Stat squish confirmed: How will unsynced old content be handled?

They mentioned during the announcement there would be a stat squish, and they said they still needed to address how it would affect unsynced duty runs. Any ideas on how they should handle this?

Perhaps turn on the Echo when you are in a duty more than 10 levels below your level?

i hope its better than what wow devs did. you could do it at 50, but at 60 it a no go

I really hope they ensure unsync being of very nearly the same. I find it is a very enjoyable feature, and feel it would be unfortunate to lose. Echo might help with that certainly!

Or, lol, they keep ideas like Basic Instinct up with blue mage such that it functionally replaces that with equal to greater power (equal to unsync your main job). A few thoughts to that might be Basic Instinct can trait upgrade later to give you all three mimic states at once (allow blue the sustain and tank it needs to solo some content easier, as well as giving solo blues a full kit building experience). Rather than hyper boosting damage too much more then is may consider adding a loot buff when you 'sync' with blue (new token more treasure drops, etc- so it may take a little bit longer than classically an unsync max job would but you get a bit more gameplay and the reward is boosted to reward that extra time, double benefit). Of course still able to complete content that an unsync could have done and perhaps more since blue has some wacky spells. Like instinct you might see Angel Whisper which has classically been auto-raise would do that when solo, keeping the cooldown naturally (and being the same as it is in parties, although I think when you are healer mimic it should heal a bit to feel more classic). Or a new spell called molt which causes you to shed a clone that takes any marker on you and temporally your enmity, when solo / basic instinct it might have charges or a better cool down and it can behave differently for party situations.



With an aside concept of a new token blue mages get for doing content synced (including carnival) which might be used to purchase the usual cool things, other currencies, and a special consumable item (incense) that massively boosts your damage reduction and increase some stats (either at great token cost or cost to all drops from the content) so if you can't get a group for those raid spells you could still at least learn the spell with a little personal investment / cost.

Then blue would be that job you used to go back to old content, and you could have a decent kit since with the instincts and incense you wouldn't be out of luck if you missed the hot patch period (incense to be used on those much harder contents- costly enough in some way that PF isn't disregarded but still an option when PF is dead, and noting instinct already helps a lot on some more normal ones). If they did stuff like that and refresh their 1 - 50 spells with the quality of designs that are in 60 - 70 release spells (they're consistently more interesting, cleverly designed- like ultravibration is OP and relates to any deep freeze / petrify skill which opens future potentials, just works on what you expect not bad % spam, and has a cooldown so it doesn't fall to 1k needle spam), I'll go bury my blue salt somewhere deep lol ('advanced' job would still be neat but eh, at least I could use it and progress it even if I had to spend tokens or something to bolster effort).

It's probably a good idea to finish pony, bird and dog farms just in case the difficulty goes up. And get BLU skills and tank achievements unsynced too.

Luckily they did say the power increase from 80 to 90 should be similar than before so dragon farm can wait.

They've already handled it, there's no mystery here. Because they're decreasing the slope of the power creep it means you'll be going into the unsynced content with only 200% higher stats instead of 1000% higher stats. As Yoshi said he currently does 50K base damage now and will be doing 10K base damage after the change. So during unsynced content, if you hit something with 25K HP, it will take you 3 hits instead of 1 to kill it.

Thats why he said unsynced will be getting "harder".

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Originally Posted by Alien_Gamer

Thats why he said unsynced will be getting "harder".

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I do not remember any mention of unsynch becoming harder during those announcements.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

I do not remember any mention of unsynch becoming harder during those announcements.

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He said it was the only thing the stat squish would affect.

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

He said it was the only thing the stat squish would affect.

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Yup, this sticked out to me too, he said unsyncs will get harder with stat squish.

But can someone explain to me like I'm 7, why stat squish will affect unsyncs? Like didn't he say relatively, if players and mobs are squished by 25%, meaning everyone gets weaker by 25%? Why does it affect unsync?

Let me write it out, let's just divide by 10, or delete 1 zero.

Before Stat Squish:
My level 80 PLD
My HP = 1000
My Damage = 100

Level 80 Dungeon
Boss HP = 5000
Boss Damage = 500

Level 40 Dungeon
Boss HP = 500
Boss Damage = 50

I go into level 40 Dungeon unsynced. My Stats are 100% higher than the level 40 dungeon.

Now Stat Squish - divide all by 10.

My level 80 PLD
My HP = 100
My Damage = 10

Level 80 Dungeon
Boss HP = 500
Boss Damage = 50

Level 40 Dungeon
Boss HP = 50
Boss Damage = 5

I go into level 40 dungeon unsynced. My stats are still 100% higher than the level 40 dungeon?

Relatively still the same right? Sorry that I am not familiar with stat squish concept, can someone correct my example above if this is wrong?

I hope this will mean lower-level content like the Crystal Tower will be less of a broken faceroll. The enormous leaps in stat growth are a huge problem, and I'm glad it's getting addressed.

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

Yup, this sticked out to me too, he said unsyncs will get harder with stat squish.

But can someone explain to me like I'm 7, why stat squish will affect unsyncs? Like didn't he say relatively, if players and mobs are squished by 25%, meaning everyone gets weaker by 25%? Why does it affect unsync?

Let me write it out, let's just divide by 10, or delete 1 zero.

Before Stat Squish:
My level 80 PLD
My HP = 1000
My Damage = 100

Level 80 Dungeon
Boss HP = 5000
Boss Damage = 500

Level 40 Dungeon
Boss HP = 500
Boss Damage = 50

I go into level 40 Dungeon unsynced. My Stats are 100% higher than the level 40 dungeon.

Now Stat Squish - divide all by 10.

My level 80 PLD
My HP = 100
My Damage = 10

Level 80 Dungeon
Boss HP = 500
Boss Damage = 50

Level 40 Dungeon
Boss HP = 50
Boss Damage = 5

I go into level 40 dungeon unsynced. My stats are still 100% higher than the level 40 dungeon?

Relatively still the same right? Sorry that I am not familiar with stat squish concept, can someone correct my example above if this is wrong?

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They said squish will start at lvl 50 -> 80 so unsynced lvl 50 content might not have their numbers changed. So if you go into lvl 51 stuff unsynced nothing changes but in lvl 50 content it gets a bit harder. That's what I unerstood at least

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Now Stat Squish - divide all by 10.

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The stat squish is not being applied to all levels equally. It's more like dividing lower level content by 10, then middle by 100 and high levels by 1000. He said something about levels 50-80 being brought a bit closer in terms of power level. So far growth in each expansion has been exponential and they are trying to make it less so for older content. Higher levels will be squished more % and that will make unsynced fights less easy. Like Alien_Gamer explained.

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Originally Posted by Lisertan

They said squish will start at lvl 50 -> 80 so unsynced lvl 50 content might not have their numbers changed. So if you go into lvl 51 stuff unsynced nothing changes but in lvl 50 content it gets a bit harder. That's what I unerstood at least

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Got it, so it will be like:

After Stat Squish

My level 80 PLD
My HP = 100
My Damage = 10

Level 80 Dungeon
Boss HP = 500
Boss Damage = 50

Level 40 Dungeon
Boss HP = 500
Boss Damage = 50

Basically my character is now weaker to go into lv 40 dungeon. Got it, yes it's an exagerrated and simplified example, but now it's clear.

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

Got it, so it will be like:

After Stat Squish

My level 80 PLD
My HP = 100
My Damage = 10

Level 80 Dungeon
Boss HP = 500
Boss Damage = 50

Level 40 Dungeon
Boss HP = 500
Boss Damage = 50

Basically my character is now weaker to go into lv 40 dungeon. Got it, yes it's an exagerrated and simplified example, but now it's clear.

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That's how I understood it. Yes. (Disclaimer: I could be wrong :D )

The effect it will have on unsynched content will be heavier purely to how our stats scale in comparison to the content. Currently we tower over past content due to the exponential increase to our stats with each successive expansion. The squish will eliminate several layers of power we have over past content. The gains from 81-90 will add a comfy buffer but I doubt running Titania Ex at 90 will be near as easy as the steamroll that was Lakshmi at 80.

Hmm, gotta farm up stuff while it's easy. Finish Rathalos mount farm at least while it can still be easily done unsynched.

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

Got it, so it will be like:

After Stat Squish

My level 80 PLD
My HP = 100
My Damage = 10

Level 80 Dungeon
Boss HP = 500
Boss Damage = 50

Level 40 Dungeon
Boss HP = 500
Boss Damage = 50

Basically my character is now weaker to go into lv 40 dungeon. Got it, yes it's an exagerrated and simplified example, but now it's clear.

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Not quite.

It'll be more like

Level 50 - HP 100, Damage 10
Level 60 - HP 125, Damage 12
Level 70 - HP 155, Damage 15

as opposed to the current

Level 50 - HP 100, Damage 10
Level 60 - HP 200, Damage 20
Level 70 - HP 400, Damage 40

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Originally Posted by Ammokkx

Not quite.

It'll be more like

Level 50 - HP 100, Damage 10
Level 60 - HP 125, Damage 12
Level 70 - HP 155, Damage 15

as opposed to the current

Level 50 - HP 100, Damage 10
Level 60 - HP 200, Damage 20
Level 70 - HP 400, Damage 40

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If the problem was HP was getting too large and text too long and causing bugs, why are they doing the squish in this way? Why not just a solid across the board eliminate 3 zero decimal points? Or did I misunderstand what the issue was?

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

If the problem was HP was getting too large and text too long and causing bugs, why are they doing the squish in this way? Why not just a solid across the board eliminate 3 zero decimal points? Or did I misunderstand what the issue was?

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That would also be my question. Why this convoluted system of squishing stats from 51-80, only to normalize them again for the last 10 levels? They could've just squished the entire game down from 1-90 and have a more consistent increase, maybe from 1-80 and then have a slightly bigger increase for the last 10 if they want to give players a bigger sense of progression.

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

If the problem was HP was getting too large and text too long and causing bugs, why are they doing the squish in this way? Why not just a solid across the board eliminate 3 zero decimal points? Or did I misunderstand what the issue was?

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I think the problem is that you can't do that at the lower end of the scale.

It's a distant memory for a lot of players, but at low levels you only have three or four digits of HP and attacks are likewise only doing a few hundred damage. They simply can't be divided by 1000 at that stage, so they have to be left relatively alone while the work gets done higher up.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

I really hope they ensure unsync being of very nearly the same. I find it is a very enjoyable feature, and feel it would be unfortunate to lose. Echo might help with that certainly!

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What is so much fun about it? I personally loathe DF for that reason. Especially as a healer. Just wondering. ^^

Lower levels aren't really the problem. The problem comes at the end of expansions, where gear score explodes. We don't notice it much during the patches when they're current because we're just keeping up, but just look at the jump from, say, level 70 job gear (item level 290) to Augmented Scaevan (400). And then the next expansion has to keep up with that power creep.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

I hope this will mean lower-level content like the Crystal Tower will be less of a broken faceroll. The enormous leaps in stat growth are a huge problem, and I'm glad it's getting addressed.

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I think that's the reason why everyone and their pet moogle want to be done with it as quickly. There is no engagement. It should require a modicum of effort. Would still be pretty easy, but, y'know, engaging. At least force us to do mechanics again. lol

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

Lower levels aren't really the problem. The problem comes at the end of expansions, where gear score explodes. We don't notice it much during the patches when they're current because we're just keeping up, but just look at the jump from, say, level 70 job gear (item level 290) to Augmented Scaevan (400). And then the next expansion has to keep up with that power creep.

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You can look at the stats you have in Bozja and compare it to what you have equipped outside it

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

But can someone explain to me like I'm 7, why stat squish will affect unsyncs? Like didn't he say relatively, if players and mobs are squished by 25%, meaning everyone gets weaker by 25%? Why does it affect unsync?

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Not quite ELI7, but....

The growth from 50 to 80 isn't linear. The curve gets steeper the higher you go. That is, the amount of growth between 50 and 60 (10 levels) is not the same as the growth from 60 to 70 (10 levels), and neither is 1/3 the growth between 50 and 80 (30 levels). The difference is much greater.

Here are some hypothetical graphs:

https://i.imgur.com/3txUPcJ.png

The top row is an example of the current power growth curve. The heights of the pink bars show the power at a lower level, 50 or 60, and the heights of the blue bars show the power at a higher level, 60 or 80. You can see that the difference between overpowering Lv50 content at Lv80 is several times more than overpowering Lv50 content at Lv60.

The bottom row shows a hypothetical stat squish. In this particular example, the post-squish Lv80 is about 1/3 the power of pre-squish Lv80. Notice that pre-squish, Lv60 was about 2.5x as powerful as Lv50 but post-squish Lv60 is only about 1.5x as powerful as Lv50. Likewise, pre-squish Lv80 is about 16x stronger than Lv50 and about 6x as strong as Lv60, but post-squish Lv80 is only about 6x as strong as Lv50 and 3x as powerful as Lv60.

The new power curve would mean that a Lv80 doing Lv80 content is still relatively the same pre- and post-squish, and a Lv50 player doing Lv50 content is still relatively the same pre- and post-squish. But compared to unsyncking content pre-squish, the post-squish Lv60 player doing Lv50 content is about 4/5 as powerful as they were before, while the post-squish Lv80 player doing Lv50 content is about 1/3 as powerful as they used to be.

Of course we have no idea how steep the new curve will be in reality. This is a fairly exaggerated example to make the concept easier to visualize, but hopefully this explains why there would be a difference at all just for unsyncked players. This could very well mean that things some players are used to soloing might minimally need to be duoed, or maybe a duty you can currently duo might minimally need 1 each of tank, healer, and DD after the squish.

A stat squish. A concept WoW has attempted multiple times and gotten wrong EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. Something always goes wrong.

If this is true and well developed:

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Damage reduction example: 530 BLM using Fire 4 with no crit/direct hit deals about 50k damage, this will become about 10k damage. Ratio of damage to enemy health will stay the same

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Then this should NOT occur.

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Undersized parties might be more difficult

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The FFXIV Developers have two choices in front of them. Make enemies stronger and old, outdated content harder or make players stronger and old, outdated content easier.

It's a tough balancing act and I'm glad I don't have to be the one pulling the trigger on the decision. I am concerned with the FFXIV development team because their track record on system overhauls isn't exactly stellar, or even good at this point.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

Lower levels aren't really the problem. The problem comes at the end of expansions, where gear score explodes. We don't notice it much during the patches when they're current because we're just keeping up, but just look at the jump from, say, level 70 job gear (item level 290) to Augmented Scaevan (400). And then the next expansion has to keep up with that power creep.

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The Devs have pretty much standardized ilvls over the last few expanions. It's usually 120-130 ilvls from old expansion tome gear to new expansion tome gear.

Thank you, the graph helps and makes it very clear.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

The Devs have pretty much standardized ilvls over the last few expanions. It's usually 120-130 ilvls from old expansion tome gear to new expansion tome gear.

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That was my point, yes. How much do stats escalate over those item levels? We jump that every time we go to a new expansion, and we're going onto the fourth expansion soon. That means three big end-of-expac gear jumps, with corresponding stat jumps. That's a big chunk of what's being smoothed out.

"440,000,000HP!"

oh, are we still using windows 98?

The problem is pretty much the exact same as WoW had at the end of Mists of Pandaria. Blizzard had to design around the problem in Siege of Orgrimmar, the final raid. The second-to-last boss, Paragons of the Klaxxi, was actually multiple bosses daisy-chained together, and the final boss, Garrosh Hellscream, self-healed twice over the course of the fight (Three times if playing on the highest difficulty level). Garrosh's effective total HP across all phases was about 3.77 billion (37.7億) on 25 player heroic difficulty.

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Originally Posted by MsQi

"440,000,000HP!"

oh, are we still using windows 98?

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No, but they're likely approaching the 32-bit integer limit which with their current scaling, enemy HP would 100% hit that overflow point in 6.0.
And no, simply re-assigning certain values to higher datatypes isn't as simple as it looks. Since packets would have to encapsulate that data, any change in the variable size for certain values would increase packet size. Which magnified by -x- amount of players doing the boss across -y- amount of instances (which at the beginning of new raid patches, can be thousands of instances) can increase server I/O load substantially.

Given that increasing our inventory by even 1 slot seems to be a big task that they have to meticulously plan out due to the increase in packet size it brings, it's no surprise they'd rather stat squish than re-program many of the int values in the game into higher encapsulating datatypes.

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Originally Posted by Feronar

The problem is pretty much the exact same as WoW had at the end of Mists of Pandaria. Blizzard had to design around the problem in Siege of Orgrimmar, the final raid. The second-to-last boss, Paragons of the Klaxxi, was actually multiple bosses daisy-chained together, and the final boss, Garrosh Hellscream, self-healed twice over the course of the fight (Three times if playing on the highest difficulty level). Garrosh's effective total HP across all phases was about 3.77 billion (37.7億) on 25 player heroic difficulty.

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Okay, so it does seem similar to WoW's problems, and Yoshi has been known of taking solutions from WoW before.

So from whatever has happened in WoW already, what should FFXIV expect? What should we be prepared for, is it all bad news? Is there anything to learn?

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

I think that's the reason why everyone and their pet moogle want to be done with it as quickly. There is no engagement. It should require a modicum of effort. Would still be pretty easy, but, y'know, engaging. At least force us to do mechanics again. lol

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Ummmm no, most people want to be done with it quickly because if you have been playing since 2.0 you have done it a million times already and no matter how much you are engaged it's still old content you can do with your eyes closed in your sleep.

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Originally Posted by Liale

Ummmm no, most people want to be done with it quickly because if you have been playing since 2.0 you have done it a million times already and no matter how much you are engaged it's still old content you can do with your eyes closed in your sleep.

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To be fair, making it so absurdly easy only exacerbates that feeling. I'll be more willing to run Weeping City for the 100th time if it remains engaging. Meanwhile, I've actively avoided Alliance Roulette for nearly a full year because I absolutely detest getting LotA and Syrcus for the bazillion time when a light breeze knocks over all the bosses.

One version of stat shrink I know they have in the game already is with Paladin's blocking. The highest block chance Paladin always gets is near the end of the expansion, with the next one getting shrunk back down otherwise Paladin would be able to block too much damage.

Ultimately I don't think it will be a problem, because he said they'd still have the current style powerup from 80 to 90, so level 90 will still be OP unsynced. So you can just level up to the max before you do stuff. BLU might be the only real victim but they already have OP abilities at every level.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

What is so much fun about it? I personally loathe DF for that reason. Especially as a healer. Just wondering. ^^

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Fair question, just to clarify since the last part about DF makes me not entirely sure we were talking about the same thing. You're asking why I like to solo unsync content right? Or why I suggested Echo?

To add clarity then I think echo if you unsync should be from the get go, no need to die to get some. because obviously if they nerf the creep you wont be as strong so it would be safe to assume you have to die a bunch to grow echo if you wanted to solo stuff, that seems like a painful and silly step (so.. dont have that be part of it, just auto start with some echo).

Why is it fun? Well the content is still interesting, seeing the neat boss fights and mechanics, and it is obviously a lot less stress in multiple ways. Don't need to memorize much, or really watch a guide in advance, don't have to worry that your group is going to be awful. I don't want to bag on DF much since it is my preference to content but savage content in DF is just a massive "oh my god.. Thal save me now". Until there is a huge echo boost and even then you're like, JOHN STOP STANDING IN THE RED.. SERIOUSLY lol.

So I am confident in my own ability to pick up what I need to do but not others and at the same time I don't want to wait around in PF to get groups or deal with the different culture that PF has, I have absolute first world PTSD with forming groups. First world as in, it's clearly a joke I could do it.. I just no longer ever want to do it lol. FFXI killed my desire on that, and then in FFXIV 1.0 it took me LITERALLY 3 days of shouting in Ul'dah to get 3 freaking people to join me to do a quest where they killed it before my cutscene was over and those 3 people joined out of pity (they told me they felt bad). NO, PF can die in a fire lol. But to be clear I don't want others to lose that ability, I know there are people who like that.

So I do DF for content that I know everyone can finish, even if it's me carrying the whole group (which is why I like to be PLD, RDM, or SMN or jobs like that where you can support where you need). Then I do the other content (like savage) solo- that I don't have the time to do in DF because people are going to die 10 times in a row and it makes farming the content kind of a waste of time (and it wasn't uncommon to see people abandon the content or run the timer out because someone just can't learn an important mechanic), and I don't have to PF as I don't want to start my short period of game time (~30 min here and there) waiting in a group that may or may not form because it's not hot content anymore (like blue in PF is honestly fine when it's hot but really really dies when it's not, which is why I hope they keep up the basic instinct train of thought so you can still progress later).

Unsync provides me the ability to enjoy a much larger portion of the game and it's still fun for me to see, experience, and earn stuff for. It's also nice to think about when I log in for 30 mins (or less) that I could just maybe knock out an old content or two. Also if I need getting 1 more person like a friend or FC member to unsync is pretty easy, if you need but getting a whole group when you're not maintaining close friends or a very willing FC to just do whatever you want to do when you want to do it (unrealistic and a bit unfair to their time)... so again unsync at a great power is actually, for me, a nice feature. Which is why I hope they either go out of their way to ensure unsync stays STRONG or they continue empowering blue mage with ideas like basic instinct (such that blue mage fills in the unsync gap equal or even better than previously other max cap jobs did- which with basic instinct the job is quickly becoming that).

Unsync (or a further empowered blue mage, which it's getting pretty close to now) = ability for me to peaceful complete content on my own time and schedule and enjoy a greater portion of the game with relatively minimal stress. I get to play most of the game, just at a delay lol.

Unysnc, or a concept like it = enjoyable concept to me. :3

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

A stat squish. A concept WoW has attempted multiple times and gotten wrong EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. Something always goes wrong.

If this is true and well developed:

Quote:

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Damage reduction example: 530 BLM using Fire 4 with no crit/direct hit deals about 50k damage, this will become about 10k damage. Ratio of damage to enemy health will stay the same

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Then this should NOT occur.

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Undersized parties might be more difficult

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Ratio of damage to enemy health staying the same only works when fighting similar-leveled enemies. The point of undersized parties is to overpower lower-leveled enemies, and since the stat gained per level increase is reduced between levels 51 and 80, it means you won't gain as much stat within that level range to use with undersized party against lower leveled enemies. But you still would be tuned relatively the same against enemies at your level.

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

Okay, so it does seem similar to WoW's problems, and Yoshi has been known of taking solutions from WoW before.

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You mean like the Glamour Dresser? Look how well that turned out.

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

So from whatever has happened in WoW already, what should FFXIV expect? What should we be prepared for, is it all bad news? Is there anything to learn?

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WoW has tried it twice now and both times have gone really bad and they had to spend months re-doing it. They have never got it right yet.

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

No, but they're likely approaching the 32-bit integer limit which with their current scaling, enemy HP would 100% hit that overflow point in 6.0.
And no, simply re-assigning certain values to higher datatypes isn't as simple as it looks. Since packets would have to encapsulate that data, any change in the variable size for certain values would increase packet size. Which magnified by -x- amount of players doing the boss across -y- amount of instances (which at the beginning of new raid patches, can be thousands of instances) can increase server I/O load substantially.

Given that increasing our inventory by even 1 slot seems to be a big task that they have to meticulously plan out due to the increase in packet size it brings, it's no surprise they'd rather stat squish than re-program many of the int values in the game into higher encapsulating datatypes.

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The simple truth is they didn't plan ahead and are stuck with the WoW mentality of stat growth. One of the first things you learn is how to prevent overflows and rollovers. If you know you have limits (which you should) plan on NOT hitting them. If you want the game to have longevity design it around 20, 40, 100 years down the line as if there will be no technological improvements with maximums short of the technical maximum. Ask what kind of numbers do we want to be hitting and how they work in THIS system? Test with these numbers and adjust.

A linear progression is fine, gaining 1 stat point per level or every couple levels, including potential gear options. But you need to develop more engaging types of character growth: Choices about what you learn and increase. Gear can serve other purposes besides a steady stat increase.

On the plus side, with stat squishes, buffs can be more common right? After all, I figure a large portion of buffs stacked together increased damage so significantly that they had to take some away as well besides for balance issues, but if all stats get squished, the actual effect to buffs is a lot smaller than before.