[dev1006] Merit Point Adjustments!

[PizzaTheHut]

[dev1006] Merit Point Adjustments

The upcoming version update will see an increase to maximum limit for point allocation in certain merit point categories.

Maximum Total Ability Increase by Category

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 5



Great! Finally use them for something other than breaking exp cap :)

[Byrth]

Awesome! I have wanted that for a long time!

It seems silly to have a cap at all for Magic/Weapon skills though. No job's maximum potential is limited by skill merits, so having caps on those categories is only counterproductive to the job system.

Like:
* No job will be using more than three weapon types and two defensive traits at once, so letting us merit more skills than that won't make any one job more powerful. Those caps only limits our ability to be the best at multiple jobs.
* No job really uses more than three types of magic at once (unless you count Enhancing), so it's kind of silly to limit that category. It just stops the best BLMs from also being the best SMNs.

You guys should just uncap those categories.

[Tazz]

Thanks dev team! this is a good start. I would very much like to also see an increase in job specific merits as well, in both group I and group II. I debated forever which RDM spells to get. Finally I decided on paraII 5/5 and bio III 5/5 yet I still would use dia III, slow II, and blind II. Also players have way more than one or two jobs leveled and you could easily get away with allowing us to put 8 merits into EVERY weapon catergory lol.

[Fiarlia]

Awesome! I have wanted that for a long time!

It seems silly to have a cap at all for Magic/Weapon skills though. No job's maximum potential is limited by skill merits, so having caps on those categories is only counterproductive to the job system.

Like:
* No job will be using more than three weapon types and two defensive traits at once, so letting us merit more skills than that won't make any one job more powerful. Those caps only limits our ability to be the best at multiple jobs.
* No job really uses more than three types of magic at once (unless you count Enhancing), so it's kind of silly to limit that category. It just stops the best BLMs from also being the best SMNs.

You guys should just uncap those categories.

Completely agree with this.

[Tamoa]

I like this! It's long since I ran out of things to merit, I'm constantly sitting on 20/20 9999/10000. I have even been making changes to my merits more than once, and it only takes a few hours in Abyssea before I'm capped again.

[GERM]

Im happy I have something to look forward in the way of merit points in general categories but what about Job Specific categories? Are they going to give those updates or is it just going to be as is?

[Taint]

Definitely a good start, but I agree why is the combat and magic limited at all?

[Fetus]

New magic cap is still too low.

[Alhanelem]

It just stops the best BLMs from also being the best SMNs.That's kinda the whole idea. You're not supposed to be the best at everything. Part of the point of merits was to specialize. That said, People in general spent more time playing multiple jobs than SE thought we would, thus it makes sense to be a little less restrictive so we can spec in a few jobs instead of one, possibly two.

[Byrth]

That's kinda the whole idea. You're not supposed to be the best at everything. Part of the point of merits was to specialize. That said, People in general spent more time playing multiple jobs than SE thought we would, thus it makes sense to be a little less restrictive so we can spec in a few jobs instead of one, possibly two.

The point of the merit system is to force people to specialize, while the point of the job system is that you don't have to specialize. They've always been at odds, this is just taking one more step towards rectifying the issue. Shared categories shouldn't have a category cap.

[Runespider]

They should only allow obtaining these in XP parties outside of Abyssea, or they won't be worth adding as content since they will be capped in one day.

Also why not uncapped combat skills so people can cap all weapon type skills on every jobs, not like someone with everything capped is going to be overpowered >_>

[Gokku]

Awesome! I have wanted that for a long time!

It seems silly to have a cap at all for Magic/Weapon skills though. No job's maximum potential is limited by skill merits, so having caps on those categories is only counterproductive to the job system.

Like:
* No job will be using more than three weapon types and two defensive traits at once, so letting us merit more skills than that won't make any one job more powerful. Those caps only limits our ability to be the best at multiple jobs.
* No job really uses more than three types of magic at once (unless you count Enhancing), so it's kind of silly to limit that category. It just stops the best BLMs from also being the best SMNs.

You guys should just uncap those categories.

your incorrect in the no job gaining anything from merits in that monks hand to hand skill level increases our BASE damage unlike all other jobs who only get acc/atk per skill level. to be exact the difference of a monk in full hth skill gear and with merits id 391 hth skill for 46.01 base dmg vs 375 hth skill for a base damage of 44.25.

[Neika]

Woot! More magic skills! My WHM and BLM thank you :D

[RaenRyong]

your incorrect in the no job gaining anything from merits in that monks hand to hand skill level increases our BASE damage unlike all other jobs who only get acc/atk per skill level. to be exact the difference of a monk in full hth skill gear and with merits id 391 hth skill for 46.01 base dmg vs 375 hth skill for a base damage of 44.25.

Nooo, what he's saying is that the caps imposed at the moment just stop you playing many different jobs at max potential (in a game which encourages job swapping) since having no cap at all wouldn't overpower any job since no job is able to productively use more than the current capped amount of skills at once.

[Neofire]

Completely agree with this.
that guys post whom you quoted makes sense, that's Why' I hate HNMs, all they ever were was a apparent ploy get dummies to send years trying to get that one piece of gear lol

[ffxkenshin]

let combat and magic cap individually per skill, but don't cap the category.. it's the way it should be for a long time... i never wanted to force to "main" job on 1 job, i play and love all/most of them

[Jamesruglia]

The point of the Job System is to be flexible, not to be the best at everything. I have to re-affirm Alhanelem's comments on the issue. As it is now, you can specialize in and perfect one job and still be absolutely drop-dead awesome at other ones.

I welcome the expansion for merits, but think about it: It's not going to let you be more flexible than you already could have been. Rather, it's a better opportunity to further specialize and perfect one or two jobs-and unless this game changes drastically compared to how it's been since day 1, that's what people will mostly use this merit cap increase for. Myself included.

[Flunklesnarkin]

It's a start...


The changes will be nice but ultimately not affect anybody's game-play that much.


I'd really liked it if they added group 3 job merits...

and maybe make them take 10 merits points a piece per level.. so you can't cap them in 2 or 3 hours >_>

[Neofire]

They should only allow obtaining these in XP parties outside of Abyssea, or they won't be worth adding as content since they will be capped in one day.

Also why not uncapped combat skills so people can cap all weapon type skills on every jobs, not like someone with everything capped is going to be overpowered >_>
Good god I get sick of people crying about how fast someone complete certain things. Just do you and letter others play how they want, if you got a problem with me capping merits before you do then tough cookie.

[Arcon]

The point of the merit system is to force people to specialize, while the point of the job system is that you don't have to specialize. They've always been at odds, this is just taking one more step towards rectifying the issue. Shared categories shouldn't have a category cap.

Very true, this has always bothered me about the whole merit system in general. It was designed to specialize in some category, offensive mage, buffing mage, defense tank, shadow tank, melee, etc., however the very job system was one of the main reasons that put FFXI above games like WoW (or pretty much all other MMORPGs) in that you didn't have to specify, you didn't have to resort to just one class. You could play whichever way you wanted, and excel at everything, that was until the merit system. Now you can't even excel at everything within one job due to job specific merits, let alone the excel at everything overall.

That has always bugged me, I hate trade offs, same with gear, at least it's possible to gear swap when you need it, so that made it a lot better. However that doesn't work with merits, admittedly, with current EXP gain it's not hard to change merits, but it's still not a flexible system. And I know it was designed to be that way, I just don't think that way is the best. Of course this is a matter of opinion, but as I said, this principle of being able to do everything at once was one of the things that set this game apart from its competition, and was one of the things that attracted me the most. I really appreciate this step forward in what I consider the right direction, and hope SE continues down this road.

Edit:

As it is now, you can specialize in and perfect one job and still be absolutely drop-dead awesome at other ones.

No, you can be perfect at one aspect of one job, there's plenty of jobs that can't be perfect in all their roles with the options we currently have. Actually that holds true for all jobs, if you consider job specific merits, since they force you to choose between what your job should be capable of. Sure, many jobs have rather useless merits in their respective categories, which makes it easy to choose, others however have many useful merits in each category. Those jobs are forced to give up certain capabilities for others, so they can't even excel at even one particular job.

[Zumi]

The point of the merit system was they didn't want you to be able to max out all the jobs and only be the best at a couple.

[Ravenmore]

News flash for all the people who think fast meriting is something new. Be it snm burns, those annoying bugs i forget the name of or just leveling brd to get merits for the jobs people cared about. SE just leveled the field for everyone. If you want to take it slow then take it slow just don't force your way on to the rest of us. I still enjoy taking a couple of friends and killing trolls for the sh*ts and giggles.

[Rambus]

I am glad they are raising the caps, this is one thing that is needed in a 90/99 game vs 75.
Thread references:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/1989-level-75-merit-changes-to-allow-progress-for-spells-and-other-progress-consderns/
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/3008-Is-this-game-stuck-at-75-caps-that-need-to-be-relooked-at-or-removed

Main point I want to bring here.

spell merits at 75 where only met fpr 75. maybe NIN is ok but NIN can fall into this general rule I am going to make.

ALL MERIT SPELLS need to be made into potencies so other jobs can get access to spells and spell upgrades.

Example:
slow II WHM 78
dia III WHM 7x?
paralyze III WHM 7x?
Bio III BLM and DRK level ??
Phalanx II RDM??? ( make it same as phalax I’s power)
Phalanx II is useless when you can just have a RDM sub SCH and aoe phalanx I, phalanx II old merit replace with phalanx potency.

and RDM can gain access to slow III, para III, dia IV ether though merits at 99 or higher level

AM II are useless, same deal make them into real spells and replace it with MB potency.

The higher level Enfeebling Magic could just be bigger acc+ made for high level NMs where you will run into resist issues if you do not have the right spells and gear ( not abyssea god mode)

WHM can be made into a protect potency and shell potency trait and just allow the AoE spells be learnable spells, not only does that allow more use for the merits but allows WHM single spell be the same as AoE spell which can help while buffing mid fight for dispel spammy mobs.

and a question about the merit raise, is each weapon cap going to be higher? Not just the overall cap?

[Malamasala]

let combat and magic cap individually per skill, but don't cap the category.. it's the way it should be for a long time... i never wanted to force to "main" job on 1 job, i play and love all/most of them

I'm of opposite situation. While you have 10 jobs you want to merit, I have 3 and do not intend on increasing the amount. All this update does is add more unused merits for me.

I want to put all my weapon points into staff since I'm suffering from B rank and want to buff it as much as possible. I'm a focused player, not wishywashy all jobs player.

[Duelle]

The point of the merit system is to force people to specialize, while the point of the job system is that you don't have to specialize. They've always been at odds, this is just taking one more step towards rectifying the issue. Shared categories shouldn't have a category cap.That'd leave certain merits being changed/shuffled/remade (looking at you, elemental affinities on RDM and BLM) and....that's the only one I can think of, actually.

[Dallas]

Well, looks like I know what I'm doing after the update. Whatever I want still, merits just pour in now.

[Babygyrl]

very happy about this!!

[Alhanelem]

They should only allow obtaining these in XP parties outside of Abyssea, or they won't be worth adding as content since they will be capped in one day.Stupid idea, and too late to change it now as it would be unfair to everyone who's already done their merits.

[Tamoa]

They should only allow obtaining these in XP parties outside of Abyssea, or they won't be worth adding as content since they will be capped in one day.


And how exactly would you suggest that the game should distinguish between limit points gained inside abyssea, and limit points gained outside of abyssea?

[Rambus]

Stupid idea, and too late to change it now as it would be unfair to everyone who's already done their merits.

i do agree it is a bad idea, but how is unfair? I do not make sence of that. I see abyssea is endgame leveling not 30-75 so that idea is bad. Like I asked ealier though how is it unfair?

I read closer and I am a bit confused.

each combat skill needs to be raised too. when you have 400+ skill in a weapon how does 16 mean anything?

why does it go from 20-32 ( meaning 1 and 1/2 cap weapon skill) but magic is only 1 more skill? (16 to 24)?

I find that a bit unfair esp if you want to be bard that can cap 2 of them.


276 > 291 is 5.7% ish increase 361 with a 5.7% increase is 381 meaning each skill now should have about 10 merits into it and at 99 needs to be higher for that effect.

so if they are doing 4 full ones now each combat skill needs to raise to 10, stuff like evade could raise to 5.

so total cap would need to be 40.

magic:
same thing, make it 40, 10 in each, bard main can merit thier 2 skills then plop on BLM and do ele and enf.

to spechalize in melee you really only need one, magic is 2 for most.

so the cap should be at lest 4 to cover 2 jobs well.

and to answer a possible question or rebuttal a head of time. no melee using 2 or more weapons well is different than magic, I think only 3 jobs have 2 different empyrean weapons. PLD ( GS/sword) war ( GA/Axe), DRK ( GS, cythe). so it is not like you need more combat skills on one job, that is not the case with some mage jobs, some can use 3 magic skills very well. SCH has 4 ( elemental magic, dark magic, Enhacing magic, enfeebling magic) if healing magic had more of an impact, that could be agured too.

So i really want these questions answered:

Why unfair to magic cap?
Why not increasing the limit for each individual combat or magic?

[Orson]

Definitely no reason to have a total cap on any of these categories. Even HP/MP, Stats, and Others would not be overpowered to give no total category cap.

The one thing I would really like to see though is have it so enmity merits can be toggled on or off. Better yet you could just let us refund limit points for free from +/- enmity.

I would like to see job specific merits possibly expanded too.

[Darthporisius]

Definitely no reason to have a total cap on any of these categories. Even HP/MP, Stats, and Others would not be overpowered to give no total category cap.

The one thing I would really like to see though is have it so enmity merits can be toggled on or off. Better yet you could just let us refund limit points for free from +/- enmity.

I would like to see job specific merits possibly expanded too.

I agree with the enmity one, I, for one, am a PLD and a SCH (along other jobs). There are days I wish my PLD would generate hate like my SCH, but that's a different topic. I wish I could merit Enmity for Job Specific, hell, I'll spend more merits just for that. Let me merit a job's enmity level to what I want it to. Would help both tanks and mages.

I do tend to counter my own statements just to think of both sides. Player skill, (one merit area that I wish I could merit in, not only for myself, but others) would be at risk. We have all seen how some people play when they are in Abyssea with their atmas then are complete <expletive> outside of it. A rookie would do a better job against a NM like Kirin, King B, etc than them, and I even talk about some who leveled the old ways. Sorry, my mentality is, if you can't play the job w/o any external support minus Pro/Shell/Cures, don't play it.

Okay, I'm done with my rant... sorry.

-DP

[Karinya_of_Carbuncle]

The point of the merit system is to force people to specialize, while the point of the job system is that you don't have to specialize.

Exactly. I was pretty pissed off when merits first came out -- one of the great things about FFXI from the start is that you didn't need multiple characters for multiple jobs the way every other MMO forces you to have. You still have to level different jobs separately, but things like rank, fame, and gobbiebags carry over. And then at merits it turns out they were just yanking your chain all along, if you want to be the best possible at multiple jobs you'll need multiple characters after all.

...btw, still no fix for enmity merits for people with both tank and non-tank jobs?

[AyinDygra]

Specialization in merits runs contrary to the design themes found throughout the rest of the game. Some design themes that come to mind as examples are:
Jobs: play all the jobs and level them all to max.
Subjobs: swap out your subjob to best suit the task at hand. (not locked into one subjob; note the outcry when certain subjobs are made "mandatory" by the player base. This goes against the concept of the rest of the game.)
Gear: swap out any piece at any time you like for any situation.
Abilities: learn them all as you level up.
HELM: anybody can gather materials; everyone can level fishing and chocobo digging to max.

The only other examples of "specialization" in the game's concept are:
Crafting: you can only specialize in one craft, but even that is being changed now to allow two max crafts, with future increases in this cap planned even further.
Penalized gear switching in Ballista: This sort of fits into the thought of specialization, but it could also encourage gearing for generalization for all manner of circumstances as well. I'm not quite sure why they penalize this, unless it's because it causes a player to lose target lock on someone when they blink.
Race: you can't change your race, and each race gives you a slight edge or handicap in certain areas (but there is gear that can change that.)

---

I think many of the job abilities and spells that are only learned by spending merits should be moved into the natural learning-by-leveling structure of the jobs and the merits applying to them should simply adjust them somehow (duration, potency, recast, etc.)

Weapon and magic skill merits should only be individually limited, without a category cap.

Enmity merits should be toggle-able somehow. (allowing people to merit both + and - enmity, turning one or the other on or off)

I'm divided on the subject of removing the category caps on Job Specific merits, but if abilities were all natively learned and the merits were simply adjustments to the existing abilities, it would partially alleviate the situation.

[LeaderofAtlantis]

I'm happy with them raising the combo caps they are, but I do wish they would develop the individual Job merits (Group 1 & Group 2) a bit more. Being a THF, I was always curious why we couldn't merit the timers of Mug or Steal (yeah, I know it's not necessarily something any of us thieves would do, but since we are called THIEVES, shouldn't those 2 be something we can better specialize in?) or at the very least, increase the accuracy/potency.

There have been many lower level additions to the various jobs since the introduction of the merit point system. Dragoons now have Conserve TP, Samurais have Sekkanoki, Ninjas have Yonnin and Innin, Summoners have Elemental Siphon and Blood Boon, and I'm sure I'm missing many others, but many of these could have been possibilities in our merit paths.

For everyone who seems to think we should be able to make our characters as strong as we want (and maybe I'm just misreading several posts, but I don't think I am), the whole point of the merit system, at least to me, was to allow us to customize our characters for our own game play style - not just make a cookie cutter of what everyone else wants us to do.

Now as Rambus stated, I would like to see some changes to the job specific merits. The jobs that are forced to either choose between having a magic spell (or Avatar ability) or making 1 or 2 specific ones stronger, should probably have those merits shifted to potency/accuracy merits. RDM Group 2 could include a potency/accuracy increase for all Dia, Slow, Paralyze, Phalanx, Bio and Blind spells. I've always wondered why several BLM (and I think a DRK or two) type monsters have access to Bio III and WHMs to Dia III, but those spells can't be learned by us when we are those jobs.

Moving on away from just the mages though, I would like to see Aura Steal changed to a separate Job Ability or changed so that there's a possibility for us THFs to steal an item AND dispel/steal a buff at the same time - not the either/or scenario we have now. That's just 1 example off the top of my head, I'm sure there are others that some other people here can think of.

Finally, several jobs have many choices for Group 1 and Group 2 merits while others have few. I know, for example, that with Ninja it would make no sense to allow for the enhance of 1 or 2 spells on the elemental wheel while ignoring the rest of the elemental wheel, but it either hurts them because they are forced to divide up few merits into more choices than jobs like THF, or it hurts jobs like THF because we don't have as much of a selection. I look forward to seeing if we get either an increase in the combo points allowed per group and/or per individual item, and/or get an increase in the number of choices available to us on jobs with fewer choices. I would hope it would be all of the above, but that's just me.

The Merit System has always been something I've loved since I hit 75 for the first time on THF. It reminded me of my other Final Fantasy experiences such as Final Fantasy VI where I could use Espers to either focus on 1 or 2 stats per character or make a character average in all abilities if I like. I could "customize" each character the way I wanted to. It also reminded me of Final Fantasy X's Sphere Grid, but not so overpowered that I could walk up to a creature like the Jailer of Love on Thief and solo it within a few minutes. I look forward to the developers continuing to expand this system, but I hope they keep an eye on maintaining the balance of the game in the process.