Sub-Stats: Variety and Tuning

[Shurrikhan]

I disagree with this block fundamentally because you work against your own post up there.

Speed still remains the only 'gameplay altering' stat. Everything else is just basically interchangeable with each other.

Ultimately, I'd like more than those suggested changes, but as I said in my first post, that won't be possible without context.

You'd need systems like some manner of Stagger, where by the rate at which damage is dealt does matter, which in turn requires greater control in each toolkit. (At present, if a DRG wants to DoT a newly arrived add, it can take up to 10 GCDs for the DRG to be allowed to do so without utterly screwing over his sustained damage, at which point... it's typically not worth applying at all. Outside of single-target fights, they are controlled by their rotation more than they control it. Their last leg for flexibility was removed when Lance Mastery buffed the second dragon weaponskill and F&C and WT's base damage were increased. Prior to that they could at least choose to trim a doublet of dragon skills, ending the combo at FT or CT, if the BotD growth would be excessive, giving a maximum of 6 GCDs until they could respond.)

You'd probably need variable cooling rates, whereby cooldowns could be made to "cool" faster, stripping a flat amount off their cooldowns (which allows them to still sync up later) but in a continuous fashion.

You'd probably want ways that elements could actually act differently from one another.

You'd probably want elemental resources that could be spent in multiple ways. Wind, for instance, could offer increased movement when activated, or -- automatically --- allow a queued skill to automatically cause you to teleport forward into range enough to complete a strike upon GCD refresh (i.e. without loss of uptime) at proportionate cost or a cast to complete itself early when movement would otherwise cancel it (just) short or completion, again at proportionate cost.

You'd probably want the ability to push back mobs a bit and to be pushed back by them, giving tank and melee toolkits and their relevant stats more to leverage.

You'd probably want potency-based (or, potency-to-percentile) status effects and (de)buffs, so that the synergist arsenal can be augmented by stats in different ways.

You'd almost certainly want a pandemic or roll-over mechanic, such as by causing replaced buffs or debuffs to add the square root of their duration to that of the same-effect application replacing it.

You'd want combat that actually allows for and encourages the infliction of status effects.

You'd want combat in which not everything can be meat-shielded or even drawn off the non-tanks such that they might actually value survival stats (especially if all stats, at least by role total, had diminishing returns so that you're encouraged to hybridize).

I can go on for many a step more...

Every single one of those things holds back a stat, set of stats, or a system as a whole involving stats that I'd love to see but literally cannot get meaningful returns or augmented gameplay from until the context is set.

Saying you want this stat or that, or that you want customization in forms X, Y, and Z, does nothing if the surrounding game cannot yet support them. Your time would likely be better directed looking at the necessary systems, the excuses or selling points by which they can be entered into the game, and the roadmap that can see the best results most quickly.

[Kabooa]

The surrounding game, as in the mechanics the game currently has, can support a much greater variety of player controlled actions than we are given.

We have Actions that don't break combo. (Just about every Combo job has an example here)

We have elemental damage, it's just not utilized. (We use a catch all "Physical" or "Magical" tag on basically everything non-weapon specific)

Actions can have variable refreshing rates. (We've seen it with Dark Knight)

Specific damage types can have debuff interactions (We see this with specific vulnerabilities)

Most of what you have listed can already be accomplished by the engine, and effectively have or have had in game examples for it.

They are removed almost entirely because SE doesn't trust the average player to A) Make use of them and B) Not find ways to break their game with them. Every design decision moving forward reflects a lack of trust in player capability and integrity.

That is why I disagreed with your block. It doesn't make things more interesting, it just aimed to make things more comparable in a "given 10 minutes, set amount of uptime" sort of way.

We need less equitable-but-the-same, and more equitable-but-different.

[whiskeybravo]

Hmm.. I don't know. I would certainly welcome some changes to the sub stats along these lines, as mentioned we are basically just looking for Crit>anything else which is pretty stale beyond the journey of acquiring them.

What do you think about "armor set" type bonuses along your ideas here? For one I think it would be useful if relic armor offered more, since likely half of the community doesn't even bother with relic gear anymore. But this could be extrapolated to all the armor sets. Maybe individually X is stronger than Y, but when you combine the whole set (or say 3/5 of the set) you get other bonuses (like the ones you mention) which you'd have to consider. Of course it all has to be meaningful, but I think something along these lines would be a bit easier and quicker to implement then a complete overhaul.

[DrWho2010]

elemental affinity is somewhat useless in this game. see Ifrit - he's a fire primal yet we can damage him with Fire spells. Shiva is ice yet you use blizzard on her. Thunder doesn't heal Ramuh. There's no Quake spell either. Black Mage would need a complete rework.

[Kabooa]

What do you think about "armor set" type bonuses along your ideas here?

It depends on the set bonus. My experience with sets come from a wide variety of games, and they are rarely done in a way that doesn't make it feel awful to part with the Set.

In this regard, I would prefer something like "Keystone Materia", which would be perhaps weapon or chest armor only Materia that take the place of a Set Bonus. With this, you can continually add new "Set" effects without having to worry about outscaling the effect (Though that in turn leads to potentially far too many)

If the idea of a "Set" bonus would be included, I'd again point to a Keystone slot, similar to how I envisioned an Armory/Cross Class rework could be, where one armory slot was a 'Keystone" and let you use the Traited version of selectable abilities.

So in a generic 'stat' sense, a Keystone system would work better. Put it on Weapons or Chest armor (Perhaps any end-Chest armor, and then on Raid/Relic Weapons). Let players select what they want.

In a specific Job scenario, "Sets" also have the issue of being hard to put on the "Nice but not necessary" list. For example, using Black mage, any set that made Fire 4 better would be required. So a Set/Keystone for Black Mage would effectively have to pick a different part of the Kit to enhance, preferably to provide different considerations as well.

The most obvious example of where you can alter Black Mage's kit with desirable effects other than "Fire 4 Does X more damage" would be in Scathe, interactions with Firestarter and Thundercloud, and altering Ice Spells.

[Shurrikhan]

Most of what you have listed can already be accomplished by the engine, and effectively have or have had in game examples for it.

No. No they haven't been accomplished now or any time since ARR. I'm not sure what your angle is here, but that's a tremendous stretch at best, with two exceptions:

We have Actions that don't break combo. (Just about every Combo job has an example here).

Except, it's irrelevant. I said we needed increased freedom of rotation. That Bard can Heavy Shot does not mean that a DRG is not held to an incredibly rigid rotation. Nor does Heavy Thrust being a separable action mean that a Dragoon can viably stop at Disembowel to reapply its effect. If one does that, they are a terrible Dragoon, by fact of the way that toolkit is built.

Specific damage types can have debuff interactions (We see this with specific vulnerabilities)

Literally never said anything about a lack of typal debuffs.

To the rest:

Actions can have variable refreshing rates. (We've seen it with Dark Knight)

That's not been shown; Dark Knight had a reset function, and more closely, Spear had percentage recast reduction which then desynced macrorotations. But never has the cooling rate been affected.

We have elemental damage, it's just not utilized. (We use a catch all "Physical" or "Magical" tag on basically everything non-weapon specific)

First, if it not at all utilized, it's not there. It does not exist for the player, nor will the player have any evidence that it does or could exist. Moreover, the requirement is that they act differently, not merely that they are calculated through different tables, as per 1.x's individual element types. The latter is typal debuff that differs only nominally, not in difference in gameplay.

We need less equitable-but-the-same, and more equitable-but-different.

If that's suppose to be in response to anything I've said, you're strawmanning. My point was that the difference needs to be felt. Arriving at the number 6 because you added 4 and 2 instead of 3 and 3 does not make a difference in how the game feels. Hovering around the rear when you would already mostly hover around the rear (or, rear/flank edge) does not change gameplay. Thus far the only gameplay effect of what you'd suggested is likely self-conflict for positional classes that would discourage their use unless your Crit stat were undertuned in its scalability, in which case it would still have no effect as it would be avoided, or undertuned in its bonus, in which case the gameplay addition would be ignored as it would nerf output in those circumstances and would then again present no effect. I saw, and see, no reason to believe there would be increased customization, freedom of play within a particular build, or an enhanced experience.

That is why I disagreed with your block. It doesn't make things more interesting, it just aimed to make things more comparable in a "given 10 minutes, set amount of uptime" sort of way.

It wasn't intended to make things more interesting in any but the way stated--to allow for a greater number of viable builds and to make more broadly viable the only stat which has a gameplay effect, Speed (currently SpS/SkS).

They are removed almost entirely because SE doesn't trust the average player to A) Make use of them and B) Not find ways to break their game with them. Every design decision moving forward reflects a lack of trust in player capability and integrity.

Agreed. And? Do you mean to say we should settle for what we have now? If so, I disagree. Fundamentally. Practically. Entirely.

[Kabooa]

Entirely.

Clearly we have a missed connection here. I find individual quote tagging annoying. So I'll take the blame there. My understanding was you saying "We can't have these things because first we have to be able to have things."

I was saying "We can have those things. We have examples of those things already." Let me clarify.

1. Combo breakers and non-breakers.
We can have these things, and do have these things. Dragoon is just unfortunate in its current iteration in that it has the longest, slowest combos, so it is felt most keenly here, though other jobs do suffer for GCD mismanagement. If you're saying we need more ways to manipulate combos, I agree. I wrote a weird ass Dark Knight that had the capability to do this.

2. Damage types
This folds into the Elemental part. We -can- have those interactions, as is proof provided by Slashing, Piercing, Blunt. We -know- elemental damage is in game because Elemental Resist materia worked prior to...Stormblood?

I was saying that right now we utilize flat physical and magical as the game shifted away from that.

What I should have stated more clearly is that because these damage types exist, that exists the possibility to create Actions that build on this, though that comes with the inherent problem of required synergy should certain synergies be too specific. (Imagine if Wildfire could compound a portion of Fire Damage from allies as well. Sounds great, and would be a nice boost for the two least popular Jobs)

3. It was a catch all response to just shoring up inequities between Critical and everything else.

4. I'mjustsayingIdon'twantthegametodevolveintohitting1buttongoverandoverlikeWarcraft

5. Regarding proposed stats: I could do a better job of explaining them there substats, but I'm tired, and will just settle with "Each of them adds additional layers of consideration, all of them to the player, and some of them to the team. Except haste. Haste was good before. I feel this iteration is better, and if 'But the buffs don't line up' is the main problem, then yay. Not everyone has raid buffs. Wham, Sam, Thank you Blams"

[Shurrikhan]

Clearly we have a missed connection here. I find individual quote tagging annoying. So I'll take the blame there. My understanding was you saying "We can't have these things because first we have to be able to have things."

I'm saying that some patterns, nuances, punchlines, whatever are only visible as such with enough resolution or context, and what you can't notice, even at highest-level play, might as well not be there. Moreover, if that factor doesn't lead to a more satisfying game, to at least a fair chunk of people, however indirectly, it doesn't belong.

(I hold the italicized standards in higher regard when considering existing mechanics, or the like, than with new ones, as I think we should hold ourselves to higher standards with each addition and as development moves forward.)

1. Combo breakers and non-breakers.

We agree on the need for increased ability to work around or manipulate combos. But, again, my emphasis was not on combos, but on rotations. Even if every action were technically not combo restricted, if the order in which you can optimally or near-optimally use them is fixed, with greater opportunity cost for adapting to the present circumstances (add spawns or incoming downtime) than ignoring those changes, that solves nothing.

2. Damage types

You've misunderstood me here. I've never spoken here about damage types except to say that they're not what I've been talking about. What I spoke of was distinct functionality. Slashing, Piercing, Blunt, Fire, Wind, Water, Earth, Ice, Lightning, Magical, Physical, and Unaspected do not function differently. They check a given debuff category and are then calculated for identically. They all purely just a negative adder which affects unit HP. There is no distinctly physical, piercing, magical, earthly, or fiery effect to any of them.

I am mostly fine with flat physical and magical because, while I do like for composition to adjust gameplay, I weigh those benefits against loss of compositional choice. If the change minimally augments or fails to augment gameplay -- say, the fun of being a MCH or BLM when paired with the other -- while notably restricting compositional freedom, the disbenefits outweigh the benefits. Given the CD alignment dependence of MCH, this would likely turn into having to garble their Wildfire prep while the BLM syncs their Astral Fire phase to the Wildfire cast, a lesser-geared BLM rushing a cycle to ready their F4 burst (F4x5, ideally w/o Umbral Hearts w/ Ley Lines if the bonus is overpowered, or or F4x3, F1 or Firestarter, (F4) with enough SpS if not), or --most likely-- zero change at all.

What did we see as a result of functionally identical elements in 1.x? 5 out of 6 of each spell tier (initially direct, DoT, or AoE) going unused. It didn't change how we cast. It didn't change tactical considerations. It did not augment gameplay unless you really, really, really enjoyed remembering that a crab is water element, and should be burned, not drowned enough to waste almost 83% of your damaging spells to bloat.

3. It was a catch all response to just shoring up inequities between Critical and everything else.

I do not know what portion of the post you are referring to.

4. I'mjustsayingIdon'twantthegametodevolveintohitting1buttongoverandoverlikeWarcraft

I'm not saying, nor have I ever suggested, that I would.

5. Regarding proposed stats: I could do a better job of explaining them there substats, but I'm tired, and will just settle with "Each of them adds additional layers of consideration, all of them to the player, and some of them to the team.

If you can make that happen in practice in the given limitations, then kudos to you. Seriously.

[Kabooa]

If you can make that happen in practice in the given limitations, then kudos to you. Seriously.

Alright, I'm no longer tired. Lets try this.

Precision

is the selfish playstyle. It's for the player who focuses entirely on their own performance. They don't rely on others, they need only rely on their own awareness and reaction.

The "proc" works as follows: When you critically hit, you're given a "rear" or "Flank" trigger for 15 seconds. Within those 15 seconds, the next non-auto attack that strikes that side deals +X % damage, based on Precision rating. A character with no Precision rating beyond the default does not get this. The listed time I gave is this may happen up to once every 20 seconds.

This falls more naturally with Melee but due to varying amounts of positionals, getting the most effect out of it will require that quick-in-the-moment decision making. A Monk would probably want to utilize it on Tornado Kick, Elixir Field, Forbidden Chakra, or Demolish, a Dragoon on Chaos Thrust, Full Thrust, or 5th combo, Ninjas on Ninki abilities, Blackmagescandoitanywhere, Red Mages on combo finishers or Fleche, etc.

They occur often enough that to maximize its use it will be always on your mind, but you can only gain from it; Your gain just has variance depending on how you can fit it in. Contrasting Critical Strike and Direct Hit now, where you just stack it and forget. It is a layer of consideration. Primarily one that only occurs in combat, but is independent of the rest of the team.

This is mostly independent from the rest of the system with two exceptions: Tanks and Crit Scalars like Bard and Monk. To take advantage of it as a tank you'll have to know the boss's hit box well, and when you can actually move to exploit the opening outside mechanics, but, those are plentiful enough that a fair amount of the Procs should be easily attainable.

Bards would require a change in how songs work, else they could only ever take critical strike. That, however, is a secondary thought. You build more specific parts of a game (Jobs) from the more general parts of the game (Stats) and not the other way around. So while it is a cop out to say "Burds ned change", I'm not going to do a whole class write up on Bard just so I can discuss this thread more. "Burds need change" is sufficient enough a response.

Monk to a lesser degree. Tie Chakra to Grease Lightning generation or ability use instead of Critical, but again, "Munk ned change" is sufficient enough.

Haste

is a less selfish but still mostly player centric approach. More -everything-. More Cards, More Spells, More Leylines, More Punches, More Ninki, More Kenki, More Gauge.

Not much needs be said here, but the reason I chose Haste to instead do Auto Speed and Cooldown Reduction instead of DoTs and Auto Potency is that it expands who it's useful for. Currently it is really only good in spades on...two jobs? Black Mage and Samurai. Everyone else is so hung up buff timers and aligning stuff for maximum output blah blah blah blah.

I get it. That's the 'meta'. I know why it works, I know why we want to do it, and that's almost entirely why "But the buff timers" falls on mine deaf ears. We're not allowed to have any non-Crit Stacking Buff Aligning 8 Party Stacking Buff compositions. But you know what? I wouldn't mind having Whams, Sams, Blams, Monks, Dark Knights, Warriors, etc being able to be in the same Composition. All of whom who would directly benefit from -MORE- cooldown use. I'm totally fine letting Scholars and Asts and Ninjas and Dragonos and Bards and Summoners being over there lighting up the arena in Super Saiyan energy.

For everyone else, there's Haste and Unga Bunga'ing pumping out stupid amounts of potency that don't need no raid buff alignments (But we won't say no if it happens to be there ).

Determination

is a trap. I know it's a trap. I know why the people here think it's a trap. It's totally a trap. It'd require actual hard numbers to show why it's -not- a trap, as well as some tuning to certain defensive skills. (Samurai Third Eye says hi)

The consideration Determination adds isn't selfish. It is the play between player and the healer. Currently, non-essential healing is at the higher ends of Healer Play. You simply do not fill a GCD with healing if nothing lethal is on the horizon. The scaling as health lowers aspect divides your ability to utilize this stat between you and the healer.

You, knowing what defensive cooldowns to utilize, and the healer, trusting you enough that you will. Granted, there's an obvious thresh hold that you can't stay below and live, but that's the risk. Riding that line, getting a massive boosted heal to throw you into safety before being battered back into bloody pulp.

Conversely, Determination is the safest stat for Tanks, so while DPS/Healers fall into the risk reward scenario, for Tanks it is a level of added safety and constant bonus damage: Between major hits you're at some level of bloodied, so the scaling effect is always at play. Your defensive cooldowns are stronger and the healer's incoming heals are better. As you will usually not be at the ride or die line (Other than Holmgang or Living Dead, but frankly those things need to go), you will usually not get the extended full benefit a DPS or Healer might. It is, in my opinion, the combination of Determination and Tenacity without having two separate and not quite equal stats.

That's fine. Stats meaning different things to different jobs is fine.

The considerations added with Determination vary with encounters, and play between you and the healer. Teamwork!

Berserk

is a pre-fight planner. It is the one that has to be hammered out beforehand. Does the fight have enough downtime for my resources to come back? Do we have enough restores in the party to cover when mine aren't up? If we don't have X, should I lower this and pick up some more OtherStat? If we do have X, how much more of this can I pump up?

Currently it is simply "Improves potency" as I would have to math more to find a good central point balancing increase with resource consumption. The potency difference between, say, Monk and Black Mage is huge. A %increase might not be worth considering any level of increased resource consumption, but Flat Potency increases are -exceedingly- dangerous in the hands of Monk, Bard, Paladin, and Ninja, as an example. The tuning here is complicated. It will be an asymmetrical increase between potency and resources, and I don't yet have that math or will to do that math.

Here, the considerations are added pre-fight. Managing your own restores and convince others to help you out as well. What Berserk does is allow you to designate a team member to funnel into. Contrasting the implication given by the stat name, Berserk is the most team oriented of the playstyles, because it will A) Make the most use of a supportive team and B) Because a high stat Berserker will run dry by itself. (Unless it's a Black Mage, but there likely won't be high Berserk Black Mage. Just key breakpoints).

All of this works within the current iteration of the game, barring Bard, Monks, and Criticals.

[Jollyy5]

Set bonuses in an MMO are one thing, but interchangeable "keystone materia" for set bonuses would be pointless because people would math out the best keystone on day one, and so there would be no choice to be made at all.

Unless the keystones didn't affect your DPS in any way.