Less ambiguous attributes?

How has this game been out this long and still the character sheet is so bare bones. We shouldn't have to pull up a calculator and spreadsheet to find out what our crit % is, or know what the damage range of our fire 3 is. This is standard fair in practically every other MMO, even dime a dozen korean ones, but this one seems to pride itself on being mysterious with it's numbers.

Waiting for all the 'hardcore' hate from players who think unneccessary number crunching makes them a better person than other players.

SE's always been semi-secretive about pure stats in XIV.

Yea I wish they'd put the % on the stuff even if only when we hover over the stat, one of the many things I miss about SW:TOR lol (never going back FTP is a horrible thing T_T)

I remember a community representative saying they trimmed superfluous stats to keep things tidy and simple on the UI, such as not showing stat caps for melds, but there's also a deliberate attempt to be vague, like the zodiac glass messages rather than displaying a weapon progress percentage.

I don't know why it can't be an option in the UI. Like WoW which has advanced and beginner tooltips.

This is mostly a remnant of their approach to FFXI. By leaving things vague the community usually works together to figure them out. It worked relatively well in FFXI but XIV is a very different game and I'm beginning to wish they would be a little more transparent with some of the game systems.

I will say though that once you know exactly how something works it loses some of what makes it interesting. It's good to keep some things a little uncertain in the mechanics, I just think they need to shift the balance a bit...

The problem is, they want us the figure things out ourselves, yet we are not given the tools. In fact, they are forbidden (parsers for example). Do you really think the information we have now come from people who wrote everything down? Does SE really think we for example felt DRG was too far behind dmg-wise because someone checked the battle log and used a calculator?

We could use some tools and a little more information. Maybe we'll get some once they change skill/spell speed. At the moment it looks like even SE needs to guess stats.

The mystery is part of an elaborate scheme for a means to an end. The end being, what method of design would help keep players playing the game (thus extending their subscription).

In the case of ambiguous numbers without posting exact information.

Lets say Player already has item.i140 (Stat A and B)

SE implements new items, ilvl 150, Player sees an item item.i150 (Stats C and D)

Ideal Reality: In the case where exact numbers were posted, item.i140, ends up having greater dps/hps than, item.i150

Reality: However in the case where stats are left in a shroud of mystery, many players end up looking directly at the main stat boost along with the ilvl, as a means of whether to spend the time to upgrade, whether its content farming or tome farming. Thus creating a time sink.

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Originally Posted by KaedrianLiang

SE implements new items, ilvl 150, Player sees an item item.i150 (Stats C and D)

Ideal Reality: In the case where exact numbers were posted, item.i140, ends up having greater dps/hps than, item.i150

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This has been the case in a grand total of zero MMOs I have played seriously. The only way to implement that would be to have nothing but main stat and maybe weapon damage. Anyone who has played WoW or other games that offer percentages and such can attest to the fact that various classes value different substats differently. It's the nature of the way various abilities work and such. For an FFXIV example: BLM loves skill speed. Their mechanics mean casting faster is always better, since there's no downside (I'm sure someone will correct me, but it's the general idea). SMN doesn't want it. The nature of the way they do damage means they value other stats.

Part of learning to play well is understanding what stats are more valuable for your job, and the only way to figure that out is through the community's time and effort. They may not have exact calculators, but they've created fairly accurate models to determine these things. Playing well is as much being willing to go out and look for resources from others in your job as it is pushing buttons in the correct order with minimal time between actions.

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Originally Posted by viewtyjoe

/snip.

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You are misinterpreting.