How would you guys feel if (gear progression question)

[KamikazeMan]

After 3.0 is released, rather than increase the ilvl in, say 3.2, they offer new gear with different kinds of stats? Perhaps new stats? Examples of new stats would be something like Attack Magic Potency, Thundercloud + 5%, Healing Potency, Greased Lightning +2 seconds, Windbite Critical Hit Chance +5%, etc.

Personally I would love this. Not only does it prevent your gear from becoming outdated so quickly, it gives players room for strategy by allowing you to create your own build. One thing I feel that this game is lacking is variety. I think it would be great to see 5-7 sets of possible gear players can equip, rather than there only being 2 real options.

I know Yoshida mentioned looking into adding other kinds of stats into XIV a while back and I'm curious to see how implementing them into XIV would change things in terms of gear progression. I'm curious to see how you guys would feel about this

[Moqi]

I feel like it'd be exactly like it is now. Adapt it to your playstyle, sure, but then someone will do the math and find the "one" build better than the other. It doesn't sound any different than "weapon damage is more important anyway, secondary stats are useless" or "after x of this stat, it's not worth stacking and you should focus on y instead, here's the math" that I see thrown around in here.

I mean, it's great on paper but...

[Donjo]

It will be exactly as Moqi claims. In fact, it will be worse. Currently, we're in a situation where Secondary Stats don't really matter that much and people are caring about them far more than they need to. If you start throwing this gear around with special properties, the best build will be found for every class and anyone who doesn't have it will be estranged by anyone who is even remotely hardcore. Right now, iLvl matters more than secondary stats. It'll take very careful treading to keep it that way if this happens.

[Nutz]

I hope they do something like that. I personally find it annoying that accuracy is the only actually important [secondary] stat (and only up to a point and in limited content). Variety wouldn't hurt this game's itemization, though it might allow for some items to be gain 'must have' status. Of course, by 'must have' what is really meant is: this item is noticeably better than others. Unless they have no idea how to balance things at all (I wonder sometimes...) it shouldn't be a big problem.

If they adopted the sort of stats you're talking about, what would likely happen is something similar to the current situation -- that is the pool of available stats would still be somewhat limited and as such most sets would have most of the stats present somewhere. Higher item levels would offer the same stats at a higher potency (weighted for what type of item it appeared on and in the company of what/ how many other stats). This would mean that unless you specifically avoided something you couldn't be without whatever killer stat, though you might currently be unable to get the highest level of it. It would also allow you to stack particular bonuses by mixing and matching from different sets (eg. ilvl 150 set has 'blood for blood +2 seconds' on the gloves, while the ilvl 140 set has that stat on the shoes).

I think it would make things more interesting. Granted, unless it was designed by a god or something there would definitely be a mathematically best set, but that's irrelevant. Technically there's a best race to play each class and we all happily ignore that. There currently exists best sets and the vast majority of players don't have them since it requires completing the most difficult available content repeatedly.

They just need to make sure they don't put insanely good stats on something and then never offer any worthwhile alternatives again. Something like TP regen +10 on an earring would likely mean, "I'm never removing this earring" unless they put out another with +11 and so on.

[Zumi]

Say everything is the same item level only thing different is special text, like a bow gives 5% crit rate on blood letter, now then, out comes 3.2 the final boss of that patch drops a bow same item level as 3.1 but it has a 5% crit rate on windbite. Someone does the math and figures out the old bow is better. Bards are upset they don't get a better bow and will still be using the same thing they been using for 6 months.

People want new stuff to be better not to win the math lottery and hope the new random effect they put on your stuff is better then one released previously.