Remove or decrease race penalties

[Camiie]

Still, I care less about the STR difference than the HP difference. It's annoying being denied the ability to participate in content because my HP is too low.

Exactly. There's more than enough ways to exclude people from content. Race shouldn't be one of them.

[Economizer]

To anyone who thinks the 11 STR difference between Tarus and other races doesn't matter

While I'd like to reiterate that the focus of our grief is HP based, I'd also like to add that the 14 point or so INT difference between a Elvaan and a Tarutaru doesn't seem to match up to the 11 STR difference either. Yes, it is still millions of gear difference, but mages aren't as good a damage option as melee by far, and as far as I know 14 more INT doesn't make as big a difference to damage as 11 STR (although I might be wrong on this one, if anyone cares to math it out).

[Lienn]

I'd leave race penalties as they are and, instead, remove the merit restrictions regarding HP, MP and attributes.

It would be much better just having a progressive increase of merit points cost and a hard cap for max base attributes like, as example, 110 for attributes, 1500 for HP and 1200 for MP.

This would give players freedom to enchance their characters as much as they want if they feel like putting a decent amount of effort on this.

Example:

Assume my character has 100 STR as WAR and 80 STR as SMN. I could keep putting effort on STR...if i raise +12 STR it would end with WAR having 110 STR (hard cap reached) and SMN having 92 STR...and if i raise STR by +30 it would end with both jobs having 110 STR. This would remove the gap between some race/job combos when race favors it and when it doesn't.

If a taru wanted 110 STR he just would need to put way more effort on this than an elvaan, just like a galka would be required to put way more effort on raising MP than a taru to reach this cap.

Also, to prevent everyone to getting all attributes at cap for all jobs too fast, just increase drastically the merit point cost of attributes past the current caps. At least ppl would have something else to do.

[ManaKing]

I have no interest in making all the races equal. I leveled 4 different characters in 2003 to figure out which race I liked the best. Guess what, it's Elvaan.

If people want to complain about having Taru tarus, then they should make another character. Taru make good mages and AGI based jobs. Everyone knows that. Just because Elvaan is more attractive at current end game doesn't mean that Taru should magically get to be #1 again. Taru didn't share their over-sized MP pool back in the day, why should anyone feel sorry for them now?

It's not like it's hard to build a character in about a month or two if you actually know what you are doing.

[Babekeke]

Seems kinda odd to me that people complain at how low Galka's MP is, when I see Galka SMN matching my smn for mp, yet they beat my HP by a good 400-500.

The only thing that needs balancing out in my opinion is how little difference MP makes per race, compared to HP. Either give tarus another 200~ HP at 99, or double our MP to make it a valid trade-off.

[saevel]

11 STR is exactly
+2.75 fSTR
8.25 Attack

And if your using 100% STR WS (Resolution, Stardiver, Ruinator, Shoha)
+9.35 WSD
If your using a 60% STR WSC (Ukon, Vere, MS, Kaiten, Fudo)
+5.61 WSC

We're still in the single digits for percentage difference. STR, like most melee stats, has decreasing returns the more of it you get. 11STR is not a big deal.

Now HP on the other hand isn't just a taru problem, though they are the worst effected by it. Since 75 our HP has not scaled properly with the monsters output potential, this in turn has created many scenarios where DD's are killed within seconds of not having PD / Fanatics up. As an elvann with 15/15 HP merits I still get one shoted sometimes, it's just a fact of life now. SE needs to increase HP/MP across the board by 30~50% minimum. Elvann and Galka will still have the highest HP but Taru's would be high enough to not be in danger so much.

[Afania]

DO you actually have any idea what you are talking about? Hume is the middle ground, they have no "worst" stats but they have no "best" either unless you count CHR.

mithra is pretty much almost the same as hume except a little more dex which isn't really something significant as any race can match or top it with gear. you really should actually look at a humes stats on jobs before you make such a judgement.

Do you have any idea what I mean by the worst? Not having best useful stat is what makes it worst. If I'm DDing on melee job, Elvaan does more dmg than me. If I'm spamming WF, Taru does more dmg than me. If I'm spamming CDC and dDEX not capped, mithra does more dmg than me, if I'm meleeing with shitty AoE, I die before galka too. Match it with gear is irrelevant, because other races can wear same gears too.

What's so good about hume? Nothing. CHR etc isn't useful, and nobody cares if Hume has higher other state. Job change is irrelevant, nobody care about CHR for BRD nor MND for WHM. As stated before, if you play 20 jobs, you probably get best out of Mithra/galka/elvaan, but just not hume. And even taru is better WF job than hume when HP isn't a factor outside of AoE range and taru has higher AGI.

Edit: Just rechecked race stat, it seems that Mithra has a little bit lower STR than Hume, but DEX and AGI is way higher. VIT CHR MND's lower than hume but those 3 stats are pretty much useless anyways, so what's so good about Hume having those useless stats higher?

[Afania]

Also, to prevent everyone to getting all attributes at cap for all jobs too fast, just increase drastically the merit point cost of attributes past the current caps. At least ppl would have something else to do.

Pretty lame way to design the game and keep ppl playing by making players grind more merit points.

[Afania]

All MMORPGs have different races, each with their strong point and weak point. FFXI is no different.
Tarutaru = Mage, high MP pool, high INT and high MND.
Galka = Tank, high HP pool, high VIT and defense.
Elvaan = Damage, high STR and attack.
Mithra = Something... High DEX and AGI.
Hume = Jack of all trades.

This has been around since the game came out, and I'm sure everybody knew this and chose the race accordingly based on what they like most. To come up 10 years later and all of a sudden say this needs to change, everything needs to be equal is throwing in your "Game it too easy, make it easier so I literally don't have to do anything and throw my money at SE." If you don't like your races weak point, you have 3 choices.
A. Make a new character that has the stats you want. Exp isn't hard to get.
B. Pull up your big girl panties and get over it.
C. Quit.

The point is that certain stats are fairly useless. I have np with races make a difference, but when certain stats are pretty useless, it become a penality.

I picked Hume because brandy guide(or w/e guide that's old) told me Hume is jack of all trade and best for jack of all trade jobs like RDM and BLU, and I wanted to main RDM or BLU when I started.

Only to turn out that for BLU STR and DEX are most important stat and hume sucked. Hume has balanced INT MND VIT CHR MP etc and all those are useless for BLU and majority of other jobs. Then I leveled COR and Hume still sucked with AGI compare with cats and tarus.

Reroll a char? No way I'm starting all over again just for a few stat boost, but it feels bad that everytime that another race is doing more dmg than me in same gears when I have 0 advantage over them. I have np staying as jack of all trade Hume forever, but only if other stats become useful. Currently any stat that's not HP STR DEX AGI are pretty meh.

[Masekase]

I'd leave race penalties as they are and, instead, remove the merit restrictions regarding HP, MP and attributes.

It would be much better just having a progressive increase of merit points cost and a hard cap for max base attributes like, as example, 110 for attributes, 1500 for HP and 1200 for MP.

This would give players freedom to enchance their characters as much as they want if they feel like putting a decent amount of effort on this.

Example:

Assume my character has 100 STR as WAR and 80 STR as SMN. I could keep putting effort on STR...if i raise +12 STR it would end with WAR having 110 STR (hard cap reached) and SMN having 92 STR...and if i raise STR by +30 it would end with both jobs having 110 STR. This would remove the gap between some race/job combos when race favors it and when it doesn't.

If a taru wanted 110 STR he just would need to put way more effort on this than an elvaan, just like a galka would be required to put way more effort on raising MP than a taru to reach this cap.

Also, to prevent everyone to getting all attributes at cap for all jobs too fast, just increase drastically the merit point cost of attributes past the current caps. At least ppl would have something else to do.

Or could do race specific merits