Merit Weapon Skill Adjustments April Update

[Asymptotic]

I enjoy the fact that I am uniquely good at bard because I have invested my merits specifically into bard.

Okay, so you have Troubadour and Nightingale maxed just like every other BRD. You have minuet capped and no one cares about the other song you capped, but it's probably madrigal - just like every other BRD. A BRD with MACC staves has no trouble landing songs, so those singing merits are wasted (if you have those) and the instrument skills are wasted because they're unneeded for anything. I don't even want to imagine what ridiculous stats you merited but none of those are making you "uniquely good" at BRD either. The difference between a good BRD and a "regular" BRD are affinity casting time magian staves, MACC magian staves, 99 Daurdabla and Gjallarhorn, and knowledge of how to overwrite Dardaubla songs with Gjallarhorn songs properly. None of these distinctions come from the merit system.

So actually, you're not uniquely good at BRD. You just made poor choices and are worse at other things. This is exactly what I was talking about earlier when I said that a capped system ends up penalizing people who make poor decisions more than it does more competitive players, because less informed players will dedicate slots to things that they think are helping them but actually aren't and will just be further behind in other areas.

These sorts of distinctions are a healthy thing in RPGs, particularly when it comes to forming and maintaining a varied community. You can master a few things and stay mediocre in others, or you can choose to be a jack-of-all-trades, master of none.

Except that's not actually what happens. When good players are presented with a cost-system (limits) they tend to prioritize harder along the lines of the utility function.

Well! BLM is my favorite job, but I chose to merit STR/DEX for the melee jobs that I play because the extra INT contributes significantly less to my overall output on BLM than STR or DEX does for my melee jobs. I also merited HP because it helps my on all my jobs and MP just isn't all that important with sources of refresh bountiful. I would really like to have Shattersoul to play around with for my Black Mage when I'm out soloing, but Ruinator for my Beastmaster is a much stronger choice, and I just can't find room for Shattersoul with the other weapon skills I use regularly.

I repeat, a low cap rewards people who sacrifice personal preference for functionality and punishes people who merit things like instruments and CHR (even if they don't realize it).

I oppose the idea of removing the merit cap. I would sooner have the lesser-used merits buffed to a point where the playerbase would find them useful so we get more variety, not less.

People would still overwhelmingly favor the most useful options. If more options from each job-specific merit category became useful then people would just try to bring 2 of that job instead of one and exclude people based on the combination of abilities they already have present in the group.

It will go from:

Sorry, we're looking for a DRG with Angon 5/5 . Do you have BRD?

to

Sorry, we already have a WAR with those two abilities. We're actually looking for a WAR with these other two abilities now. Do you have BRD?

Diversity is great and all but people will still overwhelmingly favor the most efficient solution.

an RPG which lets you be the best at everything is not really a role playing game at all. It's a god-sim.

Good to know that all that separates good players from being Gods is 12 in a bunch of uncommonly used stats , 150 MP, weapon skills for derping around on weaker jobs, and 16 accuracy / attack on weapons we favor less often.

Removing the cap would have ultimately zero negative impact on any player. I'm sorry but I'm just not willing to factor your feelings into a mathematical reality. Completionists would cap everything and have something to do, and people who don't want to cap everything would just continue on as per usual (although they'd probably end up dumping merits into random things anyway but I don't see how that's harmful to them).

That aside :

They won't uncap it though which is why I think they should just raise the cap to the point where the probability of people being annoyed by it is low.

(And for the record, I'm not a "cap everything" person. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been on a job besides DNC in the past month and two of those were to sit by the fountain in Adoulin on PUP).

[Alhanelem]

Okay, so you have Troubadour and Nightingale maxed just like every other BRD. You have minuet capped and no one cares about the other song you capped, but it's probably madrigal - just like every other BRD. A BRD with MACC staves has no trouble landing songs, so those singing merits are wasted (if you have those) and the instrument skills are wasted because they're unneeded for anything. I don't even want to imagine what ridiculous stats you merited but none of those are making you "uniquely good" at BRD either. The difference between a good BRD and a "regular" BRD are affinity casting time magian staves, MACC magian staves, 99 Daurdabla and Gjallarhorn, and knowledge of how to overwrite Dardaubla songs with Gjallarhorn songs properly. None of these distinctions come from the merit system.

you're describing what the REAL problem is with merits IMO, and that is some (not all) jobs have no real choice when it comes to merit simply because every merit is crap except this one, or you don't really need more of this stat on this job. However this also counters the argument that not having these merits makes your job unplayable in these cases. None of the merits should be 'useless." if they don't do anything, they should be changed so they DO do something. Of course, this is just as unlikely as a cap change...

[Karbuncle]

Edit: You removed these parts, But i think I'll still address them for you.

-you aren't a "cap everything" person, so this doesn't benefit you, or anyone like you who don't care that they can't get everything, because they're not trying to

Even these people will still put their merits into something when they're 30/30, They wont actively try too, but they'll dump them when they have them. Giving them something to do with those merits. So, Yes, it would benefit them, even if its a sense of "Well, Least this exp isn't going to waste".

-people who are "cap everything' people just want everything capped for the sake of capping it, and not because they're actually any better or worse off for it.

Your reasoning for their actions is a tad off mark. The "Cap everything" folk do it expressly for the fact that they want to be better. To them, having category caps and allowing you to max em all would be exactly what they've wanted becaue it allows them to be equally good on all their jobs, which they leveled for a reason. (some different than others)

-other people don't benefit because their merits are nearly irrelevant, according to you

If you're using this as a counter-point, you have to admit uncapping merits isn't going to suddenly drop armageddon on FFXI and kill the game cause its like playin' with a Game Shark.

With that said, Benefit or not, the effects are still there, the bonuses are still there. My THF Cat 2 Merit arangements put me at 1 Aura Steal, 5/5 Feint, 4/5 Asscharge, I'd love to have all of those 5/5. While not many people would notice my Aura Steal having a high rate, I would, and thats why i bother min-maxing, to improve my character, myself. Artifically placed limits and choices dont help me with my char, it just severely limits what i can do on my other jobs.

I often think I'd like to play BST Again, but realize I don't have Ruinator, and it lessens my want to play it. I'd like to take up SAM, but i have no room for Shoha.. Same problem... Having these limits lessens my want to play on these jobs because i feel subpar, even with the best gear i can get, some of these WS offer clear and irreplaceable bonuses to the job.

And this is unfair in a game with 22 Jobs all of which you have and are encouraged to level at any time. Now, Being able to fully level all jobs available to you? This is an example of good Game design. I would probably never have played this game if they treated it like, say, crafting. How much would you like FFXI if you could only have 1 99 job, and the rest cant go past 49... That would be nothing more than a "Choice" system as you describe it just like merits are.

And honestly, It would be stupid, unfun, and wouldn't really promote choices, so much as it would replace 22 choices with 1 forced choice. as are Merit Limitations.

[FrankReynolds]

In bizzarrro world: Limiting the amount of customization == allowing customization... While allowing you to customize anything you want ruins customization....

[Demon6324236]

In bizzarrro world: Limiting the amount of customization == allowing customization... While allowing you to customize anything you want ruins customization....

To be honest I understand both points of view. Customization in and of itself is normally done for unique qualities which are special, by letting everyone cap them all, you are no longer special, as everyone can cap everything and be the same, thus, nothing special, and no customization. For instance, when you get a custom car, it is unique and specially made, not simply another car like all of the others of its kind.

The problems with this are...

A: Most jobs have a number of merits that are worthless, or are at least not good enough to be deserving of merits, thanks to this most people pick the same things anyways so it mostly voids the entire idea of merits being special, as Sylow pointed out, BRDs almost always have Nightingale, Troubadour, and Minuet, as well as probably Madrigal.

B: Even if they made all merits fair and equal in use, it would create the problem of restricting content even more than things like VW did. You would see shouts which request jobs with certain merits if they are truly that useful, for instance my RDM has fully merited Dia III and Phalanx, so when a shout comes by looking for RDM, but they must have Para/Slow II, I'm screwed out of going because my merits do not match up. Really this is a more likely scenario right now than a possible one, but the point is when all merits are equal, it adds more limitations on job selection and requirements on joining parties.

[Thoraeon]

A big problem with the proposed change is that many of the merit ws's are barely ahead of other options.

For example, Catastrophe and Coronach (with 99 relics) are barely behind the Entropy and Last Stand (respectively). If you are to go 4/5, it isn't worth the effort to put any in at all. (1/5 possibly for mp sake for Entropy, but Drk doesn't use its mp much anyways).

Shoha is beaten by Kaiten/Fudo in some situations. Evisceration beats Exenterator at times. The list goes on.

Many people invest millions of gil into gear for slight increases. These are the same people that would not go 4/5 in a ws because it negates alot of the effort they put into their gear. A 95 Ragnarok with 5/5 Reso could outdo a 99 Ragnarok with 4/5 Reso (although Crobachi can beat out Ragnarok, but that is another matter).

A better change to the merit ws's would be to increase the cap from 15 to 20. In the weapon category, you can fully merit 4 weapon types. It makes sense that you should be able to fully merit 4 weaponskills.


For reference:
99 Ragnarok, 99 Apocalypse, 99 Twashtar, 95 Annihilator, 90 Verethragna
5/5 Resolution, 5/5 Entropy, 5/5 Exenterator (I used to have 5/5 Last Stand, but I use Apoc more than Anni)

[FrankReynolds]

To be honest I understand both points of view. Customization in and of itself is normally done for unique qualities which are special, by letting everyone cap them all, you are no longer special, as everyone can cap everything and be the same, thus, nothing special, and no customization. For instance, when you get a custom car, it is unique and specially made, not simply another car like all of the others of its kind.

The problems with this are...

A: Most jobs have a number of merits that are worthless, or are at least not good enough to be deserving of merits, thanks to this most people pick the same things anyways so it mostly voids the entire idea of merits being special, as Sylow pointed out, BRDs almost always have Nightingale, Troubadour, and Minuet, as well as probably Madrigal.

B: Even if they made all merits fair and equal in use, it would create the problem of restricting content even more than things like VW did. You would see shouts which request jobs with certain merits if they are truly that useful, for instance my RDM has fully merited Dia III and Phalanx, so when a shout comes by looking for RDM, but they must have Para/Slow II, I'm screwed out of going because my merits do not match up. Really this is a more likely scenario right now than a possible one, but the point is when all merits are equal, it adds more limitations on job selection and requirements on joining parties.

The thing is that with a custom car, it is custom because there are a million different options as far as paint, body work and parts that you can use and the odds of everyone choosing the same stuff as you are slim because everyone has different priorities and different incomes levels and different schedules.

Final fantasy is similar. You can customize your character through races and genders and hair etc. You also have thousands of pieces of gear to choose from and thousands of different macros and gear sets that you can use to further mix and match them.

While it's true that everyone will gravitate towards the best there is available, that doesn't mean that everyone will be the same. See just like in real life, everyone in FFXI has a different schedule, goal and income level to support their gear etc. with. So in reality, even though we all have access to all the same gear etc. Everyone is still quite different in terms of both gear and play style.

I'm sure that we would all like a Lamborghini and there is no law saying that we can't all have one... yet most of us don't have one.

This is also true in final fantasy. There are thousands of things to do or obtain in game that everyone has access to and yet many choose to ignore. This is how true customization works.

TLDR; Capping weapon skills actually has the opposite effect (assuming you wanted to inspire customization). It causes most people to gravitate towards the most desired skill and ignore the less useful ones even more than they would if they were left to their own devices. It actually has the tendency to passively force everyone to be the same.

[Yinnyth]

While I agree that the current system does not work as well as it should for customization purposes, I disagree that uncapping merit categories increases customization. If exp grinding were no object, they may as well just give every character those boosts innately.

I still believe the fix is not a matter of lifting the caps, but improving/replacing the merits that people don't see as useful. SE boosted the benefits of high AGI and high VIT in (relatively) recent updates. Similar things could be done for CHR and MND to encourage diversity in the attributes a player chooses to merit.

Aggressive aim is poo unless they make some damned good reasons for wars to use ranged weapons, and even then it needs to be boosted. Make it so aggressor automatically boosts ranged acc, and aggressive aim grants a crit damage bonus while aggressor is active.

All the merits should be re-examined and balanced. The differences in merit choices we make are one of the few things that differentiate FFXI from Team Fortress 2.

[Asymptotic]

Ideally all of the abilities should be useful but if they ARE all useful it would lead to a lot of unhappy players when they get excluded for having the wrong combination for the moment unless they were to make them like Blue Magic spells where you can switch out which you currently have access to on the fly (but only from your Mog House)

[Triffle]

Or here's a thought. Why not give it so we can fully cap half the possible merit weaponskills? I think raising the max amount of merits u can put in from 15 to 35 is much easier on everyone.