Honestly when it comes to the core rotation of the class, I think everybody should get it very quickly out of the gate.
By the time you’re about level 20, you should be able to practice your main core rotation.
Everything after that is utility and situational stuff that fleshes out the class.
In WoW’s case it’s also fine to have a handful of talents that alter your rotation a bit if you take them, though FFXIV has no real customization of classes from what I saw.
There should be plenty of choices in what your “class” rotation is in MMOs imo. WoW handles that pretty fine, with varying success from expansion to expansion (those that removed the cross-specialization skills… not so much).
But also, yeah, the skills should be available from a reasonably low lvl.
Same reason imo, that all skills in D4 should be available from lvl 1 (or very close to 1, like lvl 5, if they feel like they need a short tutorial first).
Having to go through the same X lvls to unlock the same Y skill, is really really weird design in games made for replayability.
That is not an issue in an MMO, where you are not meant to relvl over and over, but even without that aspect, lvling and endgame should not feel like different games. Let me play with the full toolset (of course in a weaker, less fleshed out version, to have build progression along the way) from the start. You should never have to wait for lvl 30 to use Frozen Orb in Diablo, or wait for lvl 60 to get Pyroblast in WoW (just a theoretical example, WoW has mostly been fairly reasonable, for a low-replay game, about introducing core skills early from what I recall).
Most don’t even get their 123 rotation until mid to late 20s. My example was Reaper which doesn’t get its defining skill Enshroud until 80.
That’s something WoW definitely has over 14. If I play a Paladin in 14, there is 1 way to play it. You’re a tank, that’s it. All get the same skills, etc… no choices or variations. In WoW, if I play a Paladin, I can tank, heal, or DPS.
It was intended.
There used to be…“choice” and it got removed.
Goodbye Cross-Class Skills, Hello Role Action
A major problem regarding character progression and actions was the fact that you needed to level other classes to play your main job to its fullest – which in some cases is a mandatory chore.
To fix this, cross-class skills were removed altogether and replaced with Role Actions. These are split into four categories: Tank, Melee, Ranged, and Healer. Players no longer had to level up classes they didn’t want to play.
With the addition of Role Action and changes to Job Action (which we’ll get back to), Yoshida said that one of the first things you’ll do when starting the Stormblood expansion is remap your hotbar.
Attribute points have been removed.
YoshiP isn’t a big fan of illusion of choice. I remember reading that Scholar has 2 type of fairy that do different thing and later the developers made the 2 fairies doing same thing because their data showed most players only use 1 type of fairy because it was objectively superior compare to others.
If you followed the recent savage raid, P8S drama where the developera kinda overtuned it, it forced those top players kick those jobs that not dealing enough/fast dps because the enrage timer of the boss was extremely strict. Just imagine if there was a different build for each class, the drama will be even worse.
Even in regular raid, people with DPS meter already complaining about players who doesn’t optimize their rotation, and just imagine some guy who think he is cool kid for playing an ice black mage that have mediocre dps in a perfect rotation joined the raid. He will be verbally tore apart by other 7 players on spot. 
They are in stock but still costing 40% more than a series x over here in latam. It’s a lot better than it used to be, at least the prices are now way lower than any PC nearly as powerful, although GPUs dropped in price hard recently too
Retail stores are charging extra?
No, it’s import taxes. Xboxes are produced locally here, playstations aren’t.
Oooooh ok. Wow, that really sucks… 40%?
And the reward for most misused word goes to…
Choosing between tanking and healing, different rotations, and so on, is the opposite of illusion of choice.
Anyway, it is comical for a dev to claim to be against illusion of choice, while making a story-based game that is build on the foundation of illusion of choice in dialogue etc.
Not that he should be. Illusion of choice is a very good thing in game design.
I thought the FF14 team prided themselves on banning that kind of behavior?
That kind of treatment? Lol no… FFXIV players are worse than WoW players by a large amount. Go hang out in their forums for a couple days. Death threat posts are met with 2 dozen likes.
The bannable part is using DPS meters.
With what I hear of FF14’s draconian code of conduct, which I’m not necessarily condemning, but, I guess the scat’s gotta ooze out someplace.
Actually, it is bannable for being toxic and using 3rd party program, but it doesn’t mean people will be nice, especially for those who are playing at a high-level raid.
You can easily google that many FF14 players got complained they got banned for being toxic.
By the way, griefing or intentionally playing poorly (e.g. using Lv90 Gladiator instead of Lv90 Paladin) to get everyone to wipe out can get banned too. So I guess this is another reason why YoshiP removed the “illusion of choice” as intentionally using terrible build can be considered griefing and trolling too.
You can get banned for being toxic in any game, it doesn’t mean everyone will.
I’ve played both games… both games have pros and cons but FFXIV has by far the worst kind of people between the two.
That being said, I’m currently playing FFXIV. Game room couch, fancy surround sound system, 65" OLED and PS5… that tilts the scales heavily in the other side. I just don’t socialize and I get by fine.
That at least is positive.
There is absolutely no way that would ever happen. How would you prove they were intentionally doing it to grief, and not just because that is the build they like to use, or because they are bad at the game. Unless they admit to it.
I missed this. I do not believe that would ever get anyone banned. The EULA specifically states to respect other’s unique playstyles. I’ve never seen nor heard of anyone just using 90 Gladiator but I have heard of Ice Mages or healers who do not DPS and none have ever been banned.
Just because someone thinks something is offensive doesn’t necessarily make it so. People have really tried reaching by saying “My healer not doing DPS is harassment” when thats… not what that word means. How a person plays is nearly impossible to prove they were griefing/trolling. Those words usually encompass things like what they verbally say.
Well, I did see a lot of 1st job class queuing Duty Finder in the past, and everyone in the party was mad at those players at that time. I even heard that it was a reportable offense from many players in my FC and FF14 Reddit posters. They just told me to report those players and move on. Whether they got banned or not, I do not know and obviously, I don’t feel to try it with my own account either.
But Yoshi P did say that being “uncooperative” is a punishable offense, at least in PVP.
Ok, even if it wasn’t a bannable offense, those parties will just kick those players from the group like P8S drama.
Some smart players literally “mask” their insults as “helpful advice” and still got banned though.
No, choices that has no effect on the outcome is entirely pointless.
As long as it feels like it mattered, it mattered. Storytelling is about the experience. If the experience was affected by the illusion, it did its job.
Yeah it was also annoying that I wanted to play the dancer class, which I couldn’t even play until I had leveled as something else for a while first.
It’s also worth noting that outside of high levels of play, there tends to be a bit more leniency for not using the min/maxed build. I can run around as a Holy Priest specced for damage when doing world quests, if I really want to. It doesn’t matter, cause world quests are mostly solo and very easy.
Plus even in WoW right now while the talent trees are all over the map for how good they are, there’s plenty of cases where you have much more freedom even if you do want to optimize because your choice is between various kinds of utility.
The main thing I don’t like is how my arcane mage is forced to put the first 2 talent points on the arcane tree into the same 2 things every time. Not even in the sense of “they’re so powerful you’d be insane not to take them”(though that would otherwise be true as they’re part of your basic rotation).
There are just literally no other options. You HAVE to take those talents to open up the rest of the tree.
Yeah, the trees are not nearly as open as I had hoped.