Game is not calculating Sword Attack correctly.

[Afania]

This isn't about specific mechanics...its about really basic information on character statistics. In actuality many other MMOs have tooltips on weapons, stats and other info that tell you how much an increase in strength or agility or what have you will increase your attack power, and in some cases it even outputs DPS for you in the stat window.

FFXI's still stuck in the Everquest design philosophy in telling the players basically nothing about how the game works. It worked a lot better in incredibly flexible/open-ended games like UO but for such a PvE-focused game it just makes the game really inaccessible to new players. Long-time players might get irritated by people like OP, but it's certainly understandable why someone wouldn't understand how something as "basic" as D rating and attack works, because it isn't really intuitive at all.

Though the OP's attitude of "I know what I'm doing!" when he clearly doesn't isn't going to encourage anybody to help him learn. =P

I agree that FFXI's stat description certainly has room for improvement, which is mainly lacking acc/racc/rattk/mdb/DT-/DPS/evasion etc. However, I don't think base dmg doesn't affect attack needs description. Base dmg not affecting attack, is more about 2 stat being seperated, and pretty easy to notice if ppl can pay more attention even without reading the forum.

If you change sword A(or any weapon) with no additional stat on it to sword B, you see attack doesn't change. You try another weapon without STR/skill/attack and it's the same, thus it's easy to get the conclusion that base dmg doesn't affect attack. This more about the game design and mechanics, less about having stat description clearly. You don't even need to know how dmg in this game is calculated to notice base dmg and attack are seperate values, they're just simply nothing but 2 different stat.

In FFXIV you get to see more stat that you can't see in XI, such as acc, DPS and so on. However, they still don't tell every game mechanics. DPS doesn't determine weapon hierarchy due to other factors affecting your output, and something like stat cap isn't explained either. This applies to every RPG(including single player RPG) I've played too, there are always game mechanics that left for players to explore and they don't outright tells everything in game manual. If I go pick up a random new RPG I never play and never visit forum, there's no way I can tell how much dmg I can do every move until I try it out no?

I don't feel telling ppl base dmg doesn't affect attack is needed, they need to tell ppl more stats, but other stuff such as game mechanics or weapon hierarchy isn't all that needed IMO. Dmg formula, enmity formula, cure formula or weapon hierarchy are there for players to find out.