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

[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.