Rasing the cap on job merits.

So I did a search for the [dev1210] tag and found someone with a question similar to mine. Only a he never got a response from a Community Rep, so I'm asking again.

Will there be a raise in the cap for job specific merit points? If not, then why?

It doesn't need to be a huge raise, just bump it up to a nice even 20. It would allow from melees to use traits, and abilities that previously weren't worth it, and mages a little wiggle room for more spells.

I imagine the same way they won't raise Weaponskill category cap... these Merits were suppose to be more exclusive, theres suppose to be a choice you must make based on how you play the job. In the end it usually ends up a lot of people go with a cookie cutter set up, but not everyone.

Raising it to 20 would allow a lot of jobs to cap all 4 of their Tier II merits, not all of them, but a few of them... Raising to 15 might be a bit more realistic, but I still don't see it happening, again, for the same reason they adamantly refuse to increase the Weaponskill Merit category... they want these things to be limited. Still, hearing it from their mouth is probably the only thing people will accept so maybe they'll come here and say I've got the gist of it.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Hello, everyone.

Adjustments were previously made so that simply having a merit point weapon skill unlocked would still deal practical damage without having to upgrade it. We’d like players to choose whether they want to master a single weapon skill or use merit points to unlock weapon skills that can be used for multiple jobs. As such we do not have any plans at the moment to increase the cap.

In the upcoming version update, we will be making adjustments to weapon skills as a whole, and I believe this will open up the selection of weapon skills that can be used besides the ones learned with merit points. We’d first like to see game conditions after these adjustments are implemented.

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Sounds more like to me that the reason they don't want to raise the cap on weaponskill merits is they are phasing them out. Really that makes sense; the R/M/E weaponskills tend to be much better, and with them making the Empyrean weaponskills unlockable, Relic and Mythic can't be too far behind.

Seems to me that these weaponskills were meant more as a buffer until you got your job a fancier non-merit weaponskill.

The other reason they mentioned was that the weaponskills were changed to be better with only one merit point in them. While that was something done for the category 2 job merits for the ones where before it would just lower their crazy high cooldown, not all the job merits got updated and are worthless unless you sink all 5 in them.

that actually makes 0 sense, if they're making merit WS weaker in comparison it makes no sense for them to be exclusive.

Mythic (and now Ergon) WS have been unlockable for ages...

That's just the thing though. I don't think they aren't meant to be the be-all end-all weaponskill. The cap is there to keep people from relying on them for everything. You can max out three weapons, then when you get the R/M/E weaponskill you lower the points out of it and use it for another.

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Originally Posted by Sapphire

Mythic (and now Ergon) WS have been unlockable for ages...

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Oops... my mistake.

I agree with the OP. From a pld perspective though I think 20 cap on Group 1 isn't enough. Id like to see the cap for group 1 at 50 so you could put 10 into each ability.

Lets face it letting pld stun more isn't really going to do much tbh but it will help with enmity generation.

Holy circle is more or so worthless

Sentinel being able to be casted more often would do some really good.

Cover is a joke in it current form, but it has potential if tweaked.

Rampart is another that has slightly more use if able to be used more often.

Here are another three threads that support/request this idea:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...ncrease-Please
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...oint-Expansion
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...int-Categories

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Originally Posted by Ulth

That's just the thing though. I don't think they aren't meant to be the be-all end-all weaponskill. The cap is there to keep people from relying on them for everything. You can max out three weapons, then when you get the R/M/E weaponskill you lower the points out of it and use it for another.

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This isn't quite the case though. Sure, some mythic and Empy WSs are top dog, but far from all. Upheaval, Realmrazer, Ruinator, Resolution, and Last Stand are all at the top of the heap when it comes to damage for their weapon types. Some carry an effect/trait that may be desired as well that would earn them a 1/5 at least, such as Shijin Spiral for non-SC situations, Shattersoul for -MDB, Tachi: Shoha for a 5 part SC, Entropy for MP, and Requiescat for breath damage.

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

that actually makes 0 sense, if they're making merit WS weaker in comparison it makes no sense for them to be exclusive.

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Merit WS still has situational use, I don't think it's wrong to be exclusive if it's not a requirement to play the job.

It ain't right either though :o

Seems we have fell off topic somehow. The goal of this wasn't to discuss whether or not weaponskills merits need their cap raised. Camate already mentioned that they had no plans of increasing the cap for weaponskill merits.

The devs seem adamant on keeping merits as a form a specialization. I think that was also their plan for job points as you can only earn them for the job you are currently playing as. However a full alliance is 18 people, and there are 22 jobs to choose from. There does not need to be so much specialization between types of the same job.

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

It ain't right either though :o

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I already argued about the merit point system and defend for forcing players to make a decision, so I don't feel like repeating here :D

But I like a system forcing the player to make decision about their character. Since most merit WS are very situational and not a requirement, "I can't play the job because I don't have WS" is no longer a legit argument.

I don't think the caps should be completely removed either. I just think they should be higher. Maybe Karbuncle is right and 15 would be more suited than 20, so that jobs like dancer still have to make some choices in what not to merit. I also liked Aeron's suggestion of making the max ranks upgradable to 10. Both could happen even; raise the max upgrades to 10, then make three abilities be able to be maxed out with a cap of 30. While they are at it the misc could be changed to a max of 10 with a 20 cap too.

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Originally Posted by Afania

I already argued about the merit point system and defend for forcing players to make a decision, so I don't feel like repeating here :D

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The problem is that there usually very little decision to make. There's usually 2 things that outclass everything else and when there's more you just go 5/5 in one and split the other 5 between the useful ones. There needs to be some serious updates to the underdog meritables long before anyone needed to make a serious choice.

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Originally Posted by Afania

I already argued about the merit point system and defend for forcing players to make a decision, so I don't feel like repeating here :D

But I like a system forcing the player to make decision about their character. Since most merit WS are very situational and not a requirement, "I can't play the job because I don't have WS" is no longer a legit argument.

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And i've personally argued why its a dumb idea to begin with, but thats the problem with a topic thats been beaten to death huh?

Anyway, like the taruperson done said, Theres not a lot of choices to be had here, you got a handful of WS that are actually worth meriting, and once you know your favorite jobs you've about got your WS merits already placed for you.

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

And i've personally argued why its a dumb idea to begin with, but thats the problem with a topic thats been beaten to death huh?

Anyway, like the taruperson done said, Theres not a lot of choices to be had here, you got a handful of WS that are actually worth meriting, and once you know your favorite jobs you've about got your WS merits already placed for you.

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I don't see what's wrong with that? Merit WS is supposed to be some extra bonus for your fav jobs so your main/fav job is better/more well rounded than someone else's.

Or else there are no other way to make your main job better than other's since everyone cap gears in 3 weeks.

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Originally Posted by Afania

I don't see what's wrong with that? Merit WS is supposed to be some extra bonus for your fav jobs so your main/fav job is better/more well rounded than someone else's.

Or else there are no other way to make your main job better than other's since everyone cap gears in 3 weeks.

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Not everyone will cap out gear in 3 weeks... thats a bit of a leap in exaggerating >_>

Edit: Eh, old argument is old... can't explain it right, fug it.