Why is there so little information on this game?

[Rongway]

Why do you need detailed damage and healing formulas?

So I can better evaluate and understand my abilities and stats? I mean, it's a pretty simple concept. I can't imagine being accepting of this sort of thing.

That is a fairly recent concept and historically not one that the vast majority of game designers have catered to. Most games have given even less information than we have here, and expect you to figure out the relative strength of various equipment on your own, because the formulas are almost never important and sometimes figuring out how much more powerful the Master Sword is is just part of the game.

The system we have here gives the potencies of attack and healing actions, which allows you to compare the actions within a single job's toolkit to eachother to make reasonable judgements about what is an optimal strategy or rotation, and that's basically all you need to know to devise such a rotation. You simply don't need to know how much stats like weapon damage or mainstat contribute to the damage formulas because it's not going to change the actions' potencies relative to each other, and so doesn't matter.

I mean hell, the tooltips don't even have basic information on them. Like Peloton saying how much movement speed it grants for instance.

All you need to know here is that it grants a speed multiplier greater than 1.0. Does it having a 1.25 or 1.5 or 3.0 multiplier affect whether or not you will use it? It's a free, oGCD action with no consequences, and it doesn't compete with any alternative actions that force you to choose between a high speed increase or a low speed increase with other benefits tacked on. Just use it.

Actions where the potency or magnitude of an effect matter have those potencies or magnitudes clearly listed in their tooltips, excepting the aforementioned BLM mechanic (yes, UI/AF should be clearer about their effects) and the exact gauge point gains for some jobs' actions (like Improvisation, which, yes, could use a more explicit tooltip, but ultimately still doesn't affect whether or not it should be used).

[Gravagar]

All you need to know here is that it grants a speed multiplier greater than 1.0. Does it having a 1.25 or 1.5 or 3.0 multiplier affect whether or not you will use it? It's a free, oGCD action with no consequences, and it doesn't compete with any alternative actions that force you to choose between a high speed increase or a low speed increase with other benefits tacked on. Just use it.

Is Peloton stronger than Sprint? There is a cost associated with using Sprint- its cooldown, meaning it could be down when you need it. Peloton is free, but other movement abilities are not.


Do you rely on other people to determine your rotation, or your BiS? Even if you say "no" to that, you still benefit from other people who do, because it means your parties kill faster, die less, and perform better. Having more people interested in deciphering the numbers to learn the true formulas benefits you, and that drive / curiosity is something that should be fostered and supported, not something to dismiss as being wasted effort. The more folks who're interested in what's going on under-the-hood, the more we all collectively benefit. Any one individual may not "need" to know, and I do think you have good point about what you need to know, but ease up a little on the guy, eh?

[Urthdigger]

Part of the problem is that the formulas are changed every expansion to keep things from getting too ridiculous as levels go up, so the game may have been out for 8 years but these numbers have been out for just a year. This is especially important to do for stats that become better as you get more and more of them, such your attack rate and crit chance. We know it's not a strictly linear scale, doubling a stat doesn't necessarily double the effect, and we do usually get some pretty good numbers about how stats perform, especially later in an expansion, but it's also largely irrelevant for most players.

Here's the short version of how stats work: "Potency" is just a stat used to compare abilities against each other. 100 is essentially a "baseline" and it should be noted that physical autoattacks and failed melee combos have 100 potency. They're not all that useful for comparing between classes (900 potency on a healer and 900 potency on a dps are two very different things), but they can reliably be used to compare between abilities.

Attack power, Healing Magic Potency, and Attack Magic Potency can largely be ignored. There's no way to directly increase these, so they're just derivatives of your other stats. You only have to worry about raising your main stat (which is STR for melee), your determination, critical, and direct hit rate secondary stats, either spell or skill speed depending on role, and tanks and healers can theoretically worry about tenacity or piety but in practice they're garbage. Your main stat is always the most important thing to raise, increase that at all costs, direct hit is generally pretty solid, determination is... ok, and critical is on a weird exponential curve where at lower levels it's not quite so useful but as you can stack more and more of it, it becomes better and better. Skill/spell speed are mostly used to hit certain GCD breakpoints for getting stuff into buff windows, as they're lower powered enough that the extra GCD or two they may give during a fight is not usually worth making the attacks themselves less powerful.

Lastly: In the example you gave, healing magic potency actually did NOTHING for Second Wind. That only impacts healing magic, which healers (and Arcanist/summoner) have. All other healing abilities, like Second Wind or Clemency, use attack power instead so they're not useless at endgame.

Edit: Also, really don't worry about this until endgame. As you're leveling, the only thing that matters is main stat, which will always be on the piece if it's suited for your class and will always go up as item level goes up. So, don't make bizarre decisions like wearing mage robes on a monk, and equip the highest item level gear you can, and you'll be fine until level 80.

[Heilstos]

Hey Sephrinxx,

If you really want to see the formula I can send you the compendium here:

How to be a Math Wizard - Third Edition

The Third Edition is for Shadowbringer so up to date.^^

Here you can see the every Table for the stats (for patch 5.2):

And a other side Allaganstudies Akhmorning

At least I have a Side for you where you can look how your gear change your stats and in wich way:

Gear Calc Etro

Here is an example from a Set:



I hope, I could help. But a little warning. You should read the two sources and plan your time. However, these sources help to build an understanding of the mathematical side of FF14

[Sephrinxx]

Well, knowing the exact formula for figuring out exactly how much hp Cure will heal for just isn't necessary.

Experience/using it gives you a ballpark value. You know it will go up with gear ilvl. Potency gives you its strength relative to other abilities. There's not really a need to do the heavy datamining and statistics collection needed to determine "This combination of stats will restore exactly 20k hp" or whatever.

And for comparing jobs' performance, we have FF logs.

I don't know, it seems like it's pretty necessary to me honestly. I understand that "Bigger potency = bigger heal" but I want to know why and how that works If I have 2190 healing potency and an item gives me 2 other competetive stats, is it worth sacrificing say, 80 potencty for more piety and skill speed? Or should I just stack the potency? For example. I strongly disagree with you saying that it's not necessary.

The short of it is because not every game wants to give players access to the raw data calculations. Obfuscation is hardly anything new in the genre.

It's definitely new to me. I've not had this much trouble trying to find information on basic things in a game before. I mean, I could understand if it were a new game that not man people played, but it's pushing 8 years old now, and supposedly has tens of millions of players between then and now. There's no reason for obfuscation, it doesn't do anything but frustrate players, self as an example.

It really is short-sighted to not have potencies on things like Peloton, you do NEED to know how it stacks with Sprint or the various mounted speeds. That's just common sense. Sadly, when I need info like that, I have to google or wiki it, since the in-game resources are very lacking, like you said.

Yeah I don't understand it. It's such basic rudimentary stuff here. Imagine giving players information in an MMORPG so they can better understand and better optimize their character.

Even when I DO google something, there's no information on it at all pretty much no matter what it is. It's like there is a black hole of information on this game that just gets sucked away into a void, or there are 3 pages of results, and only 3 of them are relevant but they're from 2014 and outdated or incorrect. It's insane.


For some reason Squenix thought it was a good idea to limit people posting on the forums based on the levels of their characters (WTF???LMAO?) and I can only make 5 posts a day. So stupid.

I hope, I could help. But a little warning. You should read the two sources and plan your time. However, these sources help to build an understanding of the mathematical side of FF14

Wow, why isn't this stuff just included in the game?
I can't believe they thought it was ok to not show basic stats such as your crit chance and mp regen and what not. I think I'm just going to call it quits tho. There is just too much convoluted nonsensical stuff in this game that builds up and makes the game just not enjoyable to play. Thanks.

[Heilstos]

Hey Sephrinxx,

I understand you your poiont of view. But its like an P&P like the black eye or other. You can play with a lot of infos or less. And I belive for a lot player could be intimidate by so exact informations.

I can understand the Dev-team that they dont make the game complex because new player play around it. BUT the Dev team gives the Com the chance to calculate themself. And so you have to look for the infos.

[Navnav]

For instance, trying to figure out how Cure Potency and Healing Spell potency interact with eachother has been a nightmare. All I've been able to find is a ridiculous forumla with the variables being unknown.

This game has been out for what, 8 years now? There is a staggeringly small amount of information available. The wiki and other forms if usual information are ghostly bare.

Does anyone know how how the healing/damage coefficients work in this game?

Example: I had 95 Healing Potency and used Second Wind which is 500 Cure Potency, and it healed me for 159.

How does that work? That doesn't make any sense to me at all.

Good luck OP with trying to get any kind of reasonable answer here.

I agree with you though OP. I started playing about 5 months ago and the lack of information drives me nuts. It's like the most basic thing you should be able to do, yet it isn't done. There is no excuse for it at all, every other MMO does this, so it isn't rocket science. However, there is a off the cuff reason for this - The game is tailored towards console players.

Also do NOT under any circumstances critisize this game. The one thing I've learned about this so called 'best' community is that they do NOT like any logical critisism about this game. You cannot bash square or yoshi P about anything. The only time you can bash square is when you want to rant about having to heal instead of dps as a healer or having to basically use anything on the gcd that isn't damage as a tank or healer. Yup....

I'll take another ban then. I always get banned for saying something different here.

[Razard]

I'll take another ban then. I always get banned for saying something different here.

If you have been banned as many times as you say you have, I think the problem might be closer to home.

Just saying.

[Saefinn]

Also do NOT under any circumstances critisize this game. The one thing I've learned about this so called 'best' community is that they do NOT like any logical critisism about this game. You cannot bash square or yoshi P about anything. The only time you can bash square is when you want to rant about having to heal instead of dps as a healer or having to basically use anything on the gcd that isn't damage as a tank or healer. Yup....

My friend, I guess I'll be blunt, but what are you on about?

This whole healing forum is rife with reasonable criticisms of FFXIV and only a minority of the posts here are the complaints you're claiming are the only ones perceived as okay. Because the crux of healer complaints here are the opposite. Many of us WANT a more interesting DPS rotation. If anything that has been the louder voice here.

This has been pretty much constant since the Shadowbringers Media tour (and possibly before, but media tour was when I starting airing my complaints).

Actually most of what I see on the FFXIV forums is criticism, so I am really confused what you're basing this on.

Just because there are people who disagree with you doesn't mean they're unable to accept criticism about a game they love, it just means they don't agree with that particular criticism.

But at no point have I ever been found to be attacked for making these complaints. I've had people disagree and I've had people also agree...which is fine. But have never felt I've been unable to make any criticism by the FFXIV community in general either and I've been a member of the FFXIV community for years now (started in ARR Beta Phase 3 and not stopped since).

My feeling is maybe the problem isn't criticism but either by how you view people disagreeing with you or by your approach with people - at least if you are finding this problem to be so prevalent. If you keep getting banned, I would suspect the latter. I realise this may be blunt, but honestly, you're absolutely okay to criticise Square Enix. IMO both praise and criticism are good for the development of the game. How it is done is not always positive.

[Semirhage]

I've only ever heard the "this game's community can't take any criticism" line from people who come from different games and pull "this game would be sooooo much better if it were actually good like this other *cough* WoW *cough* MMO I play, why doesn't it do things exactly like they do it's so stuuuupid that it's not like this other MMO"

That's not constructive criticism, that's complaining that it doesn't copy another game. As someone who's played quite a few MMOs over the years, there's definitely a pattern of people coming over from other games and immediately demanding that it change to fit the game they came from. That is where I usually see MMO communities tell people to kick rocks.