Racial Stat Differences are the same at 50Follow

What is the max value for stats? This is also important as a difference in 6 points from 44 to 50 (12% difference) is not the same as a difference in 6 points between 194 and 200 (3% difference).

Why do people call it min/maxing? Seems to me like there's no "min" involved... it's all about the "max."

In other words as you level the percentage it affects will be less (25 vs 21 [16% difference] and 235 vs 231 [2% difference]). It all really depends on how much dps we do now. If at lvl 50 we are doing 1,000 dps, it would take 50 seconds for Miquote to do an extra 1,000 dps (Lala total DPS @ 50 seconds: 50,000. Miquote DPS @50 seconds: 51,000). I would say that 1000 dps could be gained or lost purely on play style.

This takes away much of my concern with stat allocations. I kinda wish there was a way to re-allocate stat points still.

When I wasn't healin' , I was Stealin'.

When i was free of Raise requests, I tended to run around on THF/Nin Taru. although , modesty aside, people still only loved me for the treasure hunter AF2 + knife... I was outclassed by a few min/max mithra, not much else.

It was a LOT of work, and a good bit of time to collect all the bits, Monk took a bit more work, but was quite doable.

I knew one hell of a Taru Paladin back in the day when it was considered sheer madness on the Dynamis Lord, Jorm or Tiamat.

Taru Power... Lala still sounds like a Teletubby.

It takes a special breed to enjoy being pigeonholed for good and/or bad. Some people actually like/take pride in going against the grain. When there is no grain it bothers them as they can't be unique and/or special. It's psychology. For me I'm glad to see it. I would much rather be identified by superior skill than be excluded due to a choice like character race.

With the skill change system it is unrealistic to expect race to be used as a grand differentiator as every character can be every class. If you were to limit a character due to racial stats the tendency would be to spread out the jobs across multiple characters to make sure that your toons are not held back by the game. I see that sort of requirement to be a negative impact on the social aspect of the game as you'd have to switch out of characters as population demands, manage linkshell lists with multiple characters per player by default, and in general removing a large psychological tether between a player and their character(s).

Edited, Jun 27th 2013 9:04pm by Krycis

I ended up picking Elvaan after much deliberation. At the time I was hellbent on being a Paladin so I figured that they had the best overall stats for one. Even as a caster MP management never seemed to be an issue, especially post Refresh. The low Dex may have been noticeable when I started the game, but after capping some skills and eating some sushi it was a non-issue. I never bothered with Black Mage though. The 30+ point disparity between an Elvaan and Taru BLM was far too much for me to bother with. It was sad watching Elvaan BLMs hit bosses for 6-700 while Tarus were blowing them up with 1000-1200s. I know they evened it out a bit later on, but it was an issue for me back in my hayday.

All in all I did enjoy the huge stat differences between races in FFXI. when I switched to WoW I missed it greatly. Then shortly after that they homogenized all mobs to have the same stats as one another based on level... So lame.

The optimal scenario for me would be to allow players to distribute stat points however they see fit, irrespective of race. If someone wants to have the most badass galka blm with tons of int and zero str, that should be allowed. That having been said, I'm still happy with the game mechanics overall, even though it doesn't meet my opinion of what is the best approach.

Yes, in principle this was a clearly better approach; because the thresholds also meant that it was easier to balance out
the racial differences, and much more "expensive" (= ineffective) to accentuate them. And it encouraged deliberation
about whether 1 additional INT point on your Conjurer was really worth the equivalent of 50 hit points in VIT. That was
"real choice" in a way. You were allowed to build that glass nuke, or a robust conventional bomber.