Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
Then it still changes gameplay, just in a way that feels less impactful or player-chosen. My idea is simply that there's some added flexibility and intuitive control: gear hold multiple options between which you have freedom to allot secondary stat points. You set, essentially, what you want to happen, and your gear allots its points accordingly. Where your desired breakpoints are not possible, it attempts your second choice system of priorities, or third, or so forth.
It seems the sort of thing that would work better with a sub-stat expansion instead of a contraction, which I'm not opposed to. When the stats themselves play more direct roles into kit interaction, a greater variety of sub-stats also lets those stats have more meaningful progression since they do not cover more general cases.

In this particular example, have it be a defensive sub-stat (Maybe have gear with One Offense, One Defense stat as its budget, materia not included) with significantly higher gains, so said shield would scale significantly higher, rather than getting the same lethargic snail build over an expansion, not to mention that maybe you want to run a build without determination but still make use of a good shield.

Perhaps a retuning over the stat budget and reorganization is required. If gear is outfitted with one Offense, one Defense divided among its primary and secondary, and then materia can either fill the secondary or seek to bolster a third stat, there's a few more levers to tune in this regard.