Sub-Stats: Variety and Tuning

I find substats to be lacking in variety, and the straight forward approach to them and the lack of consideration given the variety of combat mechanics lead to the most broad ones being more effective than the more niche ones. I'm proposing a significant change to the variety of the substats.

I. Substats are boring.

There, I said it. Substats are boring, even if their related effects can be fun. (Chain critting, which Critical Rate influences)

The process of gearing however is about as exciting as walking up steps. When the stats are both this simple and lacking in variety, gear upgrades are either direct upgrades or something you use until the actual piece you want can be bought / drops.

Currently, stat budgets allow you to either stack two stats, or stack one and have a healthy division between two, but this is nearly a universal selection among every job.

Crit, then Direct Hit or Determination or Speed depending on the job in question. Given that makes up literally all the substats to DPS roles and 80% of the tank/healers, this is an issue. It not only cheapens the gearing process, but it makes Det / Speed pieces for nearly all the jobs viewed with justified disdain. We won't even start with Piety, and Tenacity is just viewed as inferior Determination.

II. The proposal

Substats are instead divided into two categories. For the sake of the explanation, those two categories are Power and Utility.

Power is effectively the 'hurr durr damage' stats. In some way or another these directly affect your output, your outgoing damage / healing.

Utility represents everything else. Movement speed, MP Pool, Role Action Cooldown Reduction, basically everything we would ignore to get +.2% more dps.

Gear therefore is stat'd with Primary, Power, and Utility, with Materia slots likewise categorized for the stats that can be inserted.

Where the current division is 100 Primary, 100 1st, 70 2nd for gear pieces, instead the gear piece is 100 primary, 100 Power, 100 Utility. This sets the tone for the rest of this proposal - You must take utility. Because you can only receive one Power stat per gear piece, this allows us to both make Power stats more interesting, and more effective.

III. Power Substats

Haste: Formerly Skillspeed and Spellspeed, Haste is a consolidated stat. Haste reduces spell cast times, increases the frequency of Auto Attacks, and reduces the cooldown of Abilities. DoT / HoT effects gain additional duration at certain break points (+1 tick per X )

Instead of fudging with potency to make Haste not as big a loss for jobs that rely on DoTs, Autos, and Abilities, haste now influences every kit, by pushing more buttons more often.

Precision: Formerly Critical Strike and Direct Hit, Precision is a consolidated stat. Precision increases the chance of landing a Critical Strike, dealing 50% more damage. Once per 20 seconds, dealing a Critical Strike grants the player a 15s window to deliver an attack from either the enemy's Flank or Rear. Doing so causes the attack to do %increased damage based on Precision.

Criticals don't change, but the added Flank/Rear consideration rewards an attentive player to maximize their increase, while inattentive players will likely just benefit a small amount. This version of critical would scale Critical rate faster than current, with the 'crit damage' component focused into the flank/rear mechanic.

Determination: Determination increases the player's damage done and healing received, increasing as health lowers. Determination also greatly improves the beneficial effect of self cast Defensive actions such as Manaward, Third Eye, Fist of Earth, Shadeshift, and others in this line.

This version of determination incorporates the defensive aspect of Tenacity, but also aims to be a risk reward playstyle, best utilized with healers you both trust and who aren't fed up with you !@#%. As a baseline, Determination still provides a benefit, but extended lower health timeframes increase its effect, and the extra healing received allows a healer to bounce back relatively easily - Making precise timing very effective. For power fantasies, it's the hero who just doesn't stay down.

Berserk: Increases Potency, but increases Resource costs.

The potency gain on this stat would be higher, but counterbalanced by the increased Resource management required. In the cases of Jobs who have no resource limit in theory, increased resource costs (MP / TP) heavily impact rotations. (So Black Mage). TP becomes a concern, especially for faster baseline jobs such as Samurai, Ninja, and Monk, while dual resource jobs may have further considerations as well, such as Red Mage, Bard, Paladin, and Dark Knight.

IV. Utility Substats

Swiftness: Improves Sprint movement speed and reduces its cooldown.

Needler: Reduces the resource cost of [Weaponskill]. Changes based on job. (Shield Lob, Throw Dagger, etc)

Glutton: Food duration increases, healing and mana potion / elixir Cooldown reduced.

Perpetuity: Increases the duration or adds Overflow capacity of [Job Mechanic]. Changes based on Job. (Astral Fire / Umbral Ice, Dragonblood, Greased Lightning, Oath Gauge etc). Overflow capacity means passive bonuses of the job mechanic doesn't apply to the overflow. (120 beast gauge is still 10% crit, not 12%)

As Arcana require specific mention, this stat is primarily quality of life. In this regard, it would increase the Duration of Draw without increasing its cooldown. You could hold onto a Draw card for longer, with the duration over 30 seconds if held that long applying to the ability's cooldown. (so 36 seconds of holding the card, 24 second cooldown).

Deathless: Reduces the duration of Resurrection Sickness.

V. What Does It All Mean?

Primarily it's to make stat choices a more conscious choice than "Well that has more crit, it's an upgrade". In lieu of talent trees to differentiate one player from another, stat choices lean you towards a playstyle instead.

These are the power stats. They add a layer of gameplay decisions, to wholly dedicate to one, or try and min max break points between multiple ones to reach certain breakpoints, or fill in a more beneficial boost. They aim to fulfill certain power fantasies.

Haste: The speedy one. Machine-gunning fireballs, macross missile barrages, Dragon Ball flurry punches.

Precision: Abusing an opening. The skill, technique based combatant.

Determination: The one who just doesn't quit. most dangerous when backed into a corner.

Berserk: The reckless charge, going unga bunga till there's no more unga to bunga.

Utility stats instead add little bonuses that by themselves do little but with a certain direction in mind, can provide a meaningful edge.

VI. How Gear, Materia, and Progression change

Gear likewise changes to accommodate these stat changes. ilvl still matters. The gear's quality and level determines the amount of stat rating you get, just like now. Using contemporary gear as an example, i400 Gear in this system would give the same numerical rating as it does in the current iteration.

However, the gear stat block would instead look like this.

+X Primary Stat
+Y Vitality
[Power Stat]: +300
[Utility Stat]: +300

Materia - Power: [Power Stat]
Materia - Utility: [Utility Stat] <= Whoah wtf is this

This is the primary difference. Materia instead determines the gear's stat spread instead of being a pseudo choice of which secondary stat you want to increase (Usually in the same priority as what we want to start with).

So this means that when you do get your Skaven Ratsuit of Ninjutsu, you can yank out the Haste materia and put in a Berserk if you wanted - Because nothing says Ninja like a screaming ball of swirling wind magic.

"But wait, that means raid gear-"

We can still keep the carrot on a stick for raid gear. Currently we require both Tome / Raid gear for our mythical 'best in slot'. Watch this.

Omegle Catsuit of Casting
+X Primary Stat
+Y Vitality
[Power Stat]: +300
[Utility Stat]: +300

Materia - Power: [Power Stat]
Materia - Utility: [Utility Stat]
Materia - Visual <= Wait wtf is this

Visual Materia adds a visual effect to your gear. This would be a unique effect per raid tier. You wouldn't be able to remove it, and no matter what model you glamour to, the Visual effect granted stays. Probably have a toggle to turn it on or off on individual pieces I don't know.

"But"

Ugh, if it really matters that much, then the Raid gear can come with higher substats but the same mainstats. The same baseline level of power. Like, maybe a 1.1x modifier on substats. I don't know. I honestly don't care that much. I'm not here to tell you what -you- like. I'm here to propose what -I- like, and for you all to say how dumb it is.

VII. Conclusion
This is a significant lateral shift that I believe to be for the better for the game in the long run. Having the ability to play the same job in various, effective ways extends the lifetime of an RPG game, while having increasing ways to interact with each other due to playstyle choices is a must for any multiplayer game.

Often we look at other games, and see how many various ways a class can be played just from its selection of mechanics, and feel a little underwhelmed with the "Just play a different class" approach to FF14. I believe more varied substats not only solve this issue, but make the gearing process more interesting as well.

In your own opinion, do you think substats need a facelift? Do they just need minor tuning? Should playstyle only be determined by Job or should gear come into play as well?

Nah. Gear is uniform becuase non-hardcore people don't have the time or energy to theorycraft the BEST solution or experiment with theoretical playstyles. the game comes down to the way it is due to player's own skill. If they can hack it yay - you get the best stuff. If you can't, well then keep at it with your schedule till you can or come back later when you're op 2 expansions down the line to get the shiny things or E/RP or whatever it is that other people do in the game. No need to make things overly complex. Keep that kind of stuff to single player RPGS.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

Nah. Gear is uniform becuase non-hardcore people don't have the time or energy to theorycraft the BEST solution or experiment with theoretical playstyles. the game comes down to the way it is due to player's own skill. If they can hack it yay - you get the best stuff. If you can't, well then keep at it with your schedule till you can or come back later when you're op 2 expansions down the line to get the shiny things or E/RP or whatever it is that other people do in the game. No need to make things overly complex. Keep that kind of stuff to single player RPGS.

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I'm well aware why it's this way.

For just about everyone else, you can literally just push all your points blindly into one or all around and trounce through the game as normal.

The game literally doesn't change for them.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

Nah. Gear is uniform becuase non-hardcore people don't have the time or energy to theorycraft the BEST solution or experiment with theoretical playstyles. the game comes down to the way it is due to player's own skill. If they can hack it yay - you get the best stuff. If you can't, well then keep at it with your schedule till you can or come back later when you're op 2 expansions down the line to get the shiny things or E/RP or whatever it is that other people do in the game. No need to make things overly complex. Keep that kind of stuff to single player RPGS.

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If that were the case, wouldn't it make more sense for the stats to be more tightly balanced in output, and less compositionally dependent in their performance, as not to have such wide deviations given that theorycrafting?

It would take only minute adjustments to achieve balance that would give hardcore theorycrafters far less of an advantage by making the stat interactions more intuitive (not to mention, transparent). Should we disregard those, too?

The breakpoint interactions of Skill Speed and Spell Speed are also far from minimal as is, and I mean that in a good way. There are stat values very, very worth achieving.

On topic / @OP :

All that being said, I don't see how these would make gameplay any more interesting.

The added movement speed, for instance, would have to be relatively minor at best, or it'd be obligatory among many a mid-skill group within certain fights to such a point that a party could make it to safety without having to know ahead of time which direction will be safe (standing instead just at center), while high-skill groups would still largely avoid it outside of slide-casting or fights with risky positionals. Berserk, likewise, may be useful to one class and worthless to another. Now, that in itself that bad, but poor optimization without player options for correction feels bad. It feels bad tier after tier that, say, a Summoner is subjected to Det- or SpS-high gear or a Warrior to DHit-Ten. And while it would make sense that the increased number of stats we can get "right", in due proportion, would balance this, MMO studies have usually found the opposite: satisfaction diminishes more with passive factors not optimized that it increases with passive factors that are optimized. That it to say, the negatives hurt more than the positives help. That won't be true for everyone, and I doubt it's true for you, but that is that statistical norm so far as we know.

Personally, I'd much rather see fewer but more gameplay-affecting stats. Aside from Critical Strike among Monks and Bards, Skill Speed and Spell Speed are our only gameplay-affecting stats. And both of those are notoriously ill-tuned: weak at first or among any oGCD-heavy job, strong at high amounts on jobs without oGCDs, and ever mutually exclusive to each other due to their high payoff breakpoints. Apply balance first, and then let's see what we can do with what we have, what we lack, and what might augment gameplay within actual damage categories. Damage augmentation shouldn't just be "hurr durr" stuff; breakpoint-affecting SkS certainly isn't, and there's no need for even a revised Determination to be, either.

But before we can really even get into those, we may first need to address the redundant or lacking systems stats might involve. TP and MP come first to mind; outside of hamstringing long-term physical AoE in a way casters are as immune to as old Sprint costs and adding a faint layer of attrition to (over-)healers, the two universal resource stats find good use only among the BLM playflow -- maybe PLD or DRK's. Similarly, why doesn't it matter at all when we deal our damage or how bursty it is. Our only current factors to make damage matter outside of the enemy eventually dropping dead are raid buff multiplicity and enrage-like add spawns. Is there more we can do with that?

@shurrikan I agree, sadly beside an eventual removal of TP I don't see any rework of mp being done anytime soon.

Regarding overhealing, it is true the t the current system makes mp for healer only a concern for the first few week of progression until they can get enough piety. After that it simply doesn't matter (unless you need to rez a lot, which I find to be a different issue)

I do think an interesting ressource system could be done for healer tho.
Perhaps if mp would regain faster but strong spell would cost MUCH more (and basic such as dps skill + cure being free). We could have an interesting balance where you could literally burst through your mp like you can with your Eatherflux.

That could also unlock more burst healing windows for raid design.

So... What? If I crit with Disembowel I have to lose out on Chaos Thrust's rear bonus because the crit wants my next attack to land on the flank? Or did I misunderstand your meaning?

Also, let's NOT have Determination increase your damage at low health, I can already see all those people purposefully standing in AoEs to have lower health because "MUH DEEPS!"

Berserk? BLM would be virtually unaffected by the increased MP consumption, either finding a hardcap, sacrificing a single Fire IV cast in favor of the remaining Fire IV's becoming tactical nukes, and BRD/MCH would be an absolute must in any group, as if they weren't already.

While they are cute ideas, they just wouldn't work and would be impossible to implement at this point without remaking the game.

Personally, these are the only stat changes I'm itching to see:

Direct Hit

• Direct Hit chance growth per point reduced from 1% per 39.5 to 1% per 40. It therefore now contributes an added 1% of effective damage on average (4% chance of a bonus 25% damage), per 160 points, up from 155. This value, 160, will be the new standard for all secondary stats.
• Direct Hit can now also affect self-healing abilities such as Equilibrium.
  
  Determination
• Determination has been buffed slightly, to 1% of damage per 160 points of Determination. Direct Hit’s multiplicity with Critical Strike still gives it a slight lead over Determination, especially where benefitted by multiple simultaneous raid buffs, though Determination has the added benefit of affecting healing spells, such as Clemency.

Speed

• Skill Speed and Spell Speed combined into a single stat, Speed, which now affects Attack Speed, Auto-Attack Rate, Ability Damage*, and Periodic Damage.
  (*Does not affect the damage of abilities restricted only by resource generation, such as Shinten or Hellfrog Medium.)
• (Attack) Speed now additionally shortens animation times. What can double-weave at low Speed can now also double-weave at any amount of Speed.
• Speed now adjusts auto-attack rate, rather than auto-attack damage. This will improve its value to Paladin, Ninja, and Dark Knight.
• Speed now has linear returns, decreasing the character’s GCD by 1% of the remaining value for, at SB levels, every 160 Speed, rather than varying anywhere from 1% per 166 points at 2.49 seconds to under 130 by 1.9 seconds and below. This will decrease its power at very high amounts to oGCD-less classes but should ultimately make it more evenly useful for all jobs and at all stat levels.
• Speed's damage increase to periodic damage and the rate increase to auto-attacks now identically increase at 1% per 160 points, rather than following a unique modifier. In other words, that portion of contribution works identically to Determination.
• On the whole, Critical Hit and Direct Hit will still outpace Speed between rotational breakpoints when assuming perfect meta play, as the individual power of abilities will often be worth more than their nominal average power as through increased frequency, given that their best periods of use may be less frequent than access to the given skills, and due to the multiplicative nature of stacked raid buffs, but this should give Speed a far fairer chance. Put most simply, Speed over time allows for greater flexibility, while Critical Hit, especially, allows for highest possible maximization.
• Full List of abilities with damage and/or healing increased by Speed: Geirskogul, Nostrond, Jump, Spineshatter Dive, Dragonfire Dive, Mirage Dive; Steel Peak, Shoulder Tackle, Wind Tackle, Riddle of Wind, Fire Tackle, Earth Tackle, Howling Fist, Elixir Field; Hissatsu: Guren, Hissatsu: Seigan; Dream Within a Dream, Bhavacakra, Ninjutsu, Ten Chi Jin; Bloodletter, Rain of Death, Perfect Pitch, Empyreal Arrow, Sidewinder; Gauss Round, Richochet, Rook Overdrive, Bishop Overdrive, Flamethrower; Energy Drain, Bane (damage modifier), Fester, Painflare, Deathflare, Ahk Morn, <All Pet Commands, including Enkindles>; Fleche, Contre Sixte, Corps a Corps, Displacement; Assize, Tetragrammaton, Asylum; Lustrate, Indomitability, Exogitation, Energy Drain; Earthly Star, Essential Dignity.

Critical Hit

• Critical Hit now has effectively linear returns. Base cost per % of increased critical strike chance or critical strike damage bonus has been decreased, but costs now increase at the same rate by which critical strike chance and the critical strike damage bonus synergize for added returns per point, leaving its damage gains per point roughly equivalent to that of Direct Hit, Determination, and Speed at 160 points per % damage increase.
• Critical Hit still remains the lead stat for perfect play in meta compositions, but by an incredibly faint margin, while no longer falling short of Direct Hit at any point. This means it starts at identical value to Determination outside of raid buff compositions, identical value to Direct Hit in raid buff comps, and then gets faintly, faintly stronger at extreme amounts. Bards and Monks may be slightly curtailed at extreme levels of Critical Hit, as the linear scaling will pull back the effectiveness of Critical Hit at over ~2500 stat.

That said, I'd be even fine with losing Tenacity and Direct Hit, at least until such time as we can easily change one of the two secondary stats on each piece of gear, Tenacity is more significantly survival-oriented, and Direct Hit is more distinct from Critical Hit.

Personally I'd like to see Direct Hit affect the proc rate on certain DPS classes, and like Piety/Tenacity it should only work for the classes whose role it was explicitly meant for. Bard is the most obvious example here, but this would apply universally to all DPS procs, which has ramifications for BLM/RDM/MCH and even MNK. How this scales will vary from proc to proc but be specified in those procs themselves. In addition, landing a Direct Hit will bypass positional requirements for any weaponskill or ability if they are used out of their intended position, mitigating some of their losses. True North could become a DPS cooldown that emulates its current effect by making it so all attacks always land a Direct Hit during its duration, but I think a better way to go about it would be to make True North into a 30s cooldown that only affects one weaponskill if that were the case. It's a minor DPS increase with additional utility that way.

Haste imo should reduce the TP/MP costs of weaponskills/spells in addition to reducing cast/recast times of spells/weaponskills. It should not affect abilities whatsoever. Not in damage, not in cooldown. I agree that it should affect auto-attack rate and not damage. If you want any specific abilities to be affected by it they must be changed into a weaponskill or spell with its own individual recast timer similar to Empyreal Arrow in order to benefit from it. I agree that they should shorten the animation timers on everything regardless.

I don't really agree with those specific scalings either. To me DET should have diminishing returns but a much higher initial slope to justify using it over crit/dhit in the first tier. Direct Hit and Spell Speed should be niche but respectable stats that benefit specific classes more than others but otherwise scale linearly at a rate that would outstrip DET at the second raid tier. Berserk could fulfill this role as well naturally I suppose. Crit will still scale exponentially, but this should be achieved purely through crit rate. It will have a stronger crit damage bonus baseline in order to be worth more than Direct Hit, but not scale it up anymore. It should retain its role as the best stat at the third raid tier but be even worse than Haste and Direct hit during the first raid tier and still weaker than Determination though catching up in value during the second while Haste/Direct Hit will outstrip both during this period, only. Basically, what stat is king will vary from patch to patch, but your ideal stat spread will still vary from class to class.

Similarly, Piety and Tenacity should specialize in what Healers and Tanks would want in prog, and not have the diminishing returns that det would have. Piety would increase Healing potency rather than boost MP, and the same would go for Tenacity and damage reduction, specifically towards auto attacks, but nothing else. These stats should be strong enough to warrant use during prog but could be replaced by Determination or Crit over time. Neither of these stats will boost damage. They should focus on their specific use case and go all-in on that use case.

If you want another universal stat that specifically affects abilities, it honestly reminds me of the Mastery stat from WoW. We'll call it something similar. Expertise. This will generally increase the potency of DoTs/HoTs and/or abilities on a fixed cooldown, primarily through a percentage increase to their potency, though some exceptions may be made depending on the class. The reason for splitting these effects is to give room for both to be boosted, and actually accomplish the goal of giving you a reason to prefer some stats over others based on your class.

As for facilitating these extra stats, we really ought to Rework relic into a third gearing option alongside Tomestones. Include Armor and Accessories too, for every single tier. Let it be the uncapped but grindy option for players who don't want to solely run tomestone content. Maybe also make it the way to improve materia to slot into gear for DoW/M only players (though I feel the materia aspect should be something crafters or mutamix lovers should also be able to help accelerate, in addition to crafted gear, or perhaps by using a mix of crafted gear and materia in making relics, but giving non-crafters a way to farm them for themselves and improve them further). I agree that players should get to pick their secondary stats, but they should not get full control over it from any gearing option. Rather, give them full control over one secondary stat on each gear slot, and going forward make sure for each tier these three content options all have different secondary stats included on them in order to appease players that don't want to get stat screwed.

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Originally Posted by Jollyy5

So... What? If I crit with Disembowel I have to lose out on Chaos Thrust's rear bonus because the crit wants my next attack to land on the flank? Or did I misunderstand your meaning?

Also, let's NOT have Determination increase your damage at low health, I can already see all those people purposefully standing in AoEs to have lower health because "MUH DEEPS!"

Berserk? BLM would be virtually unaffected by the increased MP consumption, either finding a hardcap, sacrificing a single Fire IV cast in favor of the remaining Fire IV's becoming tactical nukes, and BRD/MCH would be an absolute must in any group, as if they weren't already.

While they are cute ideas, they just wouldn't work and would be impossible to implement at this point without remaking the game.

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Step on back a bit, homeskillet.

using Dragoon specifically, Precision proccing on Disembowel to go to the Side means you have 15 seconds to make an attack from that side; Not that your next attack -must- be from that side. In this case, you Chaos Thrust, Wheeling, and then move over for F/C to get that sweet precision bonus.

Also, 99% of the game is currently about as dangerous as slipping on wet, floofy grass. In harder content, a Determination build is to be coordinated with healers - much like it is now. Parties are left at lower HP for extended periods if no immediate healing is needed. The increased healing received also makes the bounceback quicker, though that's never been much of an issue.

Berserk requires tuning, and quite simply, the scaling would be sweet points all around. Black Mage can't just blindly stack it, but Black Mage is just one example. They might go for break points, Dragoon, being a slower class, could go more heavily into it. Should your team have plenty of team restores, Healers can go heavily into it, as well as more ability oriented jobs.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Personally, these are the only stat changes I'm itching to see.

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I disagree with this block fundamentally because you work against your own post up there.

Speed still remains the only 'gameplay altering' stat. Everything else is just basically interchangeable with each other.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

I disagree with this block fundamentally because you work against your own post up there.

Speed still remains the only 'gameplay altering' stat. Everything else is just basically interchangeable with each other.

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Ultimately, I'd like more than those suggested changes, but as I said in my first post, that won't be possible without context.

You'd need systems like some manner of Stagger, where by the rate at which damage is dealt does matter, which in turn requires greater control in each toolkit. (At present, if a DRG wants to DoT a newly arrived add, it can take up to 10 GCDs for the DRG to be allowed to do so without utterly screwing over his sustained damage, at which point... it's typically not worth applying at all. Outside of single-target fights, they are controlled by their rotation more than they control it. Their last leg for flexibility was removed when Lance Mastery buffed the second dragon weaponskill and F&C and WT's base damage were increased. Prior to that they could at least choose to trim a doublet of dragon skills, ending the combo at FT or CT, if the BotD growth would be excessive, giving a maximum of 6 GCDs until they could respond.)

You'd probably need variable cooling rates, whereby cooldowns could be made to "cool" faster, stripping a flat amount off their cooldowns (which allows them to still sync up later) but in a continuous fashion.

You'd probably want ways that elements could actually act differently from one another.

You'd probably want elemental resources that could be spent in multiple ways. Wind, for instance, could offer increased movement when activated, or -- automatically --- allow a queued skill to automatically cause you to teleport forward into range enough to complete a strike upon GCD refresh (i.e. without loss of uptime) at proportionate cost or a cast to complete itself early when movement would otherwise cancel it (just) short or completion, again at proportionate cost.

You'd probably want the ability to push back mobs a bit and to be pushed back by them, giving tank and melee toolkits and their relevant stats more to leverage.

You'd probably want potency-based (or, potency-to-percentile) status effects and (de)buffs, so that the synergist arsenal can be augmented by stats in different ways.

You'd almost certainly want a pandemic or roll-over mechanic, such as by causing replaced buffs or debuffs to add the square root of their duration to that of the same-effect application replacing it.

You'd want combat that actually allows for and encourages the infliction of status effects.

You'd want combat in which not everything can be meat-shielded or even drawn off the non-tanks such that they might actually value survival stats (especially if all stats, at least by role total, had diminishing returns so that you're encouraged to hybridize).

I can go on for many a step more...

Every single one of those things holds back a stat, set of stats, or a system as a whole involving stats that I'd love to see but literally cannot get meaningful returns or augmented gameplay from until the context is set.

Saying you want this stat or that, or that you want customization in forms X, Y, and Z, does nothing if the surrounding game cannot yet support them. Your time would likely be better directed looking at the necessary systems, the excuses or selling points by which they can be entered into the game, and the roadmap that can see the best results most quickly.

The surrounding game, as in the mechanics the game currently has, can support a much greater variety of player controlled actions than we are given.

We have Actions that don't break combo. (Just about every Combo job has an example here)

We have elemental damage, it's just not utilized. (We use a catch all "Physical" or "Magical" tag on basically everything non-weapon specific)

Actions can have variable refreshing rates. (We've seen it with Dark Knight)

Specific damage types can have debuff interactions (We see this with specific vulnerabilities)

Most of what you have listed can already be accomplished by the engine, and effectively have or have had in game examples for it.

They are removed almost entirely because SE doesn't trust the average player to A) Make use of them and B) Not find ways to break their game with them. Every design decision moving forward reflects a lack of trust in player capability and integrity.

That is why I disagreed with your block. It doesn't make things more interesting, it just aimed to make things more comparable in a "given 10 minutes, set amount of uptime" sort of way.

We need less equitable-but-the-same, and more equitable-but-different.

Hmm.. I don't know. I would certainly welcome some changes to the sub stats along these lines, as mentioned we are basically just looking for Crit>anything else which is pretty stale beyond the journey of acquiring them.

What do you think about "armor set" type bonuses along your ideas here? For one I think it would be useful if relic armor offered more, since likely half of the community doesn't even bother with relic gear anymore. But this could be extrapolated to all the armor sets. Maybe individually X is stronger than Y, but when you combine the whole set (or say 3/5 of the set) you get other bonuses (like the ones you mention) which you'd have to consider. Of course it all has to be meaningful, but I think something along these lines would be a bit easier and quicker to implement then a complete overhaul.

elemental affinity is somewhat useless in this game. see Ifrit - he's a fire primal yet we can damage him with Fire spells. Shiva is ice yet you use blizzard on her. Thunder doesn't heal Ramuh. There's no Quake spell either. Black Mage would need a complete rework.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

What do you think about "armor set" type bonuses along your ideas here?

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It depends on the set bonus. My experience with sets come from a wide variety of games, and they are rarely done in a way that doesn't make it feel awful to part with the Set.

In this regard, I would prefer something like "Keystone Materia", which would be perhaps weapon or chest armor only Materia that take the place of a Set Bonus. With this, you can continually add new "Set" effects without having to worry about outscaling the effect (Though that in turn leads to potentially far too many)

If the idea of a "Set" bonus would be included, I'd again point to a Keystone slot, similar to how I envisioned an Armory/Cross Class rework could be, where one armory slot was a 'Keystone" and let you use the Traited version of selectable abilities.

So in a generic 'stat' sense, a Keystone system would work better. Put it on Weapons or Chest armor (Perhaps any end-Chest armor, and then on Raid/Relic Weapons). Let players select what they want.

In a specific Job scenario, "Sets" also have the issue of being hard to put on the "Nice but not necessary" list. For example, using Black mage, any set that made Fire 4 better would be required. So a Set/Keystone for Black Mage would effectively have to pick a different part of the Kit to enhance, preferably to provide different considerations as well.

The most obvious example of where you can alter Black Mage's kit with desirable effects other than "Fire 4 Does X more damage" would be in Scathe, interactions with Firestarter and Thundercloud, and altering Ice Spells.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Most of what you have listed can already be accomplished by the engine, and effectively have or have had in game examples for it.

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No. No they haven't been accomplished now or any time since ARR. I'm not sure what your angle is here, but that's a tremendous stretch at best, with two exceptions:

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We have Actions that don't break combo. (Just about every Combo job has an example here).

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Except, it's irrelevant. I said we needed increased freedom of rotation. That Bard can Heavy Shot does not mean that a DRG is not held to an incredibly rigid rotation. Nor does Heavy Thrust being a separable action mean that a Dragoon can viably stop at Disembowel to reapply its effect. If one does that, they are a terrible Dragoon, by fact of the way that toolkit is built.

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Specific damage types can have debuff interactions (We see this with specific vulnerabilities)

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Literally never said anything about a lack of typal debuffs.

To the rest:

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Actions can have variable refreshing rates. (We've seen it with Dark Knight)

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That's not been shown; Dark Knight had a reset function, and more closely, Spear had percentage recast reduction which then desynced macrorotations. But never has the cooling rate been affected.

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We have elemental damage, it's just not utilized. (We use a catch all "Physical" or "Magical" tag on basically everything non-weapon specific)

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First, if it not at all utilized, it's not there. It does not exist for the player, nor will the player have any evidence that it does or could exist. Moreover, the requirement is that they act differently, not merely that they are calculated through different tables, as per 1.x's individual element types. The latter is typal debuff that differs only nominally, not in difference in gameplay.

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We need less equitable-but-the-same, and more equitable-but-different.

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If that's suppose to be in response to anything I've said, you're strawmanning. My point was that the difference needs to be felt. Arriving at the number 6 because you added 4 and 2 instead of 3 and 3 does not make a difference in how the game feels. Hovering around the rear when you would already mostly hover around the rear (or, rear/flank edge) does not change gameplay. Thus far the only gameplay effect of what you'd suggested is likely self-conflict for positional classes that would discourage their use unless your Crit stat were undertuned in its scalability, in which case it would still have no effect as it would be avoided, or undertuned in its bonus, in which case the gameplay addition would be ignored as it would nerf output in those circumstances and would then again present no effect. I saw, and see, no reason to believe there would be increased customization, freedom of play within a particular build, or an enhanced experience.

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That is why I disagreed with your block. It doesn't make things more interesting, it just aimed to make things more comparable in a "given 10 minutes, set amount of uptime" sort of way.

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It wasn't intended to make things more interesting in any but the way stated--to allow for a greater number of viable builds and to make more broadly viable the only stat which has a gameplay effect, Speed (currently SpS/SkS).

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They are removed almost entirely because SE doesn't trust the average player to A) Make use of them and B) Not find ways to break their game with them. Every design decision moving forward reflects a lack of trust in player capability and integrity.

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Agreed. And? Do you mean to say we should settle for what we have now? If so, I disagree. Fundamentally. Practically. Entirely.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Entirely.

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Clearly we have a missed connection here. I find individual quote tagging annoying. So I'll take the blame there. My understanding was you saying "We can't have these things because first we have to be able to have things."

I was saying "We can have those things. We have examples of those things already." Let me clarify.

1. Combo breakers and non-breakers.
We can have these things, and do have these things. Dragoon is just unfortunate in its current iteration in that it has the longest, slowest combos, so it is felt most keenly here, though other jobs do suffer for GCD mismanagement. If you're saying we need more ways to manipulate combos, I agree. I wrote a weird ass Dark Knight that had the capability to do this.

2. Damage types
This folds into the Elemental part. We -can- have those interactions, as is proof provided by Slashing, Piercing, Blunt. We -know- elemental damage is in game because Elemental Resist materia worked prior to...Stormblood?

I was saying that right now we utilize flat physical and magical as the game shifted away from that.

What I should have stated more clearly is that because these damage types exist, that exists the possibility to create Actions that build on this, though that comes with the inherent problem of required synergy should certain synergies be too specific. (Imagine if Wildfire could compound a portion of Fire Damage from allies as well. Sounds great, and would be a nice boost for the two least popular Jobs)

3. It was a catch all response to just shoring up inequities between Critical and everything else.

4. I'mjustsayingIdon'twantthegametodevolveintohitting1buttongoverandoverlikeWarcraft

5. Regarding proposed stats: I could do a better job of explaining them there substats, but I'm tired, and will just settle with "Each of them adds additional layers of consideration, all of them to the player, and some of them to the team. Except haste. Haste was good before. I feel this iteration is better, and if 'But the buffs don't line up' is the main problem, then yay. Not everyone has raid buffs. Wham, Sam, Thank you Blams"

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Clearly we have a missed connection here. I find individual quote tagging annoying. So I'll take the blame there. My understanding was you saying "We can't have these things because first we have to be able to have things."

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I'm saying that some patterns, nuances, punchlines, whatever are only visible as such with enough resolution or context, and what you can't notice, even at highest-level play, might as well not be there. Moreover, if that factor doesn't lead to a more satisfying game, to at least a fair chunk of people, however indirectly, it doesn't belong.

(I hold the italicized standards in higher regard when considering existing mechanics, or the like, than with new ones, as I think we should hold ourselves to higher standards with each addition and as development moves forward.)

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1. Combo breakers and non-breakers.

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We agree on the need for increased ability to work around or manipulate combos. But, again, my emphasis was not on combos, but on rotations. Even if every action were technically not combo restricted, if the order in which you can optimally or near-optimally use them is fixed, with greater opportunity cost for adapting to the present circumstances (add spawns or incoming downtime) than ignoring those changes, that solves nothing.

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2. Damage types

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You've misunderstood me here. I've never spoken here about damage types except to say that they're not what I've been talking about. What I spoke of was distinct functionality. Slashing, Piercing, Blunt, Fire, Wind, Water, Earth, Ice, Lightning, Magical, Physical, and Unaspected do not function differently. They check a given debuff category and are then calculated for identically. They all purely just a negative adder which affects unit HP. There is no distinctly physical, piercing, magical, earthly, or fiery effect to any of them.

I am mostly fine with flat physical and magical because, while I do like for composition to adjust gameplay, I weigh those benefits against loss of compositional choice. If the change minimally augments or fails to augment gameplay -- say, the fun of being a MCH or BLM when paired with the other -- while notably restricting compositional freedom, the disbenefits outweigh the benefits. Given the CD alignment dependence of MCH, this would likely turn into having to garble their Wildfire prep while the BLM syncs their Astral Fire phase to the Wildfire cast, a lesser-geared BLM rushing a cycle to ready their F4 burst (F4x5, ideally w/o Umbral Hearts w/ Ley Lines if the bonus is overpowered, or or F4x3, F1 or Firestarter, (F4) with enough SpS if not), or --most likely-- zero change at all.

What did we see as a result of functionally identical elements in 1.x? 5 out of 6 of each spell tier (initially direct, DoT, or AoE) going unused. It didn't change how we cast. It didn't change tactical considerations. It did not augment gameplay unless you really, really, really enjoyed remembering that a crab is water element, and should be burned, not drowned enough to waste almost 83% of your damaging spells to bloat.

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3. It was a catch all response to just shoring up inequities between Critical and everything else.

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I do not know what portion of the post you are referring to.

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4. I'mjustsayingIdon'twantthegametodevolveintohitting1buttongoverandoverlikeWarcraft

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I'm not saying, nor have I ever suggested, that I would.

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5. Regarding proposed stats: I could do a better job of explaining them there substats, but I'm tired, and will just settle with "Each of them adds additional layers of consideration, all of them to the player, and some of them to the team.

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If you can make that happen in practice in the given limitations, then kudos to you. Seriously.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

If you can make that happen in practice in the given limitations, then kudos to you. Seriously.

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Alright, I'm no longer tired. Lets try this.

Precision

is the selfish playstyle. It's for the player who focuses entirely on their own performance. They don't rely on others, they need only rely on their own awareness and reaction.

The "proc" works as follows: When you critically hit, you're given a "rear" or "Flank" trigger for 15 seconds. Within those 15 seconds, the next non-auto attack that strikes that side deals +X % damage, based on Precision rating. A character with no Precision rating beyond the default does not get this. The listed time I gave is this may happen up to once every 20 seconds.

This falls more naturally with Melee but due to varying amounts of positionals, getting the most effect out of it will require that quick-in-the-moment decision making. A Monk would probably want to utilize it on Tornado Kick, Elixir Field, Forbidden Chakra, or Demolish, a Dragoon on Chaos Thrust, Full Thrust, or 5th combo, Ninjas on Ninki abilities, Blackmagescandoitanywhere, Red Mages on combo finishers or Fleche, etc.

They occur often enough that to maximize its use it will be always on your mind, but you can only gain from it; Your gain just has variance depending on how you can fit it in. Contrasting Critical Strike and Direct Hit now, where you just stack it and forget. It is a layer of consideration. Primarily one that only occurs in combat, but is independent of the rest of the team.

This is mostly independent from the rest of the system with two exceptions: Tanks and Crit Scalars like Bard and Monk. To take advantage of it as a tank you'll have to know the boss's hit box well, and when you can actually move to exploit the opening outside mechanics, but, those are plentiful enough that a fair amount of the Procs should be easily attainable.

Bards would require a change in how songs work, else they could only ever take critical strike. That, however, is a secondary thought. You build more specific parts of a game (Jobs) from the more general parts of the game (Stats) and not the other way around. So while it is a cop out to say "Burds ned change", I'm not going to do a whole class write up on Bard just so I can discuss this thread more. "Burds need change" is sufficient enough a response.

Monk to a lesser degree. Tie Chakra to Grease Lightning generation or ability use instead of Critical, but again, "Munk ned change" is sufficient enough.

Haste

is a less selfish but still mostly player centric approach. More -everything-. More Cards, More Spells, More Leylines, More Punches, More Ninki, More Kenki, More Gauge.

Not much needs be said here, but the reason I chose Haste to instead do Auto Speed and Cooldown Reduction instead of DoTs and Auto Potency is that it expands who it's useful for. Currently it is really only good in spades on...two jobs? Black Mage and Samurai. Everyone else is so hung up buff timers and aligning stuff for maximum output blah blah blah blah.

I get it. That's the 'meta'. I know why it works, I know why we want to do it, and that's almost entirely why "But the buff timers" falls on mine deaf ears. We're not allowed to have any non-Crit Stacking Buff Aligning 8 Party Stacking Buff compositions. But you know what? I wouldn't mind having Whams, Sams, Blams, Monks, Dark Knights, Warriors, etc being able to be in the same Composition. All of whom who would directly benefit from -MORE- cooldown use. I'm totally fine letting Scholars and Asts and Ninjas and Dragonos and Bards and Summoners being over there lighting up the arena in Super Saiyan energy.

For everyone else, there's Haste and Unga Bunga'ing pumping out stupid amounts of potency that don't need no raid buff alignments (But we won't say no if it happens to be there ;) ).

Determination

is a trap. I know it's a trap. I know why the people here think it's a trap. It's totally a trap. It'd require actual hard numbers to show why it's -not- a trap, as well as some tuning to certain defensive skills. (Samurai Third Eye says hi)

The consideration Determination adds isn't selfish. It is the play between player and the healer. Currently, non-essential healing is at the higher ends of Healer Play. You simply do not fill a GCD with healing if nothing lethal is on the horizon. The scaling as health lowers aspect divides your ability to utilize this stat between you and the healer.

You, knowing what defensive cooldowns to utilize, and the healer, trusting you enough that you will. Granted, there's an obvious thresh hold that you can't stay below and live, but that's the risk. Riding that line, getting a massive boosted heal to throw you into safety before being battered back into bloody pulp.

Conversely, Determination is the safest stat for Tanks, so while DPS/Healers fall into the risk reward scenario, for Tanks it is a level of added safety and constant bonus damage: Between major hits you're at some level of bloodied, so the scaling effect is always at play. Your defensive cooldowns are stronger and the healer's incoming heals are better. As you will usually not be at the ride or die line (Other than Holmgang or Living Dead, but frankly those things need to go), you will usually not get the extended full benefit a DPS or Healer might. It is, in my opinion, the combination of Determination and Tenacity without having two separate and not quite equal stats.

That's fine. Stats meaning different things to different jobs is fine.

The considerations added with Determination vary with encounters, and play between you and the healer. Teamwork!

Berserk

is a pre-fight planner. It is the one that has to be hammered out beforehand. Does the fight have enough downtime for my resources to come back? Do we have enough restores in the party to cover when mine aren't up? If we don't have X, should I lower this and pick up some more OtherStat? If we do have X, how much more of this can I pump up?

Currently it is simply "Improves potency" as I would have to math more to find a good central point balancing increase with resource consumption. The potency difference between, say, Monk and Black Mage is huge. A %increase might not be worth considering any level of increased resource consumption, but Flat Potency increases are -exceedingly- dangerous in the hands of Monk, Bard, Paladin, and Ninja, as an example. The tuning here is complicated. It will be an asymmetrical increase between potency and resources, and I don't yet have that math or will to do that math.

Here, the considerations are added pre-fight. Managing your own restores and convince others to help you out as well. What Berserk does is allow you to designate a team member to funnel into. Contrasting the implication given by the stat name, Berserk is the most team oriented of the playstyles, because it will A) Make the most use of a supportive team and B) Because a high stat Berserker will run dry by itself. (Unless it's a Black Mage, but there likely won't be high Berserk Black Mage. Just key breakpoints).

All of this works within the current iteration of the game, barring Bard, Monks, and Criticals.

Set bonuses in an MMO are one thing, but interchangeable "keystone materia" for set bonuses would be pointless because people would math out the best keystone on day one, and so there would be no choice to be made at all.

Unless the keystones didn't affect your DPS in any way.

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Originally Posted by Jollyy5

Set bonuses in an MMO are one thing, but interchangeable "keystone materia" for set bonuses would be pointless because people would math out the best keystone on day one, and so there would be no choice to be made at all.

Unless the keystones didn't affect your DPS in any way.

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And set bonuses that you don't get to choose from are pointless because you just change from tier to tier.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

And set bonuses that you don't get to choose from are pointless because you just change from tier to tier.

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I know, which is why it would probably be for the best if they didn't give us set bonuses, trying to keep them interesting and balanced would be a losing fight for the devs unfortunately.

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Originally Posted by Jollyy5

I know, which is why it would probably be for the best if they didn't give us set bonuses, trying to keep them interesting and balanced would be a losing fight for the devs unfortunately.

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I'm not going to say no, but I'm not going to say yes.

I have enough mixed feelings about set bonuses, between "This is awesome and completely changes everything" to "This is pointless." So I'd say that if they were implemented, I'd want Keystones that amplified supplemental parts of kits rather than the main part of the kit, but I also wouldn't mind not having them implemented at all.

not a fan of these ideas. as a crit/dh blm(still keeping 1600ish SS), precision just sounds awful. i quite like getting 3-4 crit/dhs in my opener. also, if it procs on my last fire4, there's a huge chance i won't notice and i'll cast blizz3 and absolutely waste it. berserk on BLM would be utterly broken because of how astral fire works. 20 potency buff on fire4 was in effect a 30 potency buff last time we got boosted.

I can understand that. It is certainly possible to not get the full benefit of precision for those who are so tuned into their muscle memory.

As I said, Berserk would require a fair amount of tuning. I can only say for certain that it would not be a 1-for-1 damage to resource scaling.

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Originally Posted by Jollyy5

I know, which is why it would probably be for the best if they didn't give us set bonuses, trying to keep them interesting and balanced would be a losing fight for the devs unfortunately.

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Outlandish, but... food for thought:

The only set bonuses I've really liked were either guaranteed and we're actually on gear (e.g. you gain abilities or affects as you progress through the dungeon that in turn make other wings of a raid more feasible), or were purely aesthetic-embonusing considerations (as if the fashion guy at Gold Saucer, suddenly of decent yet flexible taste, gave you a minor bonus stat modifier between pieces of gear that fit together) to be used when actually allowed to hodgepodge your gear (like, a White Mage allowed to wear a breastplate, or a Monk taking mail only on shoulder tackle shoulder, and leather elsewhere) and held back only by actual weight and defense considerations.

The whole Attribute of this game is complete and utter garbage - sorry to say it that way, but I have never seen before in any MMO before of FF14, a more useless and boring Attribute System, that is divided also in pointless role attributes, in pointless crafting/collecting attributes, instead of just making a good classic Attribute System with Multi Effects, which is simply just shared among the whole game for everything, regardless of what your role is, regardless if you are at the moment a crafter or not ...

The Attribute System needs definetely a complete redesign, together with the character progression system thsat comes together with equipment and the current only upgrade item that this game know,s that is so super boring and useless, that you can only laugh over it as an experienced mmo gamer, that is Materias.

FF14 should have imo the following Attribute System:

Strength Increases the dealt Damage from all Close Range DPS-Classes, increases your Physical Condition Resistancy, letting negative Conditions like Stuns, Poison ect. end faster

Vitality Increases your Maximum Health and how efficiently you can get healed from other party members actively/passively

Toughness Decreases the received physical damage and received condition dot's from conditions like Poison, Burn, Bleedings ect.

Precision Raises the chance to perform Critical Hits and defense ignoring Direct Hits as also while being a Crafter/Collector the chance to successfully collect or progress efficiency of your crafting works

Agility Raises your Attack Speed of Auto Attacks as also Skill Recharge Times. As Crafter/Collector it raises the speed how fast you perform Auto Crafting/Collecting with Auto Collecting now being new...when there's Auto Crafting, there has to be also Auto Collecting

Dexterity Raises the Damage of ranged physical Weapons and the chance to evade/block/counter attacks. Crafters/Collectors will gain from Dexterity an increased chance of finding spots with Bonus Effects, or in case of Crafters Dexterity lets them gain efficiency on making HQ progress

Wisdom Increases maximum Magic Points and the magical defense of your Character, as Crafter/Collector it raises the chances of performing your work very efficiently, resulting in high quality item or in regard of craftign, how efficienctly you raise your progress in making a crafted item result in being HQ.

Intelligence Increases magical Attack Power for dealing more damage with Magic Spells and lets you gain more efficiently LP (Limit Points), so that you can perform more oftenly/quicker your Special Skills in instances

Courage Decreases the chances of being critically hit from enemies, helps in keeping Enemy Aggression and raises for Crafting/Collecting the chance in performing Risky Actions successfully

This way would have the game 9 Stats, which are more useful for ALL CLASSES more or less.
I see absolutely no reason, why Crafting/Collecting needs to have their own attributes, when it could be also just done with shared attributes among all Classes.

Skillspeed should just be scrapped altogether since it only really serves to muddle up your rotations due to oGCDs no longer lining up when they should.

Would probably be a different story if we didn't have combos.