Why does this game hide essential character info?

[Ayuhra]

Welcome to why I don't do the gear treadmill in this game as much as I do in World of WarCraft and Elder Scrolls Online. It's buried under layers of obfuscation.

[EaMett]

Welcome to why I don't do the gear treadmill in this game as much as I do in World of WarCraft and Elder Scrolls Online. It's buried under layers of obfuscation.

You've got nothing to do. If you're lazy it takes literally 30s to google "FFXIV the balance" and then another couple minutes to set up your class there and get the BiS list of gear for the tier with melds and everything. No need to reinvent the wheel. Same goes with optimized rotations and openers.

[Makeda]

Most of the time it doesn’t matter.

Best in slot here is highest iLevel in all but rare cases where there was a bad decision by the devs or where the crafted iLevel is below the max iLevel but extremely close, and you’re comparing a crafted overmeld with something and meed to actually look at the stats...

Usually if the craft gear has the same iLevel, the stats are the same.

So then you have melding. And for some jobs this is going to only make a 1% difference at best while for others it’s “can do rotation” vs “rotation won’t work”...
...
So sometimes not knowing the stats is no issue and sometimes it’s vital...

I guess I’ve just argued myself out of my point...

At the least I would love to be able to see what my actual GCD is... that’s the most common place where you want a specific value not too high or too low...

[Nora_of_Mira]

At the least I would love to be able to see what my actual GCD is... that’s the most common place where you want a specific value not too high or too low...

I just mouse over any of my weaponskills and look at the tooltip, but now that i type that, yeah I think there should be a better way than that.

[Makeda]

I just mouse over any of my weaponskills and look at the tooltip, but now that i type that, yeah I think there should be a better way than that.

I’ve never seen my GCD listed, but will recheck.

[linay]

I’ve never seen my GCD listed, but will recheck.

It's the recast time.

[Barraind]

Being able to actually know the stat thresholds in games like WoW was really helpful as some stats like skill speed are genuinely useless until you hit the next breakpoint that actually lowers your GCD.

the silly thing is that you can actually know all these things from datamining, and confirm them through parsing.

They just dont display them.

I thought there was a point where crit overtakes direct hit for tanks in general for dps gains. Is that not the case?

This is correct.

Because crit affects crit chance and crit damage, it scales exponentially and will eventually outscale everything for almost everyone. It tends to happen at either the .2 or .4 patch (this expansion looks likely it might start happening at .2 for a lot of classes. Healers are already safe to get into their crit/det melds, but that has a lot to do with how modular piety is and how questionable spellspeed is right now)

[Rasikko]

I tried figuring out the cure formulas way back, but what kept throwing me off is the variance between the min and max values. I know crit basically doubles the final value, but I never figured out the chance.

[wdeschain]

I've subbed 4+ years.I am here after wanting to understand stats better for tanks--my PLD--WOW! What's crazy to me is that I really never thought much about the stats because, as mentioned, player created content always was available .A couple weeks ago, I was re-reading the short stat narratives, and questions popped up that I've thought about many times, yet never sought answers.

OP, I applaud your post--more players should herald the observation. I'd like to add to OP's outspokenness my reoccurring boggle throughout my subscription tenure. I am tired--and apologize if I like clarity..

On our character UI window we have an operational button with the ability to equip a personal inventory BiS.
1. Is SE algorithm correct? Have we merely been duped by a covert organization that has purposely distorted stat weights so as to retain ownership of the ranking on the site that shall not be named? Seriously, who is correct: a) SE Devs OR b) FFXIV content creator X?

2. Why would the above mentioned BiS in-game tool NOT fit us with BiS? Is it that content creators engines churn out gear sets that focus solely on maximum damage output? --while SE's calc does some function that adds job specific variable to its equation (e.g. piety, tennacity)?

3. I have experienced this with crafted HQ versus patch raid gear versus tomestone. All MAIN STATS equal--the only difference being "sub stats." The following is merely one recount as it's the freshest in my mind. I outfit pld with 350 norm gear. 5.05 begins, and so with my avatar, I penat-meld HQ acc's(neck & a ring) plus penta up a chest and leg slot. I manually equip the penta-melded, replacing the norm 350. If i go to the in-game BiS solver, it wants to put the norm gear back onto my character. I ignore it. I have been omni thru SB, and so I glam alot. That said, I use the BiS solver often as a quick check to make sure I'm not slotting any ilv 1 pieces I was glam geeking on. I have seen the norm pieces from want to take the slots over my pentas though they haven't been worn for a few instances. THEN! Magically! The BiS solver no longer wants to place them on my avatar--I sure hope someone else has witnessed this!
Why does this happen? What is going on?

4. FFXIV demands that X amount of dps be doled out on X boss in X amount of time or you will be served an enrage.The dps pld skills have tooltips that contain their potency, and this allows me to craft a rotation without player created guides(yes,I know...pld is on the simpler side) Stats that affect the effect of my dps in any given instance are an unknown--though absolutely necessary to aid a party in taking down a boss under SE's fight formula of partyDPS>(Boss HP/Instance Enrage Timersecs .
I am a bit tired, but please do not read as salty. The OP has a very legitimate question.I hope it entices converstion and a SE response. Peace.

[MistakeNot]

On our character UI window we have an operational button with the ability to equip a personal inventory BiS.
1. Is SE algorithm correct? Have we merely been duped by a covert organization that has purposely distorted stat weights so as to retain ownership of the ranking on the site that shall not be named? Seriously, who is correct: a) SE Devs OR b) FFXIV content creator X?

2. Why would the above mentioned BiS in-game tool NOT fit us with BiS? Is it that content creators engines churn out gear sets that focus solely on maximum damage output? --while SE's calc does some function that adds job specific variable to its equation (e.g. piety, tennacity)?

The Recommended Gear function in-game uses a fairly simple algorithm, and does make mistakes. Especially for pre-level 50 tanks it will often give bad recommendations, but even for higher-level gear it will occasionally recommend a sub-optimal choice.

The people at SE who make the game clearly do not share the players' obsession with focusing on DPS over everything else (despite encounter design indirectly encouraging this), so their opinion on what stats are best do not necessarily match what players think is best - since the two groups do not use the same criteria for deciding what is best.