FFXIV has some serious competition with WoW: Legion

[SessionZero]

What I was trying to get at with my post was that we don't need more stats...

I agree. Dump elemental resistances, and either dump or revamp otherwise useless skills like parry or skill/spell speed so that they have some relevance.

On the topic of WoW, I wouldn't say that it's bloated, necessarily. Every class has its optimum stat priority and with the exception of one or two that are incredibly situational (like, as someone previously suggested, Versatility) they all serve to advance the class. If anything, I would say that FFXIV and WoW are in similar situations, w/r/t stats, excepting FFXIV's whole "allocation being pointless since they all get dumped into one stat anyway" thing.

[Voltyblast]

Because the current stat system is fine as is? WoW's stat system is a bloated, ugly mess of things that intuitively sound similar to each other but operate on menial things at best.

Then good thing you didn't play back in Vanilla or TBC times. It was lot of fun stacking defense to be crit immune, plus having many other stat to mind in order to be effective (expertise, block rating and block value to name a few).

But seriously, WoW system is as streamlined as it could ever be and it's fairly simple - maybe even too simple. Infact it is similar to FFXIV but only a few stats in this game are always going to be used while others (Namely Parry and Spell Speed) will be often ignored. Accuracy is useful but only if you raid and once you're capped it's a stat that bears no usefulness.

In Wow however all stats are useful in some ways (with some exceptions that is), even if it's not their optimal gear.

[loreleidiangelo]

^^^^ This.

@SessionZero: A fair point. What I was trying to get at with my post was that we don't need more stats, and I cited WoW as an example of a game with a stat system that is too bloated for its own good. Rather, we should push to make what we have better. Fixing parry, for instance, would be a better step then trying to replace it with a brand new stat that's meant to be more "interesting."

You still haven't really stated HOW WoW stats are "bloated". There are 4 of them, 5 if you count armor rating as a secondary stat. FFXIV has accuracy, crit, determination, spell/skill speed, piety, parry. XIV stats are actually MORE bloated than WoW stats when you factor it in like that.

I don't disagree that we don't need more stats, but I think a lot of people would prefer if maybe accuracy was dumped and something like mastery was added. Mastery provided bonuses unique to whatever class/spec you're playing on, and even if it wasn't your favored stat, it was still functionally useful (unlike parry, and unlike accuracy past a certain point). Versatility is basically det, except that versatility translates more directly to damage, and actually effects defensive rating, as well. Crit is pretty much the same in both games, no need to go further there. Spell/skill speed is WoW's haste, except that haste actually has a pretty serious effect on certain classes due to proc-based gameplay and dual-wield.

Aside from mastery, most of the stats in WoW are the same as they are in FFXIV, it's just that WoW's make a more serious impact on gameplay. You don't just pile on crit and "make do" with the other stats. I main a Restoration Shaman, and their mastery is actually "the lower your target's HP is, the more you heal them for, based on your mastery stat". It's insanely good for progression content, and bad pug groups. Meanwhile, Restoration Druids, a HoT-based healer, actually stack haste, because it effects the frequency of their HoT ticks. Balance Druid, a magic caster, actually prioritizes haste over their MAIN stat, intellect. Protection paladins, a primarily mitigative tank, actually get the most mileage out of versatility because of its consistent defensive boost.

THIS is what most people are looking for when they want a better selection of secondary stats. It's not that XIV's suck, it's that they're poorly balanced and under-utilized.

[Windi]

snip

Fair point about the FFXIV stats. My main source for WoW stats are this:

... Like, the fact that the game has a scroll bar for stats like these comes across to me as out of whack.

[Welsper59]

On the topic of WoW, I wouldn't say that it's bloated, necessarily.

In WoW, stat bloat is typically directed at the high amount of a given stat you're expected to have. That's why they tried to reset all that in a previous expansion, but I guess they just gave up on it lol. Right now, I'm almost at 30K Stamina in Legion, which is quite a ridiculously large number to have when you think about it lol.

I think most of the stat comments here are directed at having meaningful "unique" stats added to gear or whatever. Stuff that alters your characters performance in some way (i.e. set bonuses in WoW or action modifications on gear in XI). "Increases damage or healing done by <skill/spell> by %", "Reduces cast time for healing spells by %", etc. There's always going to be a BiS sort of thing, no matter the game you play, but that's just what I think people refer to when they talk about wanting "fun" stats here.

Even in XI, which was once as perfect of an example of horizontal gear progression as you could realistically expect, had a BiS structure in place that the players found. The difference there being that gear can be swapped out mid-combat, so even the most situational of bonus stats on gear could potentially find use.

[loreleidiangelo]

... Like, the fact that the game has a scroll bar for stats like these comes across to me as out of whack.

The game recently underwent a pretty hefty pruning of those stats. Things like leech and avoidance are still cropping up on some gear, but for the most part you have 4 secondary stats that affect your output in any significant way. Attack speed is actually still on weapons, but the game will actually calculate the weapon's power vs it's attack speed for you, leaving you a "damage per second" value on each weapon you have. So if you get a quest reward that has x lower attack value but y increase in attack speed the game will show it as "z damage per second increase/decrease" making it a no-brainer which choice is better.

Here's what it looks like now.

[Derio]

Unless WoW somehow steals all of ffxiv console players I doubt it. WoW is in its own category.

I think 4.0 will be better since it's add on features won't be limited to ps3 and minimum pc requirements are getting raised

[Windi]

The game recently underwent a pretty hefty pruning of those stats. Things like leech and avoidance are still cropping up on some gear, but for the most part you have 4 secondary stats that affect your output in any significant way. Attack speed is actually still on weapons, but the game will actually calculate the weapon's power vs it's attack speed for you, leaving you a "damage per second" value on each weapon you have. So if you get a quest reward that has x lower attack value but y increase in attack speed the game will show it as "z damage per second increase/decrease" making it a no-brainer which choice is better.

Here's what it looks like now.

Ah, that looks much better.

[Chiramu]

All these people keep talking about old WoW, Legion doesn't have any bloated stats. Why not compare FFXIV to Legion instead of past WoW expansions? Or you want to compare Heavensward to The Burning Crusade?

Sounds the same lame excuse of, "FFXIV has a better story". Well, not anymore. Legion has kicked it up a notch and the story telling is amazing. FFXIV has to pull its' socks up and see what Blizzard has brought into WoW instead of thinking WoW is still on TBC.

[Duelle]

I find your analysis of class composition flawed. XIV's design structure is really rigid and has found the developers painting themselves into a corner more often than I can count. Raids will always have:

-2 tanks, a "main" tank with superior mitigative abilities, and an "off-tank" with adequate mitigative capabilities but consequential DPS when not tanking
-2 healers, one of which will be a burst/reactive healer and the other of which will be a shield/mitigative healer and will also be judged by their DPS contributions when not healing
-2 melee DPS, whichever ones get boned the least by mechanics and have the best damage output
-a magical ranged DPS, see my melee DPS comment above
-a physical ranged DPS, brought for their resource regenerative capabilties and because they don't compete with other DPS drops (imagine if NIN and BRD/MCH shared all gear, not just accessories lol)

I can't upvote this enough.

FFXIV's approach to class and role design is fairly limited and funnels classes into mini-niches. It's not a good thing in the long run, specially taking into account that AST had to be created as a copy-WHM/copy-SCH job instead of being designed around its own approach to healing.

I find that WoW's class system, with things like Druids and Death Knights bringing battle rez, any Shaman bringing Bloodlust (whether heals or DPS), Druids bringing Innervate, Holy Priests bringing an AOE Innervate, mages bringing MP-restoring food, Warlocks bringing their "get out mechanics free" movement portal and a re-raise via Soulstones, as well as a myriad of other utilities I'm forgetting to list here, means that each class actually brings far more to a raid than just damage.

The thing to really stress here is that a raid's success rarely hinges on the utility classes bring. I think the only time utility was notably abused was in Blackrock Descent with raids stacking druids for battle rezzes. Sure, you can bring up stuff like Bloodlust/Heroism, but the devs eventually got to distributing it to other classes/specs so that Shaman don't have a monopoly on a single and very powerful raid cooldown (mages can do the Time Warp and hunters have Ancient Hysteria via one of their pets).

Compared to XIV, where we have Dragon Kick (which is basically Virus, which is basically Storm's Path, which is basically that one DRK move...yes, these moves all stack, but the fact remains that the ability is RIDICULOUSLY homogenized across several jobs) vs Battle Litany (a move no other class has) vs Trick Attack (which is fairly homogenized with MCH's Hypercharge/BRD's Foe's at least for casters); healers all have a raise, they all have a way to instantly cast that raise, and AST was basically designed around emulating WHM and SCH as much as possible because the devs couldn't figure out any other way to make them fit in with the current healing meta and raid design. All tanks have a "get out of death free" card, all physical DPS get to cross-class Invigorate, and all casters will get to cross-class THM for Swiftcast. It's so weird that you think that classes in XIV are really unique and varied, when in reality there's a crapton of overlap in pretty much everyone's toolkit, because the devs are afraid of shaking up the balance tree.

Some of this can be blamed on thematics. I got shot down during 1.2x for daring to suggest Hallowed Ground/Invincible be removed or nerfed because PLD having an invincibility forces EVERY tank to have an invincibility to compete. That's a huge problem design-wise. I have a similar issue with Swiftcast because it's become a necessity for all casters (for the WoW comparison, only Arcane Mages have access to Swiftcast/Presence of Mind; every other caster just has to eat their cast times and like it but also have more instant-cast spells and things like procs/mechanics that reduce/remove cast times).