The Illusion of Choice

[Darkstride]

We don't need a new system, we have a system, we need more diverse raids to encourage variety within the system. At least, if this concept is something you're FOR you would want that.

But stats have such a lack of depth, what kind of content would they create that you would need different stats for? They don't do anything unique or different...it pretty much boils down to which stat is weighted the heaviest for your job and have you maxed it yet....

Stats in FFXIV are too job/role specific to the point where you suffer if you don't max your primary one. A Dragoon has no use for Mind, Piety, Int, Dexterity, etc because they legitimately do absolutely nothing for that job...because we have a system that is limiting. There's no raid mechanic that will make any of those stats more useful for a job that can't even use them.

[Ibi]

Ehnn, not in every case.

For example, leveling DoH via Ehcatl dailies. WAY more efficient when the xp is applied to lower levels. Each time you level the xp efficiency (% of a level per quest completion) wanes. So if you apply xp evenly, you will get them all in range of leve leveling wayyyyy faster than if you focus on one class at a time.

The start of the quote, that you've cut off, said "Your effectiveness is limited, at end game, by the weekly caps on tomestones and gear acquisition from raids."

I'm not sure how leveling DoH via Ehcatl dailies is related to that.

[KaitlanKela]

But stats have such a lack of depth, what kind of content would they create that you would need different stats for? They don't do anything unique or different...it pretty much boils down to which stat is weighted the heaviest for your job and have you maxed it yet....

Disagree. As I've said, I stack VIT on my healer for PvP. It's the widely accepted practice, actually. Different context, different rules.

In PvE, I could see a boss that has a move that does xxxxx unavoidable damage to (dps or healer, whichever), which can only be survived by having vit.
Most bosses have an accuracy cap, but what if it was so high, other classes had to stack aiming to hit?
Or a boss that slows so much that sks/sps is required to meet checks?
Or a boss which absorbs mp at a rate at which piety is a necessity.
Of course, these bosses would obviously have to have lower healing and DPS checks, but it's totally possible within the system we have already.

[SendohJin]

Nobody has addressed my point:

Nothing stops me from putting VIT on my SCH for PvP. We CAN spec out our characters in different ways already. It's just that all the content punishes this. If there was a raid that required a vit healer build, or an acc healer build, with minimum mind required to clear, those builds would materialize.

We don't need a new system, we have a system, we need more diverse raids to encourage variety within the system. At least, if this concept is something you're FOR you would want that.

T5 had that to survive fireballs, T11 had that to survive Nerve Gas. you can put on more VIT for those when your iLv was low. you also wanted healers to meld Acc to meet DPS for some checks when iLv was low.

[Darkstride]

Disagree. As I've said, I stack VIT on my healer for PvP. It's the widely accepted practice, actually. Different context, different rules.

In PvE, I could see a boss that has a move that does xxxxx unavoidable damage to (dps or healer, whichever), which can only be survived by having vit.
Most bosses have an accuracy cap, but what if it was so high, other classes had to stack aiming to hit?
Or a boss that slows so much that sks/sps is required to meet checks?
Or a boss which absorbs mp at a rate at which piety is a necessity.
Of course, these bosses would obviously have to have lower healing and DPS checks, but it's totally possible within the system we have already.

I understand what you're saying, but none of that actually promotes diversity or interesting gameplay elements. It's still a matter of just having the right amount of the right stat to get the job done. If a boss were to have an astronomical Accuracy requirement, but a lower DPS check, then every tank and DPS would just need to stack accuracy. For a boss that slows everyone, then everyone would have to stack Skill/Spell speed. That does nothing for role or stat diversity, all it does is make that one fight a pain in the ass if you don't have the right accessories. It's basically another illusion of choice. Sure, it's content that needs a different stat for a different strategy, but if the content requires it for completion, what choice is there?

[KaitlanKela]

T5 had that to survive fireballs, T11 had that to survive Nerve Gas. you can put on more VIT for those when your iLv was low. you also wanted healers to meld Acc to meet DPS for some checks when iLv was low.

Awesome, we need more of that.

Done.

[Ibi]

Nobody has addressed my point:

Nothing stops me from putting VIT on my SCH for PvP. We CAN spec out our characters in different ways already.

Here's the full extent of meaningful (i.e. not intentionally making a choice that outright reduces your effectiveness) "spec" choices currently available in the game:

1. Any class choosing between VIT vs STR/DEX/MND/INT with their bonus points and accessories.
2. Healers choosing to use crafted gear, melded with accuracy, if their native gear does not provide enough.

It's just that all the content punishes this. If there was a raid that required a vit healer build, or an acc healer build, with minimum mind required to clear, those builds would materialize.

We don't need a new system, we have a system, we need more diverse raids to encourage variety within the system. At least, if this concept is something you're FOR you would want that.

But the system as it currently exists doesn't provide for any kind of diversity that's going to encourage any kind of variety.

There's nothing you can do with an encounter that's going to ever make, say, a monk want DEX, MND, INT, Parry, or Spell Speed. None of those stats do anything for them. It's not possible to get enough resistance through elemental materia to noticeably reduce incoming damage, and forcing them to wear VIT gear (or adding slashing/piercing/blunt resistance gear and forcing them to wear that) isn't actually introducing any kind of variety; you just hit the mark necessary to survive then go back to ignoring them.

So that leaves STR, Determination, Critical Hit Rate, and Skill Speed. I suppose you could have something like a boss that takes more damage from critical hits, so that critical is now more desirable, but that's still not going to introduce variety, because now you just get as much Critical Hit Rate as you can.

In PvE, I could see a boss that has a move that does xxxxx unavoidable damage to (dps or healer, whichever), which can only be survived by having vit.

All DPS and healers now stack sufficient VIT to survive the attack.

Most bosses have an accuracy cap, but what if it was so high, other classes had to stack aiming to hit?

All DPS and tanks now stack sufficient accuracy to hit the boss.

Or a boss that slows so much that sks/sps is required to meet checks?

All DPS and tanks now stack sufficient skill speed to meet the check.

Or a boss which absorbs mp at a rate at which piety is a necessity.

All MP-using jobs now stack sufficient Piety to have sufficient MP to make it through the fight.

Not a single one of these introduces any diversity or choice, they just change which stat everyone has to stack.

[Alahra]

Did you miss the part where you have to start from scratch to play a new class in other games?

Of course I didn't, why are you talking to me like I'm an idiot?

I didn't bring it up because it's not especially difficult to level an alt in, say, WoW. You can send your characters gear and money, and they even have Bind on Account Heirloom gear that makes it easier to level alt classes. Yes, not everything carries over—but not everything carries over in FFXIV, either. In WoW, you can get weekly currencies for all of your classes, so you can actually have multiple classes with the highest level of gear if you so choose—you can't do that in FFXIV because you're limited to spending tomestones and getting drops from locked out content on one class per week.

Yes, you have to start from scratch to a degree if you level a new class in another game, but it still doesn't make the choices we have in FFXIV particularly engaging compared to other games, which do let you play other classes (even if it's slightly more difficult to do so) and they have customization options on top of that.

As for FFXI, I wasn't talking so much about weapon choice so much as I was gear choices (there were actually reasons to use a variety of pieces for various things) but more than that I was talking about the post-level cap customization in Merit and Job Points. Merit Points and Job points are similar in many ways to talent point systems in other games. There were elements of choice in those systems that we don't have here despite the job system being largely the same.

[KaitlanKela]

So that leaves STR, Determination, Critical Hit Rate, and Skill Speed. I suppose you could have something like a boss that takes more damage from critical hits, so that critical is now more desirable, but that's still not going to introduce variety, because now you just get as much Critical Hit Rate as you can.

Each job has a few things that are worth something to them.Not every job is going to want every stat and it's unrealistic to expect such a thing. Then we would have the opposite of diversity because everyone would be using everything.

Of the stats that are meaningful to a job, you absolutely can make fights to encourage those builds. They have done it. They could do it again. And how exactly is that not diversity? In one fight you need crit, the next you need Skill Speed, or whatever. You meld your materia or farm your different accs. Something that changes with the fight and is easy to adjust as necessary. Maybe that's not what YOU mean by diversity, but it seems to be what the OP wants.

The only thing I might request that would require development is adjusting the weights and effectiveness of the stats to where the differences were really noticeable. They've adjusted stuff like that in the past (STR -> VIT tanks anyone?) so I don't see why they couldn't do it again.

BTW, honestly I like the game as it is. It's a little linear gear/progression wise, but the gameplay is fun enough so I don't really have anything to complain about.

ETA: Bold. After reading your comments re: my post, it's clear you missed the point. OP asked for different builds for different fights that could easily be flipped around after the fight was over. You still haven't defined what YOU mean by variety/diversity which is clearly something different from the OP.

If it's a permanent adjustment on the stats, see my fire/ice/thunder mage analogy on page three. It doesn't work.

[WellFooled]

Some people don't seem to understand.. the Job IS the equivalent of a talent tree build.

You roll 'tank'. But you want to do a lot of dps, at the sacrifice of defense. You choose the WAR build. You want lots of defense at a cost of dps? PLD. A balance/hybrid between the two? DRK build.

Let's use WoW as an example, because it's well known, vs. FFXIV.

There are 13 battle jobs in FFXIV. There are 11 classes in WoW at last count. On the surface, you might think FFXIV has more options than WoW, but each of those 11 classes in WoW have three vastly different ways to play them, which really bring the number of classes up to 33.

In FFXIV all races are identical in terms of gameplay. The stat differences are so minor as to be nonexistant. In WoW there are 13 races with vastly different stats, unique traits, unique abilities that can only be found with that race.

With just these two choices (race and class) the total possible gameplay builds for FFXIV are 13 (because again, race doesn't effect your gameplay in any significant way. It is a cosmetic choice only). The total possible gameplay builds WoW are 429.

WoW also has a talent system that, every 15 levels lets you pick between one of three talents which can change how your abilities work significantly. There are 7 layers of these choices, each with three options. Let's just assume there was only one layer. That brings the possible gameplay builds for WoW up to 1287. Once you factor in all 7 layers? 938,223 different gameplay builds.

So FFXIV has 13 different ways to Battle and WoW has almost 1,000,000. (Now mind you, if my math is wrong I wouldn't be surprised. Feel free to chime in if it is. I never was very good at balancing the numbers.) Of course WoW also has more interesting stats on its gear and abilities and procs while FFXIV gear has stats so simple I barely even take them into account.

Jobs are a choice yes, but you can't compare that one choice in gameplay to what is offered by other MMOs.