Quote Originally Posted by Ava View Post
MMORPGs are team games. If you want to be a unique snowflake then stick to other games or shift that mindset over to other things like visual uniqueness. When you're a part of a team, everyone needs to conform to an extent otherwise the team will fail. If you show up to football practice without your gear because you feel your wits will make up for your lack of protection, do you think you'll do well? No, you won't. If you show up to an office job wearing jean shorts and a short sleeve tshirt because you believe your excellent work quality will make up for your lack of appearance, do you think they'll keep you around? Absolutely not.

You can be unique in MMORPGs, but that uniqueness is either while soloing or it's because you're the linkshell leader's best friend and they don't want to hurt your feelings. In order to accomplish things, your leader needs to know what everyone is capable of, and ask people to adjust to fill the gaps. If Mr. Unique wants to be a melee oriented Conjurer but there's simply no room for that in a team environment, then what happens? You either waste a spot or feel crappy because you got kicked. This is not unique to just certain MMOs, it is practically a rule of all MMOs, and team games in general.

There will always be cookie cutter builds and you will always be asked to be them. They are cookie cutter because the people before you put their blood and sweat into figuring out the absolute best spec.
Well I bet if you switch padding in the middle of plays and shirts five times during a work day they aren't going to keep you around very long. And wearing a nice suit and tie won't stop you from being fired for horrid work either.

Your right, MMOs are team games. But that doesn't mean that the way you play a role can't be unique. Honestly I am not fully against cookie cutter builds, but making them easy to find by letting you change your armor in battle is just boring. Armors have pros and cons, thus making them and their use balanced. But if you make it so that people can change armor at any time then they lose that choice and therefor, lose uniqueness.

If your party is going against a boss that changes elements from fire to ice, wouldn't there be much more teamwork in this "team game" if you had to rely on people to cover your weaknesses as opposed to changing hats. Because then one person couldn't tank, it would take two tanks to be effective. But if you could change armor mid battle, your team doesn't as much coordination and therefor less teamwork because you could cover both ends by switching helmets (just an example, maybe not the best considering the game but it gets the point across). Sometimes not being cookie cutter isn't about being strictly unique, but just better at X situation that someone else.

And if they kept the situations different enough and gear varied enough, then it is possible that there would not be a true "best build" because at the end of the day, someone will be better at X event or X boss than you and Vise Versa. This adds to the community as well. If everyone is the same, no one has any real value, its easy to replace someone who is just like everyone else. But being different means that you can have an edge over the other players in some way shape or form. Uniqueness gives value.