[dev1049] New weapon skills

[Afania]

You completely and entirely missed my point. Sidewinder is attainable by anyone using archery as a skill(well rng anyways). JR is not(requires huge time sink of 48? or so NMs + 175? items just for lv 90). If that logic is understandable, then you should be able to grasp that the baseline was always sidewinder, if you have JR then you are in a better boat...but not due to choices, but due to time restraint. I hate to burst you bubble but empy is not the norm for everyone on every job. The fact they are limiting how well you can perform at a base level, further pushes any job lacking said skills down even further, meaning even further ostracizing jobs that do not have the empy/merit ws and such.



lol so then your whole game revolves around what others do/wear? as someone else having something like that is boring for u >.> in either case those armor are readily interchangeable at will and for all intents and purposes are not unlocking anything new for said jobs(small edit: this goes for 100% of armor btw).

If empy is not for every job, then so does merit WS, it's not for every job as well, idk what's the difference. If you have the merit WS, great, you gain the advantage, if you don't, then you can still play your job if your pt happened to need that job. If situation needs a MNK, and if they can't find empy/merit WS MNK, they will still invite MNK without them. I invited many MNK during Abyssea era without BB/nyzul WS, just because I can't find a better one. If someone else in the pt happened to have an empy MNK, chances are you can't play MNK even with merit WS as well.

And yes you can change mission reward, and you can also change your merit WS, it's not like you pick one then you stuck with it for rest of your life. You just require some effort that's more than clicking a job change button to change it(like mission reward) that's all.

Yes it's boring if everyone lost it's uniqueness, I can't stress this enough.

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.

Let me just do one example, if player A has 1 job leveled, WHM 95, but he is the most dedicated WHM on this server.
Player B has all job 95. Both player spend same amount of time doing research on their jobs, and have almost all the best gear on both jobs. And both player has same amount of play time/resources. In terms of gears, both players are on same level, since most of the good gears are from Abyssea and doesn't take very long to obtain. However since player A focus on one job, he is a bit more knowledgeable and skilled than player B, he one of the best WHM on this server. But player B can still perform at least 90%~95% as good as player A by watching other ppl plays and read info on internet.

Now both player wants to join an event LS, but this LS only have one spot open. If you're LS leader, who're you gonna take?

It may depend on what LS needs, but I believe most of the LS leader would rather pick player B than A. Why? Player B offers way more than A ever can to a LS. You don't need a "best" WHM to clear most of the stuff, a WHM has 95% of performance can get it done just fine. But player B has way more different job to offer and way more competitant. And player A can't make it up with 5% of extra skill level.

Now after merit WS come out, player B decided to focus on DRG SAM BST, 3 of his favorite job, so he merit polearm/GK/axe. Player A of course merit club. Now player A's WHM is a lot more different than player B's. It offers unique value by having a very pimp WS and do decent dmg when needed. Now LS may invite him to events just because he offers extra unique value other WHMs doesn't have and it may be situationally useful. Does player B still get to play WHM? Yes, when player A isn't around and pt needs WHM. But player A's WHM is no longer replaceable. Does that make player B a gimp player and useless to LS? No. Player B still has 20 jobs, and still offers a lot of jobs when pt needs it, he is just not good at everything.

If you wanna choose to have every job, fine, but it's not really fair that a player plays every job is more useful than player who focus on one job. Both players are great players, player A gets club WS but doesn't make player A better than B. It only makes A's WHM better than B's, but B still has a lot of other aspect to offer. However if B gets every WS, then A no longer has it's own advantage by focusing on that job.

You can keep saying skill can make every player different, but really, in the end skill doesn't make a whole world of difference, unlike playing piano irl. If you read parse result, a dedicated DRK with every best gear and Cala probably gonna parse similar to a DRK(with 5 other DD job leveled) with every best gear and Cala, since most of the optimal sets of gears are on the internet already and you just have to swap them correctly.

It is just necessary to distinguish every player, just like every other MMO. Having skill difference isn't enough. Although you can job change, this game never allow players to master everything since day1, it's just like other MMORPGs. At lv 75 era everyone is different because gears takes months to years to obtain, lving to 75 takes months to years too. So most of the player only have enough playtime to focus on one, a PLD with aegis and ares probably not gonna wear that tier of gear on 10 other jobs too. Now with many ppl finish empy/+2 and even VW bodies in months, you pretty much have to rely on skill only(which doesn't make a whole world of difference in this game for ppl that bother to do research) to stand out if you want to focus on one job instead of 10.

If you think making player different with merit is stupid, then offer other suggestion for players to stand out on different job and create uniqueness then.

What I can think of:
1.Make gears takes months to years to obtain like it used to be so players can only pimp 1~3 jobs.....but do you want that? I highly doubt it, and I doubt most of the player base wants old FFXI back as well.

2.Make this game a whole lot more complicated like rocket science so skill/knowlege actually make more difference. You need to study for years to truely understand a job fully.

And obviously, this is even more stupid than limit with merit, this is just a game.

3. The easiest way is to limit with merit/gear rewards that you can only pick one(or three), that's the most effective, and fast way to get the result.