Quote Originally Posted by Pandastirfry View Post
again...your "math" discounts the actual mechanics in favor of just number values...

when taken as a whole XIV actually requires you to USE most if not all of your abilities, where as XI had you use maybe half of the bloated list they gave you on a shallow "Rock, Paper Scissors" system for its entire exisitence. Again you used basic arithmatic, when complex math is needed.
Did you miss the parts about developers picking and choosing what to use as the game ages?
looking at that did you miss me indicating that the unused stuff is your ammunition for future content?
did you miss how large ffxi pool to begin with which is smart because it could last them decades and still produce genuinely new content with genuinely new gameplay mechanics because they have that unused pool?
did you not see me saying if the pool small you will exhaust the number of ways you can use your set and end up merely shuffling it for the "new" content?

do you realize that the magnitude of complexity for a single battle is also depending on how deep that rabbit hole you made because as a developer you can make it more complex by utilizing more of them?

do you realize that unused pool of abilities does not reduce the magnitude of complexity but rather indicate how much the developers choose to use and thus how simple they want it to be?