Overall Battle System Adjustments for the Future

[saevel]

Currently, the development team plans to have the proposed Last Resort haste benefit only apply to two-handed weapons. The reason being is there are already a number of benefits that single-handed weapons posses such as dual wield, martial arts, etc.

This is very very dumb. LR giving a 15% haste effect to 1H would actually be useful as they don't get any form of JA haste (except DNC which gets 10% the same as every /SAM).

[Crimson_Slasher]

I support the motion of having the cap for merit ws increased to 20/25(4/5 weaponskills) or for the less endgame, more casual players, do both, make the weaponskills start at 65% potency so the players who are less worried about going to the endgame events and want their toys to atleast work, even if not the best, can do so, then can merit/demerit more toward their tastes.

I know as a player whom has leveled samurai recently, but cant bare to part with the 3 weaponskills i chose, it leaves me in a position of needing to make a masamune(Or atleast a WOE version...) just to not feel completely inadequate. This isnt to say that players have insanely high standards, but i find myself having trouble hitting anything reasonable with only gekko/rana/etc at my disposal currently. Havent tried to use a pentathrust option either and cant get stardiver currently again due to selected ws, but with drakesbane i feel i can perform adequately on drg so i am left turning to the other jobs i feel are in dire need of these merit ws, and my desires to keep the 3 i love currently.

So again, 20/25 points or bust, being told to sacrafice 5% of 3 weaponskills to get 1 at 10% reduced potency is a grand loss of 25% potency globally for that player. So please reconsider that aspect. I dont think a hair over 1/3rd the options availible is a bad thing.

[Zhronne]

This isnt to say that players have insanely high standards

Bull's eye.
Developers, and maybe players too, need to understand that you can't allow "specialization" the same way for every single field where it's possible to specialize. You need different approaches for different kinds of specialization.

One thing is putting a limit in the amount of attributes, HP, MP, melee skill and magic skill you can merit. They offer a clear edge to the job that can get advantage from them, but they do not make or break a job.
The same can partially be said about group1 and group2 merits. They are specific PER JOB, so they do not make or break a single job.

The same cannot be said for weapon skills. Some of those WS are a HUGE difference, the difference between making a job useful or useless.
You cannot put limits (a cap) in a category that creates such extreme consequences. Or at least if you want to put limits, then you need to offer a higher roof, or cap.

The idea of starting at 65% is a compromise (a bad one, imho) but it is not a solution to this issue.
Do not underestimate this important factor please.
Having or not having a certain merit WS is not the same as having or not having 16 skill in a certain weapon or any of the other specialization options that the game currently offers to the players.

[xbobx]

Something the developers need to realize.

The game is on its last legs. You don't keep it going but sticking to old ideals. Especially with a new expansion coming out.

You talk about changes all the time taking too long, or being too complex and not having the manpower. You admit to pulling most of the resources to the expansion. But here is the problem. People pay a monthly fee for access and content. The cost has not changed but the content is about 1/10 of what it use to be. Now all that funding has been pushed to the expansion where you in turn have the nerve to charge 29.99 for an expansion on a 10 year old mmo that most likely, going by history, will be only 20% done.

So do you think by doing this, and by constantly restricting people in how they play the game and only go by your vision (which needs glasses by the way) that this is the best way to retain your customer base? And do you think this is the best way to transition people to FF14?

Square has been making poor decisions as a company for a long time and has been funded by re-releasing ports of old games form their glory days. So how about you guys prove that you have what it takes and actually start listening to the fan base and not pretend you are with all the smoke and mirrors. Maybe then and only then will people actually have faith in giving FF14(the biggest fail in MMO history) a second chance. Because as it stands now, I can't see FF14 being anything but a guaranteed colossal failure due to SE's continued arrogance and inability to properly communicate with their customers.

[Kari]

Instead of making it so you can get everything, we're thinking about making it so there will be benefits without having to max out a category, which will open up the choices a bit more.

This is impossible.
I don't think the devs know what kind of playerbase they have.

If you don't have 5/5 of a meritted WS, you're going to do less damage than someone who does have it 5/5. You can make 1/5 "useful" or "good" all you want, but it's still a strong limitation.

You've given us 20 [22 soon] jobs, and are telling us now to pick 3 that we want a merit WS for. If the merit WS is useful at all, then it means I'm going to want it 5/5, because 1/5 is gimping myself. The difference could be 1% mod per merit and it'd still be an issue.

Every other part of the merit system can pretty much be dealt with. You can play a mage with full HP/STR/DEX merits, or a DD with full MP/MND/INT merits, and still be relatively similar. However the difference between someone with 1/5 Resolution and 5/5 Resolution? 1/5 is going to lose out a lot on equal footing.

[shyryu]

nice work but .... adjusting RDM WHEN ?
i want play my RDM thank you SE !

[xbobx]

This is impossible.
I don't think the devs know what kind of playerbase they have.

If you don't have 5/5 of a meritted WS, you're going to do less damage than someone who does have it 5/5. You can make 1/5 "useful" or "good" all you want, but it's still a strong limitation.

You've given us 20 [22 soon] jobs, and are telling us now to pick 3 that we want a merit WS for. If the merit WS is useful at all, then it means I'm going to want it 5/5, because 1/5 is gimping myself. The difference could be 1% mod per merit and it'd still be an issue.

Every other part of the merit system can pretty much be dealt with. You can play a mage with full HP/STR/DEX merits, or a DD with full MP/MND/INT merits, and still be relatively similar. However the difference between someone with 1/5 Resolution and 5/5 Resolution? 1/5 is going to lose out a lot on equal footing.

keep in mind some jobs, like ranger would actually need you to cap two weaponskills just for the one job.

[Demon6324236]

WAR(if using Bravura) needs 2, RDM needs 2 if you use both Dagger and Sword, DRK needs 2 if you use both GS and Scythe, RNG needs 2 for both types of ranged attacks, so at least 4 jobs which to play at its best you need 2 WSs merited.

[Fredjan]

Last Resort:
The entire discussion in its entirety is reminding me why people call this game Samurai Fantasy XI, especially if one has a Kogarasumaru, one of the best weapons in the game. That's a SAM buff, other jobs won't gain as much by subbing DRK. WARs should remain /SAM, DRGs might gain the option, but there will be people that will prefer either /SAM or /WAR for their own reasons. /DRK is an attempt at a mix of both subs, while losing any defense capability (/SAM), STP/Meditate/Sekkanoki (again, /SAM) and the DA trait / Berserk/Aggressor (/WAR). Seems underwhelming to me outside of SAM since you can already have a fulltime Haste buff (Hasso) on top of it.

Merit weaponskills:
While it is a nice idea to make lower #s of merits into weaponskills more appealing (as is, it's beyond the meaning of pointless), we as a playerbase have issues settling for anything less than 5/5 in a weaponskill, especially if it's a very powerful one. We aren't asking to "have everything", we are asking for a merit cap increase, such as 15 to 17~20. Gives us room to try more weaponskills if we want without weakening weaponskills we are profound enough in (ie: Resolution, Stardiver, Shoha, Last Stand, etc., etc.; the thought of weakening any of those is something most players do NOT want to do). The current system is too restricting, and increasing the effectiveness of earlier merits won't change this, and as the poster above me said, some jobs need more than 1 merited weaponskill. Most DRKs won't have Entropy unless they're scythe R/M/(or E) owners, but every single DRK in existence will have Resolution merited if they want to even be taken seriously.
I sum it up with "This is why we can't have nice things."

[Insaniac]

I am starting to think they intentionally leave pertinent information out of dev posts so they can crush dreams the next day.