Point Allotment, Good idea? Horrible idea? In final version?

[Deadgye]

Isn't it amazing how the best players are always "elitist assholes"?

Why do you assume these "elitist assholes" are the best players? Elitist assholes are the people that wouldn't accept me into an nyzul party because I was thief. Elitist assholes are the people that think just because you don't have 8 merits in the weapon you're using that you suck and they shouldn't even bother inviting you. This has nothing to do with being good, it has to do with being pretentious and thinking that the person behind the keyboard means nothing.

People who strive to be the best they can be, without looking down on other people just because they don't have the absolute best stuff. Those are the best players. And I hope to see many of them in xiv. Stat allotment prevents people from being the best at multiple things in a small span of time, but it allows for greater flexibility at the same time. Imagine if you were able to take all your points from mnd on drk and put them into dex or str. Imagine if you knew before time you were going into a fight on mnk where you'd only be using chi blast and could reallocate all your dex and agi and etc stats into mind.

Sure, if you switch from pugilist to conjurer in the middle of a grind you're not going to be as "perfect" base stat only-wise as the conjurer who just had to leave. But you'll still be a conjurer and you'll still have all your abilities.

[Battlecat]

People who strive to be the best they can be, without looking down on other people just because they don't have the absolute best stuff. Those are the best players.

Well that's just wrong. Attitude has nothing to do with your skill as a player. You're describing the kind of people you'd like to play the game with, not "the best players."

Anyway, this thread is ridiculous, how has it not been locked yet?

[Frein]

Sure, if you switch from pugilist to conjurer in the middle of a grind you're not going to be as "perfect" base stat only-wise as the conjurer who just had to leave. But you'll still be a conjurer and you'll still have all your abilities.

This is a colossal understatement. Even at fairly low physical levels (~20) the difference between a specialized melee combatant and someone who just switched from an int/mnd build is enormous. I'm talking about 50%+ damage differences here.

Also, for the min maxer, every point counts. Nobody cares exactly how much each point improves you, people just want to be perfect or at least be on course to perfection. Being stuck with waste points will be like a thorn in the sides of every perfectionist out there. You obviously don't understand it because your definition for "good enough" is more loose.

[FailureMidgard]

Why do you assume these "elitist assholes" are the best players? Elitist assholes are the people that wouldn't accept me into an nyzul party because I was thief. Elitist assholes are the people that think just because you don't have 8 merits in the weapon you're using that you suck and they shouldn't even bother inviting you. This has nothing to do with being good, it has to do with being pretentious and thinking that the person behind the keyboard means nothing.

People who strive to be the best they can be, without looking down on other people just because they don't have the absolute best stuff. Those are the best players. And I hope to see many of them in xiv. Stat allotment prevents people from being the best at multiple things in a small span of time, but it allows for greater flexibility at the same time. Imagine if you were able to take all your points from mnd on drk and put them into dex or str. Imagine if you knew before time you were going into a fight on mnk where you'd only be using chi blast and could reallocate all your dex and agi and etc stats into mind.

Sure, if you switch from pugilist to conjurer in the middle of a grind you're not going to be as "perfect" base stat only-wise as the conjurer who just had to leave. But you'll still be a conjurer and you'll still have all your abilities.

Are you serious here? The fact of the matter is that people have no way to judge how good of a player you are besides looking at the numbers in front of you. If you have an option between a DD who has 8 combat merits, and one who doesn't, why would you pick the one who's obviously put less time and effort into his character and will presumably some amount less damage, unless you know the person or for some other reason know they are a good player that knows what they're doing. It's just silly, if someone put the effort into being the best they can at a certain job, your chances are better at them performing well than someone who didn't.

Also, FFXI is a joke, as far as numbers go. A lot of content is too easy, and at best tuned for significantly less people than most groups bring. Go play WoW or something, where if your raid is undergeared you flat out -cannot- do some fights. Yea, you can carry a few people or whatnot, and skill can definitely raise or lower the bar as to what stats are needed, but the fact remains that if people's numbers are too low you can flat out lose. It's insanely ignorant and ridiculous to think that stats are irrelevant to success.

And ya, it's been mentioned, but WoW learned over the years that hybrid shit really doesn't work in large group settings. Even in FFXI it's the case. A red mage may be a nice "hybrid", but the more people you add, the less desirable it becomes as a hybrid, and instead shifts it's focus to fill 1 role to the best of it's ability. Red mages are actually pretty good at that too, but when you become a "red mage tank" for a fight, you don't sit there and refresh a party of black mages at the same time, nor do you spam high-cost nukes to try to do as much damage as possible. In FFXI in particular, you do in fact use heals as they are a solid source of enmity, but that's a side-effect to how the system was designed, and is not a universal truth for hybrids in MMOs. Paladin tanks in WoW (which, paladins can choose between healer, DD, or tank) don't heal at all. In the end, Blizzard realized that a lot of the top players didn't usually want sub-par hybrids in their raids, because outside of a few niche things (powerful buffs, etc), they were all around worse than a pure counterpart. As such, they moved to making the talent trees more focused, and since then have allowed free and instant full respec between 2 builds that you choose, so a "hybrid" is now a character that can instantly switch between 2 archetypes.

Really think anyone who says they like this system is being incredibly naive and doesn't understand what will happen. Then again, if the entire joke is a pushover and content allows 5x the number of people as what's required, who cares I guess.

[BlackheartX]

Are you serious here? The fact of the matter is that people have no way to judge how good of a player you are besides looking at the numbers in front of you. If you have an option between a DD who has 8 combat merits, and one who doesn't, why would you pick the one who's obviously put less time and effort into his character and will presumably some amount less damage, unless you know the person or for some other reason know they are a good player that knows what they're doing. It's just silly, if someone put the effort into being the best they can at a certain job, your chances are better at them performing well than someone who didn't.

Also, FFXI is a joke, as far as numbers go. A lot of content is too easy, and at best tuned for significantly less people than most groups bring. Go play WoW or something, where if your raid is undergeared you flat out -cannot- do some fights. Yea, you can carry a few people or whatnot, and skill can definitely raise or lower the bar as to what stats are needed, but the fact remains that if people's numbers are too low you can flat out lose. It's insanely ignorant and ridiculous to think that stats are irrelevant to success.

And ya, it's been mentioned, but WoW learned over the years that hybrid shit really doesn't work in large group settings. Even in FFXI it's the case. A red mage may be a nice "hybrid", but the more people you add, the less desirable it becomes as a hybrid, and instead shifts it's focus to fill 1 role to the best of it's ability. Red mages are actually pretty good at that too, but when you become a "red mage tank" for a fight, you don't sit there and refresh a party of black mages at the same time, nor do you spam high-cost nukes to try to do as much damage as possible. In FFXI in particular, you do in fact use heals as they are a solid source of enmity, but that's a side-effect to how the system was designed, and is not a universal truth for hybrids in MMOs. Paladin tanks in WoW (which, paladins can choose between healer, DD, or tank) don't heal at all. In the end, Blizzard realized that a lot of the top players didn't usually want sub-par hybrids in their raids, because outside of a few niche things (powerful buffs, etc), they were all around worse than a pure counterpart. As such, they moved to making the talent trees more focused, and since then have allowed free and instant full respec between 2 builds that you choose, so a "hybrid" is now a character that can instantly switch between 2 archetypes.

Really think anyone who says they like this system is being incredibly naive and doesn't understand what will happen. Then again, if the entire joke is a pushover and content allows 5x the number of people as what's required, who cares I guess.

http://www.mylespaul.com/gallery/data/500/flamesuit.jpg
Walk On Brave One!!!

[Hyan]

http://www.mylespaul.com/gallery/data/500/flamesuit.jpg

I'm seriously trying to resist the urge...

But not like it's going to make a difference either way.

[Coren]

http://www.mylespaul.com/gallery/data/500/flamesuit.jpg
Walk On Brave One!!!

I think the people that agree with his, and my, basic premise outnumber you here. Perhaps if you're more the touchy-feely type and just play mmos for the camaraderie, and not to be the best, you should check out some zam?

[Lordender]

I rather have it be a full respect with a couple hr cooldown and then have a way to save my stat allotment on a per job so basis so I don't have to manually input them all back again, thats gonna get old real quick imo.

Unfortunately I didn't play around with it much on the BETA but I would get so annoyed in FFXI when I switched to my BLU and had to manually requip all of my spells again instead of being able to just hit a configuration that I made to auto set every spell that I normally chose.

[Hyan]

Oh boy, some of you are going to be in trouble trying to adapt to the way min/maxing works in this game..

[Arximiro]

TLDR, but I think stat allotment is a good idea. The traits will be just fine as long as they give us enough trait boxes for stats and traits. Going to have so many dead as shit DDs though if Vit actually matters this time around.

[Battlecat]

Oh boy, some of you are going to be in trouble trying to adapt to the way min/maxing works in this game..

I concur. People seem to be confused. All this "OMG IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE EVERY OTHER MMO EVER MADE!!! EVERYBODY PANIC!!!" crap needs to stop. There will still be min/maxing. There will still be people that refuse to do that extra bit of work we can call gimps and post screenshots of their shitty gear on forums and laugh at them. Can we close this thread and go back to bitching about UI lag and no hardware mouse yet?

[FailureMidgard]

I'm seriously trying to resist the urge...

But not like it's going to make a difference either way.

Oh boy, some of you are going to be in trouble trying to adapt to the way min/maxing works in this game..

I concur. People seem to be confused. All this "OMG IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE EVERY OTHER MMO EVER MADE!!! EVERYBODY PANIC!!!" crap needs to stop. There will still be min/maxing. There will still be people that refuse to do that extra bit of work we can call gimps and post screenshots of their shitty gear on forums and laugh at them. Can we close this thread and go back to bitching about UI lag and no hardware mouse yet?

You guys really don't get it do you? This shit has been done in other MMOs, it's been done in other non-MMO RPGs. It's just a fact of the matter that hybrids shine in lower number situations, and are inferior in higher number situations. Stop arguing against it. I'm not even complaining with the system, I don't honestly care what they do, but people are sitting here and trying to argue against pure fact in how the numbers will work. It's like trying to argue against the idea that SAD characters start out more powerful with worse gear/buffs/power level and MAD characters end up more powerful with more gear/buffs/power level. It's just a side effect to the game using math. This whole "hybrid" idea is how shit works IRL also. You're in a small town, the dentist is a general doctor and a pediatrician, etc. As you get more and more people, people begin to specialize more because they can be better at one thing, which is a draw, and due to the large population, you still cover everything needed. Really, I know lolRL analogy, but this is a really fucking simple concept that people are somehow arguing with. It's just a dumb argument though.

Yea, having DR on stat gain is a great mitigating factor, but it won't solve the "issue". Again, this has been tried in other games. WoW now lets you instantly switch your entire character in 3 seconds while out of combat, because they've since realized it's dumb to punish people for no reason. The fact remains that as you get more people, you will do better (whether you care about this is up to you - FFXI had nothing challenging in it at all really) if you move towards to more specialized roles.

I'm really not complaining, I doubt I'll even buy the game at this point because it's in no way ready to go gold and this surplus system is dumb (inb4 you link that recent ignorant blog post trying to support it), but saying that there's a brand-new form of min-maxing and people have no right to not want to be punished to have more than 1 job/class is retarded. Nothing they are doing is new or groundbreaking besides the surplus system, which isn't even original, it's a terrible bastardization of WoW's rested system.

[miokomioko]

It's not about being a hybrid. I'm sorry you aren't able to perceive that.

[Nevex]

Really think anyone who says they like this system is being incredibly naive and doesn't understand what will happen. Then again, if the entire joke is a pushover and content allows 5x the number of people as what's required, who cares I guess.

What will happen will be the same as FFXI or any other game for that matter - each situation will have its optimal setup, except this time it's more than attack/acc for melees, damage taken/enmity for tanks and magic potency/MP for mages. VIT and MND have a much larger impact this time around so DDs won't blindly invest in STR/DEX like they do in FFXI most of the time.

The less people you have the more focus you're going to put in defensive stats over offensive one. You already do that with jobs and gear, this time you do that with stats as well.

I still don't get how someone can criticize point allotment, which gives players a certain degree of freedom, but having nothing to say against FFXI merits which are semi-permanent since take forever to change.

And according SE FFXIV will be much more lowman-based than FFXI. Unless they lied (which I'm not entirely putting out of the question) balanced stat setups will be much, much more efficient this time.

[Lordender]

I just want the system to be as painless and as fast as possible of changing my stats, knowing SE though it will be painful as shit.

[lurtsman]

Are you serious here? The fact of the matter is that people have no way to judge how good of a player you are besides looking at the numbers in front of you. If you have an option between a DD who has 8 combat merits, and one who doesn't, why would you pick the one who's obviously put less time and effort into his character and will presumably some amount less damage, unless you know the person or for some other reason know they are a good player that knows what they're doing. It's just silly, if someone put the effort into being the best they can at a certain job, your chances are better at them performing well than someone who didn't.

Also, FFXI is a joke, as far as numbers go. A lot of content is too easy, and at best tuned for significantly less people than most groups bring. Go play WoW or something, where if your raid is undergeared you flat out -cannot- do some fights. Yea, you can carry a few people or whatnot, and skill can definitely raise or lower the bar as to what stats are needed, but the fact remains that if people's numbers are too low you can flat out lose. It's insanely ignorant and ridiculous to think that stats are irrelevant to success.

And ya, it's been mentioned, but WoW learned over the years that hybrid shit really doesn't work in large group settings. Even in FFXI it's the case. A red mage may be a nice "hybrid", but the more people you add, the less desirable it becomes as a hybrid, and instead shifts it's focus to fill 1 role to the best of it's ability. Red mages are actually pretty good at that too, but when you become a "red mage tank" for a fight, you don't sit there and refresh a party of black mages at the same time, nor do you spam high-cost nukes to try to do as much damage as possible. In FFXI in particular, you do in fact use heals as they are a solid source of enmity, but that's a side-effect to how the system was designed, and is not a universal truth for hybrids in MMOs. Paladin tanks in WoW (which, paladins can choose between healer, DD, or tank) don't heal at all. In the end, Blizzard realized that a lot of the top players didn't usually want sub-par hybrids in their raids, because outside of a few niche things (powerful buffs, etc), they were all around worse than a pure counterpart. As such, they moved to making the talent trees more focused, and since then have allowed free and instant full respec between 2 builds that you choose, so a "hybrid" is now a character that can instantly switch between 2 archetypes.

Really think anyone who says they like this system is being incredibly naive and doesn't understand what will happen. Then again, if the entire joke is a pushover and content allows 5x the number of people as what's required, who cares I guess.

This is still the best post in the thread.

It is possible that players may change between two jobs without being gimped at all, so long as those two jobs have identical stat point distributions. Having not played beta, it seems entirely possible that rng/pug may have the same stat point distributions. This is helped along by diminishing returns increasing the likelihood of multiple classes of a single role using the same or very similar amounts of their primary stats.

I'm generally considered an asshole by the people I won't invite, though plenty of them understand why. Inviting bad players to a ten man group, who don't do 1/10th of the required effect, is making everyone else play better--or risk losing the reward they are seeking. Hybrids rarely work this way. In 2-4 man content hybrids are great. Generally in 5-8 they are losing effectiveness. By 10-15 they are significantly weaker (barring very strong group buffs), and by 16-25 they are of far less value to the raid than bringing in highly specialized characters.

When we max level and start seeing the encounters, we will know better. It is possible to design a system that favors hybrids. (For instance gimping healers to the point where they are completely ineffective could be used to force DD players to maintain healing moves) It would be very strange--and difficult to tune several fights this way without completely breaking healer classes and making them painful to play.

When the game has launched, few opinions will have changed. The players who do not care to adjust to being good, will continue to hate on the others. The players who are capable of adjusting will adjust. The players who understood from the start what it takes to organize and run a high level group will continue to be the first to defeat new content and acquire the highly sought after new pixels.

Hating "elitists" won't make the game any more fun. They will still exclude players who do not fit their notions of correct. Within those "elitists" there are two types. The ones who are fail and do not actually know what they should be looking for, and the ones who know exactly what they should be looking for and can quickly identify the talented well played and designed characters from the bad ones. Bad players have the option of defending poor choices and believing every raid or guild leader is the former, or politely asking where they can go to learn more about how to measure up to the standards the good players are using. Many high end players can still spare a few seconds for a comment such as "go read elitist jerks class forums for your spec, aff is top damage". The ones who do go read will learn new things about playing the game, and it will become a complex system which is far more fun than button mashing. Those who do not wish to fulfill the role that the leaders require of them will continue to be angry and resentful in their out-dated gear believing that it is the world that is the problem. It would be easier to learn to change themselves than change the world. As a elitist raid leader, I have no reason to change. The game rewards me for doing exactly as I do. It is only out of a sense of decency that I attempt to train up new players. I've found decency to be rewarding, because I like these people for who they are, and enjoy turning them into damage or healing machines.

The sense that raid/guild leaders are obligated to teach other players how to become better is a sad entitlement mentality. Those players are not playing so that they can teach casuals. They may take on a player or two that they really enjoy as a person and believe is capable of learning, but they have every right to refuse to train players who offer no return on their effort. If you aren't willing to give them your time or money, why should they be required to sacrifice their time to you?

I tried offering tutoring once to crappy players. It was a complete and utter failure. They would ask me to log onto their characters and press the right buttons so they could get epics. They would try to weasel into getting free lessons. Somehow they thought it fair to waste my time. I stopped bothering with offering to teach anyone unless I genuinely liked them and believed they wanted to be good at it. Teaching ignorant retards who are convinced that they are entitled to lessons and gear at the expense of someone else is not rewarding. It is far more rewarding to let them reap what their arrogance has sewn. It's unfortunate that maturity is so rare. I've taken on at least 5 to 10 projects over the last 2 months. After an hour of teaching they are usually able to practice the lessons on their own, and within a week their damage is up 30%. Some have doubled. I've tried teaching people that don't want to learn, they only rage harder.

TLDR: Elitists fall into several distinctions. The assholes, and the non-assholes. Within those groups there is also a distinction of those who do understand the game mechanics, and those who only think they understand. The real losers are the people who assume every "elitist" they meet falls into the latter category. Maturity and humility are the way to learn how to deal with "elitism".

It is not the elitists responsibility to carry bad players to things they have not earned, nor to freely give their time up to someone who feels they do not deserve to be compensated.

Hybrids are great in small groups, and suck in big ones. A raid leader who intentionally hamstrings his raid on difficult content will not be a raid leader for long. The duration on resetting points effectively says you may play other classes immediately, but it won't be effective for high end difficult raid content unless another class shares the same stat point distribution. The viability of hybrids is largely dependent on the size of groups doing encounters, and the viability of pure classes to perform the role they were recruited for.

PS. This thread could be locked now because it has been thoroughly owned. <- That is a hamster.

[Hyan]

PS. This thread could be locked now because it has been thoroughly owned.

No no no. This thread is full of delicious quotes for necro-bumping in the future.

[BlackheartX]

I think the people that agree with his, and my, basic premise outnumber you here. Perhaps if you're more the touchy-feely type and just play mmos for the camaraderie, and not to be the best, you should check out some zam?

I wanna be the very best

Like no one ever was

To MIN/MAX is my real test

To play the game is my cause

I will travel across the net

Searching far and wide

Teach me the mechanics to understand

And the power that's inside

FFXIV!

Gotta learn it all--

It's I and me

I know it's my destiny

FFXIV!

Ooooh, you're my best friend

In a world we must pretend!!!

FFXIV!

Gotta learn it all--

My spreadsheets so true

Our parsers will pull us through

I teach me and I'll teach you

FFXIV!

Gotta learn it all!

Gotta gotta learn it all!

Yeeaa.

Every challenge along the way

With a windower I can face

I will battle everyday

To claim my rightful place

[Jinko]

I agree with everything FailureMidgard said.

The more people you get in a party the less need for hybrid builds, this is common sense, plus the fact that most end game will be larger groups so there will be little need for hybrid builds.

Infact you will most likely see specialised build such as Con-Healer, Con-Buffer, Con-DD (elemental specialisation) and so on.

Doing an extra % of damage or healing an extra % can make the difference between success and failure over a peroid of time.

[lurtsman]

Jinko, you are correct. In OB we will be looking at how many roles a certain class can max out. It is likely we will have a few different builds for conj. If we can role an enfeebler into a healer (assuming they can land all enfeebles and have time/mana left over) all the better. It gives us a chance to push one more DD into the group. If enfeebs goes better with landing a few nukes, we'll be running one enfeebler. It won't really be a hybrid most likely, because judging by the power of buffs so far, having the enfeebler do their primary role perfectly will be far more important than anything else they can bring to the party. Of course, depending on the power of debuffs, the enfeebler may only be able to do larger group content.