Changing the Attribute Point / Physical Level System - Something more FLEXIBLE :)

[MysteryG]

Great post! Those are some really good observations, and I totally agree myself.

My favorite thing about XI was the ability to change class on the fly. I feel like this has been thrown out the window in XIV, I really like playing Conjurer, but I find it incredibly frustrating to find myself waiting days to switch my points into a setup more viable for a Botanist! And then trying to switch back, I find myself missing out on 40-50 useless points still left in Str.

I would love to see an individual set of stats for each class I change to. Physical level doesn't even need to be removed! I think combining that with hard gear stats / level requirements and you're already on your way to a much better system.

[Shoopdadoopdoop]

Physical level needs to go, in my humble opinion. My FF experience has always been something like this: "If I can grind enough gil/experience, then I'll have enough to get my (insert heavy hitter here, zidane, auron, squall, cloud)'s strength from 157 to 200, I'll be able to tackle this boss with relative ease!

In FFXIV, if I fail a leve due to a small lalafell sized HP pool or a lack of combat efficiency due to accuracy or attack or whatever the cause may be, the only way to fix the problem is to try something easier. Reassigning my available points to combat my low HP pool forces me to make myself weaker in other areas for the rest of my time under this stat allocation. Reassigning my stats to a balanced set up grants no notable bonuses either.

Now, you might ask, what are you trying to say? Why does it matter to the developers that you can't get your weak character through the levequest?

The answer is simple. Stat parameters are what has always made your progress noteworthy in a FF game. In almost every FF, the attack or hit rating on your weapon makes you hit normal mobs for hundreds more. The numbers rose exponentially as you grew from a lowbie to the end result (FFVIII being an exception to this by scaling all enemies to Squall's level,). What we need to is align stats in a coherent, fitting manner for each class. Do away with physical experience and freely allocatable stat points. You're a level 1 gladiator? Okay, you get 15str, 18vit, and 15 dex. I DONT CARE that you already have a marauder at 50. That shouldn't DIRECTLY effect your performance on another class directly, as its not the same class. Make 255 the stat cap, like its always been. Allocate stat points automatically so that 50s have up to 65-80 naturally in their highest stat. And then, rescale stats' effectiveness in combat so that one level matters! 64 to 67 strength should be a BIG upgrade. Think about it. 3 is 5% of 60. If you raise your strength by 5%, your hits need to be 5% more effective. There has to be SOME kind of coherence to stats. Make that HQ worth your money. Make it worth it to fill your equip slots with a particular stat. At this point, there is absolutely no reason for me not to put every single point into VIT strictly for HP on my melees, and every single point into MND for more MP on my casters. Because if i decide to be adventerous and stack PIE and INT, I already know I'm never going to see a difference. If my INT goes from 40 to 80, my Thunder II will go from 350-360 to 356-365. It just doesn't make any sense.



In conclusion ( I know its poorly typed with no breaks so start here if you don't like proofreading)

- No more physical EXP, make your class level the sole source of measurement of basic stat parameters.
- Scale stats down slightly, making a solid 255 cap for all stats. As level cap and gear is introduced, stats can grow with them. Maybe after 5 years of expansion, and 5 cap raises all the way to 100, 255 will be reachable with some gear. Maybe not. But FF games, in my experience, cap stats at 255.
- Give gear level requirements and class specialization. A level 10 conjurer shouldn't be getting 30MP from his Vintage Robe. He should be getting an error message when he tries to put it on. It just doesn't make any sense.
- Add incentive to progress by leveling the playing field and automatically allocating stat points just like in... every other FF game?
- Add incentive to progress by introducing multiple AF-like sets for each class, creating quest chains both solo and group oriented that reward specialized gear that makes a difference.
- Improve class individuality by scaling down affinity or limiting a character to abilities within his discipline. (DoW can only use GLA MRD ARC PUG and LNC abilities, DoM can only use CON and THM, etc etc., I shouldn't be able to cure myself for 400HP 30 times in a fight on my level 1 archer, I'm sorry. but it just doesn't make any sense.)

[darkstarpoet1]

Physical level needs to go, in my humble opinion. My FF experience has always been something like this: "If I can grind enough gil/experience, then I'll have enough to get my (insert heavy hitter here, zidane, auron, squall, cloud)'s strength from 157 to 200, I'll be able to tackle this boss with relative ease!

In FFXIV, if I fail a leve due to a small lalafell sized HP pool or a lack of combat efficiency due to accuracy or attack or whatever the cause may be, the only way to fix the problem is to try something easier. Reassigning my available points to combat my low HP pool forces me to make myself weaker in other areas for the rest of my time under this stat allocation. Reassigning my stats to a balanced set up grants no notable bonuses either.

Now, you might ask, what are you trying to say? Why does it matter to the developers that you can't get your weak character through the levequest?

The answer is simple. Stat parameters are what has always made your progress noteworthy in a FF game. In almost every FF, the attack or hit rating on your weapon makes you hit normal mobs for hundreds more. The numbers rose exponentially as you grew from a lowbie to the end result (FFVIII being an exception to this by scaling all enemies to Squall's level,). What we need to is align stats in a coherent, fitting manner for each class. Do away with physical experience and freely allocatable stat points. You're a level 1 gladiator? Okay, you get 15str, 18vit, and 15 dex. I DONT CARE that you already have a marauder at 50. That shouldn't DIRECTLY effect your performance on another class directly, as its not the same class. Make 255 the stat cap, like its always been. Allocate stat points automatically so that 50s have up to 65-80 naturally in their highest stat. And then, rescale stats' effectiveness in combat so that one level matters! 64 to 67 strength should be a BIG upgrade. Think about it. 3 is 5% of 60. If you raise your strength by 5%, your hits need to be 5% more effective. There has to be SOME kind of coherence to stats. Make that HQ worth your money. Make it worth it to fill your equip slots with a particular stat. At this point, there is absolutely no reason for me not to put every single point into VIT strictly for HP on my melees, and every single point into MND for more MP on my casters. Because if i decide to be adventerous and stack PIE and INT, I already know I'm never going to see a difference. If my INT goes from 40 to 80, my Thunder II will go from 350-360 to 356-365. It just doesn't make any sense.



In conclusion ( I know its poorly typed with no breaks so start here if you don't like proofreading)

- No more physical EXP, make your class level the sole source of measurement of basic stat parameters.
- Scale stats down slightly, making a solid 255 cap for all stats. As level cap and gear is introduced, stats can grow with them. Maybe after 5 years of expansion, and 5 cap raises all the way to 100, 255 will be reachable with some gear. Maybe not. But FF games, in my experience, cap stats at 255.
- Give gear level requirements and class specialization. A level 10 conjurer shouldn't be getting 30MP from his Vintage Robe. He should be getting an error message when he tries to put it on. It just doesn't make any sense.
- Add incentive to progress by leveling the playing field and automatically allocating stat points just like in... every other FF game?
- Add incentive to progress by introducing multiple AF-like sets for each class, creating quest chains both solo and group oriented that reward specialized gear that makes a difference.
- Improve class individuality by scaling down affinity or limiting a character to abilities within his discipline. (DoW can only use GLA MRD ARC PUG and LNC abilities, DoM can only use CON and THM, etc etc., I shouldn't be able to cure myself for 400HP 30 times in a fight on my level 1 archer, I'm sorry. but it just doesn't make any sense.)

i completely disagree. it may be a different class, but it is still the same character. if you work out to be able to play football you build your body correct? if you go over and decide to do power lifting from there you do not start off as a complete new person because you already built your body up to a high level from your other class. all i am saying is the strength you gained from doing one class should have some bearing on what you are on the next level. i just feel as though we get too many points on each level up.

i made a suggestion earlier that on each level we get whether it's physical or class you get one point for each level. for example a lvl 50pug and lvl 50physical would have 100 total points they could allot on the pug class only. a 21con when you go to another class still as a 50phy you would only have 71 points you could use on your con. my thinking is that physical level should help you some when you go to another class, but that having the stats of a level 50 at a level 1 is way too much. this way like your +5 and +7 rings would also have usage bacause your gear would allow you to move up an additional % above the max of a stat, but we would have to take into account of the difference of the amount of overall points each point you allot would have a higher value. this would also make people take the time to make sure that the gear/accessories they equip make the maximum usage of the points it gives.

i just feel this is the fair way to correct the issue by allowing you to get some benefits off a physical level along with making each class have its own set of points to use on that individual class. it would also make items such as +5 dexterity rings actually have the value compared to the cost of those items.

[kukurumei]

So we can have a cheat character in minutes? Or to devalue the stat system more for the sake of balance.

"Listen up people we're going to face a boss with a lot of magic attack next, so max out your mdef stats now"

There's a reason why you couldn't completely redo your stats in a matter of moments. Of course the fact that you could redo your stats in the first place had to be balanced to the point where stats matter very little with caps and forumlas.

[Kiara]

So we can have a cheat character in minutes? Or to devalue the stat system more for the sake of balance.

"Listen up people we're going to face a boss with a lot of magic attack next, so max out your mdef stats now"

There's a reason why you couldn't completely redo your stats in a matter of moments. Of course the fact that you could redo your stats in the first place had to be balanced to the point where stats matter very little with caps and forumlas.

Hi kukurumei,

How is having a system to change your class's stats more easily a "cheat character"?

I think we have to ask Square-Enix and the FF XIV Team what their vision of "Final Fantasy XIV" is. I understand your sentiment of wanting to be devoted to 1 class (or take longer to switch classes), but I'd say that was valid if this was Final Fantasy XI during Years 1 - 3 or so (where it took most people 1/2 a Year to a *Year* or more) to reach Level 75. You were devoted to a specific job and it took a long time to reach Max Level.

In FF XIV, it took 1 player 3 WEEKS to reach Max Rank 50 (the Japanese Archer player), and with the new faster SP patch recently, people are easily getting to Rank 50 much faster than before.

I got Rank 50 in both of my mage classes months ago. So what now? I'm stuck playing a maxxed out Mage class with NO End Game Content?

The way that FF XIV seems to be going (sort of) is like a Final Fantasy V or Final Fantasy Tactics with lots of different "Jobs" at your disposal. People reach Max Level too fast in this game. So the "style" of this game seems to lend itself to be more like a "try out lots of different Jobs (Classes) and switch around"-style, than a traditional "dedicate yourself to 1 Class for years"-style of RPG.

Right now, it's a complete pain and nightmare to try and switch between your Max Rank Class and something different. If people are curious why this is a problem, for the limited "end game content" we have now (NMs, Faction NMs), imagine trying to participate in these events one day, and then the next day, you try to do Guildleves with a new Class you want to experiment on (e.g., from Pugilist (Max Rank) to Conjurer). And then the 3rd day, you're back to fighting NMs again.

You can't do it unless you're super diligent, staying up for Hours, waiting for "Reassign Points" Button to highlight again, so you can Reassign more points, and take ~10 - 12 hours to move all your stat points around. It's inconvenient, not fun, and it's counterintuitive to the style of game FF XIV is right now (easy to reach Rank 50, nothing to do at max Rank).

Again, if the idea was to slowly build your 1 Class and devote yourself to it (like FF XI early years), that's understandable, but that's not what FF XIV is.

[kukurumei]

Again, if the idea was to slowly build your 1 Class and devote yourself to it (like FF XI early years), that's understandable, but that's not what FF XIV is.

There's a reason why player customized stat MMOs don't let you change your class ever unless with a rare extreme monetary trade off or make a whole new character.

Private server MMOs that hacked their games to allow instant stat changes...well it was fun and great for the first month, then everyone stopped, because there was nothing left to play with.

It's call a history lesson. Stat control, or in other words, making "builds" has always been a double edge sword. Games like Ragnarok Online lived on that for years.

Instant changing is a "cheat character" To be able to min/max yourself at any given time for any given situation is a cheat in MMO terms, because MMO live on stats. That's why FF14 attempted to balance it the way it did. The whole armory system revaluation is based on the same problem.

And the fact that devs are moving away from a stat system is exactly the reason. Too much build changing and subsequent balancing from it has lead to extreme dullness in the world of Eorzea.

Instant gratification formulas tend to have disastrous results in practice. This has been shown for the past decade by Private servers of various MMOs. The ones that have the most stable and high populations end up to be the one that don't give you any class in moments, any stats in moments, and any item in moments, while the cheat character servers tend to die to double and even single digit players.

There's a whole theory in testing and slew of compromises in the world of private servers, but empirical evidence makes it pretty clear again and again. It just doesn't work unless you like ghost towns.

[Naqaj]

Instant changing is a "cheat character" To be able to min/max yourself at any given time for any given situation is a cheat in MMO terms, because MMO live on stats. That's why FF14 attempted to balance it the way it did. The whole armory system revaluation is based on the same problem.

Don't make it instant then. There are plenty of alternatives. It's easy to agree with you that such an extreme solution leads to extreme problems, but that doesn't mean there is no way at all to make a free stat distribution system work.

[GuyFawkes]

So we can have a cheat character in minutes? Or to devalue the stat system more for the sake of balance.

"Listen up people we're going to face a boss with a lot of magic attack next, so max out your mdef stats now"

There's a reason why you couldn't completely redo your stats in a matter of moments. Of course the fact that you could redo your stats in the first place had to be balanced to the point where stats matter very little with caps and forumlas.

If the new stats were linked with a different kind of weapon, and were distributed like it is now then you would avoid this problem. For instance if you swapped out your lance for a sword you can have different stats, which I will note that this cannot be done in combat.

However with that said, you would first have to make stats matter before you implement a system for swapping stats.

[Rentahamster]

So we can have a cheat character in minutes? Or to devalue the stat system more for the sake of balance.

"Listen up people we're going to face a boss with a lot of magic attack next, so max out your mdef stats now"

There's a reason why you couldn't completely redo your stats in a matter of moments. Of course the fact that you could redo your stats in the first place had to be balanced to the point where stats matter very little with caps and forumlas.

How is this any different from a system that relies on gear for the majority of stat bonuses so that the players just swap out their physical defense gear for magical defense gear?

[Lienn]

Well, i offered them a suggestion a while ago and i think i should post this here aswell:

A good way of "fixing" physical level would be mixing it with the already used (by like every MMO) automatic distribution.
The game would do a distribution based on base atributes of each race (the ones shown when you choose a race/clan) and raising it 8% at every level up (rounding down). This would generate a character with attributes going between 59 and 88 (59 for attributes that were 12 at level 1 and 88 for the ones that were 18). This would be the base attributes.

But to complete this, a player would receive 2.5 bonus points per level up (which would make it alternate between 2 and 3 or, is happens to look better, getting 2 points from 2-26 and 3 from 27-50), which would generate 122 bonus points.

But these bonus points would work differently from current one. ever point would worth always 1 attribute and the attribute cap (supposed to be around 170 at current system) would be pulled down to 120.

Having a cap in 120 would allow them to make attributes having a more expressive effect (since there wouldn't have peaks of 150~170 anymore), making characters more balanced and still protecting the customization freedom of players since they would still be able to distribute the bonus points at will.

The player still will be free to put as many points as he wants in any attribute, but i suggested that, once they surpass the cap, the number highlight in red to show that, for that level, the attribute is above cap. Also, the amount of bonus points was chosen as 122 to protect the right of every race/clan of playing any class. Since the smallest base attribute is 59 (and some classes would have 2 of those, like dunefolf that have 12 starting STR and VIT) so, when you use the bonus points on these attributes you can add 61 points on each, being able to reach the cap (120) with both attributes.

This way would be protected the idea of, as example, a dunefolk to being able to tank as GLA just as well as a Hellsguard, even though the starting atributes of dunefolk isn't favorable to this role.

No matter how much i think about this, it was the best way to deal with physical level without having to use traditional systems like automatic attributes distribution based on class. Specially because using low values the player wouldn't really need to reassign bonus points unless he's retiring a class, because 59 base attribute plus 15 from traits already offer 74 points in a attribute with minimal base value (103 if the class has a starting base attribute of 18), making reassign good but not a must to play effectively every time you change class.