[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Kazgrel]

Please do, I'm actually kinda eager to see what kind of atrocious clipping we are talking about here that make people call it "one of the worst they've seen".
(The awesome fact that you are allowed/able to see earrings that are identical to their inventory-icons aside).

Just taking a look inside the "post your character"-thread pretty much shows how much better it is compared to similar games though.

I don't have any screenshots on hand to upload, but the Allagan and High Allagan tank gear is a good example of decent looking armor that also happens to clip like crazy with any hairstyle that's medium or long length. Sucks because those are some of the better looking (albeit commonplace) heavy armor glamours. It's the neck guards and collars on so many armor pieces that clip with medium/long hairstyles to the point I won't use those hairstyles. Course, I could apply logic the other way; refuse to use certain armor glamours due to clipping instead.

My current avatar features the Allagan heavy armor, and notice I'm using a short hairstyle; while I do like this hairstyle, a big reason I'm using it is because it doesn't clip with the armor.

[Malackai]

1) As players we should have 0 concern over how hard it is for them to balance. We are not on their payroll. I don't ask for a different sandwich because maybe mine takes more effort to make, that's just stupid. That is essentially what you're saying.

2) You're comparing something that you experienced a decade ago is if improvements/refinement hasn't been made in strides since then.

And yet its still happening even today. It might have become slightly less in the last 5-6 years but its still a laundry list of changes vs bare to non if you look at FF in general. It might not be our concern on how they balance or how hard it is to balance . But in the end its my money that I am giving them and if their balancing impedes my enjoyment of the game I tend to stop playing and I am sure I am not the only one.
Main Reason why I am still here playing FF14 and barely touched Legion. I prefer having stability.

It doesn't take much to know that most of the balancing issues is caused in general of all the different specs within 1 class + the variables in the multi Ability rows.
or the older talent trees.

FYI I still keep an eye out on my favorite class even if I am not playing Legion/WOW atm.
And I have seen a multitude hunter discussions in the last months which regards to spec/talent balancing.
Sidewinder/MM discussion is just one example.

People will complain or you will complain? I think you're over-generalizing quite considerably here. I personally like the idea of an additional system of character choice/growth regardless of the tuning consequences. I'd like to believe that others would agree with me.

Personally I am disagreeing with this. I rather prefer having a game that is all around as balanced as it can be with lesser choice than a game where to many choice end up breaking more then they are worth.

In WoW -> I can use whatever talents I want. Some are pidgeon-holed or once you acquire a certain item/trinket/relic trait become optimal etc, but there are STILL a plethora of valid choices in each talent tree. You also dramatically over-generalizing how much average players follow top players. I don't see a lot of evidence that supports this (I'd even posit an enormous majority of average players couldn't even tell you who a top player is). I'd argue that semi-talented players may attempt to emulate top players, but they also typically have the common sense to know why something works and why it doesn't, hence why they're fairly talented and would know what works and what doesn't from experience.

I seriously raided till the end of SoO. Just to get things clear.
Maybe I lucked out because I rolled a Hunter. Our class had one of the most rockiest balancing In pretty much most wow history.

But you have to understand if you are in a raid team there's no I in team.
So when you come in rolling with a sub optimal spec or even a broken spec dont be surprised to be benched eventually or at least being approached with "advise"
I am not over dramatizing one bit its something I have noticed multiple times during my WoW career not only personally but also to people around me in the guilds I have been in.

Existing Cross class skills are one of the worst designed elements in the game IMO. That said I wouldn't be opposed to building a talent-ish system off of this. Picking a unique skill/trait talent off of another job, but the bigger issue is I just don't think the game's combat paradigm is designed to support cross classes in any meaningful way so this feels moot.

I always thought the materia system would be the best fit for "talent trees" in this game. Instead they gave us the most bland materia system I could have ever imagined lol.

I think that unfortunately belongs to the Allocating Stat points you that is the worst part In ff14 they are completely pointless. And that is also something Yoshi has commented on.
Materia is basically socket gems/enchantment system. And most of it is not even mandatory for you to play properly unless your in a high end static. Think its the same with Wow its just minor stat boost pretty much.

Again, because someone picked on you 10 years ago as a Surv Hunter in BC you've been scarred ever since. No one is going to tell you how to play anymore than they already do. As someone who's played top end, you don't get told what to do, you're expected to know what to do and you do it ahead of time. If there's an issue you identify the issue, and fix it. If that would involve using a different talent, then so be it. Nothing to do with someone telling you what to do. Or you know you could defend yourself with logic and examples to the person telling you how to play.

I once had a person tell me that I should give them blessing of wisdom. I told them no, because over the course of a boss fight you'd regain enough mana to cast 1 spell. Might is approx. 2-3% of my damage per person which speeds the fight up so that extra heal is not needed. He shut up.

There is no need to keep hammering on this specific example. I was far from scared I assure you, I spec how the duck I wanted to spec and I did so in the 9-10 years I played. However lets be honest in reality in the end I was still getting benched sometimes In raid teams or seeing other peeps getting benched or even being "forced to switch spec" because we where lacking certain peeps for the day and we where missing certain buffs or debuffs for that day/period.
It was just an example of a personally situation in a game with separate talent trees back in Bc and how people respond to this free choice as you call it.

You said it your self if your are expected to to know what to do then in most cases this wind back to to going with the most optimal spec unless you want to drag the rest of the group down. In that case why bother with these "choices"?

Not true. You're over-generalizing again.

There are going to be outliers where a choice isn't really there (i.e. Current WoW Ret Crusade is mandatory once you get applicable traits). That's fine.

What's not fine is when every single row has no choice, which is not the case at all.

If you want to talk about cookie cutter shit, look at the cross class stuff now. Every single person who plays the game runs the EXACT same cross class skills. No choice, and people are chided, denied groups based on not having certain "mandatory" ones (swiftcast b4b, etc.).

And that's why Yoshi is looking to change it no?

However you are comparing 2 different things: your comparing a bone stripped spec in WoW with some rows of talents that give, well not really give choice knowing fully well that some things become mandatory when you get to a certain point. (your even agreeing with that...)
If its bloody mandatory to have then dont put it as a useless filling "choice" an talent tree! build it in to the class as a core then.

To a game where a class in whole is fleshed out from the start with already a majority of those mandatory talents that would have made up the talent tree build in to the class it self!

The current cross class skill is very limited and yes there are some mandatory things in it (Provoke,Swiftcast,B4B, E4E in lesser degree). Isn't that why Yoshi is looking to change that for Stormblood?
I think Yoshi even mentioned somewhere that the initial cross-class skill was basically there to entice people to also try out other jobs. Hence why the initial jobs came with class restrictions and that being a left over from 1.0 I believe.

Isn't it that why I stated in my original post that I rather have Yoshi working on that cross class system to give it a little more room for customization instead of messing with classes separately and giving them separate talent trees?

But is seems you instantly went Bestial Wrath on me and completely missed my initial point.

So I am saying it again.

I rather have Yoshi work on the cross class system and leave the classes as a whole alone (this means having solid balanced class and properly distinguished play style and the customization and the tweaking confined in a general role defined cross class "talent" tree).
Instead of striping our current classes to bare bone and use those stripped talents and/or new talents to build a "talent tree" for the sake of building a talent tree or even multiple trees (aka a specs) and adding in additional parameters on class based trees that make it hell to properly balance only to give an illusion of choice

If you want a more direct example:

I rather have:
13 solid fleshed out classes with a general 3-4 defined cross class "trees" based on role (tank,heal,Phys and Mag damage) and those trees with some choices in it that might tailor to the content your doing.

Then having
having 13 classes with all of them having 3 different cross-class trees and having to tweak those individual trees properly, adding parameters that might break a class or having those abilities there with the sole purpose of making your class properly fleshed out or make it even playable.

3-4 trees to balance vs 39 trees to balance.

Yes it might be "less" trilling or exciting dealing with your specific role "tree". But I rather have that then dealing with "spec" roller coaster that is going on in WoW.

I personally like the fact that as a WHM my cross class skill dont really matter much, impede my playing style or radically change it. When I get teamed up with a AST or SCH or an other WHM I know that the tool kit SE gave my class is working for all comps.

Personally I am looking forward to what Yoshi is going to change in the cross-skill section. And if skills are deemed mandatory that they will hopefully be added to the basic Job kit (Which has already been acknowledged as a problem by Yoshi and Co during fan fest.).

@Katchii
Wow has come a long way indeed and they are going in the right direction by baking in some stat parameters in the classes them self. But Personally for my taste there is still way to many x damage parameters in the ability trees. And especially because the trees are now separate and different per spec within a class. It does still gravitate people to stick with just certain optimum skills within a spec.

[Katchii]

Wow has come a long way indeed and they are going in the right direction by baking in some stat parameters in the classes them self. But Personally for my taste there is still way to many x damage parameters in the ability trees. And especially because the trees are now separate and different per spec within a class. It does still gravitate people to stick with just certain optimum skills within a spec.

I personally enjoy having a talent choice that affects the damage of a specific ability or changes how that ability functions because it changes the play style of that spec a little bit, making it possible for people to have slightly different ways to play the same spec. By changing the damage of one ability, or the criteria for how that ability can be activated (if done right, and I'm not saying WoW always does it right) it can affect the rotation priority and therefore the flow of the rotation making it different enough to be interesting.

Based just on this discussion, I find it reasonable to assume that one of the reasons WoW's patch cycle has never been able to match up with what FFXIV is doing now is that such a huge portion of time is dedicated to simply balancing issues and fixing how all of these talent choices interact with each other and basic class performance. Obviously that's not all of it because the numbers and tuning guys are separate from the art and design guys, but when all you hear/see all day everyday on MMO-C WoW forums and the blue feed is cries regarding class performance and class balance there's obviously a shit ton of time being devoted to that problem.

in FFXIV, while you do hear questions and some concerns about class balance or performance, from what I've seen it's always aimed more at how to make this class which we know operates like "this," what is the best stat to optimize or which class is the best at this encounter, or what's the best way for X class to perform in a specific encounter. Almost nothing is ever about just basic class balance. Because of the single character = all classes system I think people feel more flexible than in WoW so having to switch to your B class isn't such a chore.

I hope they fix the cross class skills because in almost all cases, it's just a cooldown, it's not game changing, and doesn't really affect how you play the class. It's just whether or not you have this cool down which provides a flat damage increase to what you already do. The only 2 I can think of that have basic class functionality implications (and therefore do affect game play somewhat) are Flash and Provoke. Provoke more-so than Flash because GLD/PLD doesn't have a native provoke type ability, and MRD/WAR have Overpower, but at lower levels and even in some dungeons at max level having that extra easy to use, no aiming needed, AoE threat move is huge.

[Kazgrel]

I personally enjoy having a talent choice that affects the damage of a specific ability or changes how that ability functions because it changes the play style of that spec a little bit, making it possible for people to have slightly different ways to play the same spec. By changing the damage of one ability, or the criteria for how that ability can be activated (if done right, and I'm not saying WoW always does it right) it can affect the rotation priority and therefore the flow of the rotation making it different enough to be interesting.

Based just on this discussion, I find it reasonable to assume that one of the reasons WoW's patch cycle has never been able to match up with what FFXIV is doing now is that such a huge portion of time is dedicated to simply balancing issues and fixing how all of these talent choices interact with each other and basic class performance. Obviously that's not all of it because the numbers and tuning guys are separate from the art and design guys, but when all you hear/see all day everyday on MMO-C WoW forums and the blue feed is cries regarding class performance and class balance there's obviously a shit ton of time being devoted to that problem.

in FFXIV, while you do hear questions and some concerns about class balance or performance, from what I've seen it's always aimed more at how to make this class which we know operates like "this," what is the best stat to optimize or which class is the best at this encounter, or what's the best way for X class to perform in a specific encounter. Almost nothing is ever about just basic class balance. Because of the single character = all classes system I think people feel more flexible than in WoW so having to switch to your B class isn't such a chore.

I hope they fix the cross class skills because in almost all cases, it's just a cooldown, it's not game changing, and doesn't really affect how you play the class. It's just whether or not you have this cool down which provides a flat damage increase to what you already do. The only 2 I can think of that have basic class functionality implications (and therefore do affect game play somewhat) are Flash and Provoke. Provoke more-so than Flash because GLD/PLD doesn't have a native provoke type ability, and MRD/WAR have Overpower, but at lower levels and even in some dungeons at max level having that extra easy to use, no aiming needed, AoE threat move is huge.

Swiftcast. That one pretty much follows Provoke in terms of importance, then raging strikes/b4b, internal release, and meh after that. Protect, I suppose that would be nestled in alongside those dps cds.

Flash is pretty handy at times on WAR. Completely useless on DRK, though (unleash accomplishes same result and also deals damage).

Overall, while a novel concept, the whole cross class skill thing falls flat on it's face because there's not really a lot of variety in what you choose. Especially since several of these cross class skills require a pretty decent time investment in classes one may not care to play (LNC/DRG up to 34 for b4b is a good example...below level 26, LNC/DRG is one of the most boring things I've ever played in a MMO).

[Deleted]

While I can't say for certain I imagine playing a male is MUCH better on the clipping front as a large majority of the clipping results from long hair, which I don't imagine many males to have. The weapon stuff is minor, which I'm pretty sure I said. The hair is the MAJOR culprit.

Well, I didn't state that you were making the weapon issue bigger than it is, I just said that I can behind that because I too notice weapon clipping (though anyone who plays RPGs knows how common that is)

And when people complain about earrings clipping through hair, I really don't understand how that is supposed to look, I can't even imagine it... How was that Light-girl called again (the main-victim that always gets into trouble)? That hair hides one earring perfectly and is open on the other side, which presents your 'bling' in perfect view.
And if the earring is big enough to clip through your hair... I don't know, but ... isn't that rather realistic? Or rather, what's so bad about it if you pick the earring of your choice.

No it's definitely true. Try equipping the armor of light on a PLD with any hair longer than your ears. This isn't the only piece in fact almost all armor runs into this issue.
Most people aren't going to be happy with showing off their characters sick clipping lol. Most people will make compromises in armor choice or hair choice to get the look they like. Most people will also not show angles that deliberately show clipping when posting a shot of their character either lol.

At the same time, when you say that "most armors" have this problem and we barely see any of these problems in a thread with thousands of pictures in it that all look somewhat different, it's safe to assume that "most armors" is not true but "some armors".

The picture Anzaman posted for example (with the really huge collar) is a rare exception, because "most armors" don't have a collar like that and the hair is resting on the armor (especially if you use the side-braid similar to how Lightning has it - or in fact that hairstyle itself).
Before I switched from female Highlander to male Highlander, I didn't come across any problems. I played a BLM + Bard though, so no heavy armor, I was using long-open hair most of the time and a pony-tail early on (which has no issues)
When I started playing DRG after "Law" release in HW, I switched to a male DRG. Not related to clipping though but a general choice of style.

Even though it's unrelated, go pony-tail! fits heavy armor classes better anyway and will never have any clipping issues.

And on a side note, the only way to avoid clipping is making long open hair, not long and open.
See Tera for example (hairstyle changes depending on what you wear). So saying that (not literally quoting) "FFXIV is one of the worst in that regard" means it either has the most options and risky armor design (that are probably not meant to be used with open hair) or other games use a system like Tera... which in most cases means they cut your hair completely.
Tera is literally the only game I know that has an alternative hairstyle for armors that would otherwise see clipping issue. (but also used only like ~10 armor designs at most for each class on release)

Which means, there is literally no way to make it look better unless you add physix to it.

[Katchii]

Swiftcast. That one pretty much follows Provoke in terms of importance, then raging strikes/b4b, internal release, and meh after that. Protect, I suppose that would be nestled in alongside those dps cds.

Flash is pretty handy at times on WAR. Completely useless on DRK, though (unleash accomplishes same result and also deals damage).

Overall, while a novel concept, the whole cross class skill thing falls flat on it's face because there's not really a lot of variety in what you choose. Especially since several of these cross class skills require a pretty decent time investment in classes one may not care to play (LNC/DRG up to 34 for b4b is a good example...below level 26, LNC/DRG is one of the most boring things I've ever played in a MMO).

Forgot about Swiftcast, yeah that's pretty mandatory, and Protect...forgot those were cross class since they feel practically mandatory for the classes that CAN slot them. The rest, while pretty mandatory, are just a cool down are are just a straight DPS increase...nothing compelling.

Yeah LNC/DRG is absolutely mind numbingly boring IMO until at least level 40+ where you start filling out the second combo which starts to make the "rotation" feel fully fleshed out and not just spammy.

I don't necessarily agree that it fell flat on it's face, but it does feel very lackluster, compared to some of the other options other games have used.

[Granyala]

Please do, I'm actually kinda eager to see what kind of atrocious clipping we are talking about here that make people call it "one of the worst they've seen".

Well I didn't dramatize it quite like that but here you go:

Earring clipping


Hands clipping


Feet clipping

Game is full of these bugs, if you are sensitive like me you will notice it.

[Deleted]

Personally I am disagreeing with this. I rather prefer having a game that is all around as balanced as it can be with lesser choice than a game where to many choice end up breaking more then they are worth.



I seriously raided till the end of SoO. Just to get things clear.
Maybe I lucked out because I rolled a Hunter. Our class had one of the most rockiest balancing In pretty much most wow history.

But you have to understand if you are in a raid team there's no I in team.
So when you come in rolling with a sub optimal spec or even a broken spec dont be surprised to be benched eventually or at least being approached with "advise"
I am not over dramatizing one bit its something I have noticed multiple times during my WoW career not only personally but also to people around me in the guilds I have been in.



I think that unfortunately belongs to the Allocating Stat points you that is the worst part In ff14 they are completely pointless. And that is also something Yoshi has commented on.
Materia is basically socket gems/enchantment system. And most of it is not even mandatory for you to play properly unless your in a high end static. Think its the same with Wow its just minor stat boost pretty much.

It's easier to balance classes if you give them talent choices though... because you can add downsides to them that will prevent them from being super bad at X and super good at Y while at the same time, they'll play differently.

Like BLMs rune of power with 2 charges but less potency
Greased Lighnting with a longer duration or a talent that will instantly get it to 3 stacks for fights that have a lot of teleports/downtime
etc. etc.
Balance classes around patchwerk fights and use the talents to fine tune their weaknesses (burst/spread cleave/multi target/ease of use).

When people say "there is always a "best choice" or "if your spec isn't balanced perfectly, you are either forced to play the cookie-cutter stuff or be benched" they are not realising that, technically, this applies to whole classes in FFXIV right now.

Pala but your raids need damage, not additional survivability? Tough luck friend. (same with Offtank)
Your class has a high ramp up time but you need immediate add burst? Naw, reroll something please.

etc. etc.

-snip-.

Well, I was referring to someone else with the statment inside the quotation marks-
But holy shit, you sure are sensitive though
I'm going to be 100% honest here, where exactly do you see the earring clipping in your first picture... can you... draw a circle around it? Because I really can't see anything there.

As for the rest, it's not worse than in other games. (in fact it's much better, it's really minimal and you can easily see how much care got into it when they designed and adjusted the armor for the different races) .. so ya, might be annoying, but can someone provide me a game where this doesn't happen? Doesn't even have to feature multiple races.. doesn't even have to be an MMO, can be a 2016 title too.

[Sorrior]

It's easier to balance classes if you give them talent choices though... because you can add downsides to them that will prevent them from being super bad at X and super good at Y while at the same time, they'll play differently.

Like BLMs rune of power with 2 charges but less potency
Greased Lighnting with a longer duration or a talent that will instantly get it to 3 stacks for fights that have a lot of teleports/downtime
etc. etc.
Balance classes around patchwerk fights and use the talents to fine tune their weaknesses (burst/spread cleave/multi target/ease of use).

When people say "there is always a "best choice" or "if your spec isn't balanced perfectly, you are either forced to play the cookie-cutter stuff or be benched" they are not realising that, technically, this applies to whole classes in FFXIV right now.

Pala but your raids need damage, not additional survivability? Tough luck friend. (same with Offtank)
Your class has a high ramp up time but you need immediate add burst? Naw, reroll something please.

etc. etc.



Well, I was referring to someone else with the statment inside the quotation marks-
But holy shit, you sure are sensitive though
I'm going to be 100% honest here, where exactly do you see the earring clipping in your first picture... can you... draw a circle around it? Because I really can't see anything there.

As for the rest, it's not worse than in other games. (in fact it's much better, it's really minimal and you can easily see how much care got into it when they designed and adjusted the armor for the different races) .. so ya, might be annoying, but can someone provide me a game where this doesn't happen? Doesn't even have to feature multiple races.. doesn't even have to be an MMO, can be a 2016 title too.

In ff unlike wow however you can easily use alt classes as opposed to completely changing characters

[Granyala]

I'm going to be 100% honest here, where exactly do you see the earring clipping in your first picture... can you... draw a circle around it? Because I really can't see anything there.

Granted, it's tough to spot in a screenshot (much more obvious when everything is in motion).

This should make it more obvious:

clipped earring


non clipped earring.

Though the haircut Anzaman posted above is an infinitely worse offender. That level of clipping should simply NOT happen.

[Anzaman]

Though the haircut Anzaman posted above is an infinitely worse offender. That level of clipping should simply NOT happen.

Mmyeah - tho might be a bit "hard" to fix those issues. They'd need to add multiple versions of the same hairstyle and add checks to equipment to see which one to use to avoid most of the clipping.

Here's two long hairstyles which I fast grabbed from character creation; first one tends to have more clipping issues, while second one avoids most of them - unless there's hood. But meanwhile when you are playing with equipment that doesn't have stuff behind your head, first hairstyle looks a lot better as it doesn't have that odd space between hair and back.

[Deleted]

In ff unlike wow however you can easily use alt classes as opposed to completely changing characters

The true benefit lies in being able to farm some gear for other classes with your best class equipped, changing characters is rather irrelevant for Savage/Mythic raiders (if they are really so try hard that they'd bench someone for playing the wrong spec/class), that's just something they do in order to progress. Though at the same time, weekly lockouts are universal. Having two characters allows you to upgrade both at once.

[Anzaman]

Having two characters allows you to upgrade both at once.

Yeah, I'm always puzzled when new tier arrives and I'd need to choose between 2-3 equipment sets.

If I'd gear up my tank first, my DPS/healer gear wouldn't be as good,.. and so on.

[Deleted]

Dem decisions - "am I going to tank first?... I kinda want my DRG set asap though, it looks so cool"

By the way... I wonder if they'll introduce high-end sets in Stormblood. Not sure if you guys like sets, I do, and it would be cool to have some smaller ones. Even if they work similar to the Grand Company sets.

[Anzaman]

Hehe yeah - since my raid-team is down for at least next 3-4 weeks, I'm kinda thinking of grabbing and securing the BLM equipment from A9-12, even tho my BLM is still only level 49. Who knows, maybe I might even start playing it as main-job at some point.

[Wrecktangle]

And yet its still happening even today. It might have become slightly less in the last 5-6 years but its still a laundry list of changes vs bare to non if you look at FF in general. It might not be our concern on how they balance or how hard it is to balance . But in the end its my money that I am giving them and if their balancing impedes my enjoyment of the game I tend to stop playing and I am sure I am not the only one.
Main Reason why I am still here playing FF14 and barely touched Legion. I prefer having stability.

How do any of these balancing "issues" in any game effect you or impede your enjoyment? That's the part I guess I don't understand. Like you're personally inconvenienced to the point where you quit a game over a few knobs turning?

Like if they buffed PLD I don't throw a party at my house about it. If they nerfed DRG 10%, I don't go cry in a corner and call out of work. I just am having a really hard time seeing your POV which is abnormal to me. I very often can see where someone is coming from regardless of whether or not I agree with them.

It doesn't take much to know that most of the balancing issues is caused in general of all the different specs within 1 class + the variables in the multi Ability rows.
or the older talent trees.

Agreed. That is irrefutable. I do however hesitate to use the word "issues" and more so prefer to use "changes". The word issues heavily implies negativity and shows a little bias towards your personal feelings.

Personally I am disagreeing with this. I rather prefer having a game that is all around as balanced as it can be with lesser choice than a game where to many choice end up breaking more then they are worth.

I'm not sure why your conversation heavily leans so negatively. You make the assumption that more choices means less balance. That's not necessarily true. It is very possible to have an imbalanced game with little choice, and a balanced game with tons of choice. You also assume that having choices means that things get broken more so than they add value, another negatively slanted position and not a guarantee at all.

I seriously raided till the end of SoO. Just to get things clear.
Maybe I lucked out because I rolled a Hunter. Our class had one of the most rockiest balancing In pretty much most wow history.

Your class is also consistently one of the strongest classes in the game across its lifespan. So again, your conversation takes a very negative slant without acknowledging the positives of your class, frankly I find that strange. So sure you had a tumultuous tuning cycle across a decade, but even with that you consistently outperformed most other classes/specs.

But you have to understand if you are in a raid team there's no I in team.
So when you come in rolling with a sub optimal spec or even a broken spec dont be surprised to be benched eventually or at least being approached with "advise"
I am not over dramatizing one bit its something I have noticed multiple times during my WoW career not only personally but also to people around me in the guilds I have been in.

In my years of raiding at a high level (as low as top 20 US, typically in the top 100 US) I have never seen a HUNTER get benched for his class. For his performance sure, but my experience does not match yours so I'm forced to question its validity unless you have a specific example.

Also for what it is worth, I play a Ret. One of the consistently WORST performing specs in the game across almost all types of content. This is the first year a Ret was played in Blizzcon tournament. This is also the first year in over 6 that a Ret was in a world first kill. Can you say the same?

I think that unfortunately belongs to the Allocating Stat points you that is the worst part In ff14 they are completely pointless. And that is also something Yoshi has commented on.
Materia is basically socket gems/enchantment system. And most of it is not even mandatory for you to play properly unless your in a high end static. Think its the same with Wow its just minor stat boost pretty much.

Ok - you know what. I actually agree with you here. I may have jumped the gun when I said worst part. Stat points most certainly are a contender.

I'm not saying the Materia system isn't functional, I was saying that the implementation of it was CRIMINALLY misused. I don't think using Materia as a WoW gem clone was any good. (FWIW I don't think the WoW Gem system is compelling at all, I'd much rather have reforging back and that's not a terribly good thing).

There is no need to keep hammering on this specific example. I was far from scared I assure you, I spec how the duck I wanted to spec and I did so in the 9-10 years I played. However lets be honest in reality in the end I was still getting benched sometimes In raid teams or seeing other peeps getting benched or even being "forced to switch spec" because we where lacking certain peeps for the day and we where missing certain buffs or debuffs for that day/period.
It was just an example of a personally situation in a game with separate talent trees back in Bc and how people respond to this free choice as you call it.

You said it your self if your are expected to to know what to do then in most cases this wind back to to going with the most optimal spec unless you want to drag the rest of the group down. In that case why bother with these "choices"?

Not scared. Scarred. Unsure if your response was a typo or a misunderstanding.

I already covered the benching issue - we established almost assuredly due to personal performance not class/spec. Being forced to switch spec sucks, but hardly relevant to the topic especially when the example you provided is because you were missing people.

Again, we have you going right to negativity about choice. You believe that there is only one optimal mathed out solution, when in reality this is flat out incorrect. Look to the bright side, the choices and light are there.

However you are comparing 2 different things: your comparing a bone stripped spec in WoW with some rows of talents that give, well not really give choice knowing fully well that some things become mandatory when you get to a certain point. (your even agreeing with that...)

What 2 different things am I comparing? I simply said that talents add choice. That is a fact. The fact that one or two tiers have mandatory talents doesn't negate or reduce the fact that other rows don't. You keep jumping on negatives instead of identifying positives and negatives and comparing them. What your argument is suggesting is that because 2/10 (so 1/5) talents offer no choice, that then there is no choice at all. That's a flat out absurd stance to take.

I gave you a specific example. If you actually looked at the context of the example you'd know that even though the talent is mandatory, that it is only mandatory upon meeting a very specific set of conditions, thus giving life to the other choices for different players at differing stages of gear. The awesome thing about choice is that there isn't just x vs. y, but x vs. y if/when Z, there's more than just one layer.

So even though a talent is mandatory to a certain subset of players, the choice is still there for others to make. That is an effective design decision, probably not optimal, but it is effective.

If its bloody mandatory to have then dont put it as a useless filling "choice" an talent tree! build it in to the class as a core then.

Ok agreed. Can't really argue that.

The current cross class skill is very limited and yes there are some mandatory things in it (Provoke,Swiftcast,B4B, E4E in lesser degree). Isn't that why Yoshi is looking to change that for Stormblood?
I think Yoshi even mentioned somewhere that the initial cross-class skill was basically there to entice people to also try out other jobs. Hence why the initial jobs came with class restrictions and that being a left over from 1.0 I believe.

Isn't it that why I stated in my original post that I rather have Yoshi working on that cross class system to give it a little more room for customization instead of messing with classes separately and giving them separate talent trees?

But is seems you instantly went Bestial Wrath on me and completely missed my initial point.

I didn't miss your point. I disagreed with it. I stated examples in an effort to demonstrate your negativity laden posts weren't acknowledging that choice exists, what types of choice there are, and their implications in the design paradigm.

You did it again here. You specifically chose the word "messing" which carries a heavily negative tone to it instead of using another word like "changing" or "tweaking" or "adjusting" or some other bias neutral word. BY using such negativity you completely shut yourself out of any discussion that doesn't agree with your opinion regardless of its validity.

I rather have Yoshi work on the cross class system and leave the classes as a whole alone (this means having solid balanced class and properly distinguished play style and the customization and the tweaking confined in a general role defined cross class "talent" tree).
Instead of striping our current classes to bare bone and use those stripped talents and/or new talents to build a "talent tree" for the sake of building a talent tree or even multiple trees (aka a specs) and adding in additional parameters on class based trees that make it hell to properly balance only to give an illusion of choice

Who says ANYTHING about stripping classes? You don't have to strip anything to ADD talents/customization/choice.

Are you a game developer by profession? How do you know what is considered hell to balance? What are your credentials to define that for them? That's exactly why I say its fruitless to argue on behalf of the developer that you don't want to make their job harder. That's exactly the attitude that makes 0 sense.

If my job was to make sandwiches and you have 12 different ingredients to pick from and all of a sudden my boss comes in and says hey I added 12 new ingredients. By your argument "that'd be hell to balance/manage" To me it'd be a walk in the park. If he said 100 new ingredients that might be difficult, but 12? Nope not at all. That's my point. You're implying that YOU KNOW their job better than they do by saying what they can and can't manage. As consumers it is not our job to worry about that so please stop.

Again you revert back to negativity by implying that choice doesn't exist (I already dismantled that part of your argument, so no need to revisit it).

If you want a more direct example:

I rather have:
13 solid fleshed out classes with a general 3-4 defined cross class "trees" based on role (tank,heal,Phys and Mag damage) and those trees with some choices in it that might tailor to the content your doing.

Then having
having 13 classes with all of them having 3 different cross-class trees and having to tweak those individual trees properly, adding parameters that might break a class or having those abilities there with the sole purpose of making your class properly fleshed out or make it even playable.

Ok your direct example literally is the definition of a shared talent tree. Which I'm not opposed to, but it completely invalidates your entire argument you had before. No one here is saying to add SPECS to FF14. (i.e. 3 trees per job) One talent tree per job is sufficient. Hell, even your suggestion would be sufficient. SOMETHING, ANYTHING that adds some choice is welcomed, regardless of the tuning effort required (which if you recall was the entire original point of my discussion) thus proving my argument correct.

At the same time, when you say that "most armors" have this problem and we barely see any of these problems in a thread with thousands of pictures in it that all look somewhat different, it's safe to assume that "most armors" is not true but "some armors".

I already covered this so I'm not entirely sure why you decided to reiterate it. No one in that thread is going to post a picture of their character looking like shit (i.e. clipping). It's not going to happen. They will make concessions to hair/armor choice to meet the look they want, a compromise. I want to wear the Armor of Light, but I know I have to switch my favorite hairstyle to something else to meet that armor choice. That isn't me being happy with something, that's me settling.

The picture Anzaman posted for example (with the really huge collar) is a rare exception, because "most armors" don't have a collar like that and the hair is resting on the armor (especially if you use the side-braid similar to how Lightning has it - or in fact that hairstyle itself).
Before I switched from female Highlander to male Highlander, I didn't come across any problems. I played a BLM + Bard though, so no heavy armor, I was using long-open hair most of the time and a pony-tail early on (which has no issues)

Some hairstyles clip less. Some clip more. It just so happens that the armor designs I liked and the hairstyles I liked weren't compatible. I made concessions to use the Lightning hairstyle for that reason. I didn't want to, I had to.

And on a side note, the only way to avoid clipping is making long open hair, not long and open.
See Tera for example (hairstyle changes depending on what you wear). So saying that (not literally quoting) "FFXIV is one of the worst in that regard" means it either has the most options and risky armor design (that are probably not meant to be used with open hair) or other games use a system like Tera... which in most cases means they cut your hair completely.
Tera is literally the only game I know that has an alternative hairstyle for armors that would otherwise see clipping issue. (but also used only like ~10 armor designs at most for each class on release)

Which means, there is literally no way to make it look better unless you add physix to it.

To better clarify my stance as worst is because the super intricate armor designs cause more clipping than in other games were armor designs aren't as detailed. Few games looks as good as FF14 IMO.

[Graeham]

I'm super excited about the cross realm party finder for 3.5. Being on Balmung a lot of the focus is on role-play which I happily indulge in...but it can be tough at times to find a group for high end content. I haven't had much look finding a static either. I did manage to get Sophia EX on farm though which is something I'm very happy about - I'm hoping to achieve the same goal for Zurvan whilst he's current content in the upcoming patch.

Stuff like Nidhogg EX and Sephirot EX is proving very difficult to organise/find though. So hopefully the bigger pool of players inclined to PvE will allow me to cross them off my list too.

[Kazgrel]

I'm super excited about the cross realm party finder for 3.5. Being on Balmung a lot of the focus is on role-play which I happily indulge in...but it can be tough at times to find a group for high end content. I haven't had much look finding a static either. I did manage to get Sophia EX on farm though which is something I'm very happy about - I'm hoping to achieve the same goal for Zurvan whilst he's current content in the upcoming patch.

Stuff like Nidhogg EX and Sephirot EX is proving very difficult to organise/find though. So hopefully the bigger pool of players inclined to PvE will allow me to cross them off my list too.

On one hand, it'll be great for getting stuff done, whether it's old trials/raids for WT, mount farms, or previous HW trials (like you, I haven't completed Nid or Seph Ex). I am curious as to if there will be some degrees of filtering or such, so we don't have a bunch of knuckleheads spamming PF with random weird/dumb stuff.

[Anzaman]

Nidhogg Ex felt hard - until we tagged one player with circle and followed him through last phases.

[Graeham]

On one hand, it'll be great for getting stuff done, whether it's old trials/raids for WT, mount farms, or previous HW trials (like you, I haven't completed Nid or Seph Ex). I am curious as to if there will be some degrees of filtering or such, so we don't have a bunch of knuckleheads spamming PF with random weird/dumb stuff.

You're not fond of the 'shy kitty looking for a daddy :3' entries?

(Yes, sadly that is a thing on Balmung.) ;_;

I do hope that there is a filter as well - a way to report people for misusing it would be great too.