We Really Need To Talk About The State And Path Of FFXIV

[WhyAmIHere]

You mean the Damage Down debuff we've always had throughout the entire game but was never used as the Weakness debuff for whatever reason?

Yes. Imagine the series of events
>Weakness / BoD lowers players HP/MP and makes them more likely to die again
>>this is unfun
>let's make weakness / BoD reduce HP anymore!
>>now tanks lose nothing from dying
>let's nerf their damage into the dirt!
>>tanks now resort to using old gear at 4.0 launch to maintain enough damage and hate
>Let's buff tanks aggro generation across the board!
>>now tank gear is piddling in terms of upgrades

So much work went into what should have been just a simple fix, but SE just had to be obtuse about it.

[Reynhart]

But there is a mathematical difference. That's what you're failing to realize. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there.

Yes, there is, it's just that so few situations requires it that it's hardly relevant for the vast majority of the playerbase. Playerbase that gets denied any kind of personal builds for that very reason.

The "gimping yourself" comment was made by you well after the comment you quoted from me

Hmmm, no...

so gimping yourself is ok because the game is not hard? sounds legit.

along with how people supposedly don't care about a 5% damage loss (DRG-less BRDs and MCHs would like a word with you about that).

Again, the 5% loss was a situation of not avoiding more han a 1000 Direct Hit worth of melding. So, like I said...

really far from the "tank pentameld acc or gtfo".

[HyoMinPark]

Yes, there is, it's just that so few situations requires it that it's hardly relevant for the vast majority of the playerbase. Playerbase that gets denied any kind of personal builds for that very reason.

Except, again, we were speaking in a raiding context, the content that benefits from this sort of optimization (Savage and Ultimate).

The original comment about ridiculous stat builds was made regarding a 3,000 Skill Speed MCH showing up in Kefka (a raid)—3,000 skill speed on a job like MCH is purposely gimping yourself due to
—1. Not melding more valuable substats (Direct hit/crit/determination), and
—2. The sheer amount of GCD clipping you would have at 3,000 skill speed and how much it would hurt your rotation, and, as a result, your damage.

That was the original premise of the original conversation between the OP and myself. Someone else then said that “stats don’t matter” in response to a snippet of that post, which I refuted with examples of crafted tank accessories being mathematically superior than the i370 Tomestone or Savage accessories, and jobs literally sacrificing main stat for substats (e.g., BRD). If stats “don’t matter”, why is there a mathematical significance between the i350 pentamelded accessories and the i370 tomestone/Savage accessories for tanks? Why do tanks who care about damage take the i350 over the i370 if this “didn’t matter”?

Again, I am talking about a raiding context. Not Expert Roulette. The mathematical significance still exists despite 90% of the content in this game “not needing” it or 90% of the playerbase “not caring” about it, which I have said to you numerous times. Ignoring that comment doesn’t make it go away. If only this game actually did require more optimization in “more casual” content; I would love that.


And regardless if your comment was made with regards to “losing 5% because they didn’t meld X substat”, there are people out there who would care about losing ~5% of damage. Again, ask any BRD or MCH that cares about their damage why they always want a DRG; that’s exactly the amount of damage they lose (BRD a bit more because of Litany and crit buffs) when they don’t have one, and that’s why BRDs and MCHs have started advocating for either the removal of piercing resistance down, or for them to just have the ability to apply it themselves.

I personally think more people should care; maybe the amount of competence in this playerbase would actually increase if that were the case. As it stands now, I’m more surprised to have a decent group that AOEs in Expert Roulette or who don’t take 12~13 minutes to clear V7N compared to the alternative: no AOE and 12~13 minute long V7Ns.

[Miste]

Yes, there is, it's just that so few situations requires it that it's hardly relevant for the vast majority of the playerbase.

I don't think it being "required" or not for completing any content is what people are arguing, but for savage and ultimate it should be expected that people would meld the best way they can.

I think it is mostly the idea of "if your job would do better by melding proper stats, then....why wouldn't you?" and also that your contribution matters for other players you play with, small amount or not.

If you really want to do bad melds for your job for personal reasons then no one can stop you, but part of the point is also not to try to argue that your choice is a good one when the game design doesn't support that logic. Also if you do such bad melds then you might get some resistance if you tried to do that in savage or ultimate.

At least that is what it seems like to me.

[Ranhansha]

Excuse me, but while I think the current conversation is nice, most of the posts are about gear, BiS and min-maxing.
This is not my thread or anything like that, so not trying to impose anything on anyone, but I think if the devs actually wanted to change something and were looking for opinions in the forums (naive, I know), they would think people are only worried about gear.
I think it would be interesting to comment on other aspects and issues you think the game might have, especially taking into consideration the title of the thread.
Just a small sidenote. Of course, you are free to talk about anything you want, but I guess if we want to see a change in the game, they have to see we want it.

[MoroMurasaki]

Yes, there is, it's just that so few situations requires it that it's hardly relevant for the vast majority of the playerbase. Playerbase that gets denied any kind of personal builds for that very reason.

Most content in the game requires absolutely nothing to complete it. That doesn't mean standing at the starting point and waiting for your loot is acceptable.

No casual content requires a DRG to upkeep Heavy Thrust yet everyone with a brain will recognize that a DRG deliberately choosing to not use Heavy Thrust is unnecessarily gimping their damage and their party. You will still make it through your dungeon but it will be needlessly slower.

This is about how a given players choice to play in a way that is counterintuitive to the game's function effects more than themselves so in limiting your own productivity you impact those around you. Thinking about others means doing things that might seem tedious like keeping your rotation up, wearing appropriate gear and even melding the proper substats.

[Hamada]

Just a reminder on what started this exchange :

As a tank who doesn't have millions to spend on Pentalmelded acc, I never had any trouble clearing the dummies as long as I had the ilvl to enter the corresponding content. I don't say that you should keep your materia slots empty or anything (Which, by the way, was the situation I used on my "5% DPS on DRG" example). So again, unless you tackle Savage with a competitive mindset (Which is fine, but hardly shared by a lot of the playerbase) using Tome/Raid acc as a tank is nowhere near "gimping" yourself.

Do everyone a favor and please do not give advice to people:

....It's this kind of mentality that gives me low level tanks with accessories that have spell speed and mind in them in level roulette because they wanted to play a "mage tank".

Christ....

Melds do not cost " millions" as you said, TANK! you are not melding a crafter. This game hands you materia doing your experts and weekly 24 man, this is not an excuse. Do not make excuses for poor play. This game is easy as is and you want people be even worse. There is DPS checks all over the place that people fail to meet from wearing improper gear/ melds/ going into dungeons way under geared.

Oh THOSE. Yeah the devs need to take action with that as well. They seem to have a big problem with changing anything that isn't the new thing. Tanks up to SB can still wear STR accessories, but also everything else. Again, another oversight by the loveable devs. Or maybe not an oversight. Just didn't care.

I do not think that is the issue. Now I am assuming this point because of lack of communication but I think it has to do with cultural differences. I do not think the devs expected people to put such minimal effort. Look how Reynhart is speaking here, how much you want to bet this doesn't exist or at least happens a lot less, in the Japanese community?

If they really were in touch with us, they would put measures in the game to stop people severely gimping themselves real fast by preventing entry like ilevel scans for higher content.

Also stop using stawmans, no one is asking for "to invest millions in crafted/ pentamelds" we were all talking about PROPER MELDS, meaning USING THE CORRECT STATS for your gear, and that is mostly about the 100% 2 slots in tome gear. Please try to understand the conversation better. Also if we are talking about crafted gear, people really should have VI materias in the 100% slots, while the overmelds are Vs or IVs, there is NO EXCUSE NOT TO DO THIS!!!!!

[Reynhart]

That was the original premise of the original conversation between the OP and myself.

The original premise was about players having more varied gear and having an incentive to experiment. And since different players have different taste, they could use gear more inclined to their personality. For example, when I tank, I'd rather play safe than aggressively so I wish we could have a meaningful tenacity build. Sure, I'd probably do less damage than a full Det set, but trade-off in mitigation should be noticeable.

I don't think it being "required" or not for completing any content is what people are arguing, but for savage and ultimate it should be expected that people would meld the best way they can.

Again, Savage and Ultimate are a small fraction of the content, but they're still the reason why every stats is just "doing more damage", which makes itemization boring. It's so uninspired that we have two stats whose concept are "Randomly procing a hit that does increased damage", or even a "speed" stat that doesn't affect auto-attack actual speed.

In fact, this game could use only 5 stats for every character and nothing would change for the gameplay...

[Sigma-Astra]

In fact, this game could use only 5 stats for every character and nothing would change for the gameplay...

Are we playing the same game...?

[KaivaC]

Yes, there is, it's just that so few situations requires it that it's hardly relevant for the vast majority of the playerbase. Playerbase that gets denied any kind of personal builds for that very reason.

Clearly it has some relevance, otherwise we wouldn't keep getting posts like this thread (which touches on the subject) and on reddit. It's clear that the playerbase that does check online threads have an interest in this, so it is pretty relevant.