Twinfinite Interview

[Bourne_Endeavor]

They favor BiS over what, exactly? The bad pieces? Well, no shit. If they were asked the question "would you prefer if gear had more variety and interesting stuff on it," I think you'd get some different results.

Also thanks for providing an exact situation where a random high vit low mnd piece would be good. Does only being good during progression (which is usually performed close to minimum ilvl) somehow invalidate its existence? What about a situation in which your healer is just a fucking baddie who gets hit by more AOEs than usual? He might opt to wear higher VIT pieces.

This is why the "everyone will just use the cookie cutter build" meme is so retarded. These games have so many different situations and types of people playing them that one build can't possibly always be the best for every individual. If it is, that's called being overpowered. Even in like WoTLK-era WoW you'd have a lot of little tweaks to the cookie cutter talent and gear builds to accommodate the little quirks of individuals and their party setups.

Yeah, there'll always be a configuration that is mathematically superior, but that doesn't mean devs should boil everything down to this simple garbage we have now. How is that any fun?

No, you would get the exact same answer because damage reigns supreme in FFXIV. Look no further than back when STR tanking was a thing. Near everyone gradually adapted to damage over HP even down to the non-raiding content. Why? It was widely considered better. Likewise, why do you think healer DPS has become so prevalent? Because everything inevitably revolves around how much damage you do. "More interesting stuff" would devolve into the same "is x better than y" dichotomy we have now.

You mean like the system which already exists? It's invalidated because we can already meld VIT materia to the only tier of gear where it's more a factor. Crafted gear literally serves the exact purpose you're asking for. Once you upgrade to 260 though, very few players ever look at VIT again.

They boil down to it because most people follow the min/max philosophy. Do you know how frequent complaints are in the raid community because everyone tries to copy MrHappy, Mizzteq or Xeno's guides exactly despite not playing at their level? They'll do the same when those three or any other guide maker tosses up a video outlining what is better. The devs have to weigh whether the enormous workload would prove beneficial. I sincerely doubt it would. Can they do better? Yes. The Mastery stat from WoW has some potential. If they made the rotations a bit less rigid, Skill Speed could be more useful. There's things to improve. So don't mistake me for agreeing with their belief of streamlining further. But it's still a fine line what you can do that people will actually embrace.