[dev1049] New weapon skills

[Selzak]

They don't want people to be the best at every single job. It makes you focus on what you find the most important. This is really no different then combat merits. I played many MMOs and this seems to be a common theme in them, if they have some sort of point/talent system you can't be the best at everything the game has.

It's worth noting that FFXI's merit system is a bit different in that you can be the best at everything, just not at the same time. Most MMOs will make you buy another character for any kind of variation.

other games also tend to make you level whole new characters if you want to play a differnt class. I see no point to bring that into the argument tho.

If you want to max out all jobs, you can do it on separate characters on this game too. It's really always been this way- think Taru BLM and Taru WAR. The point is that this game has always worked around choosing to do certain things well, certain things decently, and certain things poorly (on a single character).

[brayen]

It's worth noting that FFXI is a bit different in that you can be the best at everything, just not at the same time. Most MMOs will make you buy another character for any kind of variation.



You have no point there. If you want to max out all jobs, you can do it on separate characters on this game too. It's really always been this way, too. (Think Taru BLM and Taru WAR)

true, but why would you suddenly be forcing people to play that way after it has been established that the much greater majority only have one "main" character(SE even admitted they liked that about their game in an old interview if i recall correctly)? As in your example, how many people do you even know that have done the whole level different jobs on different characters? That is a fairly empty excuse i think as most (98% if not more)don't do that and it is fairly late to even contemplate doing so now.

[Insaniac]

How is that balance? How does limiting the amount of content someone can work towards in a content starved game make any sense at all? Where is the harm in it? That's what I don't understand. People should not be able to be as good as possible on all their jobs? My question is "why?". Who does it hurt and how does it hurt them?

[Greatguardian]

It's not like every WS is going to destroy their Empyrean/Relic/Mythic/Whatever counterpart anyways. I may only end up doing Gun, H2H, and Sword personally - Basically the same combat skills I already have merited.

I'm more looking forward to knocking out that moogle to unlock the final merit tree. I can only imagine the tears when people walk in and realize it's a 6-man BC and the moogle has 100,000~ HP.

[Zumi]

I tested out sword and gs in abyssea both were worse then their empyrean counterparts by far. Going to try non abyssea test now.

Edit: tried some voidwatch, the new Sword WS is much better then cdc here.

[Selzak]

I like the idea of specialization. I'm very happy with the way this update is looking all-around.

[Seriha]

Can't say limiting the growth of all the WS to 15 points is a good idea, either. I'd be okay with a 10 > 20 > 30 > 30 > 30 spread for unlocking. That'll still take a fair bit for most people, and contrary to the opinion that people shouldn't be able to specialize in everything on one character, job switching isn't something we can instantaneously do out in the field. Thus, there's still a limit to this "power" that some fear being widespread.

All I can see now is people figuring out which WS suck and which don't, leaving those that suck in the dust and focusing on those that don't with preference toward their "main" jobs. I can already see Staff and Club being shortly invested due to mage melee stigma with Archery and Marksmanship being close due to the expense of consumable jobs and possible underperformance. Katana and Great Katana also reflect one or two jobs, where it's likely only NIN or SAM mains will invest. Otherwise, if Axe doesn't beat Rampage, it probably won't be touched. Sounds like DRKs will be happy with Scythe and GS, of which WAR, PLD, and maybe BLM can mooch on to some degree. I have no doubt Sword will be popular amongst PLD, BLU, and RDM (who has been starved for a new "native" WS) even if CDC is still superior. Drakesbane has been pretty solid for DRG, so Stardriver has some stiff competition. H2H, Dagger, and Great Axe will basically be left to face the damage test, too. People with Smite and Ukko's probably won't look back for good reason.

[Greatguardian]

Comparisons to Empyrean WS will have to wait until we can figure out what the heck is going on with the new WS. The numbers SE gave us aren't working out properly (eg, they're stronger than they should be)

[Selzak]

I think that's definitely going to be the question: How do these WS co-exist with Relic/Emp weaponskills? I hope they do blend together well- maybe making Relic/Emp users open aftermaths and then use the merit WS in between to be most effective. I wouldn't want it to be one or the other in all situations, because these all look really cool.

Obviously if you don't have a Relic/Emp then there's not even a need to think about how awesome these are going to be.

true, but why would you suddenly be forcing people to play that way after it has been established that the much greater majority only have one "main" character(SE even admitted they liked that about their game in an old interview if i recall correctly)? As in your example, how many people do you even know that have done the whole level different jobs on different characters? That is a fairly empty excuse i think as most (98% if not more)don't do that and it is fairly late to even contemplate doing so now.

I don't know where you got those numbers but they're beside the point:

If you have one character playing all jobs, you're already at more/less potential on each of those jobs depending on race and merits. Taru BLM with INT, Enmity-, and MP merits is probably the purest example. Not to mention many jobs (including BLM) already make you choose to specialize in certain abilities or spread your merits so that you can at least perform them all (but to a lesser extent). NIN, BLM, and SMN are blatant examples of this, but the merit categories for all jobs require these kinds of choices to some extent.

[uptempo]

A lot of relics don't need to use there aftermath ws so those relic users will use the new ws if they are better for there weapon with no negative impact on there hidden 2.0/2.5/3.0 dmg