Beast Affinity: Thoughts and Hopes for Merit adjustments at level 99

[Xilk]

In another discussion on zam forums I got thinking about Beast Affinity Merits. I have a bit of a rant that I want to share, but not in the spirit of bashing on SE, but in the spirit of sharing player experience and asking that it is considered when addressing Call Beast, Beast Affinity and Other merits when they are adjusted later. (SE said they were reviewing merits, which is very appropriate for when we reach level 99).

Beast Affinity I've always had a love/hate relationship with. On one hand, I really like having more jug options available (which is better in the game now than it ever has been before), and thats really what beast affinity is all about. However, I still resent how this was at level 75 and that carries over a bit to how I feel about it now.

First, let me review the situation that existed for a long time at level 75. The jug options were terrible. Charm was more gimped then than it is now (still almost completely gimped) because end-game events took up the majority of what a max level player would do, and We had to rely on Jug pets. There were 8 Jugs that were available at level 75.

Courier Carrie
Homunculus
Voracious Audrey
Ambusher Allie
Panzer Galahad
Lifedrinker Lars
Chopsuey Chucky
Amigo Sabotender

the cost/benefit for these jugs made Carrie the only jug pet out there. The more die hard bsts would also painstakingly obtain Lars and Chucky for those special occasions.

(Saying Cost/benefit is just not enough to describe the cost in time and money to get a jug pet at level 75... You needed to HQ the recipe, so you went through MANY synths on High skill recipes. The materials were difficult to obtain, the hardest being Amiga Sabotender (2 incredients only available from high level NM's) and the duration for these jugs just really made them countless hours of effort for quick minutes of lackluster, but moderately improved performance.)

These are problems that SE wonderfully fixed since plans to raise level cap were announced. However these poor design elements all point out what a kick in the face Beast Affinity Merits feel like. It was not much of an option at all. A BST NEEDED 5/5 BA merits just to be gain fungaur jugs as an option at level 75. The reality was you had 1 option for a pet, and BA merits grew that to 2 options with an additional 2 far off vapor pet options to add to the existing other 7 vapor pet options.

It just wreaked of neglected design choices and the player being punished for it. Even though the majority of the deficiencies with jug pets have been satisfactorily corrected, This one remains.

The message is: "See this great ability your job had... well, since you are higher level now... Yep, we're going to take it away!"
Having a Tiger jug for a strong DD? Well, we are going to marginalize this happy ability so that its not valuable anymore. (pet is capped at level 63.. no longer effective vs mobs your level or higher)

What!?!? Why in the world do we lose abilities on BST when we get higher level?? This is really how it feels. As you get higher level on bst.. you LOSE abilities (this including all the specific stats, traits and abilities of individual pets).

Why does it work for bst this way? Does this happen on other jobs? I really don't think so.

It is one thing if higher level abilities are just that much better that you rarely have a use for something... but to lose them because the pet is just not effective at you level anymore is... ouch.

So, to me, Beast affinity Merits feel like extortion. "Oh? you want to keep that pet?.. well, see here, if you just pay this fee in Merits.... you can keep it. (A little longer anyway, heh heh heh)"
Does smn need to sinc merits into its avatars for them to still be useful at all as they gain levels? Does pup? DRG?

These leads me to the general design of having level caps to jug pets at all. I don't understand it. I would greatly appreciate an explanation from devs on why this was implemented in the first place.. but I feel there might be huge player flaming if there were, and I'm not really interested in flaming (I know even though I'm ranting, the purpose is different). I can only guess there was some intent regarding crafting... and the crafting economy really didn't work out as expected when this was designed.. that's my guess anyway.

That aside, I really don't like that jugs have level caps. Carrie, lars, chucky and Sabotender are all still unique jugs that are completly unusable now. They are abilities that have been effectively removed from the BST job as you gain levels.

Although I do appreciate getting several jugs back (sheep, fly, lizard, flytrap, etc.) It feels like being given back our own used shoes that were stolen... as a Christmas present.

I do very much love many of the new and unique pets that have been added. (lulush, merle, yuly, shasra, etc) Thank you very much SE! Its very fun applying the different combinations of traits, stats and abilities to different situations. I feel very satisfied with the economy of the level 76+ jugs and pet food.

I really wish that the level caps on Jugs were not present. That would look really silly if applied to the game in its current state however. Making a normal sheep familiar would be strange comparing the recipe for herbal broth to Dancing Herbal broth and the pets having the same capabilities. however, Nazuna is already losing potency because it is capped at level 86. We have to pay the cost of 5 merits to keep a sheep pet, who has unique attributes of any pet at the current level 95 cap.

I propose that adjusting either the number of possible merits for beast affinity, and/or the potency of these merits would be the most feasible solution to 'my' dilemma. I really would like the abilities restored that bst has lost through the jug pet level caps and beast affinity limitations.

Another possibility, of course would be to continue to re-introduce higher level iterations of the pets we have lost as we go to level 99. However the information we've received so far from these forums points to more interesting ideas such as Ruszor, scorpion, and hanuman type pets.

I believe that several other player share many of these sentiments.

[Kaiichi]

I agree. I feel as if I'm about to waste a bunch of time on this. even when the Lv. 99 pets come out, I'm sure well all be using just one pet along with Yuly. So I'm not even sure if I wanna dump points into BA.


Edit: Maybe insted of this, they can replace it with merits that improve the praformince of the diffrent pet types. So that you could be able to use the pet you like best weather it be slim, fish, or bird.

Edit Again: Looking back at this post two years later. I retract my prevouse statments. BA is just that BA. + with Monster Gloves +2 and AUGed, my team has grown quite well, I can even tote around CC again for small tasks. Yep, I feal more like a Poke'Mon master everyday. :P

[SpankWustler]

Even something as simple and minor as increasing Beast Affinity from 2 levels per merit to 3 levels per merit, if merits are revised any time between now and when I die because of something, would go a long way.

Of all the minor changes Beastmaster could benefit from given the new reliance on jug pets, I think this would be the easiest one.

[Olor]

I think it would be nice if they just uncapped each "unique" pet type so that we can still use old pets (that have no new replacement) - so uncap panzer, uncap chucky, uncap carrie, uncap lars, uncap amigo, heck even uncap the useless, expensive black mandy so I can use a black mandy if I want to