[byr1001] Uncapping the Merit Point Categories

@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.

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

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

Version update in 3 days!

Lets bump Merits maximums.

Quote:

---

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.

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rekin

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Umichi

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kari

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.

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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.

---

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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.

---

Oh this is a good suggestion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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.

---

I like this idea better than my own. Would like again.

Now that "Balance" is very obviously no longer a concern (given the proposed stats on gear), 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:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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!

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Byrth

Now that "Balance" is very obviously no longer a concern (given the proposed stats on gear), 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.

I wish there was a way to give more likes.

What they said. ^

Please consider this, Development Team!!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Byrth

Now that "Balance" is very obviously no longer a concern (given the proposed stats on gear), 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.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kristal

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

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.

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.

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.

Support bump.

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

Loving the tag cloud for this thread.

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!!!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Spectreman

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.

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Richie

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.

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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.

---

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

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.)

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 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.

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.

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?