Merit Point Expansion

[Francisco]

As is, merit points accumulate much more than we can utilize them. After a few hours of working on a friend's empyrean weapon, I re-maxed out all my merit categories, and I'm back at 20/20 9999/10000 - without anything to spend them on. I think it's time to look at additional uses for this system.

New uses for merit points outside the merit point system

- Addition of the ability to expend one merit point for one level of skill increase in any uncapped magic or combat skill.

New merit point categories

Due to the nature of these, I think the merit point cost of these should be fairly high.

Auto-Regen: Gradually restores HP. One HP/tick per upgrade, maximum of five upgrades. Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 20

Auto-Refresh: Graudally restores MP. One MP/tick per upgrade, maximum of five upgrades. Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 20

Critical Hit Bonus: Increases critical damage by 1%. Maximum of five upgrades. Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 20

Quickening: Increases chance of "Quick Magic" by 1%. Maximum of five upgrades. Cost: 20, 20, 20, 20, 20

Damage Boost: Increases chance of doing double damage by 1%. Maximum of five upgrades. Cost: 20, 20, 20, 20, 20

Nul-Blaze: Fire resistance +5, 1% chance to nullify damage. Maximum of five upgrades. Cost: 20, 20, 20, 20, 20 (repeat for the other elements)

Physical Shield: Physical damage taken -1%. Maximum of five upgrades. Cost: 20, 20, 20, 20, 20

Mana Shield: Magical damage taken -1%. Maximum of five upgrades. Cost: 20, 20, 20, 20, 20

And more merit categories that might be interesting...

- Increased meal duration.
- Save TP
- Increased Cure Potency received
- Receive extra benefit from enhancing magic

Food for thought. :p

[Mirage]

I wish there were some more job specific merits to dump lots of merit points in.

[Korpg]

Auto-Regen: Gradually restores HP. One HP/tick per upgrade, maximum of five upgrades. Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 20

Auto-Refresh: Graudally restores MP. One MP/tick per upgrade, maximum of five upgrades. Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 20

Actually, since Auto-Refresh is more "gamebreaking" than Auto-Regen, I would suggest either making each merit +2 HP per tick or reducing Auto-Refresh to .5 mp per tick (meaning you need to have 2 ticks for 1 MP of refresh, at 5 merits 2 ticks = 5 MP)

[Glamdring]

if you recall, they stated that we would get a new merit-type system once we reach 99. In addition, I think that levels 91-99 may need to revamp merits depending on where/what type of content is in the works. Hard to say...

[Aaralyn]

I do like those merit suggestions

[Francisco]

Actually, since Auto-Refresh is more "gamebreaking" than Auto-Regen, I would suggest either making each merit +2 HP per tick or reducing Auto-Refresh to .5 mp per tick (meaning you need to have 2 ticks for 1 MP of refresh, at 5 merits 2 ticks = 5 MP)

I thought of Auto-Refresh being too powerful at 5mp/tick - but in reality it's only 120 mp a minute - not even 1/3rd of a big nuke for BLM and probably about one big cure for a WHM. More regen might be nice though. I was trying to be somewhat realistic with these merit suggestions, so I left it alone at 5/tick.

[Korpg]

I thought of Auto-Refresh being too powerful at 5mp/tick - but in reality it's only 120 mp a minute - not even 1/3rd of a big nuke for BLM and probably about one big cure for a WHM. More regen might be nice though. I was trying to be somewhat realistic with these merit suggestions, so I left it alone at 5/tick.

I was thinking about SMN.

I don't run out of mp as SMN at all, and inside abyssea I can keep BPing without worry. Having +5 MP per tick would help significantly, but it wouldn't really affect me at all.

But others, who solely rely on Minkin Atma, would greatly benefit from it, to the point that they won't work at the skills needed to be able to solo NMs fast. I think that this would be a detriment to those players, and create more problems than good because then you will have gimp players taking 45 minutes to solo a NM, because of personal skills, atma choices, and gear choices. It wouldn't increase my killtime, because it would still take just as long with +5 Auto-Refresh as it would without. But it would enable those without a clue in what they are doing to have an excuse to try something beyond their skill. And enable them to try for 45 minutes, only to fail at the final 25% of the mob's health because they cannot compensate the increased TP moves and/or additional effects included with that.

[Aaralyn]

Thats a good point about summoner. Even outside abyssea my summoner has a butt-load of -perp gear and refresh.

Maybe make it so it only works for jobs that don't already have it as a job trait. Or something....

[Korpg]

Thats a good point about summoner. Even outside abyssea my summoner has a butt-load of -perp gear and refresh.

Maybe make it so it only works for jobs that don't already have it as a job trait. Or something....

That wouldn't work either. SMNs get Auto Refresh +2. PLDs get Auto Refresh +1. By making it so they can't benefit from the merits, which would enable others to get Auto Refresh +5 is not fair, and makes these 2 jobs weaker imho.

[Fearforever]

I agree that Auto-Refresh & Regain could be gamebreaking, but the Regen seems fine.

Also for the love of god can we please increase merit point's limits?

We had 8 for magic/combat at lv75 and still at 90 Give us a limit of 12-15 for all Magic/Combat/HP, 10 for Atribs, 6-8 for "Others".

[AyinDygra]

Expanding on merits has been on my mind, and these really make it to the top of my list as interesting additions:

Merit: Heroic Stature
Increases your "effective level."
+1 level for each merit. 20 merit points each

What this would do is: Whenever there is a level check, it would consider you to be up to 5 levels higher.
At level 99, the game would consider you to be level 104 in these areas:
* Damage & Defense calculations
* Enfeeble resisting.
* Aggro conditions (like 75's not aggroing Easy Prey Robber Crabs anymore, even though we're well beyond the normal aggro level gap, SE did say they were looking into changing this little quirk of the system(link) (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/5311-Monster-aggro?p=76562&viewfull=1#post76562))
* Anything else that uses level checks.

New Merit Category: Inherited Job Traits
Purchase Job Traits from any job you have currently leveled up to level 49.
Each Job Trait costs 20 merits. You can purchase ALL of them.

You are only able to set 1 of the Job Traits.
* They are set through a menu, just like your Support Job or Blue Magic spells.
* You can only set Job Traits that would be available from your support job at your current level.
Example: Martial Arts IV from Monk level 46. You would have to be level 92 to set this Trait on any other Job.

For traits you can learn from multiple jobs at different levels, perhaps it would base the restriction on the lowest level version you have access to. (like Ranger getting Accuracy Bonus I at level 10, but Dragoon at 30. If you only have Dragoon to 30 and buy this trait, you'd have to be level 60 before you can set this trait, rather than 20, until you level Ranger to 10)

[Fearforever]

I think the basicly increasing your Level where as checking is concerned is too game breaking, It'd be better if they just gave us Attack, Defence, Accuary, Evasion (not skill), Crit. hit dmg, Magic. Acc. etc. merits Could have +5 atk/def/acc/eva per merit so 5 merits would be +25 atk/def etc. that'd proc be safer.

[Seriha]

They could just let us merit everything to max, as the concept of making people unique doesn't really fly when some merit choices are simply no contest.

[Jalonis]

I agree that Auto-Refresh & Regain could be gamebreaking, but the Regen seems fine.

Also for the love of god can we please increase merit point's limits?

We had 8 for magic/combat at lv75 and still at 90 Give us a limit of 12-15 for all Magic/Combat/HP, 10 for Atribs, 6-8 for "Others".

Checked your merit panel recently?

[Fearforever]

Checked your merit panel recently?

Yes.... they increased HP/MP to 8>12 and Atribs from 5>8 big deal what about more upgrades? please read what i actually said... incase u didn't read it'll resay it.

We need 12-15 limit for EACH combat/magic skill/HP/MP
10 for Atribs
6~8 for Others.

[Legomike]

Inherited Job Traits this
except as long as you have the job leveled you can buy it. starting at 75
Smn25 gets all the rest of your jobs auto refresh at 25

[Jalonis]

Frankly I'd like to see more refresh available either through gear, spells, or traits. It's ridiculous how long a high level mage needs to spend on their ass when doing stuff without the refresh available in abyssea.

[Kaiichi]

Okay with this, alow us to merit everything to its max, ninja should not have to pick between sange, nte, or one teir of San spell, and rdm shouldnt have to choose between Dia or Bio, just as a few examples. I'm sure every job has beefs on what they actually want to merrit oposed to what they would like to merit. In my case Angon vs Wyvern survivle. Ppl say Angon so we can kill stuff faster, but empathy keeps my wyvern alive mush longer with protect/shell/3rd eye, and what-not, alowing me to max out damage with jump crits ect. I shouldent have to pick one or the other or a gimped version of both.
I'm sure others would agree.