[dev1049] New weapon skills

[Neisan_Quetz]

Guess I just see this as a great way to finally add some unique game play between players. It even makes relic and emp holders have to consider if they want to spam the weapon's WS or put merits in for these new ones.

Nothing has changed for relic WS, the useful ones are just as viable as they were before the new Weaponskills.

Emps depends on the situation.

[FrankReynolds]

Except if you have WAR THF NIN MNK all of them won't suck by not having the new WS, your WAR NIN MNK can spam empy WS(which as far as test result goes they're still the best), get ODD from empy WS and still outparse WAR NIN MNK using merit WS, and only your THF needs merit WS, in the end you only merit 1 and still has good performance on all of them.

Still I don't know what's this "If I don't have all merit WS I'm gonna suck" mentality comes from.

First of all, not everyone has a relic/w/e for every job. The more jobs you have leveled, the more silly what you just described sounds. These WS will be expected of any job that you don't have a relic or w/e for by any group leader. More importantly though, I just want things to use my merits on, and options to use on my different jobs. The above was a hypothetical by the way, I have, and I suspect most other people do as well have several different jobs leveled / geared besides the ones listed. I just don't see why you would want to limit someone who has a bunch of different jobs leveled by going "Well, if you don't have an Empyrian for that job, then come on something that you have the merit WS for.".

[Alhanelem]

Just an FYI out there. the WS still have a stat mod with 1 merit. It appears to be a 15% base and the first point does add 17%; I've read about some testing suggesting that the stat modifier when maxed is 100% of the stat.

These weapon skills are not so jaw dropping amazing (for the most part) that you will suddenly be a terrible gimp if you can't have every one for every job. The whole point of the merit system in the first place, though, was to enable specialization, so that sure, you can play every job, but you will be stronger with your personal jobs of choice. Thus, even when everyone has every job maxed, some people will still be stronger as one job than as another.

Also as an aside, 15 points does allow you to get every weapon skill- they just won't have very strong stat mods.

[Taint2]

Just an FYI out there. the WS still have a stat mod with 1 merit. It appears to be a 15% base and the first point does add 17%; I've read about some testing suggesting that the stat modifier when maxed is 100% of the stat.

These weapon skills are not so jaw dropping amazing (for the most part) that you will suddenly be a terrible gimp if you can't have every one for every job. The whole point of the merit system in the first place, though, was to enable specialization, so that sure, you can play every job, but you will be stronger with your personal jobs of choice. Thus, even when everyone has every job maxed, some people will still be stronger as one job than as another.

Also as an aside, 15 points does allow you to get every weapon skill- they just won't have very strong stat mods.

1/5 is 20% Mod
2/5 is 40%
3/5 is 60%
4/5 is 80%
5/5 is 100%

But there is a 0.85 Alpha applied which explains the 17% increase.

[Coldbrand]

I just hope they increase the merit category cap to 20 or 25. 3 isn't enough.

[Economizer]

Play better at what? Some job does have more complexity than others. But quite a lot of job is nothing more than pop JA then WS, swap gears for x situation and y situation. There are really nothing else to do research and most of the players that bother to care about their job can catch up in terms of playing skill by watching/doing research and they know what to do easily. The skill required in FFXI to play a job nicely isn't half as hard as playing piano to professional level. Someone may spend their entire life practicing playing piano and become a master and create new value for this instrument, you don't need to spend entire life to play FFXI to learn a job, this game is nothing but a bunch of codes, and many most effective ways to play it(which are mostly done by math) are already discussed on the forums/being discovered.

If you really believe this, then you are doomed to be a little "cookie cutter" for the rest of your FFXI career.

It is irrelevant on whether playing a job takes more or less skill then playing the piano, it still takes a set of skills to do. Belittling those skills in favor of gear and merits will only make your playtime empty.

If you think that playing a job is just spamming abilities and spells, then you have no sense of pride in your job. You probably think that someone being able to get the same set of gear you have makes you less good at your job, and I think you'd be right - because your job is not Corsair or whatever FFXI construct you think it is anymore, your job is a metaphorical (er... I won't risk inflaming the overworked moderators to make a better point here) ego measuring contest. You will always lose at that contest for as long as you live as long as you play it, no matter what the arena you play it is in, because there is no way to truly win.

And as long as you do not hold the sense of magic in your class/job, the sense of pride from doing what you do, and the gratification from doing that job well regardless of what others do, and as long as you don't do it as best you can, you will never be unique.

You will always be the cookie cutter, because you foolishly think that some piece of hard to get gear gear or illogical merit limitation will make you any different. It doesn't. You can't be geared or merited to be any more unique from anyone else playing you job in the best gear loadout, but you can care about what you do. This will always make you stand out, even if you aren't the one wearing the best gear or using the best merit loadout for your job.

I could go on and on, but really, I can sum this up very easily. You should be able to have fun regardless of what other people are capable of, and we should never be pointlessly held back for bad reasons.

[Natasha]

First of all, not everyone has a relic/w/e for every job. The more jobs you have leveled, the more silly what you just described sounds. These WS will be expected of any job that you don't have a relic or w/e for by any group leader. More importantly though, I just want things to use my merits on, and options to use on my different jobs. The above was a hypothetical by the way, I have, and I suspect most other people do as well have several different jobs leveled / geared besides the ones listed. I just don't see why you would want to limit someone who has a bunch of different jobs leveled by going "Well, if you don't have an Empyrian for that job, then come on something that you have the merit WS for.".

But what you were just saying, is that essentially, if you don't have the best then you're gimp (assuming you think these weapon skills are strong) so if thats your mentality then you're gimp for not having an empy anyway.... not being the best at everything doesnt make you gimp -.-

abyssea mentality...

[Greatguardian]

snip

Shut up.

Do you believe in the Heart of the Cards, too? When you play Yu-Gi-Oh, are you worried that you may be sucked into another dimension if your blue eyes white dragon gets KO'd? Do you feel that the spirit of your Dark Magician is there to help you win the match and draw the right cards from your deck?

No?

Then we're on the same bloody page.

Have a problem with people who play the game differently from you? Fine. Some of us enjoy different aspects of this game, and no, that isn't automatically a bad thing.. Being able to master multiple jobs quickly and easily doesn't make someone a "cookie cutter robot". It's actually extremely easy when you understand how the game itself works at its core. All you have to do is apply the same concepts to whatever you're working with at the time.

But hey, go ahead and keep flaming everyone who doesn't believe in the Heart of the Cards. It just highlights your insecurity. I don't see anyone else sitting around comparing themselves to other on a parser or pen/paper, OCD about being able to beat everyone else around them. Honestly, I could care less.

Know the real reason why people go out and math out how to play the game as well as they can?

Because some people just care about being the absolute best that they can be.

That doesn't make it a race, shortbus. Just a time trial. My only competition is myself. I guess that thought just never occurred to you, though.

[FrankReynolds]

But what you were just saying, is that essentially, if you don't have the best then you're gimp (assuming you think these weapon skills are strong) so if thats your mentality then you're gimp for not having an empy anyway.... not being the best at everything doesnt make you gimp -.-

abyssea mentality...

Yes, my monk currently has half built Vara. It is Gimp in my opinion. Having this merit weapon skill (which seems to perform pretty close to VS so far) would be a huge step toward un-gimping it. Glad we agree.

For people who don't get to build Best in class weapons, having access to the merit WS will be a must in many situations, if they expect to be competitive with other DD.

[brayen]

First of all, not everyone has a relic/w/e for every job. The more jobs you have leveled, the more silly what you just described sounds. These WS will be expected of any job that you don't have a relic or w/e for by any group leader. More importantly though, I just want things to use my merits on, and options to use on my different jobs. The above was a hypothetical by the way, I have, and I suspect most other people do as well have several different jobs leveled / geared besides the ones listed. I just don't see why you would want to limit someone who has a bunch of different jobs leveled by going "Well, if you don't have an Empyrian for that job, then come on something that you have the merit WS for.".

This sums it up pretty well. I have no desire to be limited on the jobs i like. Not this late in the game. Maybe if it was the case on release but changing this up now is upsetting.