[dev1210] Why Not Merit Weaponskills ??

Deep down I think people who support merit caps on weapon skills are just afraid of having even competition on their favored jobs. They don't want to get shown up on their primary job by someone who just leveled that job as their 4th. That's why they want to convince everyone that you don't NEED that merited WS to play the job. They want to maintain the edge they gain by having it themselves. If it wasn't worth having then they wouldn't have bothered with it themselves.

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Originally Posted by Mefuki

The argument that uncapping merits will hurt uniqueness doesn't make sense to me, not only because, as Byrth has said, there's usually only one "right" way to merit but also because there's only so much time in a day. Even if you were to uncap merits people would still be distinct. I'm a BLU main, maybe Justin is a RDM main, Byrth is maybe a DNC main etc and we each have different secondary jobs and we only have so much time to devote to any job/jobs and getting gear for those jobs. Merits make no difference as far as uniqueness goes.

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Actually they do, now lets say you and your buddies all have BLU lvl'd, but you are the only one that put merits into merits that benefit BLU, although with the new gear unless merit caps are raised or something of the sorts, the difference in minimal, but from a min/max standpoint, you would out perform the other BLUs, hence making you unique to the other BLUs in theory. Basically, the merits help to try and stand out a little more so that people maybe aren't all the same, give that extra push for the people who actually enjoy the jobs they put the merits into to benefit. They also don't really make or break you now and days as much as they did back in the days, but they still help you excel no matter how you look at it.

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Originally Posted by Camiie

Deep down I think people who support merit caps on weapon skills are just afraid of having even competition on their favored jobs. They don't want to get shown up on their primary job by someone who just leveled that job as their 4th. That's why they want to convince everyone that you don't NEED that merited WS to play the job. They want to maintain the edge they gain by having it themselves. If it wasn't worth having then they wouldn't have bothered with it themselves.

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Oh, excuse those players for not wanting to be generic ff player #4524 instead of maybe somehow differentiating themselves from the pact.

I've been staying out of this but that last reply to Afania made me laugh a little and think they would be one of the few people who would have liked FF II's leveling system. The only FF that had such a strict +/- system.

As a person who normally out parses the vast majority of DDs i see if you look at my ffxiah profile you will see i have 1/5 in alot of weaponskills. I can asure you that the measly ~200 dmg boost that we have been looking at is nothing. Now with the update to other weaponskills there seems to be alot more choices. I honestly cant wait to see how they do!

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Originally Posted by Nappy

As a person who normally out parses the vast majority of DDs i see if you look at my ffxiah profile you will see i have 1/5 in alot of weaponskills. I can asure you that the measly ~200 dmg boost that we have been looking at is nothing. Now with the update to other weaponskills there seems to be alot more choices. I honestly cant wait to see how they do!

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I'm sorry but i refuse to believe anyone called "Nappy" is out parsing anything.

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Originally Posted by PlumbGame

Oh, excuse those players for not wanting to be generic ff player #4524 instead of maybe somehow differentiating themselves from the pact.

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They ARE generic FF player #4524 just as you are #4525 and I'm #4526. No weapon skill is going to change that.

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Originally Posted by Camiie

This isn't even a logical discussion. The whole thing on both sides is based on feelings and preferences. There's nothing wrong with that. The problem here is that you seem to think that an RPG can only be an RPG if it's based on a plus/minus system. That somehow if SE allows a player to unlock all weapon skills on a single character that FFXI is no longer an RPG.

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I never deny the fact that my argument is based on personal preference, so does everyone else's.

I don't MIND SE adding other RPG element if they remove merit point system, but as it stands now, this game is already lacking RPG element and removing them = even less.

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Originally Posted by Camiie

FFXI doesn't even have a plus/minus system in the first place as you've defined it. It has limits, but choosing to "plus" one thing doesn't cause another thing to "minus." My INT doesn't go down when I merit STR. My WAR doesn't delevel when I level my BLM. My ice potency doesn't decrease when I merit earth. So, your whole plus/minus argument is moot anyway. FFXI is already not an RPG by your rather strict definition.

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When you merit STR DEX, your INT merit is 0/12, this is essentially the same thing.

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Originally Posted by Camiie

It's a fantasy game. Asking for it to mimic real life in such a way is absurd.

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Even though it's a fantasy game, the game still has to follow certain "rule" that makes sense and related to rl. That'd create a feeling that we're in a virtual world, and immerse in it. Just because it's fantasy world, doesn't mean we can do anything we want.

I mean, why are there gravity? Why can't characters just fly and go through walls? Why do we have economy? Why can't we get free food/material? Why do we have arrows? Why can't we play this game like FFXIV that we just equip a bow and get free arrows?

Game dev can make any rule in a game because it's fantasy, but each rule must enhance the game playing experience to achieve the design goal. If the design goal is to create a world that simulate rl as much as possible in a fantasy world, then having arrows or having merit cap makes sense.

"Read a scroll and learn spell" is how this world works, so does "A pro BLM that spends entire life studying can't be the best RNG".

Personally, I think it's more interesting that way. This is, of course, personal preference. Since I like RPG or MMORPG closer to virtual life simulator.

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Originally Posted by Camiie

Unlock the weapon skill categories and leave uniqueness in the hands of the players. That's my idea.

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The point is that current FFXI doesn't offer room for uniqueness without merit point. And I still don't agree with "I'm unique because I say different thing in /p"

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Originally Posted by Camiie

Again you have this very narrow view about what an RPG is. An RPG can still be an RPG with total freedom. As long as you're playing a role in a game setting that's all that's required. The actual game mechanics and methods of stat distribution are irrelevant.

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Except RPG has always been about stats and +/-, making decisions about skills and such for past 30+ years. Don't try to reinvent the genre and remove such element and claim it's still RPG. In fact for games like JRPG, which is often more linear, is often being viewed as "adventure game with levels" instead of real RPG.

I'm not the only one with this POV. Most players in RPG community do view linearity "not real RPG". This isn't narrow POV, this is just how this genre works for past 30+ years.

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Originally Posted by Camiie

Deep down I think people who support merit caps on weapon skills are just afraid of having even competition on their favored jobs. They don't want to get shown up on their primary job by someone who just leveled that job as their 4th. That's why they want to convince everyone that you don't NEED that merited WS to play the job. They want to maintain the edge they gain by having it themselves. If it wasn't worth having then they wouldn't have bothered with it themselves.

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This is silly, I've been saying I agree the gap between merit point WS and the 2nd best option should be lowered, and certain job REALLY DON'T NEED IT. I'm against removing merit cap as a whole but I didn't say a thing about current WS hierarchy is doing right.

Also, after next WS update there's absolute 0 reason to complain about merit cap on WS anymore. Most of the jobs get better alternative.

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Originally Posted by Mefuki

The argument that uncapping merits will hurt uniqueness doesn't make sense to me, not only because, as Byrth has said, there's usually only one "right" way to merit but also because there's only so much time in a day. Even if you were to uncap merits people would still be distinct. I'm a BLU main, maybe Justin is a RDM main, Byrth is maybe a DNC main etc and we each have different secondary jobs and we only have so much time to devote to any job/jobs and getting gear for those jobs. Merits make no difference as far as uniqueness goes.

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Nah, I'm pretty sure a BLM main would merit INT instead of DEX. And I already explained the time spent issue in previous posts. Time spent on gearing a job doesn't make a player unique unless 1 job needs 10000 hours to complete. You certainly don't need 10000 hours to obtain very good gears in every slot in FFXI nowaday, more like 100 hrs.

If dev really make 1 job needing 10000 hours to master, players gonna cry too. Thus merit point system is a better option to create uniqueness, at least better than weekly gear cap in FFXIV, or super 10000hr grind fest.

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No one said that being unable to merit things is pushing them toward not logging in.

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It was said that being able to merit everything would push them toward logging in, so it makes total sense that the opposite is true if they do not uncap merits.

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I can't think of anything in this game really that limits you to one thing or another like merits do.

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Merits don't limit you, they give you choices for customization. Very little in the way of merits is truly necessary for gameplay. Merits are additions to what you already have, your job is not nonfunctional without them. Merits don't limit you to one thing or another, they simply give you a choice of favorite jobs to emphasize. Ive said time and time again, you don't have to have every merit wepon skill to play every job (even more so with the WS adjustmentes0, you don't have to have just the right attribute merits to play every job, you don't have to have just the right skill or Others merits to play every job; The rest of the categories are job specific and so don't really matter for this discussion.

Your statement implies jobs cannot be played without gearing merits just for htem, and that is simply completely not true. It is a player base issue, not a merit points issue, that players demand a far higher level of perfection than is really necessary to clear content.

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Unlock the weapon skill categories and leave uniqueness in the hands of the players. That's my idea.

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That only makes you "unique" until you have every merit WS. It makes people feel obligated to get them all just because they can, even though they probably don't need them all. Once the active playerbase has done this, there is no difference from one player to another and the merit system has failed at its originally intended function of offering customization options.

Remove merit caps and the only uniqueness from one player to the next will be whether they are haves or have nots, and their character appearance (which has so few options that everyone has at least a few lookalikes).