Some Stat Ideas

[SyzzleSpark]

Secondary stats in this game are pretty boring, and everybody more or less builds for crit with a few exceptions/nuances. Here are some changes I think would be neat:

Critical Hit Rate - still effects rate and potency of crits, but affects the rate to a much lesser degree than it does currently (more on this later). Primarily for crit strength. Still affects DoT crits.

Determination - no longer effects any weaponskill or ability, only auto-attacks, but to a much greater degree than it currently does/ever did (triplefold or something like that). No effect on DoTs or heals.

Skill Speed - keep as is. Effects GCD/DoT damage.

Spell Speed - keep as is. Effects cast time/DoT/HoT damage.

New stat: Ardor - increases damage and healing dealt by all abilities, weaponskills, and spells. Has no effect on DoT damage or auto-attacks.

New stat: Acceleration - effects recast of abilities off the global cooldown. Cap on the possible reduction in recast time similar to the Spear card if enough of it is stacked.

Parry - effects parry rate and parry strength similar to how crit works. Also slightly boosts crit rate % of physical weaponskills and AAs only (since you parry with your weapon) and adds a bonus to the first instance of damage dealt after each parry (you parry 20% of a 1000 damage hit, next attack deals an extra 200 damage or something).

Accuracy - effects chance to hit and also slightly increases critical hit rate for weaponskills, spells, abilities, and AAs, but not DoTs.

Piety - Greater impact on MP regen in addition to increase MP cap.


Reasons this would be awesome:

Now there are incredibly varied secondary stat weights for almost every different job. Det is useless for BRD/MCH but Ardor is excellent. Parry and Accuracy have direct DPS benefits. Jobs with higher APM like DRG or DRK may prefer Acceleration and/or Ardor over other stats whereas jobs with few actions off the GCD like WAR wouldn't care. Crit not quite as powerful now, but still good. Crit and Skill Speed/Spell Speed still ideal for DoT jobs. Jobs that AA at an increased rate like PLD now value Det far more.

[Sylvain]

I think that what people don't understand is that, in essence more state doesn't mean more diversity.

No matter how many secondary stats you have access too, it won't actually give you more choice. It's an illusion of choice.

As a DPS your goal is to maximise the numbers you pull out. Every job having different mechanics, they will react differently to différents stats, but in the end you will always have that specific stats wish-list that you'll blindly follow.
You do not have a choice here, it's either you maximise your character or you don't. Saying "it personalise" the gameplay is false statement. Your only true choice is "Do I get my character right or not"

They even made tank dmg scale out of vitality so you can't even make a choice between "more dmg or more tankiness".

This is why SE remove parry and hit for the stormblood.
Because they bring Nothing to the game. Hit isn't an interesting mechanic, you cap it and then move to the next thing. It's essentially a boring thing.

So no, more stats wouldn't be "awesome", they could add 20 new stats it won't change a damn thing, player will simply socket what they need and that's it.
Anyone not doing so is either that there's Something such as "best stats" or simply don't care and go for what they get their hand on first.

[SyzzleSpark]

Well, that wasn't entirely the point. Of course you still want to "get your character right" but in this theorycraft scenario "getting your character right" is different for every job and doesn't amount to "gear for crit and hit sks/sps cap if you have one, and be able to not miss". It would allow you to play to the job's strengths. i.e.

"How imortant are AAs to my job?"
"Does my job have buffs that it is important to fit a certain number of skills into?"
"What percentage of my job's DPS is off-GCDs?"
"How DoT-focused is my job?"

If they changed/added stats in certain ways we might get to ask some of these questions while gearing instead of only asking "how high can I get my crit?"

[Sylvain]

snip

To achieve your goal they would need to rework the gear system.
The problem isn't even the stats right now but the gear distribution.

If I understand you right, your idea is that every job could have a choice of different stats to min/max their character or at least personallise their gameplay to enhance what they see fit.
For example, as I start gearing my dragoon at lv 70 I encounter a pair of bracer giving crit, then in another dungeon I find another pair of bracer giving haste and skill speed. Now I need to do some theory crafting to find out what's the best.

Now, in its current state, and I assume it won't change much since Yoshida said so in a recent interview, (he basically said that we'd get the gear roughly in the same way), gear classified into categories:

DRK,WAR, PLD : Tanks stuff
WHM,AST,SCH : Heal stuff
DRG : STR DPS stuff 1
NIN : AGI DPS stuff 1
MNK,SAM : STR DPS stuff 2
BRD,MCH : AGI DPS stuff 2
BLM,SMN,RDM : INT DPS stuff 5

None armor item have only one "stuff" category per mainstats (+heal and tank)

The game, at every patch, usually carry 3 tiers of items reflecting the difficulty to acquire those items
Expert dungeon gear : Low Ilv "
8man raid , primal, 24 raid, currency : Medium ilv
savage : high ilv

The medium ilv is the one with the vast variety of gear ilv and where most people get their gear from.

Now here is the problem, every category offers only one piece of item per ilv.
What this means is, no matter which category you fit in, you will only have access to one item per ilv.
You cannot choose.

For instance, the dungeon-70-A last boss grant bracers, the bracer distribution would go this way
Tank bracer with vitality + [insert random modifier]
heal bracer with spirit and piety + [insert random modifier]
dps bracer with STR + [insert random modifier]
dps bracer with AGI + [insert random modifier]
dps bracer with INT + [insert random modifier]

And THIS is for non-job-locked item.
If now you include armor piece, you have

Tank Armor with vitality and dodge
heal Armor with spirit and piety + [insert random modifier] - AST/SCH/WHM
dps Armor with STR + [insert random modifier] - DRG only
dps Armor with AGI + [insert random modifier] - NIN only
dps Armor with STR + [insert random modifier] - MNK/SAM only
dps Armor with AGI + [insert random modifier] - BRD/MCH only
dps Armor with INT + [insert random modifier] - BLM/SMN/RDM

And only one item per category will drop per ilv.
So you'll never have 2 STR - DRG only of the same ilv in the game.
So, unless you have very weird stats scaling, the highest ilv would always result in an overall gain since ilv tend to scale by +10 everytime.
Without changing the current system, they'd need in order to achieve your "variety of stat dream" to add more item per category.
But this would effectively be a nuisance since, again, every job would seek only one item and everyone cannot get their hand on the drop. So now let say dungeon offers 3 items per category.
You defeat the last boss and the STR pants drops, but they have haste and you need crit. So in order to min/max your character you'll need to redo the same dungeon until you fall into the
- my class item drop
- my class item with the right secondary stat drops.

If every boss drops one item of every category and you grant 3 sub category, you effectively end up with 7x3 different items. So your perfect item has 4.7% chance of dropping. And that's expert gear we're talking about
In the end, very few people will care and actually farm the dungeon to get their job maxed, they'll simply wait to get raid/stones gear.

Now let say, this type of gear too would give you more choice.
Instead of having access to 1 healer robe you have access to 3.
What would that achieve? If the item has to drop, you'll have to pray to RNGjesus for it to drop, if you need to buy it with currency, you'll simply pick the one fitting your job the best. Worst, you might "need" to buy the same robe 3 times if the 3 healers require different stats. (shitty scenario example)

Do you see the core of the problem?
The true issue isn't that there aren't enough state, it's that the way the gear is distributed in this game doesn't allow for more stats.

it is the same for the weapon, you technically have access to only two weapons,
relic or boss and you end up with whatever has the highest ilv.
There might be case were a 5ilv lower with better secondary state grant more dps. But even when this occurs, it is very minor.

All this is without regarding the whole issue of the vast majority of the FF14 population won't even bother with that since most of them don't even insert proper materia if they insert any which is an issue when you design a game.
You don't want to design things that they don't care about.


Now, every problem has a solution, however we know those solutions aren't for Stormblood.
But forums are here to share ideas and potentially bring solution.

The reasons we have so many category is due to two factors

1- different core stats
2- different gear easthetic

I'll adress what I believe could be solution to both issue.

Different core stats
This problem could easily be solved and would either open the path for both a more simple, ilv only oriented gear, or more complex - substat oriented gear.
The core focus here would be to get rid of "main" stats.

Now, we need to understand that all main stats effectively affect the character output in the exact same way which is (simplified)
[STATE VALUE] * [SKILL POTENCY]* [other modifiers] = Skill dmg/heal/else.
The only difference is that every skill require a different [STATE VALUE]
If SE were to, for instance, get rid of INT,STR,DEX,SPIRIT and replace those for... "PWR", power.
This would effectively solve the trinket issue, in most part at least. Now,instead of requiring every boss/vendor to drop/sell different items for the same job, they could simply drop/sell the same item with different secondary stats variance.
Also, there would be no need to have Skill Speed and Spell speed, you'd end up with only one state. Let's call it "Haste".

For instance, the last boss of your new dungeon could drop
earings of cataclysme: Power+142 Critic+82 Ardor+82
earings of Rapidfire : Power+142 Haste+82 Acceleration+82
earings of Will : Power+142 Determination+164

Ok, this is all cute and fluff but... what about healers and tank? Wouldn't they need something like
earing of Stoneskin : Power+142 Determinatio+82 +Vitality
earing of Ease : Power+142 Determination+82 +Piety

well.. yeah but what if my healer wants crit, and the other one haste. Same for the tank. We end up in the same problem.

A solution could be to adapt the effect of some state to some job or create new one. For now, I'll go with adaptating.
Determination now has a "job based effect".
DPS: Increase raw dmg
Heal: Increase max mp (mana regen is already based on max mp)
Tank: Increase max hp (vitality basically)
Now, what's interesting is that the trinkets are not job bound anymore. Which means that instead of having 1 choice per ilv category, you could have multiple choice.
However this still doesn't help us with the armor.

Gear Aesthetic
Now, assuming we go on and remove the core stats in favor of the new "Power" stats. The only thing that makes armor job restricted is their easthetic. You don't want a BLM moving around in plate (or do you?)
The only way to solve this problem would be to adapt the gear easthetic to the job. For those who have played Diablo3 you will know what I'm talking about.
(You could also adapt the icon).
Your party of friends have just killed the last boss of that new dungeon and the boss drops "Fancy Armorplate of Will", as a tank who seek to be the biggest wall in the game, you call for your buddies "Guys, this is the stats I need!" so everyone pass (aren't they sweet). However, this is not what other players see. Your Healer see a "Fancy Priest Robe of Will", your Redmage see a "Fancy Sage Robe of Will" and your Dragoon see a "Fancy Mailed Armor of Will". However, none of them really want to have +182 determination. So they all pass.
For the raids,an alternative solution would be that the gear vendor adapts the items they sell to the job you're using to purchase the item. A scrolling menu could however instead show all the available pieces, but would by default only show the one available for your job.

We could go further and make that the gear easthetic actually adapts to the job you're playing. Meaning that your "Fancy Armorplate of Will" becomes a "Fancy Priest Robe of Will" should you switch to a healer.
However, this could potentially hurt the game as everyone could easily get a full set of gear for everyjob (even if not totally optimised) really easily.



So, there are solution, but to avoid having a huge clusterfuck of items and drop table, you would need something like that, or smart loot (boss only drop items that match what's in your party). But smart loot still has huge drop table issue.

Finally, on a side note, I'd like to add that if SE would really want to push forward the whole "specialize the way you play", they'd probably need to make the secondary stats much stronger.
Stacking Skill/Spell speed doesn't make you cast all that faster right now.
I remember having my quick spell reaching the 0.5sec global cooldown in WoW, this effectively changed the way I play. Same for the crit, we stack crit but it doesn't increase it all that much.
The problem with weak secondary stats is that if it doesn't effectively change your gameplay, you'll just end up taking what's the best math wise.
To go further in my example, let say that the math agree that "in optimal situation" your BLM would pull more damage with Crit and Ardor (Harder, Stronger). But, as a new player you find yourself having a lot of trouble doing mechanic while casting 3.5 sec cast spells.By stacking all the Haste pieces you can find, you manage to reduce your casting speed to 2.9 for instance which helps you deal with boss mechanic and finish your cast more easily. Here it could come down to personal preferences, "I cannot dps properly with 3.5sec cast, but when I reach 3 and under I start being comfortable". Then, when the player eventually reach 2.7 haste, he realise he doesn't need more haste anymore, so he seeks for crit/hador while maintaining his haste high enough to keep match his playstyle.
Perhaps there is another BLM, more skilled, who manage to play with that pesky 3.5 sec cast and instead stack only the best stats. Assuming the dps gap goes as high as 10%. You could argue that 10% is a lot (and it is), but you could also argue that without that haste, the less skilled BLM only reach 70% of the other BLM dps because he keep having trouble positionning properly.
However, if going full haste vs full crit changes your casting speed by 0.2, well... you've no real interest in loosing 10% dmg for 0.2sec cast...
Same goes for your cooldown stats. Strong secondary state is what makes player choose different things.
If having 700 haste increase your speed cast by 5% and 700 crit your crit chance by 5% (let say it results in 1% more dmg than the haste benefit). I mean, you'll barely notice it the haste and you'll just take the crit because it grants you 1% more dmg over the haste.

[AvenoMatt]

I can see acceloration being quite useful to the MCH as a good part of their dps comes from weaving in abilities in between skills. Also would help give them ammunition more often.

As for ardor it sounds like DET (just without buffing dots and auto) and for that I don't think it needs to be added. If anything they just need to make DET more useful. Currently I see no use in DET as I see no change in my dps by increasing it and I should know I put Grade 5 DET materia in most of my materia slots just to see if it would raise my dps. I believe I raised my DET over 100 point and I saw no difference between my damage from 600DET to 700DET. I even checked on my AST and SCH who because I was using their af2 gears had different DET stats. I believe my SCH had over 100 more DET compared to my AST and their heals were identical. Now I only put DET on gear once I've reach my Crit limit because all the threads say it's useful. How idk?