SE enough of the treadmill, please make the game more interesting!

[BlaiseArath]

The benefit from "Critical hit Damage +3%" varies heavily with Critical hit rate and current Critical hit damage percentage. At 50% critical hit chance and +50% base Critical hit Damage it is a 1.2% increase in average damage, but only a .25% increase in damage with a 10% and +200% Critical hit damage. "Fire Spell Potency +10" may sound simple but has varying effects based on when, where, what and how it is applied.

Its not complexity that is the problem, but Balance.

Please understand, I'm not attempting to be rude, I understand what you're saying when you mention this, so If i sound rude, I assure you its mostly in good humor and nothing else.

A BLM spell going from say 300 potency to 310 isn't causing T13 to collapse and casuals run wild in it, and my critical hits going from 1000 damage to 1030 damage isn't causing the sky to fall or allow my NIN to solo the world. Sorry, but I don't buy the balance excuse. They're MMO designer, Not ignorant children, I'm sure if they wanted too they could easily balance these extra stats. Its not that much of a challenge so long as they look at it in the long term and not the short term.

Gear variety and itemization... These things were not what made 1.0 bad at all. The stats were fine and even though they weren't the general copy paste of WoW, I bet most of you would actually like a stat system like 1.0/XI if you gave it a shot... I mean, if any of you enjoyed Diablo 2 you should understand the basic concept. Heck, even early FF Titles had armor/weapons with high positives for a trade-off like extra damage taken or something. There's nothing wrong with picking the brain of your consumers in a way that makes them feel smarter for figuring something out. We've all got our brains so turned off at this point because we can pretty much assume every new MMO will be the same gear wise.

You'll have your Primary and HP Stat, always important, and you'll have your secondary stats which will mostly be the same priority for every job... and thats it... I'm just not in support of the ever increasing stupification(This is a word now too) of gaming... As I stated before, I'm not supporting gear swapping or needing a math major to figure out which piece of armor is better(though I did enjoy some of these aspects in XI)... but any level of complexity at all would be nice. Don't you guys ever get sick of playing literally the same MMO over and over with just the names changing? Doesn't the exact same copy and paste itemization and gearing system ever get stale to you? I do enjoy playing XIV, but it doesn't mean I like everything about it. The gameplay itself is fun enough (except low level ._. when its just 1212121212121212), but I still wish they would give me more to be excited about each patch.

I mean really, how much excitement can you muster for +4 Primary Stat and VIT?

When people .dat minned in XI, i was legitimately giddy with excitement at all the new gear possibilities they could be adding. Would my THF get a better dagger? Would my SMN get some more Avatar Perp- or some Avatar damage buffs? Will they add new stats? (Like when Quad Attack was added, or Increased Blood Pact potency, or the exceptionally epic Empyrean Armor set bonuses) These sh*t was so exciting to find out, was exciting to see in action... when you compare something like this:

http://www.ffxiah.com/item/19953/vajra

to this:

http://xivdb.com/?item/9247/Vajra

How can you not feel like you're missing something? You know Bravura, the relic weapon for WAR in XIV? Main stats, etc... in XI it had a hidden effect of dealing double damage 10% of the time, insane Accuracy bonus, chance of lowering enemies evasion on hit, and a unique weaponskill which granted the WAR a 20% Damage taken reduction. These weapons were unique and interesting for a lot of reasons, even sometimes reasons you didn't know about til you got it.

I understand fun is subjective, but what about itemization, in moderation, do you dislike? Are you excited to see new armor released in XIV when you know its just going to be +X to primary/VIT, and if so, why? I'm asking any of you who open object to more variety in armor (not fully horizontal progression, just more variety).