[dev1210] Why Not Merit Weaponskills ??

[Alhanelem]

A noble attempt, but a failed attempt. This is a player base that has strived for the optimum for many, many years now.

This is a defect of the hardcore playerbase (which is mostly all that is left in the game at this point) being perfectionist/elitist rather than a defect of the system, in my opinion. Your typical run of the mill player who doesn't care if he's winning a parsing contest will still get enough damage out of a merit WS with less than 5 points for it to be worth using.

Now I agree with your other statement that you can't really change people. I'm just pointing out that "in theory" it was a reasonable solution to provide the choice between versatility and minimaxed performance on a few jobs that was intended by the merit system at its inception.

many people will take that HQ even if it costs them an arm and a leg in return.

and "many people" will also take the cheaper option (the analogy is not so great). Be careful in using weasel words like "many" that cloud perception. Also using the word "we" when you don't necessarily represent everyone here is not a great idea either.

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Honestly I'm oging to wager that they plan to bring up existing WS to the power level of most of the merit WS so choosing a WS will be more about the additional effects, skillchain attributes, and other things rather than the raw damage value.

[Demonjustin]

This is a defect of the hardcore playerbase (which is mostly all that is left in the game at this point) being perfectionist/elitist rather than a defect of the system, in my opinion. Your typical run of the mill player who doesn't care if he's winning a parsing contest will still get enough damage out of a merit WS with less than 5 points for it to be worth using.

Sometimes it's not about a parse, but viability and victory. Extra damage in some cases such as Tojil for instance can mean the difference between a win and a loss, kill to slowly and you fail due to stun resistance that only becomes an issue when your damage overall is too slow to kill. Making a weapon skill weaker by taking merits out of it for other WSs which will also be on the weaker end can aid failure in this way. As for viability I'm referring to something along the lines of how Req is hardly ever the best WS for RDM, CDC almost always beats it as a WS and if you have fewer merits in Req you're only going to see Req's gap become larger and larger with fewer places to make use of it.

I don't mean to say that 1/5 WSs don't have a place or that they're not at all worth doing but even some of the on this forum seem to be in the mindset of having only 3 5/5 WSs and simply re-meriting them to another WS if need be. I know many people in game who do this as well. I won't say everyone does but I've met enough players both casual and hardcore who stick to the idea of 5/5 only to say that I honestly believe the idea of leaving it as it is right now is only going to leave us with a flawed system that few are happy with.

While it also may be a defect or flaw with the hardcore players in your opinion I honestly find it more a defect with the game, as many people have pointed out in the past the great advantage to this game so few others have is that all jobs and all possibilities are open to any character. Merits however are the exact opposite of that idea, restricting the freedom of players and instead forcing strict choices upon them and as a result we've narrowed most merits down to right & wrong choices with Merit WSs being the most difficult choice to make and truly only being dependant on the jobs you play or favor most. I honestly think that Job Points are a step in the right direction in this field in a way since they are unlimited unlike merit points, allowing us to cap every category at will provided we are willing to farm the points necessary to do so. They are also taking that sort of path with HP/MP/Merit, merits. We will be able to cap all things within those categories which I personally think is another example of moving in that direction of complete freedom to optimize at will rather than restricting us to making choices that will almost certainly leave some choices unchosen.

Honestly I'm going to wager that they plan to bring up existing WS to the power level of most of the merit WS so choosing a WS will be more about the additional effects, skillchain attributes, and other things rather than the raw damage value.

As much as I'd like this to be the case, I doubt it will happen. With how WS Mods work unless they almost completely removed them from making much of a difference I doubt it would even be possible to truly balance their DMG, at best I think we'd see more of what we see now where in some situations one WS wins and in another situations a different one wins with the only real differences between the situations being the mob and your buffs.