Sub-Stats: Variety and Tuning

[Kabooa]

Personally, these are the only stat changes I'm itching to see.

I disagree with this block fundamentally because you work against your own post up there.

Speed still remains the only 'gameplay altering' stat. Everything else is just basically interchangeable with each other.

[Shurrikhan]

I disagree with this block fundamentally because you work against your own post up there.

Speed still remains the only 'gameplay altering' stat. Everything else is just basically interchangeable with each other.

Ultimately, I'd like more than those suggested changes, but as I said in my first post, that won't be possible without context.

You'd need systems like some manner of Stagger, where by the rate at which damage is dealt does matter, which in turn requires greater control in each toolkit. (At present, if a DRG wants to DoT a newly arrived add, it can take up to 10 GCDs for the DRG to be allowed to do so without utterly screwing over his sustained damage, at which point... it's typically not worth applying at all. Outside of single-target fights, they are controlled by their rotation more than they control it. Their last leg for flexibility was removed when Lance Mastery buffed the second dragon weaponskill and F&C and WT's base damage were increased. Prior to that they could at least choose to trim a doublet of dragon skills, ending the combo at FT or CT, if the BotD growth would be excessive, giving a maximum of 6 GCDs until they could respond.)

You'd probably need variable cooling rates, whereby cooldowns could be made to "cool" faster, stripping a flat amount off their cooldowns (which allows them to still sync up later) but in a continuous fashion.

You'd probably want ways that elements could actually act differently from one another.

You'd probably want elemental resources that could be spent in multiple ways. Wind, for instance, could offer increased movement when activated, or -- automatically --- allow a queued skill to automatically cause you to teleport forward into range enough to complete a strike upon GCD refresh (i.e. without loss of uptime) at proportionate cost or a cast to complete itself early when movement would otherwise cancel it (just) short or completion, again at proportionate cost.

You'd probably want the ability to push back mobs a bit and to be pushed back by them, giving tank and melee toolkits and their relevant stats more to leverage.

You'd probably want potency-based (or, potency-to-percentile) status effects and (de)buffs, so that the synergist arsenal can be augmented by stats in different ways.

You'd almost certainly want a pandemic or roll-over mechanic, such as by causing replaced buffs or debuffs to add the square root of their duration to that of the same-effect application replacing it.

You'd want combat that actually allows for and encourages the infliction of status effects.

You'd want combat in which not everything can be meat-shielded or even drawn off the non-tanks such that they might actually value survival stats (especially if all stats, at least by role total, had diminishing returns so that you're encouraged to hybridize).

I can go on for many a step more...

Every single one of those things holds back a stat, set of stats, or a system as a whole involving stats that I'd love to see but literally cannot get meaningful returns or augmented gameplay from until the context is set.

Saying you want this stat or that, or that you want customization in forms X, Y, and Z, does nothing if the surrounding game cannot yet support them. Your time would likely be better directed looking at the necessary systems, the excuses or selling points by which they can be entered into the game, and the roadmap that can see the best results most quickly.