So, before what may be another mad long post, can I first say, that I don't think higher level should always = better gear, I think forcing players to look for good pieces at all levels rather than just equipping the highest level gear possible is a good thing.

That aside, after reading Kaeko's recent blog post I have had somewhat of an idea on how to "fix" physical damage mechanics and quicken the pace of battle (without making battles shorter, and breaking exp gains even more), which has appeals in both camps, because it aim's to change as much as possible - by changing as little as possible, and it's really kind of stupidly simple.

The aim of this idea is to make said improvements with minimal changes to current in-game items and systems. Literally all I am going to do is be halving (exact value should probably take more consideration) some numbers here and there.

Kaeko proposes that the damage taken (and possibly damage dealt) formula is based on some constant value, minus (or plus in the case of damage dealt) def*0.67(VIT) with various floors.

I propose that keeping the constant def and VIT dependancies and floors, we half (again, provisional number) the inital base value (this may well be accomplished by halving base stats across the board, but I would hope not as it would then require things like blindside to be adjusted accordingly, putting a 0.5 in the formula would be much easier of a transition to accomplish), this would raise the current increase of about 20-30% between naked and geared damage to 40-60%. The decrease in DoT is then counterbalanced by decreasing weapon delays (and incase they aren't linked directly, tp gains) across the board by some similar constant factor, along with all corresponding WS and DD abilities (eg barrage - on a side note, this would be a painful patch for archers! maybe leave them as they are.).

The net result should be roughly the same damage, quicker combat (without overwhelming healers), and greater stat significance.

The main outlier here, is as per usual, Ifrit would still be borked. For such high-damage mobs (as I assume most non multi-mob primals will be) I would suggest a different approach to "high damage": rather than having him do high damage (and thus lousily modified swings) how about reducing the base swipe damage (apparently 1200) to something in the region of 500-600, (so gear would reduce it to about 100-200?) and then have him attack faster, [b]a lot faster[b], I am talking in the region of 5 times faster, meaning geared, "1 current swipe" worth of time would still do the same damage to a fully geared GLA, but it would do about 3K damage to a naked GLA - 2 CON would not be able to keep up.

Now, from a lore perspective, and in answer of the comments like "Ifrit is a god, he should 9999 your naked ass", rather than downing your silly naked GLA in 1 blow, how about we let him rip it to shreds in a quick flurry of attacks?

Leave big dmg and magical WS as they are, I have always seen them as being more about a test on your healers than your tank.

I'm not sure if all of that is self-consistant, I only just had the idea so I am kind of thinking as i type. Iterations would be appreciated. I would also like to point out the main part of this idea was the bit on Ifrit, the rest is somewhat of an after thought. If the STR/ATK system was changed it should affect the initial damage value in the VIT/DEF system, so that shouldn't need modifying. I'm not implying we change both. This all depends on the form of the final damage equation, but I am sure it is easily adaptable. Tt can't be hard to sneak a 0.5 into the right place in two equations, then a 5 into the right place in Ifrit's stats, and potentially universally "fix" two of the most commonly mentioned/heavily debated matters on these forums in one go.

Also: I know halving timers is a cheap way to increase battle pace, but seeing as there are already more systems to be added to the current battle one, I only see that as a simple first step.