever job is best for a given fight in the same expansion cycle.