Simplicity over complexity, time to change.

[Kazama]

If there was a super complex stat system someone would still just figure out the BiS set for every job and everyone would use that

This is the defense that is always used when someone brings up horizontal progression and stat diversity and it really isn't true. For one, as stats get more complex, the less other people tend to care about your gear as long as it is level and job appropriate. But sure, someone will always come out with best cookie cutter builds for DPS Output, Healing Output and Damage Mitigation. But you can most certainly have different synergies in gear and on top of that you can also have bonus attributes like movement speed, resistance and a whole slew of other things that work out situationally or to optimize burst damage over sustained. You can't tell me that a +5% movement speed buff has no chance of saving a bad dodger in Titan EX, Ramuh EX, T6 can you? What if you are fighting something that does a lot of unavoidable AoE damage but isn't made any easier by high DPS, wouldn't you like the option of using a higher defense/HP set at the cost of DPS output? Hypothetical of course but what if you could stack enough resist petrify to never have to worry about Shriek, Voice or Petrifaction on T7 again. Or imagine if your tank found a piece of gear that makes it so if he gets hit for more than half his HP in a single attack it restores 25% of the damage from the attack. That sure would be nice for Death Sentence or Ravensbeak right?


I've clearly seen these kinds of things work out flawlessly in multiple MMOs. In XI on my BLM when soloing I optimized very specifically to ensure that I could 1-shot my mob or I would get dead real fast. For normal farming I pulled out a scythe to whack things with, then for endgame bosses it was all about Elemental Magic Skill to reduce resists. My Cleric in Aion has 5 sets of gear (HP, Magic Resistance, Block, Healing Boost/MP and Magic Boost) that I use in PvE depending on the fight (no gear swap mechanics here). Many Clerics would often fail at healing runs because they would die or wouldn't have the MP to handle it. In my DPS set I frequently clocked in the top 5 DPS of all players at open world fortress sieges gaining me top credit and making solo content go by absurdly fast. Man what I would pay for a DPS set on my WHM in FFXIV cause holy farming is amazing already.

[Zumi]

What if you are fighting something that does a lot of unavoidable AoE damage but isn't made any easier by high DPS, wouldn't you like the option of using a higher defense/HP set at the cost of DPS output?

This already exists in the form of melded accessories. You can be a dps say a monk and have melded accessories with vit, str, crit/det, you sacrifice some str for vit. Almost no dps does this because they don't care about survivability as a dps, because most dps think if they die to AoE its the healers fault. There is a lot of unavoidable aoe on every fight but I don't see any dps saying I should sacrifice some dps for more survivability. Would it make turns like Turn 8, and Turn 9 easier on the healers if dps did this yes it would but almost every dps wouldn't want to lower their dps to make the healers job easier. You could do stuff like survive a double meteor stream without having a quick heal in there if all the dps had extra vit or survive a big aoe hit in T8 of heals were slow and everyone wasn't topped off in time. But the way the game is now people want the healers to do their job not give them more leeway to make mistakes.

Only some warrior tanks will use melded accessories because they want to sacrifice a little hp for slightly higher dps because they fell they can afford a lower HP and the healer can still heal them.

[Taruranto]

This already exists in the form of melded accessories. You can be a dps say a monk and have melded accessories with vit, str, crit/det, you sacrifice some str for vit. Almost no dps does this because they don't care about survivability as a dps, because most dps think if they die to AoE its the healers fault. There is a lot of unavoidable aoe on every fight but I don't see any dps saying I should sacrifice some dps for more survivability. Would it make turns like Turn 8, and Turn 9 easier on the healers if dps did this yes it would but almost every dps wouldn't want to lower their dps to make the healers job easier. You could do stuff like survive a double meteor stream without having a quick heal in there if all the dps had extra vit or survive a big aoe hit in T8 of heals were slow and everyone wasn't topped off in time. But the way the game is now people want the healers to do their job not give them more leeway to make mistakes.

Only some warrior tanks will use melded accessories because they want to sacrifice a little hp for slightly higher dps because they fell they can afford a lower HP and the healer can still heal them.

Considering how many fights rely on DPS checks and scripted mechanics that require X dps yeah, of course they don't. And it still poor customization.

Infamous? More like standard procedure pretty much. Nothing out of the ordinary. Skill/Spell Speed, Accuracy, Critical Hit, Determination(pretty much Expertise), Parry. Eeeeyup the standard MMO set up is all here. Only argument to make here is that bonus distribution is near pointless since people stack the main stat. I wouldn't hold a candle to FFXI either just because you stacked two stats instead of one and it's secondary stats were pretty much the same. Also to note that devs said they are trying to make certain things like "Enhances xx" due to popular demand without shaking the way the current system works.

" you stacked two stats instead of one and it's secondary stats were pretty much the same." What? What the hell are you even going on about? Did you even play XI? Just RDM had more stats and gears combinations than all the jobs in this game combined.

A


I agree. Yoshi has done a spectacular job with the new engine and graphics, the UI, and much of the quality of life aspects of ARR. But Tanaka did a FAR better job with creating an authentic-feeling fantasy world and having the systems of the game serve that purpose. Tanaka was also much more reserved in his management of 'spectacle'. He carefully limited the amount of flashiness at the launch of the game, and would drip-feed it to players over the expected life of the game in order to always have something new to show.

Yoshi was dumping buckets of glowing weapons, gaudy armor, mounts and minions on the players from day 1. This approached can't be sustained without venturing into complete absurdity and obliterating all sense of legitimacy in the world.

The sweet spot would be to have each working on what they do best.

This is a very good post. The ammount of tacky mounts we got in this game is honestly absurd. A Behemoth? What's the next, ride Titan if you pre-order the new expansion?

[Velhart]

" you stacked two stats instead of one and it's secondary stats were pretty much the same." What? What the hell are you even going on about? Did you even play XI? Just RDM had more stats and gears combinations than all the jobs in this game combined.

Played for 7+ years and yes, the stat system is nothing special. Just like almost every MMO, there was an optimal BiS setup and if you decided to go outside of the comfort zone in parties or didn't meet certain stat requirements, you were considered a gimp. Seen groups not invite a Samurai just because he had a NQ Haubergeon and not a +1.

Game was so well balanced with it's system that it took Puppetmaster and Beastmaster years to finally become relevant in the game.

~~~

Contrary to what some believe in here, and not criticizing horizontal progression, but it would not resolve the issue people are having in here. People griping over BiS and "have to do it this way to be relevant" will always be a thing no matter which way you take it. Vertical progression works for me because I don't feel like spending 7 years going to the same place trying to get certain gear....again. I understand that approach keeps content relevant the years to come. The major difference this time is, unlike FFXI, ARR is packing in new content at a heavy pace and no plans to slow down any time soon (has concept plans all the way to 4.0.) FFXI because of the PS2 limitations, did a lot to milk content for all it's worth. It certainly worked in that regard. ARR's with the amount they offer, keeping content relevant in that regard is more trouble than it is worth. The fact that a lot of the dungeons require going through for the story and mulitple jobs that come out that need to be leveled help keep previous content relevant to an extent. Not to mention, dungeons offer pretty awesome looking vanity that people are always after. Like I said, horizontal to me isn't bad, and if ARR's core was built to help cater to that style, it might work. However, it isn't set up like that and it just isn't going to happen. Color me impressed if it does however!

To SE's credit, they do a vertical progression with a somewhat horizontal approach to it. Like 2.2 released the new tier of gear, while 2.3 opened more options to obtain that tier of gear. Not many MMO's that do that.

You do realize that once everyone else gets sick of how shallow the game is and unsubs that they'll simply shut down the game and then you won't have anything, right? Telling people who are trying to give advice on how the game may be improved to simply "get out" is rude and unhelpful.

Criticism is fine, but people also have the right to agree with the direction SE takes. Heaven forbid people compliment the game or don't agree with the people who constantly cry in here for "change change change". I rather criticize and help improve systems that are currently in place, not tear down the wall and start over like a lot of people want in here. There is constructive criticism and destructive criticism. Dev's don't usually listen to destructive criticism unless it is in fact proven that an aspect of the game makes it completely broken.

KISS is mostly recognized as "Keep It Simple Stupid" - And it is meant to be applied in relation to over complicating things for no reason. Regardless, to apply KISS to a game is often really bad practice. It results in things like FFXIII where the game pretty much played itself and you watched cutscenes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle

Don't think that is how he meant it. Your example of FFXIII is called the "Press button to win" feature. I believe he was talking about keeping the gameplay simple and let the content itself be the difficult part. Like Mario, all you need to figure out is A is to jump, hold B to run, and direction pad takes you left/right and let the level design itself offer the challenge. If you let mechanics itself become to harder part of the game, you have to balance it with having the content around it eased up.

[Felessan]

I see way less people in mor dhona, I see way less combat activity in PF. Almost half of it is just merchant advertisement and coil static recruitment. Hunt is garbage tier content that the majority are doing because they're forced into it.

I'm... well-connected, so I see a lot of different people. People I'm telling about is just casuals/very mild hardcore. They don't go to raids and play generally limited amount of time. They have nothing to do in 2.0-2.1. Now they got their Zodiac weapon questline, sporadic hunting activity, rooms to decorate, all this keeps people in game.
On other hand I have FC full of people at/past T9. Those who wanted "get in pass content, go to next MMO" - already left, and last wave was around start of 2.2. Now only dedicated raiders left and they just do stuff they want - raiding, hunting hardcore, earning money.
And (as I said in all those "cry me a river" Hunt treads) party finders already starts to liven up, as people farmed/got bored with hunts and go back to usual activities. I already see 10-15 entries, ppl even start trying Ramuh in random parties.

I never meant to make his words what I want, Yoshida has a vision of what he wants in the future, and pretty deep into the future too from what I've heard. So with this in mind I thought about why he would want all these systems to be simple right off the bat.

You treat simplicity as something bad. Back from when I worked as some kind of designer there was a golden rule - KISS - Keep It Short and Simple.
Being simple does not means it lacks depth, board games have simple rules, but being a master in them is hard as hell. It much easier to organize depth and balance difficulty for simple things than for overcomplicated things.

I am moving to Destiny. It is not a real MMO but neither is XIV with all the instances. And I will actually get to explore the world!

You will be displeased.
Sans PvP (that just more or less clone to any other multiplayer shooter) it's the same theme park MMO with vertical progression and focus on dungeons and raids. Just look at leaked list of content - dungeons, hard mode dungeons and raids.

This is the defense that is always used when someone brings up horizontal progression and stat diversity and it really isn't true. For one, as stats get more complex, the less other people tend to care about your gear as long as it is level and job appropriate.

One of the problem with horizontal progression that it makes whole "ilvl or bust" goes beyond clouds. Every single situation will be min-maxed and people with non-optimal equipment will be shunned. And getting 5 sets of gear is a larger stress than getting 1 set.

[Kazama]

You treat simplicity as something bad. Back from when I worked as some kind of designer there was a golden rule - KISS - Keep It Short and Simple.

KISS is mostly recognized as "Keep It Simple Stupid" - And it is meant to be applied in relation to over complicating things for no reason. Regardless, to apply KISS to a game is often really bad practice. It results in things like FFXIII where the game pretty much played itself and you watched cutscenes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle

One of the problem with horizontal progression that it makes whole "ilvl or bust" goes beyond clouds. Every single situation will be min-maxed and people with non-optimal equipment will be shunned. And getting 5 sets of gear is a larger stress than getting 1 set.

That is not at all true. I gave you two very good examples both of which min-maxing weren't required. In 7 years of FFXI I don't recall a single occasion where people said no you can't do this with us because you don't have X item, and trust me my gear was nowhere near stellar or BiS. Same goes for Aion, never was I shunned from a group or run because I didn't have the right gear or stats or asked what my stats were even. In fact, you could block people from examining your gear all together.

Now on the contrary, I can't even get into some Leviathan parties or even Brayflox speed runs because the ilvl is set to 93+ and I chose to craft and meld an entire set on WHM as opposed to buy soldiery since it is not my main. I've actually sent tells stating I have over 100 levi wins on healer and to drop their ilvl req or invite me and met with rejection. Gearscore, as many anticipated, is the pinnacle of judging and measuring. No longer does it matter at all if you have completed content as long as you are above the ilvl that is all people care about.

[Exstal]

Same goes for Aion, never was I shunned from a group or run because I didn't have the right gear or stats or asked what my stats were even. In fact, you could block people from examining your gear all together.

I would shun you if you didn't have the required DPS to warrant your spot. Unless you were a healer, then all you had to be is mildly intelligent. As for blocking your gear, I *hated* that to no end. What a completely, and utterly, worthless feature. All it did was make it so I had to ask people what they were using to join important instances.

You should have been on my server, I'd ask you for that!

Horizontal gearing only worked in Aion because of PvP. If you did anything other than the reasonable stats for PvE; if magic you used Magical Boost, and Magical accuracy; if you were melee crit/acc/attack; if you were healer, whatever you wanted to slot as long as you weren't stupid. PvP stats could be any myriad of stats depending on your playstyle. But even in that regard, some builds were far superior to others. You wouldn't see Clerics stacking HP for PvP lest they get melted by both melee and magic. Tanks wouldn't stack evasion because it was worthless as they couldn't pass natural accuracy on those who would hit them. So it worked in some sense, but only in one aspect of the game and not even remotely in the other.

If they did something like that here, then it would make some ground but this is a PvE game first, Vanity game second, PvP game third. They'd have to pull some FFXI stuff to make it work. I do not like FFXI, they let Ninja become a tank because balance is irrelevant.

[Kazama]

I would shun you if you didn't have the required DPS to warrant your spot. Unless you were a healer, then all you had to be is mildly intelligent. As for blocking your gear, I *hated* that to no end. What a completely, and utterly, worthless feature.

You should have been on my server, I'd ask you for that!

I am on your server Exstal and we have run stuff many times... but I usually lived in DPS Spec Cleric and only did PvP in the end. We didn't 6 man most of the endgame stuff like TS anyhow so in order to support 4-man farming runs yeah we had to hit DPS checks for a smooth run. If we are talking DLS sure you had to meet DPS checks there too but that was only one thing. What I meant is for 90% of players to run an instance they didn't need to do these things unless they wanted to run with the best players.

Also I agree - blocking people from viewing your gear was stupid.

Syn Kazama - Hyperion Server (Main FFXIV Account)
Synr - Tiamat Server (Main Aion Character)

[Exstal]

I am on your server Exstal and we have run stuff many times... but I usually lived in DPS Spec Cleric and only did PvP in the end. We didn't 6 man most of the endgame stuff like TS anyhow so in order to support 4-man farming runs yeah we had to hit DPS checks for a smooth run. If we are talking DLS sure you had to meet DPS checks there too but that was only one thing. What I meant is for 90% of players to run an instance they didn't need to do these things unless they wanted to run with the best players.

Also I agree - blocking people from viewing your gear was stupid.

Syn Kazama - Hyperion Server (Main FFXIV Account)
Synr - Tiamat Server (Main Aion Character)

Damn, I hated DPS Clerics. I was a firm believer that healers should have relatively low DPS, just above tanks..not close to or above sorcs >_>

Man, I lived in DLR. Then Bun got all his mithril medals and stopped playing so the static died D:

[Hiruke]

This already exists in the form of melded accessories.

First off, melded accessories by definition aren't at the current iLVL cap, making them inherently less good than anything that is at the current iLVL cap, period. The amount of specialization/odd stats you can do are pretty limited, and quite expensive. If you can think of any melded accessories that with their secondary stats make X fight more easier than using iLVL capped gear, please let us know.

Either way, this is nothing at all like for example using full Lightning Resistance gear and taking substantially less damage from Ramuh EX, which was a common tactic used in FFXI (tank dragons using fire resist gear so their unavoidable fireball attacks did next to nothing). Also doesn't really speak to the other wonderful examples given by other posters on how using different stats for different purposes would be way better than how the system currently works.

This 100%^^ good bye

You do realize that once everyone else gets sick of how shallow the game is and unsubs that they'll simply shut down the game and then you won't have anything, right? Telling people who are trying to give advice on how the game may be improved to simply "get out" is rude and unhelpful.