[dev1006] Why limit the number of weapons we can cap.

[Insaniac]

There's no reason at all to limit us to capping 2 weapons via merits. Many of us have more than 2 dd jobs we really like to play as. Just let us cap them all.

Please forgive my punctuation fail in the thread title.

Edit: Having read the official post wrong I was mistaken and the new max capped weapons is 4.

[Garota]

Why are job specific merits not mentioned? I'm sure it'll be brought up later. In any case, the only thing I'd truly like to know is, what is the difference between "Maximum Total Ability Increase by Category" and "Maximum Number of Upgrades by Ability"? I don't understand. Both HP/MP and Attributes are increased by the same quantity. Others is in the first is Others: increased from 8 to 10 and in the other increased from 4 to 5. I don't get it.

[Lushipur]

other actually have a max of 8 point but you can use just 4 to max

so you can max 2 option with 4 point or use 2 point in all 4 option, but u cant put 5 and 3...

now we will be able to use a total of 10 point with a max of 5 in a single option: so 5+5 or 4+4+2 and so on...

[Greatguardian]

Why are job specific merits not mentioned?

If I were to venture a guess, it's because the majority of these merits aren't directed towards improving the individual performance of any particular job. Being able to get another 1% crit rate merit, a few more HP and some Str is a nice boost of course. However, the most important (and long overdue) changes are to the Weapon/Magic classes, which boost the player's ability to merit multiple jobs.

Being able to fully merit a third magic skill, as well as an additional Offensive and Defensive combat skill (or a total of 4 Offensive combat skills) is something players have been asking for for years. Granted, these updates come at an awkward time since there really isn't a combat skill worth meriting right now aside from H2H (or potentially GKT for War/Nin Red procs). However, it is possible for new Overworld content to change that dynamic, in which case this would be a huge boon to players who wish to merit weapons/magic for multiple jobs.

[Insaniac]

You will still only be able to max 2 weapons and 1 combat skill. They are raising the individual caps to 12 on weapons meaning we will have 8 left over merits to spend after capping 2 weapons. I don't understand the reasoning behind it. There's no balance that would be upset by just allowing us to put 12 merits in every single weapon.

[Kingofgeeks]

giving us a limit as to what we can cap really promotes strategy into what you want. I fully support SE forcing us to choose what is our best jobs via merit limitations

[Daniel_Hatcher]

You will still only be able to max 2 weapons and 1 combat skill. They are raising the individual caps to 12 on weapons meaning we will have 8 left over merits to spend after capping 2 weapons. I don't understand the reasoning behind it. There's no balance that would be upset by just allowing us to put 12 merits in every single weapon.


HP/MP: Increased from 8 to 12
Attributes: Increased from 5 to 8
Combat Skills: Increased from 20 to 32
Magic Skills: Increased from 16 to 24
Others: Increased from 8 to 10

Maximum Number of Upgrades by Ability

HP/MP: Increased from 8 to 12
Attributes: Increased from 5 to 8
Others: Increased from 4 to 5No they haven't. Magic and Combat Skills are still 4~8.

[Insaniac]

Oh jeez you're right. I blame lack of sleep but I still think they should just let us cap all of them.

[RAIST]

Oh jeez you're right. I blame lack of sleep but I still think they should just let us cap all of them.

Agreed. Some mage jobs have 3 native magic skills. They should have been at LEAST at 24 caps out of the gate, then give us 8 more so we could merit another job like maybe SMN or BLU. Never understood that design.

Same applies for weapons. Every job has at LEAST 2 weapons they can speciallize in--even mages--and some up to 4.

Kudos for finally working towards a more reasonable setup SE... but, seriously, if nothing else these two categories should be higher still.

[Gropitou]

Remove the Category Limits altogether, let people merit all they can and want.

[Mirage]

Agreed. Some mage jobs have 3 native magic skills. They should have been at LEAST at 24 caps out of the gate, then give us 8 more so we could merit another job like maybe SMN or BLU. Never understood that design.

Same applies for weapons. Every job has at LEAST 2 weapons they can speciallize in--even mages--and some up to 4.


THF, DNC, DRG, BST, BLU, PUP. I wouldn't want any of those jobs melee with anything but their primary weapons in my parties. Other jobs that almost make that list would be MNK (can't remember last time i saw a pole-wielding mnk), nin (how often do they throw shit anyway?) and sam (sidewinder-sams are so 2005).

Anyway, while I would welcome an even bigger increase in merit points, i understand why it's not like that. Jacks of all trades shouldn't be masters of all of them as well :p.

[RAIST]

lol.. and BLM shouldn't be weilding a Scythe either, but I've seen it work out for the better good before.

I remember a long time ago while a Sky alliance was griping and moaning about not being able to get off a chain for mages to burst off of...my friends and I went to work on some mobs with me setting up the chains with my scythe--bursting on the chain, killing the mobs. Got our pop items and were ready to move on--they were still bickering over how they were going to set up Darkness chains.

Just last week, did the same thing farming NM's in Attohwa...pulled out my club for Black Halo to chain with the THF--bursted on our chains. WIN.

While not perfect....it worked. Sometimes it pays to be able to think outside the box and adjust the style of play on the fly to accomplish goals. Having more options available is always good.

[Mirage]

Nothing's stopping you from doing that without merits in the weapons either.

My point was that there should be a difference in skill levels from weapon to weapon, if there were no merit point caps, you'd eventually be able to get to a point where your warrior hits 95% accuracy on *any* NM with *any* weapon, as well as probably capping attack too.

The whole deal with merits is that you're already good with all the stuff your job can do, and then you have merits to make you even better at a few aspects of your job, or jobs. If you could get unlimited merits, the point in having merits would be gone, SE could just as well increase native skill caps instead. While it would probably be cool for me as a war to get A+++ in all the weapons I can equip, I have no problems understanding why that's not possible, and why it shouldn't be.

I'm a person who likes to be versatile, that's why I as a WAR spent days skilling up weapons I'd never use in an exp party or against the vast majority of NMs, even before weakness proccing in abyssea existed. I do however not see any real point in letting all my skills be fully merited.

-edit-
Oh yeah, i also seem to have mixed my reply to become a reply to both your post, raist, and some other guy. So all of it isn't a direct reply to your points.

[Xyon]

I think its odd we can still only max out one attribute, they at least are letting us max out about 3 weapons, letting us max out 2 attributes would be nice.

[Alhanelem]

There's no reason at all to limit us to capping 2 weapons via merits.The point is to specialize.

[blowfin]

The point is to specialize.

Yep. There's a also a little thing called "game balance". People seem to forgot about it instantly the second they ask for anything.

I mean, while we're at it why don't SE just cap all our merits for us?

[RAIST]

Nothing's stopping you from doing that without merits in the weapons either.

My point was that there should be a difference in skill levels from weapon to weapon, if there were no merit point caps, you'd eventually be able to get to a point where your warrior hits 95% accuracy on *any* NM with *any* weapon, as well as probably capping attack too.

The whole deal with merits is that you're already good with all the stuff your job can do, and then you have merits to make you even better at a few aspects of your job, or jobs. If you could get unlimited merits, the point in having merits would be gone, SE could just as well increase native skill caps instead. While it would probably be cool for me as a war to get A+++ in all the weapons I can equip, I have no problems understanding why that's not possible, and why it shouldn't be.

I'm a person who likes to be versatile, that's why I as a WAR spent days skilling up weapons I'd never use in an exp party or against the vast majority of NMs, even before weakness proccing in abyssea existed. I do however not see any real point in letting all my skills be fully merited.

-edit-
Oh yeah, i also seem to have mixed my reply to become a reply to both your post, raist, and some other guy. So all of it isn't a direct reply to your points.

I think when they are saying uncapping, they are talking about uncapping for the category and not per item. You would still have the current cap on each individual weapon, but could do it for more jobs. Since it mostly only covered two jobs in some cases, this tweak can make some weapons a bit better rank for other jobs to use as a secondary option. Not really useful in older content I guess, but it could have some uses in abyssea I guess (for instance getting access to another WS proc option that normally isn't available from subjob).

I myself like to go into battle mage mode sometimes, but if I capped out Staff and Club, then I wouldn't be able to bump up other jobs I like like SAM, MNK, DRK, NIN, or DRG--MNK being the bigger issue as it has such a profound effect on H2H output. So, I haven't capped a weapon yet...with 10 jobs its just hard to narrow it down so tightly. So I am looking forward to this tweak--it pretty much locks in H2H for capping now since I will have some extra wiggle room after this tweak.

[Insaniac]

No one is suggesting we be able to put 100 merits into any one weapon. I'm simply saying if someone levels multiple DD jobs they shouldn't have to choose which one gets to be slightly less proficient. It upsets no game balance if someone were to take the time get 16 more skill levels in every weapon they can equip. It's not about a THF maining a sword either. It's about not having to choose your favorite 2-3 DD jobs if you have 6 leveled or being screwed on blm cause you already leveled blu and brd and capped their magic skills. Of all the things people ask for on this forum I feel like this is a pretty reasonable request.

[Atomic_Skull]

It's about not having to choose your favorite 2-3 DD jobs

That is exactly why there are caps, to make you choose.

[Mirage]

I think when they are saying uncapping, they are talking about uncapping for the category and not per item. You would still have the current cap on each individual weapon, but could do it for more jobs. Since it mostly only covered two jobs in some cases, this tweak can make some weapons a bit better rank for other jobs to use as a secondary option. Not really useful in older content I guess, but it could have some uses in abyssea I guess (for instance getting access to another WS proc option that normally isn't available from subjob).

I myself like to go into battle mage mode sometimes, but if I capped out Staff and Club, then I wouldn't be able to bump up other jobs I like like SAM, MNK, DRK, NIN, or DRG--MNK being the bigger issue as it has such a profound effect on H2H output. So, I haven't capped a weapon yet...with 10 jobs its just hard to narrow it down so tightly. So I am looking forward to this tweak--it pretty much locks in H2H for capping now since I will have some extra wiggle room after this tweak.

Yeah but if you put 8 merits in every weapon you can use, then you're no longer specializing in anything anymore, you're just "better at all weapons", as if all your weapons had half a rank higher skill. Merits were implemented to specialize, maxing all weapons isn't really specializing. If you want, you could use this specialization option to gain access to another WS when subbing something in order to proc something in abyssea, but then you have to give up a different specialization you've got, or planned on getting.

I think the current system that makes you have to choose a few skills to be "better than most" at is fine. No one is severely gimped regardless of which merits they don't have, and if they really feel like they are, they could always just change merits :p. It's not like merit points are hard to get in abyssea.

[Insaniac]

Are you saying that if a thf was able to cap club and dagger he would no longer specialize in dagger? I don't get your point. Not being able to cap weapons for any job you chose to put time into is just an annoyance more than anything. If you want people to specialize in one job then only let them get 1 set of empyrean armor because it's the dedication to getting good gear that is gonna make the biggest difference. Those 16 points of skill in that jobs main weapon or magic skill is the last 1% and not being able to do that for every job you put time into is very annoying to me.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

There's no reason at all to limit us to capping 2 weapons via merits. Many of us have more than 2 dd jobs we really like to play as. Just let us cap them all.

Please forgive my punctuation fail in the thread title.

Edit: Having read the official post wrong I was mistaken and the new max capped weapons is 4.But, regarless of that. Being to cap as many as you wont would GREATLY over power/off balance jobs that mave multiple skills, such as WAR for example that have 9/12 of the combat skills.

[Wojo]

As probably mentioned, I like the idea of having to pick and choose the attributes of your character. Otherwise, I would be afraid that there would be nothing to distinguish each character from each other.

[Mirage]

Are you saying that if a thf was able to cap club and dagger he would no longer specialize in dagger? I don't get your point. Not being able to cap weapons for any job you chose to put time into is just an annoyance more than anything. If you want people to specialize in one job then only let them get 1 set of empyrean armor because it's the dedication to getting good gear that is gonna make the biggest difference. Those 16 points of skill in that jobs main weapon or magic skill is the last 1% and not being able to do that for every job you put time into is very annoying to me.

I'm saying that specialization only exists when there is something to compare it with that you're not specialized in. Maxing merits in all skills at the same time would be the same as bumping all combat skills 0.5 ranks up, you're no longer specializing in anything because there is no non-specialized (read: non-merited) skill to compare it with.

[Laciante]

Merits were instituted for the purpose of customizing your character, so you chose what you want to excel in.
Just because we live in a Vanadiel where the math has been subjugated and everyone is expected to spec a certain way, does not mean there is no reason for there be limits to what we can master - even a game should follow the adage "jack of all trades, master of none".
For magic skills, it might look like it's unfair to older jobs with multiple schools, but the idea still fits - you are supposed to be the master of healing, debuffs and nuking
A weapon is not immediately gimp simply because you don't have max merits to it, but one would be expected to max the one weapon for the job one plays the most. For some weapons (like sword) you even get multiple jobs covered.
Merits need to be looked at less as the next step in natural progression of the job (especially now that we do get more levels) and more what you have devoted your studies to.

[Insaniac]

Meriting all combat skills will not have any job not using it's main weapon or one of it's 2 main weapons in any instance when they are trying to put out max damage. WARs even though they have a ton of combat skills would still be using GA for damage. THFs will use daggers BLUs will use swords BLMs wont be nuking with divine magic and things won't fall up when you drop them. However, someone who has taken the time to level and gear any one of their jobs will not have to choose which ones they have to put on the back burner because they have already spent all their combat and magic skill merits. 16 skill points isn't that big of a deal on paper but to anyone who cares about being as good as possible on all their jobs its a GLARING imperfection.

[Insaniac]

Merits actually are the next natural progression of a job. The first thing anyone should do when they get their job up in levels is cap their job specific merits. Why are they then not allowed to cap that jobs main magic or combat skill if they have already done so for other jobs? Adages and philosophies like that aren't really a very good reason for anything in a video game. Like I said before if you don't want someone to be a master of all trades then limit them to one set of empyrean armor. 16 skill is a very small increase and makes very little difference when it comes to being a "master" or a "jack". Putting time and sometimes money into gearing a job as best you can and then not being able to push it that last 1% makes no sense to me.