[byr1001] Uncapping the Merit Point Categories

[Byrth]

I have a simple suggestion that would help the game, would not be difficult to implement, and would not cause any serious balance issues.

Remove all the merit point category caps.
Please let us hold more merits as well ; ;

(Category Caps are the limits on a group of merits. So the category cap for Tier 1 merits is 10. The category cap for Combat Skills is 30, etc.)


A. Will this cause balance issues?
No, because:
1) The strongest players pick one of their jobs and merit for it.
2) If they are perfectly merited for one job, it presents the biggest balance threat when given more merits because you have to assume that they would be on that job in situations that require high performance, the hardest events.
3) If they are perfectly merited for one job, any future merits that they obtain from having the cap increased will necessarily be less valuable to their job than the ones they already have.
4) Optimally-merited jobs barely benefit from increasing the caps.

Example:
Warrior is in some ways the greatest threat for this kind of adjustment because they are so versatile, so the limitation on combat skills/stats stands to benefit them the most. Still, what happens if you uncap a perfectly merited WAR?
- They gain 12 DEX and VIT.
- Their Warcry and Aggressor recasts drops 50 seconds.
- Instead of meriting three of Upheaval, Resolution, Ruinator, and Stardiver, now they can merit all four.
- They gain 14-15 accuracy (0-8% hit rate) with some of their proc weapons.

So you have barely made Warrior stronger. The other jobs benefit even less than this. Plus, at a time when people complain about the difficulty of events (like Legion, Provenance Watcher, etc.) this gives them an opportunity to help themselves. I mean, what do you want our failure rate to be on these events? Is it really too low at the moment?



B. Why should we do it?
1) This will give players nearly-unlimited potential for character growth. - It would take 6706 merits to cap out. Players currently have ~2000 or less. Even with an epeening "I get 250k/hr" Abyssea party, it would still take them almost 80 rl 24-hour days to cap out from 2000 merits.

2) A limiting merit system has always been the antithesis of the job system. - One of the major draws to FFXI is that the game lets you play through with only one character, which you are free to become attached to. There are certainly times when you need to change your role, and the job system accommodates that. It is silly to suddenly reverse this at the level cap, which is where players spend almost all of their time these days. When the cap was at level 75, you go 1 to 75 as a Red Mage playing however was convenient in any type of party, but Tier 2 merits forced you to decide whether you wanted to use your Red Mage to solo or do Salvage.

3) Programming-wise, this almost has to be possible and reasonable. - The category caps have been increased before several times. You could either remove them from the interface (clean) or increase them to the maximum amount (dirty but definitely possible).

4) At a time when content is sparse, this would give a much-needed boost to activity. - People want to play, but don't have anything that they can do to improve their character. This would make it so there is almost always something they can do.

5) Increased participation in events/systems that yield XP. - More people would do Grounds of Valor. More people would do Campaign. More people would do Besieged. More people would do Dominion Ops. More people would do Voidwatch. etc. If you increase the incentives, you increase the odds that people will partake in an event. Giving XP value serves as an incentive.





Fellow posters, I challenge you. Come up with a situation where the above proposed change would alter the way we do any event. Where it would make something noticeably easier. Where it would affect the "balance" of anything. Try!

[Legomike]

yes please i see no reason why this would be unbalanceing

[Monchat]

You know it won't happen. the dev team thinks aura steal is too powerful.

[Kaisha]

And increase the on-hand merits from 30 to 50 while you're at suggesting stuff*

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Agreed, but I fear they will just blank this, or say: "It's not possible", "Due to Balance Issues" etc...

[Gropitou]

HELL YES!!!

[Taint2]

100% agree with the OP

Its time to open merits up and yes it will spark a lot interest back into actually getting XP.

[Merton9999]

I agree completely. SE would have me paying for another year at least if I could merit everything. I'd be all over campaign, Abyssea burns, besieged, etc.

One could have said that, prior to Abyssea, the job system effectively limited many people because few could commit the time required to level, let alone gear, a lot of jobs. Even though it was possible it wasn't doable for many people. However, now that modern leveling has made 99 in every job so easy, it's time that merits follow suit and became just as open.

I don't even care about the balance aspect so I can't meet your challenge. I just care about advancing my character, and that really isn't happening spamming the same boring battles.

Although I never liked it, I understand the original concept of merits was to make you choose. But, we've been "having fun" (or whatever people want to call it), with that idea for years. We all know how much Abyssea changed old systems. I'd like to see another kick start, like unchaining merits, to make me want to play again.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

You know it won't happen. the dev team thinks aura steal is too powerful.I think they may have ninja nerfed it or something because my 5/5 only dispelled 1/12 today.

[Llana_Virren]

100% agree with the OP

Its time to open merits up and yes it will spark a lot interest back into actually getting XP.

A few hours in abyssea and any new cap on merits would be reached within a week. Unless you suggest there be no cap, which would be scary now that I think about it....

But removing the current cap on merits will not revitalize the grind for EXP ....

[SpankWustler]

This is too likeable and pleasant and sane and reasonable to ever be implemented, sadly.

Take a high enough dose of DMT to see nothing in everything forever, have a talk with a few dozen machine elves about merits and category caps, then post their opinions on the matter. Whatever that is, it will be more the Development Bros' style.

[Dazusu]

Byr1001? Self important much?

Aside from that, good idea.

[Nyerieri]

Do a group of you gather every week to put together the dumbest idea theme for the week on these forums? This is almost as bad as suggesting DRK get escape to "enhance spell casting"

[Arcon]

Do a group of you gather every week to put together the dumbest idea theme for the week on these forums? This is almost as bad as suggesting DRK get escape to "enhance spell casting"

Not that I care for your opinion personally, but at least one hint of a reason would be required with that statement for anyone to think you're doing more than trolling in here. And for anyone to take you seriously.

[Creelo]

4) At a time when content is sparse, this would give a much-needed boost to activity. - People want to play, but don't have anything that they can do to improve their character. This would make it so there is almost always something they can do.

5) Increased participation in events/systems that yield XP. - More people would do Grounds of Valor. More people would do Campaign. More people would do Besieged. More people would do Dominion Ops. More people would do Voidwatch. etc. If you increase the incentives, you increase the odds that people will partake in an event. Giving XP value serves as an incentive.


I feel like these are the best reasons for uncapping the merit point categories. SE should really like them too... it would be a great incentive for players to continue playing FFXI. It really would be helpful but definitely would not be groundbreaking lol, and I know the playerbase would definitely welcome these adjustments. (Who wouldn't? x.x)

[Nyerieri]

Not that I care for your opinion personally, but at least one hint of a reason would be required with that statement for anyone to think you're doing more than trolling in here. And for anyone to take you seriously.

Why should I justify why SE should not do it when you and I both know they will never consider this? I know some people like to live in the dream world on these forums but I like to bring everyone down to reality.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Why should I justify why SE should not do it when you and I both know they will never consider this? I know some people like to live in the dream world on these forums but I like to bring everyone down to reality.

As opposed to up SE's A**?

Seriously, you're no Dev, nobody cares for your opinion, and they certainly are not going to take your word for it like you know more than anyone else.

[Anapingofness]

I agree with the OP 100%. This is a great suggestion. =D

[Ophannus]

Don't forget it would make dynamis popular again too.

[Phafi]

Blind II, Phalanx II, Dia III, and Bio III give their support and a reason to level RDM to 99!

[Insaniac]

I can't give you a good justification but I can tell you with 99% certainty what the dev team thinks. I believe they think people are constantly moving merits around to suit their current job preference thus creating an infinite need for exp. They are actually right I suppose. I often move my combat/magic skill merits around depending on what job I'm playing at the time which requires me to save up at least 18 more merits. Uncapping ALL merits would create a finite need for exp unless they came up with something else to use it on. Inconvenience is not something a dev team should use as a tool to create a need to repeat a task ad infinitum and I would love to see everything uncapped but I'm pretty sure that's the reason it will never happen.

[Creelo]

I often move my combat/magic skill merits around depending on what job I'm playing at the time which requires me to save up at least 18 more merits.

Yeah, and that's not tedious or anything. I know for a lot of people, they aren't even asking for a complete uncapping of the merit categories (which would still be the best), but they just would like to be able to cap 1-3 more combat skills fully or 1-3 magic skills.

The idea of meriting a combat skill one day, de-meriting it, and then soon re-meriting it is just ridiculous when you could probably just leave it capped/alone from the start (AKA: Removing the merit point caps is not groundbreaking).

[Insaniac]

I agree. I don't enjoy merit caps or agree with their reason for it if I'm right. My merits cap from events so stockpiling them is no problem. I usually only have to move 4 anyway. The most annoying part to me is having to remember to change them and then the extra minute it takes to move them around.

That whole justification only really works for combat magic and other anyway. No one is swapping between str and int. No one is moving job merits unless SE makes some adjustment. WSs require too many merits to move on a whim so people may experiment occasionally but once they settle on 3 they wont be moving them.

Also be prepared to have to choose only 3 of the new merit 2hrs.

[pancakesandsx]

I agree with the OP.

[Yugl]

Also raise the cap on merit storage.

[Doombringer]

support

making the post 10 characters...

[Juilan]

I can't give you a good justification but I can tell you with 99% certainty what the dev team thinks. I believe they think people are constantly moving merits around to suit their current job preference thus creating an infinite need for exp.

i want to know what they're taking and where i can get some of that mind altering substance o.o

[Camiie]

I could e-hug you, Byrth, but I dunno if you'd be comfortable with that. I love the idea and wholeheartedly support it. I've never been on the "people should be forced to specialized just because" bandwagon. As you say it goes totally against the freedom the job system gives us in the first place. As I've said before it's like they decided to jump the shark at the end.

The only limitations that would keep them from doing this are Tanaka Limitations. Unfortunately he's less flexible and has less memory than a PS2.

[Eric]

The only limitations that would keep them from doing this are Tanaka Limitations. Unfortunately he's less flexible and has less memory than a PS2.
QFT. I wonder if he actually realizes how the FFXI community holds him in contempt.

[Vinedrai]

if they ever remove the max point caps, they should make the extensive merits to be leveled through a separate exp category that can only be gained in areas out of abyssea. no wonder there will be so many people crying about slow xp if it ever happens but otherwise, we would still get all the merits in no time in abyssea compared to old days. it would force people to discover new xp sites which could actually be quite exciting unless you are a mindless grinder. i remember xping in promyvion and uleg range just before the release of abyssea. it was really refreshing after never ending colibri parties... too bad it didn't last long. i just hope there are still many people out there who are willing to live up to the nostalgia.

[Mirage]

In that case I would rather have a new set of merits that are directly related to the area you're fighting in, rather than having current merits only be obtainable by killing in certain areas.

Kill yagudos for "enhances yagudo killer effect", for example!

[Suteru]

This isn't a very good idea if you think about it for a couple of seconds.

#1. It puts a hard cap on the number of merits that can be earned. Once you hit that cap, there's nothing you can do.
#2. Specialization is a good thing sometimes. Merits help differentiate someone who has a main job from someone who actually puts care into it. Why should someone who leveled X job for bare minimum support get as much combat skill as someone who leveled it first and puts every minute of their gametime into it?

[Camiie]

This isn't a very good idea if you think about it for a couple of seconds.

#1. It puts a hard cap on the number of merits that can be earned. Once you hit that cap, there's nothing you can do.

What? So it's better to have people trash their merits every time they want to change something? People should be having fun and doing actual content, not wasting their time.


#2. Specialization is a good thing sometimes. Merits help differentiate someone who has a main job from someone who actually puts care into it. Why should someone who leveled X job for bare minimum support get as much combat skill as someone who leveled it first and puts every minute of their gametime into it?

If you want to differentiate yourself do so with your ability and playing style. Do so with the gear you're willing to earn and the research you're willing to do. YOU are the difference.

Why SHOULDN'T someone who earns 10 merits be able to put them where they damn well please?

[Raksha]

This isn't a very good idea if you think about it for a couple of seconds.

#1. It puts a hard cap on the number of merits that can be earned. Once you hit that cap, there's nothing you can do.

How is this different from what we have now? Do you really change your merits that often?

[Byrth]

#1. It puts a hard cap on the number of merits that can be earned. Once you hit that cap, there's nothing you can do.

I personally have four melee jobs that I'm semi-serious about. Beastmaster, Warrior, Thief, and Dancer. I have Great Axe, Axe, and Dagger merits. I have intentionally avoided gearing and playing other melee jobs because of the cap on melee merits. So I agree that there's nothing you can do, but that's how the system currently is in practice for the vast majority of the players and don't see it as a good thing.


#2. Specialization is a good thing sometimes. Why should someone who leveled X job for bare minimum support get as much combat skill as someone who leveled it first and puts every minute of their gametime into it?

Why shouldn't they? If you followed the plan proposed in the OP through to completion, people with multiple jobs would suddenly have a huge number of potential merit options available to them. There would still be prioritizing going on, and it would be just as invisible to the casual observer as it has always been. You can't look at another samurai and tell whether he has GKT merits, so how would it hurt you if he did despite having other weapons merited too?

I've farmed about a billion gil all-told for Dancer now and have 8 Dagger merits. It wouldn't bother me at all if every other Dancer on the server has 8 Dagger merits as well because SE removed the limitations from their merit system. In fact, I'd welcome it so that the server's Dancers could be a little better. The problems I have are more with people that fail to merit a job than those that would merit it and can't because of the merit system.

[Anapingofness]

@ Byrth and Camiie

Let me just say that I agree with the both you. I think you guys really hit the nail on the head, so to speak.

It really made me happy to see people that can see the bigger picture. Not that there haven't been people like that in this thread, I just think that the two of you put it most eloquently. ^^

[Sargent]

I agree, this would be a good idea. I don't know a single person who by now is not capped on Merits. As much as I don't see any reason why this is a bad idea, we all know SE won't do it because they are busy rehashing Lv.75 content to pass it off as "new".

At the very least let us cap at least one more weapon skill, only being allowed 3 at cap is rubbish.

[Twille]

I agree, the cap on merits should be removed. With SO many people with multiple jobs, we should be able to merit for all of them, if we choose.

[Eric]

Now that I think about it, it would be pretty neat to have both Equanimity and Tranquility without having to give up Stormsurge.

[Edyth]

To original poster: Yes plz.

[Zhronne]

Removing all merits sounds unrealistic, altough I wouldn't wine at all of course, but at least increasing the caps is the least they could do, imho.

More merit WS, more combat skills, more magic skills, more stats and more 2hrs soon. All of these aspects together would at least give players a bit more motivation to keep doing XP pts, since Abyssea pt definitely spoiled that.
Not saying I miss the 6k/hr xp days, but we went from one exageration into the opposite. Something in-between somewhere would have been better imho

[Xantavia]

If merits were uncapped, what would be the point of even having them? Why not just up the level cap again and add new abilities. That way, everybody could just have everything. You'll have a higher combat skill, higher magic skill, and higher stats.

[Byrth]

If merits were uncapped, what would be the point of even having them? Why not just up the level cap again and add new abilities. That way, everybody could just have everything. You'll have a higher combat skill, higher magic skill, and higher stats.

An interesting point, but riddle me this! What would people say if SE made level 100 and level 101 only reachable through 40,000,000XP? They'd be pissed, yeah?

Well, the merit system effectively does that. It's a little better in that you can choose how you get stronger. Also, I'm proposing uncapping Tier 1/2 merits as well. It's not just stats and skills.

[Arcon]

If merits were uncapped, what would be the point of even having them?

Because merits and levels are different. They give different bonuses and are applied differently. It's like asking why have gear when instead we can just level up further. Merits are just a way to further develop your character once you're at the level cap, same as gear. It does not need to be restricting or force specialization to be a relevant system.

[Kunimitsu]

Signed in just to say +1
At the very least the WS category should have no cap in my opinion. I would love to be able to merit stardriver for my SAM, and upheaval for my WAR. My THF, which is geared pretty well for 99, is stuck with pre 75 ws because my WAR/SAM/DRK/MNK come first.

I would like to be able to set my THF up as good as my other DD, or if I wanted to, to have the option of leveling another DD and get it up to par with my current DD. But with merits the way they are it's just not really possible for me to seriously pursue any other DD right now. Surely even from a business point of view it makes more sense to allow me to merit another ws so I am free to level another job (spend more time ingame) without it ending up subpar? And by me I mean we.

[Economizer]

2) A limiting merit system has always been the antithesis of the job system. - One of the major draws to FFXI is that the game lets you play through with only one character, which you are free to become attached to. There are certainly times when you need to change your role, and the job system accommodates that. It is silly to suddenly reverse this at the level cap, which is where players spend almost all of their time these days. When the cap was at level 75, you go 1 to 75 as a Red Mage playing however was convenient in any type of party, but Tier 2 merits forced you to decide whether you wanted to use your Red Mage to solo or do Salvage.

This is the main reason. Specialization arguments are stupid, as are the people making them. The only specialization I need is FFXI to be special from other MMOs, and this is one of the key reasons FFXI is unique. Do we really need the merit system's limiters on our ability to change jobs when gear already does that adequately?

---

Here's to looking forward to the day when I can have more effective Banish spells and use Divine Seal without feeling like I'm gimp, because I don't have to choose between the best choices and the bad choices. Or not having to feel bad about meriting Club or Realmrazer (which is better then Hexa Strike unlike you said SE!) because I like to melee as a White Mage.

Here's to the day where a crappy merit category is just something else you fill out with merits at some point, because you're meriting everything. Here's to the day where Ninjas everywhere don't have to choose between Ninja Tool Expertise, San spells, or Sange. Here's to the day were every Red Mage has Phalanx II and Dia III, AND Slow II and Paralyze II merited. Here's to the day where Black Mages and Red Mages don't have to worry about the element of the spell they cast because of merits, but only because of gear and spell power.

[Gropitou]

I have now capped all merit categories (including all jobs) and my merit count is 30/30 so now what? All my points are going down the toilet because SE refuses to uncap the categories. Please realize that people now have many (if not all) jobs at lv99 and want to enjoy using them. Being restricted in merits means not being able to truly appreciate newer jobs as much as those for which we capped their merits in the beginning. OPEN the FLOODGATES, let merits flow.

[tyrantsyn]

Having the ability to merit more would diffidently be a plus. My main dd job is WAR, but I wouldn't mind doing DRK and DRG as well. Trying to put merit's into A+ weapon's tho would take away from my merits in sword and dagger which fuel my RDM, PLD and THF job's. The chain effect of being able to apply more merit's to other job's are quite easy to see.

Merit's increase making me pick up the job and level it.
Topping off skill and level, I decide to put time into building a relic/mythic/emp/tom weapon for the job
Having me spend more time in end zone's grinding for week's, month's or a year's to accomplish it.
Which equals out to happy player who's got plenty to do when he log's on.

This idea is kind of a no brainier when you think about it.

[Mirabelle]

given the failure of Legion and Nyzul Isle for all but the most gifted/elite/computer savvy, I've got little else to do in game other than merit jobs. I'm all for this. Getting those 20k xp points for relic +2 won't seem so wasteful.

[Eric]

SE should be jumping at this opportunity. More merits for us = more exp = more time spent by users = more money. Even better, the dev work to make this happen is probably minuscule.

Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out.

[Vagrua]

I support this.

I wish this topic luck in receiving a reply from the Community Reps that isn't a rough explanation of why it can't be done.

[Washburn]

It almost seems laughable that they didnt just allow the merits to be uncapped v/s going through and removed/added abilities to stagger vw mobs.

Another thing that would be nice, is if you could turn unspent merits in for cruor, conquest points, imperial standing, or allied notes. It would be the same concept as when they alowed beastmen seals, kindred seals etc to all be converted at a 1:3 ratio.

[Gokku]

bumping for great justice.

[Xantavia]

This is the main reason. Specialization arguments are stupid, as are the people making them. The only specialization I need is FFXI to be special from other MMOs, and this is one of the key reasons FFXI is unique. Do we really need the merit system's limiters on our ability to change jobs when gear already does that adequately?

---

Here's to looking forward to the day when I can have more effective Banish spells and use Divine Seal without feeling like I'm gimp, because I don't have to choose between the best choices and the bad choices. Or not having to feel bad about meriting Club or Realmrazer (which is better then Hexa Strike unlike you said SE!) because I like to melee as a White Mage.

Here's to the day where a crappy merit category is just something else you fill out with merits at some point, because you're meriting everything. Here's to the day where Ninjas everywhere don't have to choose between Ninja Tool Expertise, San spells, or Sange. Here's to the day were every Red Mage has Phalanx II and Dia III, AND Slow II and Paralyze II merited. Here's to the day where Black Mages and Red Mages don't have to worry about the element of the spell they cast because of merits, but only because of gear and spell power.
I think this comes down to how you look at merits. You seem to see full merits as being the baseline, and anything less is gimp. I see the default skill as the baseline and any added merits as extra. So for the guy with 4 points in elemental magic, you see him as being sub-par for nuking, I see him as being a little better.

I feel that these conflicting views on merits is what divides the players on the specialization of jobs. Unfortunately, since neither view is right, we'll never come to an agreement.

[Mirabelle]

I think this comes down to how you look at merits. You seem to see full merits as being the baseline, and anything less is gimp. I see the default skill as the baseline and any added merits as extra. So for the guy with 4 points in elemental magic, you see him as being sub-par for nuking, I see him as being a little better.

I feel that these conflicting views on merits is what divides the players on the specialization of jobs. Unfortunately, since neither view is right, we'll never come to an agreement.

I think the specialization view worked pre-abyssea. It was harder to level jobs. People cared about their favorite jobs and merits was equivalent to getting the best gear for your best jobs. Now levelling is easier, jobs are viewed as much as tools as special roles and gearing decently is much easier with AF3. So the "specialization" view just doesn't cut it as much. Right now the only thing that keeps people from playing a large number of jobs to a high level are merit limitations and inventory limitations. Before is was xp grind, macro limits, and merit/inv limits hold us back.

SE should be working on both inventory and merit limits as a much higher priority than they are currently doing.

[Zerich]

bum-b-b-b-b-b-bump it up

[Byrth]

Thanks guys, and I agree that they should probably increase the number of merit points we can carry if they made this update (to a thousand or something. Why is there a limit on that anyway?)

[Rekin]

Bump for great justice

[Okipuit]

Good evening, Vana'diel!

As a part of the character growth system, we will be increasing merit caps and adding new categories in the future. However, we will not be removing the cap entirely.

The reason we are not removing this cap is because it would allow players to ultimately max out everything and cause characters to become universal or too versatile.
The whole idea behind merit points is to offer many choices and allow players to choose based on their preferences. This way, even though it’s the same job amongst everyone, their proficiencies and roles are different. With that said, by totally removing the cap from merit points, the fundamental purpose would be lost.

[Phafi]

Good evening, Vana'diel!

Red Mage will still suck.

Fixed that for you!

[Kojo]

Good evening, Vana'diel!

As a part of the character growth system, we will be increasing merit caps and adding new categories in the future. However, we will not be removing the cap entirely.

The reason we are not removing this cap is because it would allow players to ultimately max out everything and cause characters to become universal or too versatile.
The whole idea behind merit points is to offer many choices and allow players to choose based on their preferences. This way, even though it’s the same job amongst everyone, their proficiencies and roles are different. With that said, by totally removing the cap from merit points, the fundamental purpose would be lost.

Currently, we can fully merit 4 Combat Skills, but only fully merit 3 Merit Weapon Skills, are there any plans to add the capacity to fully merit a fourth Weapon Skill to match out Combat Skills?

[Rekin]

Good evening, Vana'diel!

As a part of the character growth system, we will be increasing merit caps and adding new categories in the future. However, we will not be removing the cap entirely.

The reason we are not removing this cap is because it would allow players to ultimately max out everything and cause characters to become universal or too versatile.
The whole idea behind merit points is to offer many choices and allow players to choose based on their preferences. This way, even though it’s the same job amongst everyone, their proficiencies and roles are different. With that said, by totally removing the cap from merit points, the fundamental purpose would be lost.
If the last census was any indication the player base really doesn't follow this philosophy as the overwhelming majority merits their jobs in the same way leaving many traits/skills forever unused. And there is no merit that will suddenly make a job as a whole different when two have merited different things. EX: Rdm with slow/para maxed, useless. RDM with dia/bio maxed, still useless.

As argued by the OP removing the cap would not be detrimental at all. If the devs are so hell bent on making players pick after being able to enjoy the full extent of their jobs til 75, why not make a merit skill tree?

[RAIST]

Currently, we can fully merit 4 Combat Skills, but only fully merit 3 Merit Weapon Skills, are there any plans to add the capacity to fully merit a fourth Weapon Skill to match out Combat Skills?

Very good point...one often left out in the debate over increasing WS Merit caps.

In all honesty though, can't help felling that the whole mindset over the restrictions is due for a rethinking in general. These policies were made at a time when inventory constraints, time, etc. created an environment where most people only had a few jobs leveled and spec'ed out to max--and these limits were more in line with that take on jobs at that time. But, the game has taken a dramatic turn in recent years....and this is not the general consensus of the playerbase now. There are many that have anywhere from 4 to 6 jobs they routinely use in different capacities, and they are up against a brick wall with these restrictions.

Please, SE... take a long hard look at your own census data. Extract out just how many jobs people have capped out at 99 with completed armors and weapons, etc. Get a better feel for what the playerbase is actually doing with the 20 jobs currently available to them (and more on the way with Adoulin expansion, let's keep that in mind as well)....and bring these merit restrictions up to a more reasonable level.

[Kojo]

Very good point...one often left out in the debate over increasing WS Merit caps.

In all honesty though, can't help felling that the whole mindset over the restrictions is due for a rethinking in general. These policies were made at a time when inventory constraints, time, etc. created an environment where most people only had a few jobs leveled and spec'ed out to max--and these limits were more in line with that take on jobs at that time. But, the game has taken a dramatic turn in recent years....and this is not the general consensus of the playerbase now. There are many that have anywhere from 4 to 6 jobs they routinely use in different capacities, and they are up against a brick wall with these restrictions.

Please, SE... take a long hard look at your own census data. Extract out just how many jobs people have capped out at 99 with completed armors and weapons, etc. Get a better feel for what the playerbase is actually doing with the 20 jobs currently available to them (and more on the way with Adoulin expansion, let's keep that in mind as well)....and bring these merit restrictions up to a more reasonable level.

Agreed, Honestly, I'm not asking to me able to max everything, nor am I asking to be able to max 5+ Combat Skills, I just have 4 specialty Skills; H2H, Scythe, Great Sword, and Marksmanship, only with three of those am I capable of using a merit WS, I'd just like to see those evened up.

Another thing is perhaps to match the Magic Skill category with a "Spells" category. My half-baked ideas for new spells was this.

WHM/RDM/SCH
Forsaken - A Light based Dia/Bio hybrid.
BLM/RDM/SCH
Ultima - Non-elemental magic damage (Unaffected by Manifestation)
BLM/DRK
Impact - Just make Impact unlockable via merits.
SMN
Cait Sith - Abilities are unlocked by putting more merits into Him/her.
NIN
Utsusemi: San - 1 Merit = 1 Shadow; 5/5 means a 5 Shadow Utsusemi.
BLU
Flare Star - Not used by any mob; Fire damage that ignores Magic Defense, but is subjected to resistence.

Just some ideas, obviously, like WSs, these would gain power as they are merited more.

[Rekin]

Just a reminder:
2) If they are perfectly merited for one job, it presents the biggest balance threat when given more merits because you have to assume that they would be on that job in situations that require high performance, the hardest events.
3) If they are perfectly merited for one job, any future merits that they obtain from having the cap increased will necessarily be less valuable to their job than the ones they already have.
4) Optimally-merited jobs barely benefit from increasing the caps.
Simply raising the cap accomplishes nothing, and adding more merits does just as much.

[Ophannus]

The terrible thing about the merit system is it screws over one job in particular, red mage. How?

BLMs learn new nukes 76+ (Stone V, Fire V, Blizzard V etc) these replace the level 75 merit spells(Burst II, Flare II, Quake II)

RDMs don't learn new enfeebles 76+ besides Addle. Our 75 merit spells remain our strongest enfeebles. BLM on the other hand learns stronger elemental magic than their 75 merit spells but RDM's merit spells remain the best for the class. It would be the same as giving PLD RDM SCH all Cure V and giving WHM Cure 6 but only through merits, because a WHM/RDM can cast Paralyze I and a BLM/RDM can still land Slow I too, RDM has Slow2 and Paralyze 2 but those are merit spells. Since RDM is a enfeebling specialist, RDM shouldn't have to choose.

[Nala]

While we appreciate the response and its great news for the most part please consider: if you truly wanted to limit player's choices and therefore force some sense of unique customization why did you create a job system where 20 (soon to be 22) jobs are able to be leveled by a single character, the pure choice of whether to level or not certain jobs in of itself makes each player/character unique as is.

[Nyerieri]

Good evening, Vana'diel!

As a part of the character growth system, we will be increasing merit caps and adding new categories in the future. However, we will not be removing the cap entirely.

The reason we are not removing this cap is because it would allow players to ultimately max out everything and cause characters to become universal or too versatile.
The whole idea behind merit points is to offer many choices and allow players to choose based on their preferences. This way, even though it’s the same job amongst everyone, their proficiencies and roles are different. With that said, by totally removing the cap from merit points, the fundamental purpose would be lost.

As I said when this thread first started. Thanks for confirming!

[Demon6324236]

BLM/DRK
Impact - Just make Impact unlockable via merits.

Umm~ should probably be for all jobs on Twilight Cloak, or at least add RDM to this list...

[Byrth]

Good evening, Vana'diel!

As a part of the character growth system, we will be increasing merit caps and adding new categories in the future. However, we will not be removing the cap entirely.

The reason we are not removing this cap is because it would allow players to ultimately max out everything and cause characters to become universal or too versatile.
The whole idea behind merit points is to offer many choices and allow players to choose based on their preferences. This way, even though it’s the same job amongst everyone, their proficiencies and roles are different. With that said, by totally removing the cap from merit points, the fundamental purpose would be lost.

http://img.bluegartr.com/images/smilies/meme/Okay.png

... but your point of view doesn't make any sense given the current state of the game. You also failed to address my preemptive logical counterpoints to this argument (A, B2). Still, if you managed to ignore the contents of the OP then I'm sure anything else I can say won't help.

If the topic offended your sensibilities in some way then I'm sorry. I just wanted something to do in game.

[Doombringer]

106 likes were apparently not enough <.< this might be the single most popular thread i've seen on this forum. hope is, truly, lost...

[Kari]

The whole idea behind merit points is to offer many choices and allow players to choose based on their preferences.

If that's the idea, it was poorly executed.
Most jobs have really obvious Merit choices. Almost everyone who takes their job seriously at all will have very similar merits. There's not much choice because of how many terrible merits there are.

[Arcon]

The whole idea behind merit points is to offer many choices and allow players to choose based on their preferences. This way, even though it’s the same job amongst everyone, their proficiencies and roles are different. With that said, by totally removing the cap from merit points, the fundamental purpose would be lost.

We all know that. No one is arguing that it goes against the idea behind it. We're arguing that the idea itself is bad. If an idea is immensely disliked by the community, the development team should take a hint and do something about it. Their game philosophy is not immediately the best philosophy just because they're the creators. Please let them know that we do understand the purpose and intention of the merit system, but that we don't agree with it. Specialization is not meant to be in this game, nothing else supports that. The job system itself goes strictly against it, as does the ability to switch gear at will, two of the most defining properties of this game.

[Dragoy]

I as well am of the opinion that there is no point limiting them really.

While the purpose and reasoning is clear, and understandable, the cold fact is that it does indeed not make for more diverse characters since nearly everyone will merit the same things for same jobs. It's simply how the game works; there usually is no reason to not merit just those things.

I would love to see a reply to regarding this particular argument.

[Emitremmus]

I think something to help alleviate this problem would be to actually be able to get refunded merit points when you lower a skill. That way if you're RDM and you know you're going to need to have a proficiency in Ice Magic/Paralyze II for example, then you would be able to merit accordingly for the situation. This method involves no loss of uniqueness and allow you to keep current caps in place.

Also on a side note, I think there should be more uses for merits than through the current methods. They are used for limit break quests, so there is no argument that they cannot be used to say purchase some kind of unique items or access to battlefields. It kind of sucks to sit there and be capped out on merits when you could be using them for something at least.

[SpankWustler]

The reason we are not removing this cap is because it would allow players to ultimately max out everything and cause characters to become universal or too versatile.
The whole idea behind merit points is to offer many choices and allow players to choose based on their preferences. This way, even though it’s the same job amongst everyone, their proficiencies and roles are different. With that said, by totally removing the cap from merit points, the fundamental purpose would be lost.

To further this theme, will many merits ever be made less earth-shatteringly horrible? Job-specific merits are the worst offenders by far.

Aggressive Aim, for example, is so horrible that maxing it out will actually break the universe. The fabric of being itself will open like a mouth and scream "WHY?!" at the offending player until his or her skin is flayed off by the sonic force of the malevolent voice of all time and space.

If the point is "CHOOSE!", then consider making merits into actual choices. Not the series of idiot-checks which most job-specific merits currently are.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

To further this theme, will many merits ever be made less earth-shatteringly horrible? Job-specific merits are the worst offenders by far.

Aggressive Aim, for example, is so horrible that maxing it out will actually break the universe. The fabric of being itself will open like a mouth and scream "WHY?!" at the offending player until his or her skin is flayed off by the sonic force of the malevolent voice of all time and space.

If the point is "CHOOSE!", then consider making merits into actual choices. Not the series of idiot-checks which most job-specific merits currently are.

A limited merit system really only works if the merits were really rather OP. That way limiting them makes sense, with so many rubbish choices it's not a choice anyway.

[Kojo]

Umm~ should probably be for all jobs on Twilight Cloak, or at least add RDM to this list...

This text is due to a 10 character minimum on a post, please look below for my response.

No.

[Demon6324236]

This text is due to a 10 character minimum on a post, please look below for my response.

No.

Yes, enfeebling + nuke should be for RDM, simple as that, neither BLM or DRK need an enfeeble of this power to themselves especially when it deals damage as well, if anything it embody a hybrid spell, the very foundation of what RDM is meant to be, a Hybrid.

[Kojo]

Yes, enfeebling + nuke should be for RDM, simple as that, neither BLM or DRK need an enfeeble of this power to themselves especially when it deals damage as well, if anything it embody a hybrid spell, the very foundation of what RDM is meant to be, a Hybrid.

Read where I said "Forsaken". Technically, PLD should be on that one, too. RDM isn't a nuker, nor a healer, it's an enfeebler.

[Demon6324236]

Read where I said "Forsaken". Technically, PLD should be on that one, too. RDM isn't a nuker, nor a healer, it's an enfeebler.

Yes I saw Forsaken, and Ultima, however these still have little to do with Impact. You said it yourself, RDM is an enfeebler, Impact is a Nuke & an Enfeeble in 1, BLM & RDM should both be on it for this reason.

Edit:Actualy look at what you said even...

WHM/RDM/SCH
Forsaken - A Light based Dia/Bio hybrid.
BLM/RDM/SCH
Ultima - Non-elemental magic damage (Unaffected by Manifestation)
BLM/DRK
Impact - Just make Impact unlockable via merits.

You gave a pure nuke, Ultima, to RDM, however refuse Impact for the reason its a Nuke+Enfeeble?

[Kojo]

Yes I saw Forsaken, and Ultima, however these still have little to do with Impact. You said it yourself, RDM is an enfeebler, Impact is a Nuke & an Enfeeble in 1, BLM & RDM should both be on it for this reason.

I disgree. Why, you may ask? Balance.

Honestly, Take my suggestion as you want, hope for what you want. I was talking out of my ass on that suggestion, the rest of the WS merit category is what I put actual thought into.

Personally, I doubt that any of those would be approved, as interesting as Forsaken and Ultima would be, if we ever did get spells of that caliber, they'd likely have some different mechanic, like Meteor doing more dmg with multiple casts at once, or any of the Unbridled Learning spells only available under said effect.


Edit:Actualy look at what you said even...


You gave a pure nuke, Ultima, to RDM, however refuse Impact for the reason its a Nuke+Enfeeble?

Then why are you mad? Like I said, talking out of my ass.

[Demon6324236]

Not mad, pointing out adjustments I think should be made to your ideas, giving my own opinion. Me being mad does not happen often, and when I am mad, I am stupid, take the time I was fighting with Fupa in the NNI thread over in Battle Content, that is me being mad, this is just me trying to give better ideas so on the 0.0001% chance SE looks into ideas we have here, they will potentially be better ideas in the end.

[Kojo]

Not mad, pointing out adjustments I think should be made to your ideas, giving my own opinion. Me being mad does not happen often, and when I am mad, I am stupid, take the time I was fighting with Fupa in the NNI thread over in Battle Content, that is me being mad, this is just me trying to give better ideas so on the 0.0001% chance SE looks into ideas we have here, they will potentially be better ideas in the end.

Oh, my bad. Go on then.

[Byrth]

In light of this:

Good morning everyone!

Hello everyone.

Thanks for all of the "likes" and messages in response to the post I made the other day!

As I wrote in the Message from the Producer, there is a ton to catch up on from the past two years and I've been doing my best each day to do just that. However, even if I do my best I don’t think this gap is something that I can completely fill by myself, so I would really appreciate everyone's help.

Now then, I'd like you all to tell me what you would like me to focus on. Anything is fine.

However, I would like you to keep in mind and agree to the following:

Do not attack or flame others, including myself.
Be specific and concrete. We won't be able to accomplish anything if posts are unclear or full of attacks.
Instead of saying what you "don’t want," tell me what you "want."
Tell me what it is that YOU prefer. Not what your friends or linkshell members say, I want to hear from you specifically.


Please make your posts as a reply to this thread (I will also be taking into consideration the amount of "likes" each post receives). As a general rule, feedback should be posted in the appropriate thread, so once we collected enough post in this thread and after an appropriate amount of time, we'll close the thread. Also please limit replies to your opinions only and if you would like to discuss specific points, please utilize appropriate threads for each topic.

I will be doing my best to look over each and every post made. (Though, I am sure it will take some time…) Your opinions will definitely play a part in helping me fill in the gap from these past two years as well as for thinking about the future of FINAL FANTASY XI.

In addition to the work for currently scheduled version updates, there is also a lot of work to be done for the new expansion, "Seeker of Adoulin," so I don’t think there will be very many things we can do immediately and I’d like to apologize for that.

Also, I don’t believe it will be possible to have every single thing come to fruition, due to the fact that there may be content that is contradictory or things that no matter how hard we try it is just not feasible.

I will first be making sure that I accurately understand what you would like and then will determine if it is possible or not, and assign a priority level to it. I will be sharing this with you all and making it so together we can see the picture of how FINAL FANTASY XI will change going forward. I feel this is something the community needs and though it might not be quite so easy, it is a method I would like to adopt.

Thank you very much!

I’d like to share a message from Producer Akihiko Matsui:

I declare bump!

[Zhronne]

I think Matsui wants us to put all these ideas into the thread he opened though. Byrth why don't you sum up your initial post and post it there on that thread? Also putting a link to this thread for further and more detailed explanation.

[Clou777]

i think there should be a quest after everything has been merited which allows you to merit the character stats after a LOT of merits have been gained and would have a relic/mythic/empyrean type feel to it, for example: each 5000 merits will gain you an extra merit into say 10HP, 10MP, 1 STR, 1 DEX, 1 VIT etc so there would be almost no end to how much you can power up your character over a very long time

[Clou777]

maybe one day will have some dragon ball z fan saying "HIS HP.... ITS OVER 9000 !!!"

[Nala]

think a galka mnk or pld/mnk with HP atmas can break 9k <.<

[Demon6324236]

think a galka mnk or pld/mnk with HP atmas can break 9k <.<

Galka + MNK + HP% Gear + HP Atma = Win

[Daniel_Hatcher]

I think Matsui wants us to put all these ideas into the thread he opened though. Byrth why don't you sum up your initial post and post it there on that thread? Also putting a link to this thread for further and more detailed explanation.

Just copy paste it I know I'll like.

[Nala]

IT'S OVER 9000!! i remember seeing some Galka pld toying around with a max hp build and excalibur pretty sure he was rocking 8k, same video or at least same galka did it on mnk too defiantly broke it without brewing!

That said back on topic please reconsider dev bros.

[Raksha]

think a galka mnk or pld/mnk with HP atmas can break 9k <.<


http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/2647/hpabyss.jpg

[Lisotte]

Personally I think it's a terrible idea.

I main pup, all the goodies I get go into pup, I love the job.

But... rarely do I get to do events as pup. At least currently I can play another job for events, but if they were to uncap merits I'd be SOL.

[Arcon]

But... rarely do I get to do events as pup. At least currently I can play another job for events, but if they were to uncap merits I'd be SOL.

Maybe it's because I just woke up and am still semi-drunk from last night, but I honestly don't see how that would hurt you. How would you be unable to go as PUP if merits category caps were removed?

[Trisscar]

Maybe it's because I just woke up and am still semi-drunk from last night, but I honestly don't see how that would hurt you. How would you be unable to go as PUP if merits category caps were removed?

I would like to know this as well.

[Trisscar]

Here's a thought. Have merits set for individual jobs instead of all at once.

For example, you have a player named Samwell. He plays White Mage, Paladin and Monk. When he he changes to White Mage, his merits change to where his MP, eminity down, staff and club skills (as well as the merit weapon skills) are maxed. He changes to Monk and his HP, H2H and club skills (again, as well as the merit weapon skills) are maxed. He changes to Paladin and his eminity up is maxed, his HP/MP are equaly merited, and his Sword, Club, and Staff skills (as well as WS) are maxed.

[Kristal]

Here's a thought. Have merits set for individual jobs instead of all at once.

For example, you have a player named Samwell. He plays White Mage, Paladin and Monk. When he he changes to White Mage, his merits change to where his MP, eminity down, staff and club skills (as well as the merit weapon skills) are maxed. He changes to Monk and his HP, H2H and club skills (again, as well as the merit weapon skills) are maxed. He changes to Paladin and his eminity up is maxed, his HP/MP are equaly merited, and his Sword, Club, and Staff skills (as well as WS) are maxed.

That's the same as removing category caps... except for the Enmity+/- merits, but enmity is broken anyway so if you still have those lolRDM will laugh at you!

[SpankWustler]

Personally I think it's a terrible idea.

I main pup, all the goodies I get go into pup, I love the job.

But... rarely do I get to do events as pup. At least currently I can play another job for events, but if they were to uncap merits I'd be SOL.

I assume you're referring to the weaponskill merits, since those are the only merits that differ drastically from one job to the next.

I can not imagine a combination of three weaponskills that would make Puppetmaster more or less valid in any situation. At best, the job is coming out ahead rather than behind other "light" or "utility" melee jobs because Shijin Spiral is pretty decent and Requiscat or Extenerator are completely absent, but still doing the same things in the same general tier.

Your pet that can't receive outside buffs still sucks in the situations where pure-damage melee perform best, and you still have two weapon-skills left over after Shijin Spiral.

I going to join the "I don't get it!" club. Are you guys serving pie? Do we have punch? Should I bring a pie?

[Smeggles]

What is worse is the cap on the Weapon Skill Merits. (I completely support a full uncap Byrth, and you have all of my +"Like")

I currently play THF and DRK. I have Exenterator, Entropy and Resolution. I now cannot play any other job because I won't have the weaponskill for it. My BST can't use Ruinator, my BLU can't use Requiescat, My THF can't use Last Stand etc.

Why can I get EVERY Mythic Weapon Skill in the game, but I can't merit each of the merit weapon skills?

I want to play my other jobs, but having to get 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 Merits to cap a weapon skill and then tha same to change it back just to play a job for a day is retarded.

[Demon6324236]

Hmm~ since others are bumping threads they like, I guess Ill bump this one as well... bump.

[Demon6324236]

137 Likes people come on! SE why cant we have this!?

[Nala]

Because they are taking their time to come up with a more plausible BS answer that we cant defraud in .25 seconds of them making.

[Yinnyth]

Fellow posters, I challenge you. Come up with a situation where the above proposed change would alter the way we do any event. Where it would make something noticeably easier. Where it would affect the "balance" of anything. Try!

Corsair. Rolls are like a minigame. Full merits in everything makes it so snake-eye has a 50% chance to force XI. With AF2+2+aug, you have a 20% chance of it not using the recast timer. If you bust, your bust duration is cut by 50 seconds, though you could just fold, giving you a 50% chance to reset random deal. Random deal with AF2+2+aug never fails to reset at least 1 JA, and has a chance to restore a second JA. Once you get good rolls up, winning streak with AF2+2+aug gives you an extra 2 minutes and 10 seconds of duration. Scrambling to put rolls on becomes much easier because your phantom roll recast would be decreased by 10 seconds.

All in all, it makes it too easy to keep good rolls on. I play corsair a lot more than I play bard lately. I enjoy becoming more powerful as a character. However, I'm completely willing to admit when me gaining strength becomes unbalancing to the game.

Many merit options are almost completely worthless, you are correct about that. I would rather see those options made as useful as their counterparts than have us given access to everything all the time. Either that, or make it so it's possible to buy all the merits you want, but you only get to equip the same number of merits before leaving the mog house. Because enmity +5 and -5 say hi.

[Komori]

You can achieve something in a smaller amount of actions that you would have just forced the game to give you anyway? That's overpowered?

[Yinnyth]

Please go into more detail. How do you force the game to give you quadruple XIs, and how much time does your party spend with only 1 or 0 rolls on waiting for you to accomplish this goal? How does full merits in all of COR's job-specific merits not make this substantially easier, particularly if you happen to have full AF2+2+aug?

You seem to operate on the assumption that corsairs are always as good as their best roll. You've gotta know when to hold them and when to fold them. That's part of the job. If I had full merits in all categories, I could vastly improve the average effectiveness of my corsair's buffs. Admittedly, other jobs would not benefit as much as corsair (like... all my other jobs.) He wanted one example though, and I gave him one.

Also:

You can achieve something in a smaller amount of actions that you would have just forced the game to give you anyway? That's overpowered?
There are limits to how easy you(I mean you in the direct sense, not the abstract sense) want to make things as well. You are welcome to your opinions, but that is all they are. Opinions. You think 5/5 on all COR job merits is not overpowered? You're welcome to your opinion.

However, let's say this change actually happens. How many threads do you think would be created based around "Job A got jack squat from this change while Job B gets too much love YET AGAIN!!! ZOMG, BARANCE!" if these changes were implemented? Some jobs would benefit more than others, and that would have to be taken into consideration.

It is still my opinion that it is better to improve the unused merit abilities than to give us all the merit abilities all the time. I prefer diversity to uniformity.

[Seha]

There's no diversity anyway as merits are pretty cut and dry...and wtf cor merits too overpowered? Really? Out of all jobs? Please.

[Byrth]

COR merits are nice, but I don't think hitting 11s slightly more frequently/with less annoyance or having your rolls last longer is really that overpowered. If anything, the annoyance that is buffing on COR is a major problem with the job and should be fixed. I hate waiting a minute and a half for COR to provide their inconsistent buffs (assuming no re-rolls) when a BRD can apply four equally strong or stronger buffs in half the time.

[Pebe]

I kind of agree about the cor rolls being overpowered. There is a HUGE difference between not having 11 chaos and fighters and having them. The interesting thing about cor merits is that there is a choice: More frequent 11s vs. Longer duration rolls. Insert really annoying balance comment here.

Another example is sch.
I have 5/5 Focalization merits, 1/5 enlightenment and 4/5 stormsurge. Let me tell you this, 5/5 focalization is pretty much like elemental seal on a charge. It is massive macc+. The sacrifice you have to make for it though is either stormsurge or equanimity(spelling). Equanimity itself is also overpowered, I believe its full effect is -50 enmity that breaks the cap(not sure about this, haven’t looked into it in a while. Now imagine uncapping all merits: SCH not only gets an elemental seal that works on both light arts and dark arts, they also get access to extremely potent enmity- abilities. People may say such things may not matter now in a time of when everything is zerged, but thinking to the future of SoA we need to be careful. People forget how powerful sch’s 2hr was before embrava, because embrava overshadows everything. In 60 seconds schs could pull out 10 extremely potent, mp efficient, quick casting, accurate nukes(focalization). Toss on equanimity and they become hateless, not to mention now sch has three mins to go bat crazy nuking with this 2hr. IMO, tabula rasa is far more potent than manafont and chainspell. But now I’m going on a tangent. Oh and equanimity pretty much make the tranquil heart tiers irrelevant imo.

Even though I’m debating it, I still would vote for yes to uncapping the merit point categories. Bepe needs some shattersoul for his soon be finished claustrum :P.

[Raksha]

Tranquil Heart only affects healing magic.

Yeah with all of the other changes SCH 2hr would be retarded with 5/5 in all merit categories, but let's get real here.

Blm can nuke nuke nuke convert nuke nuke nuke while keeping mana wall up then enmity douse to shed all of their hate every 10 minutes.

The only edge SCH would have in that regard is maybe some extra macc and and the alacrity bonus (and i've always maintained that alacrity is the strongest stratagem SCH has)


maxing all of SCH merits would be a substantial bonus, don't get me wrong, but I dont think it'd be overpowered.

[Nightfox]

I have a simple suggestion that would help the game, would not be difficult to implement, and would not cause any serious balance issues.

Remove all the merit point category caps.

(Category Caps are the limits on a group of merits. So the category cap for Tier 1 merits is 10. The category cap for Combat Skills is 30, etc.)


A. Will this cause balance issues?
No, because:
1) The strongest players pick one of their jobs and merit for it.
2) If they are perfectly merited for one job, it presents the biggest balance threat when given more merits because you have to assume that they would be on that job in situations that require high performance, the hardest events.
3) If they are perfectly merited for one job, any future merits that they obtain from having the cap increased will necessarily be less valuable to their job than the ones they already have.
4) Optimally-merited jobs barely benefit from increasing the caps.

Example:
Warrior is in some ways the greatest threat for this kind of adjustment because they are so versatile, so the limitation on combat skills/stats stands to benefit them the most. Still, what happens if you uncap a perfectly merited WAR?
- They gain 12 DEX and VIT.
- Their Warcry and Aggressor recasts drops 50 seconds.
- Instead of meriting three of Upheaval, Resolution, Ruinator, and Stardiver, now they can merit all four.
- They gain 14-15 accuracy (0-8% hit rate) with some of their proc weapons.

So you have barely made Warrior stronger. The other jobs benefit even less than this. Plus, at a time when people complain about the difficulty of events (like Legion, Provenance Watcher, etc.) this gives them an opportunity to help themselves. I mean, what do you want our failure rate to be on these events? Is it really too low at the moment?



B. Why should we do it?
1) This will give players nearly-unlimited potential for character growth. - It would take 6706 merits to cap out. Players currently have ~2000 or less. Even with an epeening "I get 250k/hr" Abyssea party, it would still take them almost 80 rl 24-hour days to cap out from 2000 merits.

2) A limiting merit system has always been the antithesis of the job system. - One of the major draws to FFXI is that the game lets you play through with only one character, which you are free to become attached to. There are certainly times when you need to change your role, and the job system accommodates that. It is silly to suddenly reverse this at the level cap, which is where players spend almost all of their time these days. When the cap was at level 75, you go 1 to 75 as a Red Mage playing however was convenient in any type of party, but Tier 2 merits forced you to decide whether you wanted to use your Red Mage to solo or do Salvage.

3) Programming-wise, this almost has to be possible and reasonable. - The category caps have been increased before several times. You could either remove them from the interface (clean) or increase them to the maximum amount (dirty but definitely possible).

4) At a time when content is sparse, this would give a much-needed boost to activity. - People want to play, but don't have anything that they can do to improve their character. This would make it so there is almost always something they can do.

5) Increased participation in events/systems that yield XP. - More people would do Grounds of Valor. More people would do Campaign. More people would do Besieged. More people would do Dominion Ops. More people would do Voidwatch. etc. If you increase the incentives, you increase the odds that people will partake in an event. Giving XP value serves as an incentive.

6) It would stop well-intentioned and dedicated players from making bad decisions. - There is nothing more disappointing than seeing someone with a relic, mythic, empyrean, etc. that obviously cares about their job and then discovering that they have merited in a very inefficient way. If you eliminated the merit category caps, people would cap all of the relevant merits for the job they love and this would simply not happen.




Fellow posters, I challenge you. Come up with a situation where the above proposed change would alter the way we do any event. Where it would make something noticeably easier. Where it would affect the "balance" of anything. Try!

I agree with this. /like

[Crimson_Slasher]

Got my support, if nothing else, than for merit ws. Because frankly while many other jobs can get by atleast halfway with something else, Sam cant pass up shoha... I dont even have shoha at the moment but if i plan to level my sam past 78 ill need to demerit Resolution(Not happening) Entropy(Nope) Or Requiscat(Hard choice but have to sacrafice...) to get it. Sucks for me because rather than having the choice to pick the ones i like, some are too essential and like other merits, are unlikely to be taken up for other, more deserving options.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Do like blizzard just did for D3. Stubournly stick to the point that you'll never increase any "levels" because you want to maintain the dificulty of the end game content. Then add 100 paragon levels without warning.
To that point, you could add an system that allows you to add more value to your base stats via an etreme ammount of XP. Say you set yourself to "XP your str." You would then need, I don't know, 1,000,000xp to permantly earn 1 point of str and then 1,250,000xp to get a second point. So on and so on until you reach that stat's XP cap.

[Nightfox]

I hope the dev team takes this into consideration, granted the amount of likes and post count, there are obviously alot that want this done. There have been multiple times I have de-merited just to put merits into something else because of caps. 5/5 Resolution > Tachi: Shoha > Shijin Spiral > Ruinator > Upheaval > Blade:Shun > Requiescat > and now Stardiver. Each weapon skill is useful and most are EXPECTED to be merited in many event and personal situations. And no, "get an empyrean weapon" does not solve this, lol. A sam without Shoha, a drk without Resolution, drg without Stardiver, etc. are barely accepted these days. The same applies to combat skills and stats, mostly everyone puts merits into STR and DEX, including myself. I'm constantly stuck with 30/30 merits and come up with excuses to merit something else when the plain fact is: "Merit caps need to go".

[Demon6324236]

You act as though likes make a difference. Its as simple as this, the idea came from a player, the end, not happening most likely. The fact it goes against what they always say about Merits, its not gonna happen sadly.

[Nightfox]

You act as though likes make a difference. Its as simple as this, the idea came from a player, the end, not happening most likely. The fact it goes against what they always say about Merits, its not gonna happen sadly.

I agree with you that they have shunned a lot of player base suggestions. However, I believe if a thread is kept alive and voted for by many, it will become more easily accepted for debate at least by the Dev. team. I only ask that they read some of the players experience and think more into the possibilities of a suggestion rather than dropping the "No" answer of the bat. I want to see exactly how free meriting will be unbalanced, not told. Let it be implemented on the test server perhaps to see how it affects gameplay and what players think of its addition.

[Kristal]

Uncapping some or all merit categories would require a good look at every single merit, and if they are doing that they could just as well rework the whole merit system. Looking at you, Enmity and RDM merits.

[detlef]

Uncapping some or all merit categories would require a good look at every single meritCare to explain?

[Raksha]

Uncapping some or all merit categories would require a good look at every single merit, and if they are doing that they could just as well rework the whole merit system. Looking at you, Enmity and RDM merits.

Well if you assume that the majority of players arent totally retarded, then they are already meritting the most beneficial stuff already. This means that uncapping all of the merit point categories would only allow you to use all the stuff that wasnt good enough to merit in the first place.

I highly doubt that would be game breaking.

[Babekeke]

Well if you assume that the majority of players arent totally retarded, then they are already meritting the most beneficial stuff already. This means that uncapping all of the merit point categories would only allow you to use all the stuff that wasnt good enough to merit in the first place.

I highly doubt that would be game breaking.

No, it means that you don't have to merit for just a handful of jobs, you can merit everything for every job. Everyone becomes the same, with fully merited everything. No longer are there a few elite taru BLMs with INT merited, because everyone can merit int, as well as str dex for melee jobs, agi for ranged/eva jobs, and vit for tanking, mnd for enfeeb potency/cures.

No longer are there a few elite brds with just singing/wind/string merited, because the BLM mains will eventually also have them merited, even though they may only rarely use brd.

No longer would you just merit the weapons your main job uses, because you'd merit them all. So there's no longer as much gap between a war main, and a thf main that's just using war because noone wants thf for PW, etc.

Especially now you don't need to be good at a job to get elitist weapons. It's no longer unheard of for people to have multiple relics, and empys. Many people own an empy for a job that they wouldn't consider their main, and probably haven't merited that skill.

Good thing? idk, maybe. maybe not. Would make the game boring though I think, if there was no longer a choice, just an eventuality.

[Nightfox]

No, it means that you don't have to merit for just a handful of jobs, you can merit everything for every job. Everyone becomes the same, with fully merited everything. No longer are there a few elite taru BLMs with INT merited, because everyone can merit int, as well as str dex for melee jobs, agi for ranged/eva jobs, and vit for tanking, mnd for enfeeb potency/cures.

No longer are there a few elite brds with just singing/wind/string merited, because the BLM mains will eventually also have them merited, even though they may only rarely use brd.

No longer would you just merit the weapons your main job uses, because you'd merit them all. So there's no longer as much gap between a war main, and a thf main that's just using war because noone wants thf for PW, etc.

Especially now you don't need to be good at a job to get elitist weapons. It's no longer unheard of for people to have multiple relics, and empys. Many people own an empy for a job that they wouldn't consider their main, and probably haven't merited that skill.

Good thing? idk, maybe. maybe not. Would make the game boring though I think, if there was no longer a choice, just an eventuality.

A valid point, though it will take a mass amount of time to cap everything, many people will be the same. At the very least, I hope for attribute, combat/magic skills, other, and weapon skills to be uncapped. Job specific merits I wouldn't mind being unique. This is my personal opinion though, I'd rather have everything uncapped to be honest.

[Babekeke]

If they were all uncapped, there might as well not be a merit system.

[Demon6324236]

Well to be honest, I hate the merit system for the most part, it mainly allows you to grow your character in extra ways after 75, which is nice but in the end pointless because there are few things people will really merit in the end. I mean if you melee, you probably use STR/DEX, others are not as important really, if you pick skills, you only pick ones for certain jobs & leave the rest. Most jobs have certain merits worth meriting, and the rest are just bleh, no one merits certain ones like Aggressive Aim, which goto waste.

[Sapphires]

If they were all uncapped, there might as well not be a merit system.
While I mostly agree with you, I would really like a slight bump in the number of ws merits so I could have 1 point in everything and have the existing option to 5/5 3 weaponskills.
I know some weaponskills are utterly worthless unless they are 5/5'd, it bugs me to no end that I dont have the ability to do all ws for every job leveled.

As it stands, forever 5/5 Last Stand/Resolution/Exenterator for life I guess

[Rekin]

If they were all uncapped, there might as well not be a merit system.

Might as well just give the most used merited JAs/JTs/spells as something natural to the jobs and nothing will have changed if the merit system was removed. As already mentioned even in the OP people who merit efficiency over novelty will already have merited the worthwhile stuff. As for stats just increase the base growth for jobs on some stats and natively have crit+5% to any melee job and enmity+ to pld/nin/mnk/war and have enmity- on all mage jobs aside blu. To offset the loss of weapon skill levels just increase skill caps and for wses just have them gained naturally at full power at 99 for the jobs that can already use them.

Do all the above and with the removal of the merit system will be doable with no ramifications. The unused abilities will be deleted and no one will care at all.

[Lokithor]

Uncapping merits would do nothing to affect game balance. Uncapping would, however, create content for those who've already capped. If SE were to move in that direction, it would be deliberately slow to stretch out the content lure to maintain subscriptions.

One of the major things that differentiates FFXI from other MMORPGs is your ability to play all game jobs. You are never forced to choose - except when it comes to merits. To me, that is a bit inconsistent.

[Taint2]

They atleast need to loosen up the restrictions.

3 WSs is terrible, 5 should be the min with 7-8 being preferred. As said a few times certain WSs are MUST HAVES for their jobs which limits the entire system.

The other categories that need some flexibility are Combat and Magic, just open it up so we aren't pinned down to just a couple weapons/magic types.

[detlef]

No longer are there a few elite brds with just singing/wind/string merited, because the BLM mains will eventually also have them merited, even though they may only rarely use brd.
Yes, that BRD was me. Was. Then I had to merit enhancing for SCH. And I had to become a little worse on BRD so I could become much, much better on SCH. Why should I have had to do that?

[Byrth]

Well, this thread is now 4 pages long and the OP has received 167 Likes, so I read the responses and edited it slightly to include a common request (higher storage cap) and deleted point B6 because it was petty. This seems to be an idea that resonated with a lot of players, especially considering the pretty incredible ratio of likes to posts in the thread.

Looking over the thread, I'd say that the most popular reason for uncapping is B4 and the most common counterpoint to raised issues are the explanation in A and B1. I haven't read any posts that don't have a counterpoint already contained in the OP.



Let me briefly go over how I see the uncapped merit system working in practice for myself, at least.

First, I care primarily about two jobs at the moment, Dancer and Warrior. Were the system totally uncapped, I would merit things in approximately the following order:
(1) Warcry Recast, Aggressor Recast, Warrior's Charge, Fan Dance, and Closed Position - 96 merits
(2) CHR, AGI, and VIT - 387 merits
(3) Spell Interruption Rate, Upheaval, useful merits for other jobs (like INT, etc.)
(4) All the rest of the merits

The only merits that provide a measurable boost to my performance in some situations are the number (1) Merits. Number (2) merits might improve my performance in some situations, but honestly not very much. Number (3) merits are more for novelty. I would only actively acquire the first 96 merits because intentionally gaining XP past that is a waste of time given my interests. That said, I would expect to continue acquiring these merits because many events yield XP, sometimes I'm bored and want something productive to do (like Campaign), etc.

So in practice you'll note that the specialization argument (like this (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/24269-byr1001-Uncapping-the-Merit-Point-Categories?p=328075&viewfull=1#post328075) or this (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/24269-byr1001-Uncapping-the-Merit-Point-Categories?p=333736&viewfull=1#post333736)or this (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/24269-byr1001-Uncapping-the-Merit-Point-Categories?p=375067&viewfull=1#post375067)) doesn't really work. I am not going to run out and merit all of my jobs absolutely to the cap, because I don't care about my other jobs. If I could choose between capping Charisma for Waltz and meriting my Ranger at all, I'd cap Charisma and leave my RNG meritless. Uncapping the system leads to more specialization, not less. My RNG only has merits because I couldn't spend them on something I care about and I earned them anyway doing Abyssea and Voidwatch. Also, guess what? It has the same merits as every other Ranger.


When I made the OP, I was using my BLM, SMN, BST, THF, DNC, and WAR regularly. Lately I've been using SCH, DNC, THF, and WAR. I dropped my Axe merits (99 Double Attack Axe is sad Q.Q) in favor of GS Skill and Ruinator for Resolution when I got Ragnarok to 99, and as a result I retired my Beastmaster. Similarly, I dropped my Elemental and Summoning merits so I could merit Enhancing and Dark Magic for Scholar. As a result (and also because of inventory), I retired my BLM and SMN.

I now have 15 level 99 jobs, all of which have capped Tier 1 and Tier 2 merits and 8 of which are geared well, but only 4 of which I use at least partially due to merit limitations. Uncapping the merit levels would not necessarily reduce specialization, but it would let me spend 121 merits so I can use my Beastmaster again without shame. I hate exclusively using Galeon as a proc Axe on WAR.

[Doombringer]

argument still feels strong, would like again.

[MarkovChain]

I have a simple suggestion that would help the game, would not be difficult to implement, and would not cause any serious balance issues.

Remove all the merit point category caps.
Please let us hold more merits as well ; ;

(Category Caps are the limits on a group of merits. So the category cap for Tier 1 merits is 10. The category cap for Combat Skills is 30, etc.)


A. Will this cause balance issues?
No, because:
1) The strongest players pick one of their jobs and merit for it.
2) If they are perfectly merited for one job, it presents the biggest balance threat when given more merits because you have to assume that they would be on that job in situations that require high performance, the hardest events.
3) If they are perfectly merited for one job, any future merits that they obtain from having the cap increased will necessarily be less valuable to their job than the ones they already have.
4) Optimally-merited jobs barely benefit from increasing the caps.

Example:
Warrior is in some ways the greatest threat for this kind of adjustment because they are so versatile, so the limitation on combat skills/stats stands to benefit them the most. Still, what happens if you uncap a perfectly merited WAR?
- They gain 12 DEX and VIT.
- Their Warcry and Aggressor recasts drops 50 seconds.
- Instead of meriting three of Upheaval, Resolution, Ruinator, and Stardiver, now they can merit all four.
- They gain 14-15 accuracy (0-8% hit rate) with some of their proc weapons.

So you have barely made Warrior stronger. The other jobs benefit even less than this. Plus, at a time when people complain about the difficulty of events (like Legion, Provenance Watcher, etc.) this gives them an opportunity to help themselves. I mean, what do you want our failure rate to be on these events? Is it really too low at the moment?



B. Why should we do it?
1) This will give players nearly-unlimited potential for character growth. - It would take 6706 merits to cap out. Players currently have ~2000 or less. Even with an epeening "I get 250k/hr" Abyssea party, it would still take them almost 80 rl 24-hour days to cap out from 2000 merits.

2) A limiting merit system has always been the antithesis of the job system. - One of the major draws to FFXI is that the game lets you play through with only one character, which you are free to become attached to. There are certainly times when you need to change your role, and the job system accommodates that. It is silly to suddenly reverse this at the level cap, which is where players spend almost all of their time these days. When the cap was at level 75, you go 1 to 75 as a Red Mage playing however was convenient in any type of party, but Tier 2 merits forced you to decide whether you wanted to use your Red Mage to solo or do Salvage.

3) Programming-wise, this almost has to be possible and reasonable. - The category caps have been increased before several times. You could either remove them from the interface (clean) or increase them to the maximum amount (dirty but definitely possible).

4) At a time when content is sparse, this would give a much-needed boost to activity. - People want to play, but don't have anything that they can do to improve their character. This would make it so there is almost always something they can do.

5) Increased participation in events/systems that yield XP. - More people would do Grounds of Valor. More people would do Campaign. More people would do Besieged. More people would do Dominion Ops. More people would do Voidwatch. etc. If you increase the incentives, you increase the odds that people will partake in an event. Giving XP value serves as an incentive.





Fellow posters, I challenge you. Come up with a situation where the above proposed change would alter the way we do any event. Where it would make something noticeably easier. Where it would affect the "balance" of anything. Try!

This sounds retarded TBH. I know plenty of players waste their time leveling useless jobs to 99, but really. Let those players max their merit but please don't suggest the dev to let us waste our playtime doing "exp". We need something else than abyssea. If you want to make differences between players allow for a new kind of merit system farmed with upcoming content points. Legion wouldn't be fail if, for instance, the point would be used to upgrade stats. You know very well that abyssea is botted to hell, and people ("some people") would end up getting PL bots and let their char all day gathering the exp (if you allow for more meirt point cap). I mean it's time to evolve, merits are from the past. Some random thoughts :

food "upgrades" : granted x or y bonus when using food. For instance do a job trait so that when I play SMN, I'm getting pet accuracy when using a given food. The merits are earned by collecting exp in neo salvage.

party "upgrades" : grants various bonus (infinte possibilities) when teaming up with other : double attack, crit, TH ...


My point is, if you want to establish a new hierarchy between players you need to get aways from abyssea and exp spam. We've seen how it ended up with cruor farming. SE needs to put in place a system that prevents players from spamming without being as cock blocking as some events.

[Damane]

This sounds retarded TBH. I know plenty of players waste their time leveling useless jobs to 99, but really. Let those players max their merit but please don't suggest the dev to let us waste our playtime doing "exp". We need something else than abyssea. If you want to make differences between players allow for a new kind of merit system farmed with upcoming content points. Legion wouldn't be fail if, for instance, the point would be used to upgrade stats. You know very well that abyssea is botted to hell, and people ("some people") would end up getting PL bots and let their char all day gathering the exp (if you allow for more meirt point cap). I mean it's time to evolve, merits are from the past. Some random thoughts :

food "upgrades" : granted x or y bonus when using food. For instance do a job trait so that when I play SMN, I'm getting pet accuracy when using a given food. The merits are earned by collecting exp in neo salvage.

party "upgrades" : grants various bonus (infinte possibilities) when teaming up with other : double attack, crit, TH ...


My point is, if you want to establish a new hierarchy between players you need to get aways from abyssea and exp spam. We've seen how it ended up with cruor farming. SE needs to put in place a system that prevents players from spamming without being as cock blocking as some events.

seriously dont know what you are doing wrong, but I got all jobs to 99 (-DRG) and capped all merits while doing VW, some exp pts, and casual stuff. So yeah if I ever get DRG up to 99 (if I ever want) and get those merits capped by doing random shit like VW, dynamis, etc. what next? Sit on capped merits? I am throwing out merits on jobs atm I dont even play! because my main jobs merits have reached their limits!

[Yinnyth]

I like the idea of more diversity from one character to the next, not less. Couldn't they just fix merits so the ones that never get used are more appealing instead?

[Zagen]

I like the idea of more diversity from one character to the next, not less. Couldn't they just fix merits so the ones that never get used are more appealing instead?
Like give Bio 3 Defense Down instead of Attack Down? Because seriously for a lot of Tier 1 and 2 merits that's the kind of changes that would need to happen. There are a few exceptions but for the most part the useless merits need huge buffs and at that point they'd become the "more appealing" ones.

The game has far passed it's era of specializing in 1 job in a certain way, that ideal is a dead horse and SE has a bat.

[MarkovChain]

seriously dont know what you are doing wrong, but I got all jobs to 99 (-DRG) and capped all merits while doing VW, some exp pts, and casual stuff. So yeah if I ever get DRG up to 99 (if I ever want) and get those merits capped by doing random shit like VW, dynamis, etc. what next? Sit on capped merits? I am throwing out merits on jobs atm I dont even play! because my main jobs merits have reached their limits!

Ok bro so you are the kind of player to level all job, and all you can do is exp every job, we got it. The real players want event to make their main job progress (gear or new merits-type progression). Do I need to pull the chart of what job sucks and what job doesn't suck ? You leveled every job and don't use any lol, faceplam. Allowing my monk to caps its CHR wooot ? Since you guys like achieving useless things why don't you cap AF2+2 on every job ? I mean it's certainly better of an upgrade than the ability to cap your VIT. I think too many people have been used to the cokcblocking-less grind fest that was abyssea. EXP or MERIT no longer have value, that's why allowing for more merit wouldn't introduce character diversity.

[Demon6324236]

Any capped progression system will never really have diversity. If you choose 2 out of 4 abilities for a job then you will choose the 2 best, and leave the others. If you choose 3 of 14 WSs you will choose the 3 that benefit you as a player, not necessarily the jobs you like. I think any capped thing, especially between all jobs, would be bad just because then people would go more for efficiency than for actual preference, like many do now if they play unpopular jobs like PUP, RDM, or DRG, when it comes to WS merits.

[Kincard]

Funny thing about the WS Merits is that you're more likely to use it for jobs that arn't your favorite because you lack a good weapon for that job. EX: My favorite job is NIN, but there's no reason for me to get Shun because Blade: Hi will outdo it in just about every situation factoring in AM. It would be more beneficial if I used my limited WS slots to instead upgrade my other jobs which I didn't bother spending an absurd amount of time 99-ing a REM weapon for.

Granted, I have Shun merited anyway because I'm NIN-crazy, but that's beside the point.

[Mirage]

Any capped progression system will never really have diversity. If you choose 2 out of 4 abilities for a job then you will choose the 2 best, and leave the others. If you choose 3 of 14 WSs you will choose the 3 that benefit you as a player, not necessarily the jobs you like. I think any capped thing, especially between all jobs, would be bad just because then people would go more for efficiency than for actual preference, like many do now if they play unpopular jobs like PUP, RDM, or DRG, when it comes to WS merits.
Any uncapped progression system will never really have diversity either, in the end.

Anyway, it is possible to have diversity in a capped system if the different abilities you have to choose between are actually powerful for entirely different reasons. If you have 5 merits and every single one of them is directly related to increasing your damage output, the choice isn't really a choice, but a calculation.

If you have some merits that increase damage output, and others that increase an entirely different aspect of your job than damage dealing, and you had to choose between this and additional damage dealing, then it comes down to actual choice based on what you want to do with your job.

I think the biggest issue with the current merits is simply that so many of them are really poorly thought through, and underpowered compared to other merits in the current state of the game. That's why there is so little diversity.

That being said, I'm definitely not against a very huge increase in the total amount of spendable merit points, I just don't think completely uncapping everything is necessary, and that it would just lead to a more boring game. I'd rather merits were actual choices, which requires SE to actually rebalance a lot of them.

[Taint2]

Ok bro so you are the kind of player to level all job, and all you can do is exp every job, we got it. The real players want event to make their main job progress (gear or new merits-type progression). Do I need to pull the chart of what job sucks and what job doesn't suck ? You leveled every job and don't use any lol, faceplam. Allowing my monk to caps its CHR wooot ? Since you guys like achieving useless things why don't you cap AF2+2 on every job ? I mean it's certainly better of an upgrade than the ability to cap your VIT. I think too many people have been used to the cokcblocking-less grind fest that was abyssea. EXP or MERIT no longer have value, that's why allowing for more merit wouldn't introduce character diversity.



The problem is the limitations. I play 5 DDs jobs: MNK,WAR,DRK,SAM,RNG all have their uses in endgame but I'm extremely limited in what I can merit. SAM has to have Shoha, WAR/DRK have to Resolution, MNK has to have H2H merits. Now I'm stuck filling in the rest or stuck gimping a job.

As players like myself get more and more capped on everything we have almost nothing left to work for.
I would finish Spharai tomorrow but I have zero merits left for SS which would gimp the weapon. Same goes for Mandau, Anni and Excal. All of which you need their merited WSs or you are gimping them.

[Kincard]

I'm not sure I understand what MarkovChain's objection to the OP is given that he actually agrees with him. He says that uncapping merits is pointless because it will barely affect players based on the fact that capping VIT or CHR is worthless...which is exactly what the OP's point is, that removing the caps affects nothing enough to warrant the existing limitations in the first place. It's adding something for players to do with their merits instead of just sitting on them all the time, and it can add some stuff for players to do in their offtime when they're not running events with their linkshells or whatever.

The great thing is what he suggests as an alternative. Instead of grinding xp in Abyssea, why not grind xp in Neo Salvage instead! That'll really show how amazing of a player you are, killing massive amounts of fodder monsters in one entry limited area instead of killing massive amounts of fodder monsters in one entry limited area.

[MarkovChain]

Correct that would be awesome. If you want to make a difference between a good a gimp player you need to put barriers wether it is party size limitations, gil, or periodical duration. Otherwise you end up with abyssea exp-bot that are spamming LJ and at the end of the day everyone get the same things. I mean during abyssea rage you didn't see any job without their full AF3+2, didn't you ?

[Kincard]

If the boons of uncapped merits are as insignificant as you say, then it shouldn't matter to you if they do it because they're barely gaining anything out of it other than something to actually do in-game, and even from your perspective it's not like it would be taking away from your Afterglow accomplishments like AF3+2 did to a bunch of 75 gear. The point of the suggestion is that it's something easily done with almost no work on the part of the devs. I'm sure everyone would love a new merit system but that's not really point of the suggestion being made.

[Taint2]

It would stimulate the game some as well.

Sure some people will be mage botting their XP but others will actually have something to do. As it sits right now most people are sitting on 30/30 merits with nowhere to place them.

And MarkovChain has said most of the merits do next to nothing, but atleast the system woudl still be used.

[MarkovChain]

I don't want the game to be transformed into "spend 100 hours for 0.1% performance increase". Being "farm for 1% better performance" is already annoying enough ty. Like I said if you are bored you can always farm full AF2+2, but wait you actually need to do something for this unlike abyssea leeching/botting haha.

[Nala]

They atleast need to loosen up the restrictions.

3 WSs is terrible, 5 should be the min with 7-8 being preferred. As said a few times certain WSs are MUST HAVES for their jobs which limits the entire system.

The other categories that need some flexibility are Combat and Magic, just open it up so we aren't pinned down to just a couple weapons/magic types.

Why should these have been merited at all in the first place? why couldn't we just quest them like in the past? why couldn't the quests just require you to have merit points in addition to x item or objective instead.

Hell they want to add in time waisters, why dont they still make it so you have to do 5 quests that are long and involved to make these ws's fully upgraded?

And yes the merit system might as well not exist anyways there isnt enough diversity for most jobs/categories to really limit skill choices down. If the merit system were robust enough where your choices in them made the difference of a perle set war vs full endgame appropriate gear then yeah i'd be with the whole limits, as it stands though the merit system is not that critical to job performance in that there are no real choices as stated before, a war isnt going to merit aggressive aim, or int agi or vit.


Any capped progression system will never really have diversity. If you choose 2 out of 4 abilities for a job then you will choose the 2 best, and leave the others. If you choose 3 of 14 WSs you will choose the 3 that benefit you as a player, not necessarily the jobs you like. I think any capped thing, especially between all jobs, would be bad just because then people would go more for efficiency than for actual preference, like many do now if they play unpopular jobs like PUP, RDM, or DRG, when it comes to WS merits.

Here's an idea for all the snow flakes: capped mogslip storage capacity, each slip can only hold up to 5 full sets, must be of the same kind that way you have to pick and choose which 5 jobs you want to have empy gear, oh oh and then we can cap exp totals so that you can only level 3 jobs to 99 and the rest to 50 so you have to choose which 3 jobs you want to be max level that way every one is extra special. (only quoted you because i got the idea while reading your post)

[Yinnyth]

Here's an idea for all the snow flakes: capped mogslip storage capacity, each slip can only hold up to 5 full sets, must be of the same kind that way you have to pick and choose which 5 jobs you want to have empy gear, oh oh and then we can cap exp totals so that you can only level 3 jobs to 99 and the rest to 50 so you have to choose which 3 jobs you want to be max level that way every one is extra special.

Here's an idea for all the communists: remove all the jobs from the game. Everyone would become a mime instead. Mimes would have access to all the job traits, abilities, spells, HP, MP, attributes, skills, equipment, and merits, but you have to grind exp for 7 years to get all of it.

Yes, I know I'm glazing over the actual idea of what the OP is trying to accomplish by taking it to the extreme, and that's not how a person should look at the original suggestion. The original suggestion has been well thought out, and many people agree with the points raised. To a certain extent, I also agree. However, I would still rather have the merit system fixed and made into what it's supposed to be instead of watch it become a simple extension of leveling. I also believe it would affect game balance and job balance substantially more than its supporters believe.

[Nala]

Unless they added the ability to merit things that made substantial boosts to character performance no it would not.

Merits like Increase WS dmg x% would be in the same category as Elemental magic damage x% so you'd have to choose or something actually potent, as it stands with the merit system job specific there are only a handful of abilities you actually merit, if you merit anything beyond the ones that give the most benefit chances are you do not actually play nor care for that job.

The only other thing is base stats, of which the main benefit is not having to choose between STR DEX and INT, as VIT and CHR do little to make them more worthwhile merits over the other base stats. That said some of the best peices of gear in the game give up to +15 or more to a single or even several base stats at a time meaning capped stat merits are barely the equivalent of 1 peice of gear.

[Yinnyth]

The only other thing is base stats, of which the main benefit is not having to choose between STR DEX and INT, as VIT and CHR do little to make them more worthwhile merits over the other base stats. That said some of the best peices of gear in the game give up to +15 or more to a single or even several base stats at a time meaning capped stat merits are barely the equivalent of 1 peice of gear.

Those are a perfect example of how the merit system fails to live up to what it's supposed to be. If I want to be a good BLM, I need INT merits, and possibly MND merits if I ever use white magic debuffs. But then I'm screwed if I want to be a good SAM also.

My opinion is that merits should not force you to choose between which jobs you want to be good at. Instead, they should force you to choose what you want each job to be good at. If I had my way, you'd put merits into the attribute pool, then every job gets to choose its own attributes from that pool to be boosted. So I could choose CHR and VIT for my BRD, and DEX and AGI for my THF. Furthermore, I'd add secondary bonuses to each attribute to make the choice of attributes harder.

[Vagrua]

Limitations are annoying to progress.

[Demon6324236]

Any uncapped progression system will never really have diversity either, in the end.I know it wouldn't be, but then again thats kinda the point. I would rather no cap, which allows for no diversity via merits, rather than forced cap in the name of fake diversity which we currently have where everyone basically chooses the same ones anyways.

Basically, we know that right now the diversity thing doesn't really work, keeping the cap for diversity is kinda stupid, but if you remove it, you are only removing the cap, not gaining or removing diversity really & you give people more to do in the game as well as making xp parties more worth doing for players. If you look at places like Worm parties they are dying down, or at least on Phoenix it seems they are, they often run on only 6~12 people, making it harder for newer players to catch up, so doing this would mean players need xp again, people would go back to Abyssea, GoV, and other ways of leveling, making it easier for everyone to level because of it.

[Yinnyth]

Basically, we know that right now the diversity thing doesn't really work, keeping the cap for diversity is kinda stupid, but if you remove it, you are only removing the cap, not gaining or removing diversity really & you give people more to do in the game as well as making xp parties more worth doing for players. If you look at places like Worm parties they are dying down, or at least on Phoenix it seems they are, they often run on only 6~12 people, making it harder for newer players to catch up, so doing this would mean players need xp again, people would go back to Abyssea, GoV, and other ways of leveling, making it easier for everyone to level because of it.

Once you break the cap, putting it back on is a hundred times harder than keeping it on the whole time. To abandon the cap now, is to abandon forever the hope that they can be fixed.

[Demon6324236]

Thats when adding new categories with caps, or adding a new form of points, actually comes in & works well. Merits wouldn't have a cap but new ones could, and a new points system could, both of which would easily make a new form of merits with a cap and real choices!

[Damane]

Ok bro so you are the kind of player to level all job, and all you can do is exp every job, we got it. The real players want event to make their main job progress (gear or new merits-type progression). Do I need to pull the chart of what job sucks and what job doesn't suck ? You leveled every job and don't use any lol, faceplam. Allowing my monk to caps its CHR wooot ? Since you guys like achieving useless things why don't you cap AF2+2 on every job ? I mean it's certainly better of an upgrade than the ability to cap your VIT. I think too many people have been used to the cokcblocking-less grind fest that was abyssea. EXP or MERIT no longer have value, that's why allowing for more merit wouldn't introduce character diversity.

your comment makes no sense and absolutly missed my point, pls use your glow on another topic that comes out of your after.

[Yinnyth]

Thats when adding new categories with caps, or adding a new form of points, actually comes in & works well. Merits wouldn't have a cap but new ones could, and a new points system could, both of which would easily make a new form of merits with a cap and real choices!

Now there's a suggestion I actually like.

[FrankReynolds]

ARe people really still calling the ws merit cap a choice? It says cap right in the name. As in "Handicap". Not choice cap. It's a limitation to what you can do. Not an opportunity to do what you want.

A choice would be "Hey guys, we added all these ws's and you can merit as many as you want to their caps for the low price of 100,000,000 merit points. Choose wisely.".

That's obviously an exaggeration, but you get the point. Instead of setting the bar at a point where it was possible for you to merit them all, but unlikely that most people would actually do that (the smart way in my opinion), they set the bar where anyone could do it in a day and then capped them (the lazy way).

[Arcon]

The current merit system offers two choices: suck or don't suck. There is no customization aside from that. I don't see how anyone can defend that.

What FrankReynolds said sums it up quite nicely. If everything was uncapped, you would actually have to choose what you merit. I don't think people realize just how many merits it would require to cap everything. It's unrealistic that anyone would actually do everything. It would allow you to focus on what jobs you want to play, instead of just meriting everything the best way, which is what people do now.

If someone actually wants to sit through months of grinding EXP in Abyssea to cap everything, good for them. Then they actually deserve to have everything merited. Otherwise you'd have real specialization, unlike what you have now.

Even if the current system offered real customization, I would still be against it, because customization through limitations sucks. People should not be excluded from content based on their preference. Why should someone have to give up Aura Steal for Feint, or vice versa? This game was designed to allow people to play everything, that's why the job system is set up as it is. FFXI is literally the only game with classes I know which allows you to have multiple classes leveled and switch between them at will. Merits go against the entire design philosophy of the game, which happens to be a philosophy I'm attracted to.

I don't see why people value distinction so highly at all. It seems like a completely arbitrary desire.

[Tanama]

I completely agree with Byrth, Arcon and the rest of the people supporting this thread. They have all explained it a lot better than I would.

The development team would do us a great service by uncapping the merit point categories. Camate and company continually say that they take all suggestion into consideration, well here we are. The majority of us strongly believe in this change. Uncapping the merit point categories will not break this game in any way shape or form as explained by various posters in this thread.

177 'Likes' is a ton for the English Forum and that's not counting the other Likes from supporting posts on this thread.

Mr. Matsui, community members, development team, please make this happen!

[Raksha]

Someone should translate the op and post it to the JP forums with a link back here.

[Terasan]

Great idea for a change, Byrth, liked and wholeheartedly support the removal of unnecessary limitations like this. As it stands now, there's very little room for true customization and specialization due to terrible merit choices (job-specific merits) like many have said previously. This would open up a bit more room for true uniqueness, as many players would never touch the true depths of the merit system (Pchan not meriting CHR for his MNK, for example) but others would.

Removing, or even relaxing the caps on the merit system would reduce the amount of "cookie-cutter" builds we see, where for a certain job, it's x/5 this, x/5 that and must have this WS 5/5 or GTFO.

A thought I had, sort of in line with this, is instead of having the options laid out for us in the form of 4-8(?) merits per category per job, we could actually choose what we'd like to merit for each job, in sort of a tree-like structure (Merit such and such to unlock further upgrades but locked into that tree). Keeping unlockable spells/abilities intact of course, but for example:

WAR Merits, current (10 upgrades available for each area):
-Berserk, Defender, Warcry, Aggressor Recasts, Double Attack Rate
-WAR Charge, Tomahawk, Savagery, Agg. Aim effects.

WAR Merits, my suggestion (Separate trees for each JA, split to potency or recast):
-JA effects and recast (Including JAs like Retaliation, Blood Rage, etc); Choose one tree per JA, additional effects possible in each tree (Blood Rage re-adding a small crit damage increase, for example)
-DA Rate or damage increase
-Unlockable JAs/Trait changes (Warrior's Charge having the current Triple Attack chance or increased damage much like the AF2+2 legs augment)

Didn't really mean to hijack your post with my idea, Byrth, but wanted to show support for a change to the current merit system of some form, in order to promote even more unique character builds in some way; either by removal of the current merit category caps, or by an "overhaul" of the system.

[Byrth]

Yeah, no problem!

I've noticed that many people seem to suggest other merit system alterations. The reasons that I focused on uncapping as opposed to some other option are:
1) They've shown themselves to be capable of raising the category caps and have done it multiple times.
2) Making a more complicated system (like here (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/24269-byr1001-Uncapping-the-Merit-Point-Categories?p=333758&viewfull=1#post333758), here (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/24269-byr1001-Uncapping-the-Merit-Point-Categories?p=375371&viewfull=1#post375371), or here (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/24269-byr1001-Uncapping-the-Merit-Point-Categories?p=375886&viewfull=1#post375886)) would require effort and resources that the FFXI team seems unable to afford at the moment.

If they wanted to invest a lot of time and effort making a merit system that encouraged specialization, I would disagree with them philosophically due to FFXI's character development model (See point B2 (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/24269-byr1001-Uncapping-the-Merit-Point-Categories?p=325745&viewfull=1#post325745)). I mean, regardless of how complicated a system you make (paths, well-balanced abilities, etc.) there will only be one optimal set of merits for a given situation. For me, the absolute worst possible case would be if the merit system was balanced and important enough that people were actually re-meriting between events. It would be like getting an XP buffer at 75 so you can keep doing Dynamis, except it would be getting a merit point buffer so you can keep switching your merits around for your Legion night and then Voidwatch night and then Odin v2 night. I'd hate it.

[Nala]

@Byrth: more like if they intended us constantly change up our merits on the fly the point cap would be larger and the cost to upgrade would be less there by supporting a more dynamic upgrade system.

[Terasan]

You make a good point with the unable/unwilling Dev Team, Byrth.

[Thore]

Bum.... I mean... this is a good idea, it would give lots of people something to do.

[Taint2]

Version update in 3 days!

Lets bump Merits maximums.

[Kincard]

I mean, regardless of how complicated a system you make (paths, well-balanced abilities, etc.) there will only be one optimal set of merits for a given situation. For me, the absolute worst possible case would be if the merit system was balanced and important enough that people were actually re-meriting between events. It would be like getting an XP buffer at 75 so you can keep doing Dynamis, except it would be getting a merit point buffer so you can keep switching your merits around for your Legion night and then Voidwatch night and then Odin v2 night. I'd hate it.

I'm under the impression that if they ever added special merits that were that important, they would make them like the WS merits in that it's basically impossible to re-spec in between LS events because of the merit point storage cap unless you grind dozens of merits between the event days. I don't think a lot of people would be keen on joining LSs that require you to do that.

[Kari]

I'd like to be able to use merits to continue doing content.
Like trading merits to reduce the cooldown of Assault Tags, Meeble Sacks, Remnants Permits, etc.
That way if I wanted to spam Salvage or something, I could go join a party for merits so I could enter more often, rather than logging out for a day.

[Umichi]

If the last census was any indication the player base really doesn't follow this philosophy as the overwhelming majority merits their jobs in the same way leaving many traits/skills forever unused. And there is no merit that will suddenly make a job as a whole different when two have merited different things. EX: Rdm with slow/para maxed, useless. RDM with dia/bio maxed, still useless.

As argued by the OP removing the cap would not be detrimental at all. If the devs are so hell bent on making players pick after being able to enjoy the full extent of their jobs til 75, why not make a merit skill tree?

this isn't WoW, if you don't like the way that they make their game then stop playing. having hissy fits because your not getting what you want gets you nowhere.

on relation to Mods post thank you for increasing the cap again.

[Kari]

this isn't WoW, if you don't like the way that they make their game then stop playing. having hissy fits because your not getting what you want gets you nowhere.

on relation to Mods post thank you for increasing the cap again.

What are you whining about? This forum is almost entirely meant for feedback, and you're complaining that this guy is giving feedback? Stop making an idiot out of yourself.

[Hashmalum]

What are you whining about? This forum is almost entirely meant for feedback, and you're complaining that this guy is giving feedback? Stop making an idiot out of yourself.I agree. If that guy (Umichi) thinks things are fine as they are, he has the right to say so too; that's just giving feedback, like the original poster. But throwing a hissy fit at other players because they have a different idea of what would make for a better game than you do is out of line.

[Freebytes]

I would actually like to see some soloable Seekers quests that would allow you to uncap your merits in certain categories. That would give a very strong incentive to do certain quests or quest lines. Now, by soloable, I do not mean that it will be easy. I simply mean that it should not be impossible.

[Toadie-Odie]

I'd like to be able to use merits to continue doing content.
Like trading merits to reduce the cooldown of Assault Tags, Meeble Sacks, Remnants Permits, etc.
That way if I wanted to spam Salvage or something, I could go join a party for merits so I could enter more often, rather than logging out for a day.

I really like this idea. It would give merits a purpose for the players that are done meriting the jobs they wish to merit. I realize this has nothing to do with uncapping merit catagories, but seeming how they are resistant to that idea - to which I understand to some extent - it would give players something extra to work for and work with. One way to look at it is a way of saying thank you to the player base for still playing.

[detlef]

I'd like to be able to use merits to continue doing content.
Like trading merits to reduce the cooldown of Assault Tags, Meeble Sacks, Remnants Permits, etc.
That way if I wanted to spam Salvage or something, I could go join a party for merits so I could enter more often, rather than logging out for a day.Oh this is a good suggestion.

[Mirage]

I would actually like to see some soloable Seekers quests that would allow you to uncap your merits in certain categories. That would give a very strong incentive to do certain quests or quest lines. Now, by soloable, I do not mean that it will be easy. I simply mean that it should not be impossible.
I like this idea better than my own. Would like again.

[Byrth]

Now that "Balance" is very obviously no longer a concern (given the proposed stats on gear (http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/117087-Translated-Gear-Take-these-for-granite?p=5816300&viewfull=1#post5816300)), I would like to resubmit this idea. It has been ~8 months since I first posted it and the game has changed a lot during that time, but the same problems still exist and these changes are still justified for the same reasons. If anything, they are more justified now that the game is obviously designed to be played by multifaceted characters that excel at multiple jobs:


I have a simple suggestion that would help the game, would not be difficult to implement, and would not cause any serious balance issues.

Remove all the merit point category caps.
Please let us hold more merits as well ; ;

(Category Caps are the limits on a group of merits. So the category cap for Tier 1 merits is 10. The category cap for Combat Skills is 30, etc.)


A. Will this cause balance issues?
No, because:
1) The strongest players pick one of their jobs and merit for it.
2) If they are perfectly merited for one job, it presents the biggest balance threat when given more merits because you have to assume that they would be on that job in situations that require high performance, the hardest events.
3) If they are perfectly merited for one job, any future merits that they obtain from having the cap increased will necessarily be less valuable to their job than the ones they already have.
4) Optimally-merited jobs barely benefit from increasing the caps.

Example:
Warrior is in some ways the greatest threat for this kind of adjustment because they are so versatile, so the limitation on combat skills/stats stands to benefit them the most. Still, what happens if you uncap a perfectly merited WAR?
- They gain 12 DEX and VIT.
- Their Warcry and Aggressor recasts drops 50 seconds.
- Instead of meriting three of Upheaval, Resolution, Ruinator, and Stardiver, now they can merit all four.
- They gain 14-15 accuracy (0-8% hit rate) with some of their proc weapons.

So you have barely made Warrior stronger. The other jobs benefit even less than this. Plus, at a time when people complain about the difficulty of events (like Legion, Provenance Watcher, etc.) this gives them an opportunity to help themselves. I mean, what do you want our failure rate to be on these events? Is it really too low at the moment?



B. Why should we do it?
1) This will give players nearly-unlimited potential for character growth. - It would take 6706 merits to cap out. Players currently have ~2000 or less. Even with an epeening "I get 250k/hr" Abyssea party, it would still take them almost 80 rl 24-hour days to cap out from 2000 merits.

2) A limiting merit system has always been the antithesis of the job system. - One of the major draws to FFXI is that the game lets you play through with only one character, which you are free to become attached to. There are certainly times when you need to change your role, and the job system accommodates that. It is silly to suddenly reverse this at the level cap, which is where players spend almost all of their time these days. When the cap was at level 75, you go 1 to 75 as a Red Mage playing however was convenient in any type of party, but Tier 2 merits forced you to decide whether you wanted to use your Red Mage to solo or do Salvage.

3) Programming-wise, this almost has to be possible and reasonable. - The category caps have been increased before several times. You could either remove them from the interface (clean) or increase them to the maximum amount (dirty but definitely possible).

4) At a time when content is sparse, this would give a much-needed boost to activity. - People want to play, but don't have anything that they can do to improve their character. This would make it so there is almost always something they can do.

5) Increased participation in events/systems that yield XP. - More people would do Grounds of Valor. More people would do Campaign. More people would do Besieged. More people would do Dominion Ops. More people would do Voidwatch. etc. If you increase the incentives, you increase the odds that people will partake in an event. Giving XP value serves as an incentive.





Fellow posters, I challenge you. Come up with a situation where the above proposed change would alter the way we do any event. Where it would make something noticeably easier. Where it would affect the "balance" of anything. Try!

[Taint2]

Now that "Balance" is very obviously no longer a concern (given the proposed stats on gear (http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/117087-Translated-Gear-Take-these-for-granite?p=5816300&viewfull=1#post5816300)), I would like to resubmit this idea. It has been ~8 months since I first posted it and the game has changed a lot during that time, but the same problems still exist and these changes are still justified for the same reasons. If anything, they are more justified now that the game is obviously designed to be played by multifaceted characters that excel at multiple jobs:



Agreed 100%

Since we are growing our characters via gear and not gaining traits/JAs, we should be able to grow them to their fullest abilities. Most merits are from 75 cap and none would break the balance.

[FrankReynolds]

I wish there was a way to give more likes.

[Raksha]

What they said. ^

[Richie]

Please consider this, Development Team!!

[Spectreman]

The merit limit is as dumb as those who think that you learn a job from 1-99 still in 2013.

[Nightfox]

Uncap merit categories, SE. So many of us want it, dont wait until the post vanishes in forums. Hope it still stays alive, there are about 200 likes to the idea as well, thats huge considering the fact 90% of people read an run and forget to hit like. Im hoping this will happen sometime in the November-December timeframe at least. Again, please uncap the merit categories.

[Daemon]

Honestly I lost count of how many time I've merit something, remove the merits and then later come back and do this over and over out of boredom.

Whether or not we Merit a Weaponskill like Ruinator just to play it for a couple of days, then remove the merits and place them onto a different one like Resolution, only to drop those merits and then raise Upheaval and so on.

SE seriously? It's not like its impossible to remerit these skills or anything else. Gaining enough limit points to fully merit a level 5 WS only take a couple of hours.

Point is, these limits make it annoying for all of us which by no means stops us from working around your limit. But to make us do that is no longer reasonable today.

Back when Merits were first implemented, Exp cap was 70- 75. Players back then took quite a long time to gain enough points to place them on merit skills, therefore since it took quite the effort, all players had to choose wisely. Also these merit skills were powerful compared to now and an increase in power could be seen noticeably higher than today. Also we had the ability to enjoy that new power since people did not max speed past 75 when level caps were rising. Now that we all max speed past 75, these skills are not new or WoW anymore. To us it's now just a system of "Another thing on my To-do list of things that needs to be done." Rather than "OMG can't wait to merit these new skills cause maybe ill be useful enough to make a difference for this boss or for that event"

Back then merit spells were deemed as "Wow new spell, great damage, quite unique, powerful, which one did you merit?)
Investing time and effort to raise these spells for a higher noticeable power was rewarding. Because these were powerful, giving us a choice allowed us to make up our own unique builds.

Redmage: which path did you choose? Phalanx II and Dia III or did you go Bind II & Bio III?

But today raising these spells like Paralyze II, Slow II, Dia III honestly does not make much of a difference anymore because monsters in higher level content are too strong to make any of these spells be singled out "We Need you to have this".

I mean really who needs feint anymore when we have Geomancer? Does it suck? No I'm Not saying that at all, however people today do not hire theif specifically for Feint anymore like the past. Higher level content made it this way.

Who hires a Redmage specifically for Dia III anymore? Phalanx II not needed anymore due to Scholar being able to accession cast regular Phalanx.

Aura Steal? Lets see monsters in Adoulin are very high level. Even in Abby I barely even have success using despoil.

Specific Elemental skill? Can improve our Abilty in my opinion to the standards of today's higher content but does not have the same wow factor as it did back at 70-75.

Issue we have is inventory crisis from having to carry too many gears. Removing Merits or giving us additional points could help us carry less pieces for our sets. To me that is a "Win" situation, not an "Overpowered" situation.

Whether we choose to merit all skills if the cap was removed, the point is we still have to put in the time to earn them.
In the previous update SE added Geomancy and Handbell to the Magic Skills Catagory without even giving us extra points.

New jobs, new merit skills, no additional points for us to build our stats correctly does not encourage us to support the new jobs provided. I mean maybe its just me but I refuse to embarrass myself by showing up to an event "GIMP" as a Geomancer with 0 Geomancy / Handbell merit skill not because Im a horrible player but because its impossible to make sacrifices to the 4 other skills I have raised for the majority of the other jobs that benefit from the ones I have chosen.

This is how I see it SE. Your limitation system forces me to sacrifice 2 merited Magic Skills out of Enhancing, Enfeebling, Dark Magic, Elemental magic, which BLM, BLU, RDM, SCH, WHM can make use, for 2 merit skills Geomacy, Handbell that only Geomancer can make use If I want to play the new jobs you gave us.

Which falls in the same line of limiting our options between Summoner, Ninja, Bard, BLU, magic skills.

Today at 99 we all have to play more than 1 job in order to achieve what you made "nearly impossible"

The ability to solo play and do our stuff on our own when there is a lack of people on the same page as us that prevents us from progressing.

[Daemon]

Just a quick suggestion.

Magic skills category would be better if it were adjusted. Rather than dump every type of magicskill for all jobs in this one Catagory, it would serve to be much more reasonable to split this into two categories instead.

Univeral Magic Skills
Enhancing, Enfeebling, Dark Magic, Divine, Healing, Elemental.

Job Specific Magic Skills
Ninjutsu, singing, String, Wind, blue magic skill, Geomancy, Handbell, Summoning.

Reason? A few of these mage classes share the same magic skills such as Enhancing, Enfeebling, Elemental.
While skills like Ninjitsu, Singing, blue magic are job specific.

It makes it very difficult to choose between both Universal and Job Specific with only 32 merit points.

[kewitt]

I agree, One of the perks of this... is it would give people that have no reason to really EXP to hope back into EXP parties.

[Kristal]

Now that "Balance" is very obviously no longer a concern (given the proposed stats on gear (http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/117087-Translated-Gear-Take-these-for-granite?p=5816300&viewfull=1#post5816300)), I would like to resubmit this idea. It has been ~8 months since I first posted it and the game has changed a lot during that time, but the same problems still exist and these changes are still justified for the same reasons. If anything, they are more justified now that the game is obviously designed to be played by multifaceted characters that excel at multiple jobs:

You might want to redo that post with Seekers in mind. Also, weaponskill merits have been addressed already, you can now get all of them without gimping them. (Focussing on a few is still better, but the upgrades are now minor.)

[FrankReynolds]

You might want to redo that post with Seekers in mind. Also, weaponskill merits have been addressed already, you can now get all of them without gimping them. (Focussing on a few is still better, but the upgrades are now minor.)

It's a lame fix.

[Daemon]

It's a lame fix.

Lol to me that's not a fix at all.

It's like asking your boss who pays you once per week to give you a raise. Instead of raising your salary, they offer you the choice to receive the same total amount split and divided across every day of the week. You are just getting the payment faster than waiting an entire week which wouldn't help you to buy anything big because the money is not enough.

[SpankWustler]

Obviously, having full merits in Aggressive Aim along with full merits in two things that aren't incomprehensibly horrible is just too powerful compared to a weapon that adds ~200 attack and accuracy.

Also, the lizard people have taken over Denver. They're enacting their lizard laws in Denver. Stretching out their long, elastic tongues and eating babies in Denver. Lizard people are crawling up the sides of tall glass and metal buildings to soak up the sun as it comes in from the east at dawn, all over Denver.

Nothing makes sense anymore.

[Stompa]

Have /liked the OP post.

Merits brackets should be expanded, if only for the simple reason that this year SE added an expansion SoA containing lvl99 weapons that are >100% higher base dmg than previous lvl99 weapons such as Magians RMEs and hq AH/nm drop weaps. This huge 100%+ jump in dmg was in contrast to the say 5%~ increases in new weap power we saw with previous expansions such Toau Wotg and the Magian Trial mini-quest series.

Clearly the kind of devilmaycare attitude that went into that decision to unleash these new SoA weapons that can 4-shot kill tough mobs allover vanadiel, shouldn't have the slightest hesitation in letting you merit an extra +12 Attri or a few jobspecific / merit-weaponskills or just lose the cap entirely and let you run wild. It seems absurd that they released these Tarzan wildman weapons with SoA, but are reluctant to give you some extra merits incase you got too O.P.

[OmnysValefor]

Support bump.

Noone plays one job anymore, and many play several jobs to the best that they can.

[Renaissance2K]

Loving the tag cloud for this thread.

[Spectreman]

And you know what? characters are becoming so godly, why SE even bothers with merit limits? I mean we more than 10 different weapons to get new weapons skills and are locked with 3 only. You dont need to give all of them but having at least half of it would be decent.

So many people are dying to have 1 or 2 weaponskills for "trash" jobs like whm clubs just for fun but they are not allowed to have fun or they will be gimp in those required weaponskills to be maxed to endgame.


Why bother with HP/MP merit limit? I mean even if you go all they way to 150hp its basically ridiculous when you have mobs dealing 200-300hp in a single hit, just raise that crap already!!

Why Red Mages have to choose 2 spells from their tier 2 group only to be maxed? We are demanded to have Phalanx 2 and i bet other jobs also have their demanded skill which gives us only 1 option. Just raise the option to have 3 maxed skills at tier 2 for jobs for christ sake, it wont break the game as bad as 250 dmg weapons are!!!!

[Demon6324236]

Why Red Mages have to choose 2 spells from their tier 2 group only to be maxed? We are demanded to have Phalanx 2 and i bet other jobs also have their demanded skill which gives us only 1 option. Just raise the option to have 3 maxed skills at tier 2 for jobs for christ sake, it wont break the game as bad as 250 dmg weapons are!!!!Dia III & Phalanx II are the only merit spells I have had in a long time, truly depressing thought that half my unique spells, or rather, tiers of spells, are locked behind a stupidly placed limiter on my RDM merits, or at least, stupidly created merits in the first place.

Oh how I wish SE would make this change, sadly, I doubt they ever will.

[Kaiichi]

I fully understand the point of the merit point cap, as the original look on it was to allow one WAR it be unique from another. Having one RDM 5/5 in Dia3 and another 5/5 in Paralyze, but because of the level cap and that 98% of the population solo and the entirety of the game has become "End Game" there is no longer a need for uniqueness. Even so, there really never was, as all WAR's merited the same things because that was the best way to do it with optimal output for damage dealing.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Please consider this, Development Team!!Rewrite the whole thing in japanese and maybe they'll give it an "I'll pass it along" before they throw it in the trash, never to be seen by the dev team's eyes.

[Archades]

I agree under current setup, But disagree overall. i like specializations that are awesome either way w/ caps, so you have to choose but not be weak either way.

[FrankReynolds]

I agree under current setup, But disagree overall. i like specializations that are awesome either way w/ caps, so you have to choose but not be weak either way.

Yeah, unfortunately, there's really only one way to play most of the jobs, so the caps are pretty pointless.

[FaeQueenCory]

A lot of the merit caps..... I see no reason to increase their cap: the WSs, the HP/MP, the attribute, the misc.... These merits affect all jobs... So maintaining the cap on them I fully agree with. (especially the WSs, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You want all the meritted WSs? fine. accept that the bonus won't be the max %. Ever since that update, anyone who wants to not max 3 should find themselves very happy about having their cake and a slice of it being edible.)

But the job specific merits?
The only reason why they were limited to 10 in each category is because of the level cap.
Whenever the level cap.
The merits are a sort of precursor to the iLvs of Adoulin.
When the level cap was 75, they enhanced your abilities enough to take out >75 mobs.
When the level cap is 99, they do the same again. (though their potency is much less noticeable at 99 compared to 75 due to the similar restriction: ie +5 @ lv75 is a much bigger boon than +5 @ Lv99)

Which is why I see no problem with raising the job-specific merits... I think it would be a much better way to address lv150 mobs (you know it's coming... if it's not already here... I dunno the levels for a lot of the really big Adoulin NMs, but I think the highest is 120 or 130 atm), as opposed to the purely iLv way that the game is headed now.
Furthermore, having merits be more relevant again in the 100-130 end-game Adoulin setting... (and I mean their potency) would lessen the barrier for new players and returning players to get into the new-endgame.

ex: don't have delve gear, but you have a 99 empy and maxed merits? now: meh... you're just meh. with a raise in the merit cap for job specifics: you're decent enough to be able to something and not just die.
Though that might be being just a little too idealistic.

Another alternative to raising the merit cap could be to add a third merit category with merits specifically designed for the Adoulin level playing field. (again, job-specific only. the only non-job-specific merit category I feel could be increased would be the HP/MP section... raising the cap from 15 to 20... since +100HP/MP... seems to be really common on Adoulin gear... ESPECIALLY after this next update.)

AND THEN, there's also a third alternative, instead of raising the category cap individually.... why not merge the categories and have a single job-category with a max of 20? I don't really think that would change much.... BUT it would then be easier to raise the cap to 30 or 25 and have merits be more unique to the individual's play style.

But overall, I would like to see the job-specific cap raised a bit (even if it's only 5/group) to help deal with the Adoulin challenges.
Not to make it easy, though it will make it easier, but to make it less dependent on gear.... which, I know is kinda the exact opposite of the direction the game is headed in...
But I LIKE side-ways growth sets... because it allows for different people to play the same job slightly different... and I think that that is very important to the health of an MMO.
Variance and choice... We need more of it.
(though I'm sure there will be more choice with this next update... and especially once Adoulin is "finished", and even more after that. I mean, before the adjustments... no one was selling Balsam Staffs on Odin... now? It's a viable alternative to Yaksomotos Pole... Though obviously there are trade offs, less MAB for +Macc, but the fact that there even IS a choice for gear... I think is healthy.)

[Duelle]

My thinking is that the merits as a whole are simply lacking. Most categories turn out to be no-brainers and give only the illusion of choice. Stuff like primary stat merits (STR, VIT, DEX) are fine because their usefulness varies depending on the player's chosen main job. A guy that plays PLD more than the rest of the jobs will probably merit VIT and put some points in STR. There's stuff that should not be there (enmity merits come to mind), and the worst of the lot are the job-specific merits.

Job merits were supposed to help our characters branch out, but instead have led to people going the way of cookie cutter simply because one or two merits in each category is outright superior to everything else. No one is going to merit Arcane Circle, because the sensible merits to take turn out to be Last Resort Recast and Last Resort Effect. RDM was (and still is) pigeonholed into taking Ice Accuracy merits and Convert Recast because that's what brings the most benefit.

Instead of asking for the merit caps to be raised/removed, we should be asking the devs to redesign or revamp (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/22213-Pipe-Dream-Revamping-Red-Mage-Merits) merits. As it stands the system is a joke that attempts to be an alternative way of progression, and that is the main issue that should be first dealt with.

[Taint2]

Uncapping Merits would give us a ton of reason to log in....with SE making Delve bosses easy there is little to accomplish. Being able to merit/grow each job while we wait for the new engame content to come out would be a big plus.

[Doombringer]

i feel like this has become even more necessary now that most emp/relic/mythic weapons (and therefore weaponskills) are no longer relevant. i'm REALLY starting to feel the crunch on the WS merits in particular. i'm prolly just gonna start quitting jobs altogether.


not to mention that back when delve was hard, you really wanted to bring your A-game on whatever job, and being unable to merit most of them limited your options. i feel like that exacerbated the long form times for pugs. when 90% of the people who want, can't, and the remaining 10% are only able to merit ~3~ jobs, you're gonna be shouting for a long time to assemble 18 of the right jobs at the right level.

sure delve is easier now with all the recent gear buffs, but are we to assume nothing will ever be difficult again?