Bonus stats are pointless

[Ticklefairy]

snip

Not trying to boost post count, I just didn't know how to get around the 1000 word limit. It was annoying me, actually, so thanks for the tip.

And what you're describing isn't a choice. It's something you have to work around. You just said that if you wanted to heal T4 you'd do so and then spend 10k seals just to switch back to SMN. It's a needless timesink. Right now it's only one class so sure...people can do the 10k seals. But what about if there's 2 classes or 3? Eventually it's going to get to the point where people are going to have to have two characters so that they don't have to deal with the BS timesink that is farming seals just so they can switch back and forth between their jobs. Which goes against the entire point of the Armory System.

The stats were supposed to be a way that you could make your class/job unique. Maybe you're a more durable healer or a tank that does more damage. But the fact is that no one does that because it's not useful or effective. So that "customization" they intended isn't happening.

And speaking of intention, just because the devs say that something is "working as intended" doesn't mean it's A. Better that way or B. Actually working as intended.

SE has already said that about multiple things (One example being Dark Device FATE farming) and then turned around and changed them. They can change their mind or come around just like anything else.

The stats aren't a choice. They are a limiter. The stats aren't doing anything on any of the classes (because there's no choice since the allocation is a no-brainer) except for the ACN. And what does it do for the ACN? Nothing but limit your play. That's bad design.

Like I've said a million times, why is it totally cool/fine to you that you have to essentially choose to specialize in SCH/SMN but you don't have to choose between any other jobs? You cite healing T4 as SCH and then doing other stuff as a SMN as an example...well I can do exactly that as WHM and BLM with absolutely no timesink or penalty. So are you saying that you want every class/job to be that way? Because that's just going to end up with people having two characters. Which would be stupid.

I really think you need to open your mind a little because you seem to have this mindset of "That's the way they made it which makes it correct." The developers are not inherently correct in their design choices and I'm saying that this is incongruent with the rest of the way the system works. They can cover their butts by saying how "It's working as intended. We meant for this to be this way. Everything's working fine," but it's not ok. It's dumb.

Remember when WAR were underpowered and they said that it was totally fine and Warriors were great and working as intended? Same thing. People kept at it and assured SE that something needed to be done. That resulted in SE fine-tuning the job and now they are really well balanced compared to PLD.

We need to be looking for ways for this game to step forward and this Bonus Attribute system isn't contributing anything at all. All it's doing is making me not play SMN because I prefer SCH. So SMN is left in the dust for no good reason, but every other job in the game is free for me to play at my leisure with no silly timesinks or "choices" involved. That fluidity is what the Armory System is capable of and intended to be used for.

[Ticklefairy]

Also I ask that you please stop being so condescending and rude in your posts. It's an extremely odd thing to say that you enjoy something in a game simply because it makes other people, such as me, upset/frustrated. Not to mention that you lace all of your posts with malicious and haughty tones. It's not cool and doesn't facilitate good discussion.

[Mcshiggs]

Also I ask that you please stop being so condescending and rude in your posts. It's an extremely odd thing to say that you enjoy something in a game simply because it makes other people, such as me, upset/frustrated. Not to mention that you lace all of your posts with malicious and haughty tones. It's not cool and doesn't facilitate good discussion.

I would like to be less condescending but you make it so easy, according to Webster's dictionary, the definition of choice is: the act of choosing :the act of picking or deciding between two or more possibilities. So what you call a needless time sink, you know either spending the seals or not, fits the definition of the word, not sure how you keep missing that, and I don't accept everything they toss at us, in many of my other posts I am condescending and rude towards the developers for putting in poorly thought out, broken, late and half implemented content again and again, it's just in this instance the stats being tied to class make more sense to me than the job, and the use of hymns makes it easy to swap, plus gives me something to spend my seals on, I get about 3-4 hymns per week just doing daily roulettes supply and provisioning missions and what not. I would actually rather see the bonus points tied to the character, sort of like a merit point system, but if that was put in, even more people would run here to complain that it only lets them maximize one role, either str, dex, vit, or mnd, doing what you say goes away from the armory system is supposed to be. The way I see the armory system is that it allows you to easily swap between jobs at will, nothing about having to be the best at every job, it makes sense to me that someone that runs around as a black mage 90% of the time would be a better black mage than the person that always goes monk, except for those couple fights where he can't figure out how not to get killed by melee aoe's so he swaps over so he can live through the fights. It also becomes a choice if you make more than one character so you don't have to farm seals, it's a choice, because you might do it, but I assure you I won't, and I'll have just as much fun as you playing, even though sometimes I'll only have 430 int instead of 460, and isn't that the point of this game, to have the fun? Also don't take how I post too seriously, my tone is only about 15% how little I think of you, and 85% how much I think of me, and the fact that I enjoy how a system like this makes people upset/frustrated is because the act of farming seals and swapping stats is so easy, and to have someone call it a horrible time sink just strikes me as ridiculous.

[L-D-Omlette]

Like I've said a million times, why is it totally cool/fine to you that you have to essentially choose to specialize in SCH/SMN but you don't have to choose between any other jobs? You cite healing T4 as SCH and then doing other stuff as a SMN as an example...well I can do exactly that as WHM and BLM with absolutely no timesink or penalty. So are you saying that you want every class/job to be that way? Because that's just going to end up with people having two characters. Which would be stupid.

You keep bringing this up. ACN is the only one with two jobs. When CNJ has two jobs, the same rules will apply to it as ACN. You will ALWAYS be able to freely change between BLM and WHM and min/max each, if you CHOOSE to allocate all stats to spec WHM. You will have to choose between WHM/??? just like you do for SCH/SMN. Same thing will happen for BLM/???, PLD/???, etc.

Do I think the system is perfect? No, but I also don't see anything wrong with making the players have to make a hard choice about something, and making it matter.

[Mladenaught]

Don't touch my points! I've been waiting to click adding attribute points since the original Diablo, just let us find how to make them be meaningful. As an utter novice, maybe we could have three(3) or more points per level for every disciple of war and/or magic; I'm always up for a buff or two instead of watering it down.

[Ticklefairy]

So then what is the advantage of having the Armory System over a normal "separate" characters system if you can't be effective with every job you take the time to level and gear out? Might as well just have it be like any other MMO where you have to make a separate character for each job. The bonus attribute system diminishes the main advantage of having the Armory System: The ability to switch between jobs without having to switch between characters.

This idea of having to spend time or money to respec your character every time you want to change a role (for now just the ACN switching between healing and dps) is the exact reason Dual Spec options became a thing. Because it was a stupid idea to have to pay every time you wanted/needed to do the other role your class was capable of. It's the same thing here. I'm now not playing SMN because I prefer SCH. Right now, I can kind of live with that. But I do not want to have to choose between, say, Thief and Ninja (assuming they're paired). Instead what I would do is make a 2nd character so I didn't have to. Which would require me to relevel multiple classes that I've ALREADY LEVELED for cross-class abilities just so I can play whatever I like without having to choose.

And you keep citing that you farm seals via roulettes all the time. That would LITERALLY be the only reason at this point I would do that because I'm completely done with Philo tomes and seals and capping myth per week takes no time at all. So I'm running roulettes every day just so I can get 2-3 switches between SCH and SMN PER WEEK? Compared to the intended ability to switch between jobs at will that is ridiculous.

In video game design there are absolutely times where decisions, and time penalties for retracting those decisions, are totally ok. Where it's not an unnecessary burden but a way for the player to value the decisions they make. The bonus attribute system is not this. Your allocation is not a decision EXCEPT for the ACN where you're having to choose between either job...something that goes against the spirit of the Armory System. It only provides a negative impact on the playing experience and should just be scrapped due to it not interacting with the Armory System properly. Or make Jobs also separate with the bonus stats (rather than class). Give us choice AND flexibility.

But not this. Not what we have.

[Mcshiggs]

Blah blah blah.

You still fail to show me where the spirit of the armory system is let me be the best at everything with no work, provide a link to an interview, description of your armory system anything because right now all you are providing is what you want and don't want, and what you think is stupid and worthy of your time. Also if you want to level separate characters, go for it, that is your CHOICE, aren't you glad you are playing a game where they give you so many choices, I think you should bow down and thank the developers for putting such a well thought out and planned system in merely for your enjoyment. They give you choice, if you want flexibility, do yoga.

[Kitru]

You still fail to show me where the spirit of the armory system is let me be the best at everything with no work

If the armory system were intended to do this, every class would use the same gear (or continue to use the same categories of gear that they use while leveling; i.e. DoW gear has STR *and* DEX and DoW gear has INT *and* MND) and level up simultaneously. Since they don't do that, it's pretty obvious that the (mechanical) intention of the system (there's a thematic imperative since class/job changing is something indicative of the FF series, but it's not a requirement given that there only some of the games do so) is to allow you to play all of the classes/jobs on a single character as opposed to having to manage an entire stable of characters for the same purpose.

As to requiring an interview, it's not really needed because you can infer the intention and application of the armory system by looking at what it actually does compared to what it could have done just as easily if it were intended otherwise. If the devs wanted you to have a "main" job while being moderately inferior at any others, bonus stats could have been applied to your character globally without any problem (effectively locking down a main role mechanically) or you could be forced to choose a specific job to have those bonus stats applied to; instead, we get a separate allocation for every single class. From this, we can easily infer that the devs want the armory system to allow you to change classes without *any* mechanical stigma attached.

The only hiccup is that there is a *single* case where there *is* a mechanical stigma, insofar as ACN is required to choose between specializing in SMN and SCH, which contradicts the implementation of the armory system as well as all of the itemization on gear. While leveling, all DoM gear has both INT and MND on it (just like DoW gear has both STR and DEX), and, in fact, ACN books get both INT and MND on them from i30 on because you can now use MND or INT as your main stat; as such, when leveling, there's obviously intent to allow you to switch as you please without even modifying your gear. At 50, gear starts applying to a single role, but it still doesn't apply to a specific *job* (except in very specific circumstances) which is what gear would need to do were it actually intended for you to have to choose between jobs.

The fact that bonus stats are specific to a class instead of a job is contradictory to the obvious mechanical intention of every other aspect of the armory system. It's possible that many of the mechanical aspects that I've been pointing out are simply simplification and design compromises to reduce the amount of work required for the game (e.g. creating entirely separate armor/gear for each role while leveling and each job at the endgame would dramatically increase the number of items that need to be designed), but I find it relatively unlikely given the other shortcuts they could have taken to accomplish much the same effect without doing so (e.g. gear models can be copied, recolored, and repurposed pretty easily).

It seems much more likely that the mechanical imperative took precedence and that bonus stats were simply a system implemented largely without thought as to what it would mean from a mechanical viewpoint because they didn't really interact with anything else (and the effects of it doesn't even really appear until you hit the endgame) and that the devs never really considered that someone would want to play both jobs for a given class. Within the confines of the rest of what the rest of the armory system allows, locking bonus stats to classes instead of jobs (or even having them in the first place since they're basically preallocated for you by *playing* that job) makes absolutely no sense. The only "benefit" that they afford is a slight illusion of player customization to a class (which is entirely an illusion because, as I said before, there aren't realistic options since putting anything into a stat that *isn't* your mainstat is just wasting it), and it isn't even an *effective* illusion because it's so painfully transparent at a glance.

They give you choice, if you want flexibility, do yoga.

Actually, all MMOs give you choice by offering multiple races, jobs, and other aspects at character creation. ARR offers no more choice than those games do and, in fact, it could be argued that there's less because there aren't specs that allow you to change the design of a given class based upon your preferences. What ARR and the armory system *do* offer is explicitly flexibility: you have a single character that can switch between any of the classes and jobs on the fly (e.g. no quest required for swapping), can gain gear for all classes simultaneously, and, in fact, use some gear for multiple classes/jobs.

Choice is simply affording you the option to choose at a specific point in time (like character creation), whether that choice is permanent or subject to change. Flexibility is a specific type of choice that affords you the ability to change your mind about said choice, which is what ARR does in spades with the armory system. The armory system is *absolutely* about flexibility since you basically get to choose everything (which isn't really a choice because you're simply *given* "all of the above"; the "choice" is something you apply to yourself as opposed to one forced upon you by the devs). Bonus stats being locked to classes instead of jobs make absolutely no sense in that context because they are the only inflexible aspect of a system designed to maximize flexibility.

[Mcshiggs]

Hello all, As Yoshida mentioned in a previous LIVE letter, these two jobs were planned to share stats and there are currently no plans to separate their stat allocations. When leveling each class, we'd like players to carefully consider how you'd like to allocate your earned stats. Of course, there is an item that allows you to reset them should you decide to move in a different direction, but it's something that takes time to acquire .

They do intend for you to make a choice, and if you change your mind, spend time to reset your points.

Maybe all this whining will inspire the devs, you know to make a Crybaby class, it would have nifty abilities like "That's not fair" it would be used after an enemy uses an ability, like Titan using weight of the land, where the character starts to whine, and if successful, Titan won't use the next weight of the land, because he feels that ability does not reflect the spirit of the fight. There could also be "I want it now" where you just enter a dungeon, and the character immediately starts to cry about how the dungeon isn't fair, they took the time to enter, so the rewards should just be given to them, if successful, one chest will appear and all the loot, gil, experience, and tombstones from the completing the dungeon will be rewarded. Of course this would require two new stats to accompany the two new jobs, annoyance to go with the Tantrumthrower, and self entitlement to go with the Egotist.

[Kitru]

Maybe all this whining will inspire the devs, you know to make a Crybaby class

I'm not whining. The fact that I have to choose between stats doesn't impact me because I don't play SMN; I only play SCH. I simply find it incongruous with the rest of the system that the devs have set up for running as multiple classes, and I'm pointing that out.