Variance in player skill is hurting FFXIV's itemization design.

[Nalien]

I...personally don't find it boring. I find stats boring. They're background noise I completely forget about once I close the tab and I couldn't name a single one without looking them up. And not just in this game, in any game.

Well, to each their own, but I find the option of different builds, even if it's ultimately just an illusion of choice, to be far more interesting and has me far more engaged with a game... At this point, I simply don't care about gear in this game, as a result I'm losing interest in most of the content; Why would I bother with Nidhogg (EX) when the gear is so painfully uninteresting? The story and various other pieces of content keep me interested, but gone are the days when a patches "main attraction" was something I got excited about...

The main argument I've seen leveled against such an addition has usually been that people will "discriminate" against players based on such a change... Really makes me wonder if I'm playing the same game as some people... The only place that is remotely applicable IMO is for the raid community, who pretty much already act this way with regards to gear and consumables... I really don't think the rest of the game cares, the Duty Finder has not breed an elitist community, it's breed one that is seemingly OK with people using a Lv50 relic in Lv60 content, one that's OK with Food and Potions being completely unused, and one that doesn't bat a eyelid if you use Parry IV over Det V melds... Christ, try purposely doing a bad rotation some time, unless you're a tank or healer (in which case you can easily get away not pushing DPS when it is entirely possible to) it's entirely possible nobody will care... I really can't see interesting stats changing a damn thing in that regard, meanwhile it would add a lot more value to the game for me... I'd be more interested in dungeons and their gear with a specific stat dangled in front of me... I wouldn't be rolling my eyes at the Palace of the Dead weapon being a reward if it had some special effect I could hold onto... So long as they don't make them essential, there is no issue... It would actually be less problematic that our current form of "customization", cross-class skills like Provoke and Invigorate are far more problematic IMO...

No, the only real downside and solid justification against such stats is that implementing them properly is hard and balancing takes effort... Not the greatest attitude to take IMO... I'd find a system like IXs abilities to be very grind heavy, which SE should like, right? That means I'm playing their game more and am more invested with it as a result... Plenty probably hate the idea of grind heavy content though, but so what? Don't grind then... Just use the stats on the gear you have and don't care about the system the same way most people in Duty Finder don't care about consumables or optimal melds... That's the solution for people who don't like such a concept, the solution for me not liking the current state of itemization? To play something different... To me, it seems like doing something holds less risks than doing nothing... We didn't seem to lose players when they gave us more melding options, unless they really mess up I don't see why we would with more itemization options... People who want that depth would finally have it, people who don't can just ignore it...