Change Stat allocation to secondary Stats

I don't know if this has been suggested before or not but it's an idea that I've had for quite sometime and I'm wondering what others might think about it.

As we all well know the current stat point allocation system allows you to add a few points to your main stat as you level up. This is designed to give players freedom in choosing how to play your class. For example a warrior that has more strength and holds aggro by doing more damage as opposed to a warrior with a lot of vitality and therefore more HP and survivability.

However, in most cases, you actually don't have a choice at all. Placing your points in anything other than your class's main stat means you're just gimping yourself, and as a result, the stat allocation system becomes rather meaningless at level 50. Everyone just places their 30 points into main stat and forgets that the system even exists.

Frankly this system needs an overhaul, and this is where I think I have a pretty good idea.

Why not let the player choose secondary stats instead of main stats ? In case you're not sure what I'm referring too, I mean stats like Critical Hit, Determination, Accuracy, Spell Speed, Skill Speed.

This change would fix the two main problems with the current stat allotment system: 1.) Lack of real customization options, and 2.) Conflicts created by jobs branching from classes. (For example both a summoner and a scholar could benefit from additional Critical hit, determination, or spell speed)

The only con I can really see is it could potentially create game balance issues that may need to be worked out, and from a development standpoint I can see where this could be very time consuming. However, I think for the long term it could be worth the effort to make this happen.

EDIT: Just wanted to make sure everyone was clear that if this idea were to be implemented it would be assumed that your main stats would be unaffected. Therefore, it should be assumed that the 30 points in main stat that you currently have from allotment would just be added into your base stats. (This assumption, however, is merely for the sake of arguement. If the system were to actually be implemented stat weights would need to be recalculated in order to preserve game balance.)

From later in thread:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zetsumei_Tsunarashi

My idea is centered around the fact that not all gear sets have the optimal secondary stats for your class. The point is to create a greater variety of viable gear choices by giving the player a certain amount of secondary stats to freely play around with. It can be naturally assumed that BiS gear will always exist and cookie cutter builds would be based around this gear. However, to say that a given player will always be able to possess every piece of BiS gear is simply unrealistic.

---

It will just end up the same as it is now, people will say if you don't put the points in this or this than you are gimping yourself.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pots_Talos

It will just end up the same as it is now, people will say if you don't put the points in this or this than you are gimping yourself.

---

this will be true for people who have full BiS gear but for those that don't and are lacking in certain stats, they will be able to switch around their secondary stats at will in order to compensate. This is a huge advantage over the current system under which if you are lacking in a particular area, for example accuracy, there's nothing you can do except get better gear.

Nope. There is never a case where doing this would be smart.

I can't imagine why anyone would ever pick anything other than 30 Det considering stat weights sooooo.... eh?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zetsumei_Tsunarashi

this will be true for people who have full BiS gear but for those that don't and are lacking in certain stats, they will be able to switch around their secondary stats at will in order to compensate. This is a huge advantage over the current system under which if you are lacking in a particular area, for example accuracy, there's nothing you can do except get better gear.

---

Sorry but that is not true and there is proof of concept in wow with reforging. Reforging is a system that lets change the secondary stats of pieces of equipment. Now most specs would have 1 go to stat and not going for this would gimp you the exact same way as stat allocation works in this game. This would go all the way from the beginning with sometimes changing around mid expansion but one was always better then the others.

It's the same in this, most jobs will have a stat that they want. A scholar will always go max crit when possible for instance.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Assirra

...

---

You couldn't allocate stats onto an equipment that already has those stats (You could not reforge Crit onto a piece that has Crit and skill speed; your choice would be acc or det), and the reforge was never on a 50:50 ratio, it was somewhere more like 70:30. If you wanted more crit, you'd be better off getting a piece that had crit as an inherent stat instead of getting a piece with Det, speed and reforging the speed.

What reforging did help with was to help meet accuracy and expertise caps.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

You couldn't allocate stats onto an equipment that already has those stats (You could not reforge Crit onto a piece that has Crit and skill speed; your choice would be acc or det), and the reforge was never on a 50:50 ratio, it was somewhere more like 70:30. If you wanted more crit, you'd be better off getting a piece that had crit as an inherent stat instead of getting a piece with Det, speed and reforging the speed.

What reforging did help with was to help meet accuracy and expertise caps.

---

True but my point was there was most of the time only 1 way to go to play your spec "right". And people would do everything in their power to get said stat making it an illusion of choice, rather then customization.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PenelopeWinn

I can't imagine why anyone would ever pick anything other than 30 Det considering stat weights sooooo.... eh?

---

If you did this, you'd also need to rebalance the secondary stats so there were no more stat weights.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Assirra

True but my point was there was most of the time only 1 way to go to play your spec "right". And people would do everything in their power to get said stat making it an illusion of choice, rather then customization.

---

It definitely provides a more interesting dynamic than the current system where very few classes have any choice at all. Sure there will be some classes that have that one best secondary stat over all others, but it will provide a lot more to other classes.

IE:

ACC vs. dps stats if you need to hit a minimum accuracy
PAR vs. ACC vs. dps stats for tanks
PIE vs. dps stats on blm (i would include piety as a secondary stat)
Also speed gets more powerful as you stack it. While it starts out weak, speed may get more interesting if you stack speed on all your gear and stat allocation. (I would unify skill speed and spell speed into a single stat, every other stat effects both spells & melee, the split stat here makes no sense to me)

And no matter what you pick, in most cases it will at least do something. So at least there's *some* choice. Right now, most of the choices are terrible. What's the point of offering INT, MND or PIE to a MNK? It's stupid, they have no use for it whatsoever.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pots_Talos

It will just end up the same as it is now, people will say if you don't put the points in this or this than you are gimping yourself.

---

I agree for the most part, but think it would still be a better system compared to what we currently have. Secondary stats have less issues then primary in terms of selection. Of course the core issue is the stat system in this game is very poorly thought out. It would be nice as a temporary measure, though I think just spending the time and effort fixing the entire system as a whole would be time better spent.

As it works now, point for point, a main stat will ALWAYS be better than secondary stats. i.e. 30 str >>>>>>> 30 det. With monk for example, you would need roughly 90 det to equal 30 str.

This won't solve anything as others have pointed out. People put 30 points into their main stat because doing anything else is just silly (excluding rare occasions).

With your system people would still just put the points into the same stats or be gimped. If you don't believe this then go ask 10 people with the same novus for the same job what stats they put on and baring gil issues you will get 9 people saying 1 thing and the 1 person who wants to be different.

99% of People don't want to be gimped, they don't want to play around with different choices they just want to be able to beat the content. If that means they need to put 30 points into Stat X then they will all put 30 points into Stat X. Very few people actually do the math on how large of an effect it has. For instance losing the 30 MND as a SCH will drops you Physicks ~50hp and your adlo ~40hp. At the current ilvls that isn't a big deal. My SCH heals for over 1k without the 30 MND. Yet everyone will tell me that in order to heal end game with SCH (I use WHM 95% of the time if I'm healing) I need those 30 points in MND because that is what everyone else says.

I completely disagree. Aside from a few number that you need to pass the threshold to get a small percentage, there is really a lot of versitility if only you know how and what you wanted to do with the job. I'll use a tank as an example. You have the option to put more points into str, which increase your damage, which you get the most out of for your enimity generation. OR you could simply put more points into vit so you can take those hard hits. There is a min you need to pass for end game, past that, you can do what you want with your points. It's your game style, you do what suits you. If you don't believe me, play around with i90 pentamelded gear and see what you can get out of it. You'll be surprised. The reason people follow the crowd of putting points into main slots now is because this game is so new, it's hard to know exactly how the system computes a lot of stat allocation. It's "safer" to go mainstream, but as soon as you step outside that, you'll find a whole nother world out there. Good luck!

It would allow for more customization, but we all know that secondary stats are pretty weak compared to main stats so it wouldn't matter very much what you did with the points. The biggest benefit would be in being able to exactly hit the accuracy cap without going over and dumping your other secondary stats in more suitable places more easily.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yonko

This won't solve anything as others have pointed out. People put 30 points into their main stat because doing anything else is just silly (excluding rare occasions).

---

I just want to be clear that if the system I have proposed were to be implemented, it would be assumed that the 30 main stat points that you normally get through stat allotment would just be added into your base stats by default. Therefore you're not losing the 30 main stat that you already have currently. (In practice this is actually irrelevant because whether or not you have 30 stat makes no difference when it applies to everyone. You're 30 points stronger or weaker and content would simply be adjusted to account for this.)

My idea is centered around the fact that not all gear sets have the optimal secondary stats for your class. The point is to create a greater variety of viable gear choices by giving the player a certain amount of secondary stats to freely play around with. It can be naturally assumed that BiS gear will always exist and cookie cutter builds would be based around this gear. However, to say that a given player will always be able to possess every piece of BiS gear is simply unrealistic.

Therefore I disagree with the idea that this system would be equally as meaningless as the current system.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Krypkins

As it works now, point for point, a main stat will ALWAYS be better than secondary stats. i.e. 30 str >>>>>>> 30 det. With monk for example, you would need roughly 90 det to equal 30 str.

---

This isn't a concern since it applies to everyone equally.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jican

I completely disagree. Aside from a few number that you need to pass the threshold to get a small percentage, there is really a lot of versitility if only you know how and what you wanted to do with the job. I'll use a tank as an example. You have the option to put more points into str, which increase your damage, which you get the most out of for your enimity generation. OR you could simply put more points into vit so you can take those hard hits. There is a min you need to pass for end game, past that, you can do what you want with your points. It's your game style, you do what suits you. If you don't believe me, play around with i90 pentamelded gear and see what you can get out of it. You'll be surprised. The reason people follow the crowd of putting points into main slots now is because this game is so new, it's hard to know exactly how the system computes a lot of stat allocation. It's "safer" to go mainstream, but as soon as you step outside that, you'll find a whole nother world out there. Good luck!

---

This doesn't offer much choice still. At best you're talking about a choice between 2 stats. The other 4 stats are mostly worthless (DEX) or completely worthless (INT/MND/PIE). It's silly to be offered this many choices when 4/6 of the choices are very bad.

Also VIT doesn't offer a lot of *choice*. VIT doesn't improve your mitigation at all, it just improves how much damage you can in 1 hit (or in a short time span). After you've reached whatever threshold for the content you're working on such that you can take the biggest hit necessary, you don't need any more at all. So STR is a good choice because it actually improves your damage. But it's still really not much of a choice. Do I have enough VIT? Good, go STR because VIT isn't doing anything anymore.

Other classes get that to a small degree. Main stat vs. VIT. They can choose to go VIT in very high end content if there's a lot of AoE and they need to make minimum levels of VIT to take the hit. But it's still a very, very limited choice.

With secondary stats, at least DET/Crit/Acc/Speed (skill or spell) all apply to everybody in some way, so at least most of the choices will benefit you in *some* way, even if there is one way to go that's a little better than the others.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jican

I completely disagree. Aside from a few number that you need to pass the threshold to get a small percentage, there is really a lot of versitility if only you know how and what you wanted to do with the job. I'll use a tank as an example. You have the option to put more points into str, which increase your damage, which you get the most out of for your enimity generation. OR you could simply put more points into vit so you can take those hard hits. There is a min you need to pass for end game, past that, you can do what you want with your points. It's your game style, you do what suits you. If you don't believe me, play around with i90 pentamelded gear and see what you can get out of it. You'll be surprised. The reason people follow the crowd of putting points into main slots now is because this game is so new, it's hard to know exactly how the system computes a lot of stat allocation. It's "safer" to go mainstream, but as soon as you step outside that, you'll find a whole nother world out there. Good luck!

---

No the reason everyone puts the point in the main stat (besides tanks and they are a special case) is that doing otherwise is silly. If your a healer the only stat that would help you heal is MND putting points in STR/DEX/INT is a waste. VIT is a special case and is only useful for high end content and even then only to reach HP thresholds. PIE could be argued for a healer if you don't have enough MP for the content but even then it is easier to get PIE than MND from gear.

If you take any other class you can make the same argument. Every class in this game has 1 job and only 1 stat makes that job easier. Tanks are the only job in this game that can be seen to have 2 jobs and that is Tank and deal damage. Which is why they can use both STR and VIT but it is all VIT till they can reach the HP levels needed.

The same arguments can be made with secondary stats. There is a reason that there are BiS lists. People have figured out which stats will improve your performance the most using the system proposed by the OP people would still be putting the points in the same stats as 99% of everyone else. Again go look at the Novus weapon. Removing the gil requirement there is 1 (maybe 2 for some classes (BLM PIE cap)) builds for Novus.

The only use I could see a system like this having is like Nutz said making it easier to hit ACC caps allowing you to equip different gear but even then there would very quickly be a BiS lists.

It is the nature of MMOs when you have a bunch of people working to do one thing then everyone wants everyone to have optimal gear/playstyles so they don't waste time. Now BiS takes awhile to get which is the only reason a system like this would be useful in that you could compensate while you get other gear. But there would be BiS lists and people would do the math for what is the most optimal way to spend the points. People have done that with the Current system and gear they would do it with the new one.

I feel like alot of system changes like stat allocation are actually being worked on but being saved for expansion. Since altering things like this will change class balance, time and effort wise it makes sense to hold on to it till lv cap increase when class rebalancing will be a major focus.

With the way stats have been simplified (and DEX not affecting my mightae shield lob damage), I would like to see the stat allocation system thrown off Witchdrop and into the depths of Turn 3 abyss. Might as well distribute our points for us.

Unless they want to open a can of delicious worms / eel and allow for the illusion of customizating traits, more cross-class skills, and class-specific traits, that might be phantagasmically nice.