SAMURAI SHOWDOWN

[ADVSS]

except stacking mind with skill points and end game accessories still dint help it to a degree anyone would notice. literally it was like a 1- point healing increase on average, it was bad. ) not arguing the non aspected m damage title, all of whats said about it is true, but it doesnt change the fact that these weird game systems are the way they are. with too much hard pinpointing. its like parry. parry is stupidly implemented, just give us a flat percent, not 1 million parry eqals 30 percent rate

[Shurrikhan]

except stacking mind with skill points and end game accessories still dint help it to a degree anyone would notice. literally it was like a 1- point healing increase on average, it was bad. ) not arguing the non aspected m damage title, all of whats said about it is true, but it doesnt change the fact that these weird game systems are the way they are. with too much hard pinpointing. its like parry. parry is stupidly implemented, just give us a flat percent, not 1 million parry equals 30 percent rate

You realize, unless purposely staggered or made exponential/deexponential, that is still a flat percent... albeit it .00003% per point in your hyperbolic example, yes?

There's nothing especially weird about the way any of the stats are implemented. Your output is based on weapon damage or weapon magic damage in combination with attack/spell/healing power * attack/spell potency * personal modifiers * target modifiers. Main stat contribution to attack/spell/healing output is virtually identical across the board except on tank classes, due to their recent change.

If anything, some of the stats should be less obvious. For instance, in many MMOs both parry (and other eHP-increasing stats, such as "armor", "defense", "evasion", etc.) and haste (in our case skill/spell speed) are deexponential, in order to maintain similar weights (apart from stat-dependent class mechanics) to the more linear attack power or raw HP stats as the eHP or rate of attack would gradually become more effective per point over time (.1 second off of 1.9 seconds is worth more than .1 seconds off of 2.5 seconds, for instance, while the more health already saved, the more effective mitigation is in increasing the remaining eHP--for the latter the same can be said of synergy with raw HP, as well, of course, becoming a trade off of (greater, if balanced) max eHP vs. both increased max eHP and increased healing efficiency).

(Note also the oversights in Skill Speed where it disallows double-weaving, because there is no linked increase to animation speed, and causes greater resource cost without being greater in value to other stats to compensate for this weakness. The changes to cause Skill Speed to FUNCTION in a linear fashion would actually require a lot more DESIGN complexity.)

[ADVSS]

You realize, unless purposely staggered or made exponential/deexponential, that is still a flat percent... albeit it .00003% per point in your hyperbolic example, yes?
)

I guess a better question to ask is why stacking mind on a paladin in 2.x really didnt enhance cure by much at all. was it the phys damage property on the weapon itself or not, i know what ehp is and how it works, was just talking about that 1 instance. seems to me the only reason a blm with less mind did almost double the healing with physick as a paladin with more mind using cure was due to that reason alone

[Shurrikhan]

I guess a better question to ask is why stacking mind on a paladin in 2.x really didnt enhance cure by much at all. was it the phys damage property on the weapon itself or not, i know what ehp is and how it works, was just talking about that 1 instance. seems to me the only reason a blm with less mind did almost double the healing with physick as a paladin with more mind using cure was due to that reason alone

You are correct, it was because Cure uses magic weapon damage, which will be rather low for a sword (physical, or regular, weapon damage being it's "real" stat) compared to a wand, book, globe, or staff. If Magic Weapon Damage and (Physical) Weapon Damage had been simplified into a single stat, you'd have seen a bit more potent spells from physical, but also more significant staff-bashing from casters. Given how low the primary stats that would be increasingly multiplied by the weapon when acting outside one's role, I don't see how this would be an issue (though I'm not especially fond of staff bashing, nor do I understand why Arcanists have a higher Strength stat than other casters). But that split is what they decided on.

That single issue is rather simple, but a similar question can be asked for why alternate options in general are so lackluster in general. In 2.0, it was arguably quite worthwhile for a BLM to invest in a tiny bit of piety, but only up to 247; anything other amount was waste. And now, because the value of piety to a BLM didn't increase while its mana pool doubled, any similar cap is even harder to approach, and the relative value of piety has worsened further. Strength vs. Vitality was the only other real stat choice, but that has been removed to. It makes one wonder why those options even exist. Part of this is because the stat systems are simple -- flat, unchanging, even when a change from the normal scalars may be necessary to give the option equal or any viability. And part of it is just because of how narrow our useful stats are.

[Khalithar]

It makes one wonder why those options even exist. Part of this is because the stat systems are simple -- flat, unchanging, even when a change from the normal scalars may be necessary to give the option equal or any viability. And part of it is just because of how narrow our useful stats are.

They aren't useful, those optional stats are a relic of a bygone era and definitely need to go. There is no meaningful choice in the optional stats, right now it's either all or nothing. Honestly, I'd rather they keep the all or nothing system and just ditch the optional stats altogether, I never liked any system where you have to place stats as you see fit, the fact that there is only one viable choice is actually a good thing to me. I prefer character stat advancement to be purely static with the only increases coming from gear, stat customization is not something I'll ever want.

[Laerune]

Aside from Samurai being a damage dealing role or tanking once, can we discuss about the gear that they are going to wear? In ARR and HW the main tanks have always received a armour look that fits the Knight theme. Maybe its just me, but dont you guys think fashion-wise the Knight theme does not fit the Samurai at all. The only way I can see Samurai looking like one, is if they give Samurai their own gearset, like Monk, Dragoon and Ninja.

But past interviews and from what we have learned of the developers, is that they do not like to do extra work. An example is:

1. We can not have butts, because modeling gear around the butts would be to much work.
2. We cant have belts, because modeling them with the other geats takes to much work.
3. The races need to be as close as possible to the current ones so they can remodel the gear easily and it wont take alot of work. That is why we will never see very different bodytypes, open gloves and shoes for races that have big claws or races with digitigrade feets.

All of these stuff that I have mentioned come straight out of Yoshida"s mouth.

So my question to you guys is, how will they keep the Samurai identity if the Samurai is going to look like a European knight with a samurai blade? Or is the look of the samurai not important and we should only focus on Katana and skills?

[Khalithar]

Snip

Well, it's an interesting question certainly, but I have to say that it will share probably share the same armor as all the other tanks and carry a samurai blade. If you want it to "look" like a samurai then we'd either have to hope for an eastern themed set like the old 170 gear or another class themed Esoteric set. Fitting in with their desire to do as little work as possible, Samurai tank will be fending gear while I think samurai dps would be Striking, by making Striking gear specific to Sam and Mnk they could keep the eastern theme going at all times with them.

[Yuni_Queen]

Aside from Samurai being a damage dealing role or tanking once, can we discuss about the gear that they are going to wear? In ARR and HW the main tanks have always received a armour look that fits the Knight theme. Maybe its just me, but dont you guys think fashion-wise the Knight theme does not fit the Samurai at all. The only way I can see Samurai looking like one, is if they give Samurai their own gearset, like Monk, Dragoon and Ninja.

I must disagree. Samurai, just like ninja, will probably come from Far East, Doma, or even farer. That means, they are immigrants here. A comparison for that: When you live, in example, in Italy, you can eat best pizza ever, but when you go on holidays to, say, Greenland, you probably have to eat, what they have, so probably you won't be able to eat pizza.
In other words, Samurai will be forced to use what they are given, since there won't be access to their national gear.
But don't worry, i am sure that SAM at level 50 will get his relic gear (if new classes will start from level 1 that is), and later Esoterics gear will fit Samurai iconic look for sure.

But past interviews and from what we have learned of the developers, is that they do not like to do extra work. An example is:

And here i must agree, thou i still hope it doesnt mean, new classes will start at level 30, avoiding all ARR content again .__. lvl 50 relic gear + zodiac braves included...

1. We can not have butts, because modeling gear around the butts would be to much work.
2. We cant have belts, because modeling them with the other geats takes to much work.

Not sure how about butts, but belts would colide with armors, so implementing visual effect of them would really make it problematic, here i am on their side.
Belts are actually pretty hard, i cannot remind myself of any game that implemented visible belts. Maybe there are in ones i didn't play thou.

3. The races need to be as close as possible to the current ones so they can remodel the gear easily and it wont take alot of work. That is why we will never see very different bodytypes, open gloves and shoes for races that have big claws or races with digitigrade feets.

Iirc, there were speculations about that bunny-type race from DS version of FF Adventure (or something like that...).
Thou i am pretty sure, this is just a little exaggeration, i am sure it is a matter of fact, they are already focusing on 4.0 and thats why SE is so defensive in their promises.

So my question to you guys is, how will they keep the Samurai identity if the Samurai is going to look like a European knight with a samurai blade? Or is the look of the samurai not important and we should only focus on Katana and skills?

Well, the same way we kept Ninja indentity in Toad leather set in example lol. Ninja had same struggle, he used knives and gear that didn't fir ninja at all. More. 51-59 gear is also very european, no stuff for ninja at all. Glamour is only way to feel like a ninja here.

Under level 50 we can probably use this FF XI event gear we recieved not so far ago.
After level 50, i would give a chance to relic sets, if we get one. If not, i would give a chance to Sets we can normally buy. I am sure there will be all kind of Primal weapons, Ironwork gear (While you won't be looking like SAM, you still will have matching set, which i believe will be worth giving a shot) and other things.

Depsite the fact, it is not gonna look like samurai outisde of relic/Esoterics gear, i am sure it will be possible to make it look decent enough to be content with the effect. :3

[Khalithar]

Belts are actually pretty hard, i cannot remind myself of any game that implemented visible belts. Maybe there are in ones i didn't play thou.

WoW and Swtor have visible belts, I'm sure there are others.

[Laerune]

WoW and Swtor have visible belts, I'm sure there are others.

ESO has visible belts aswell.

Thanks for responding to my post, Yuni and Khalithar.