[byr1001] Uncapping the Merit Point Categories

[Nightfox]

No, it means that you don't have to merit for just a handful of jobs, you can merit everything for every job. Everyone becomes the same, with fully merited everything. No longer are there a few elite taru BLMs with INT merited, because everyone can merit int, as well as str dex for melee jobs, agi for ranged/eva jobs, and vit for tanking, mnd for enfeeb potency/cures.

No longer are there a few elite brds with just singing/wind/string merited, because the BLM mains will eventually also have them merited, even though they may only rarely use brd.

No longer would you just merit the weapons your main job uses, because you'd merit them all. So there's no longer as much gap between a war main, and a thf main that's just using war because noone wants thf for PW, etc.

Especially now you don't need to be good at a job to get elitist weapons. It's no longer unheard of for people to have multiple relics, and empys. Many people own an empy for a job that they wouldn't consider their main, and probably haven't merited that skill.

Good thing? idk, maybe. maybe not. Would make the game boring though I think, if there was no longer a choice, just an eventuality.

A valid point, though it will take a mass amount of time to cap everything, many people will be the same. At the very least, I hope for attribute, combat/magic skills, other, and weapon skills to be uncapped. Job specific merits I wouldn't mind being unique. This is my personal opinion though, I'd rather have everything uncapped to be honest.

[Babekeke]

If they were all uncapped, there might as well not be a merit system.

[Demon6324236]

Well to be honest, I hate the merit system for the most part, it mainly allows you to grow your character in extra ways after 75, which is nice but in the end pointless because there are few things people will really merit in the end. I mean if you melee, you probably use STR/DEX, others are not as important really, if you pick skills, you only pick ones for certain jobs & leave the rest. Most jobs have certain merits worth meriting, and the rest are just bleh, no one merits certain ones like Aggressive Aim, which goto waste.

[Sapphires]

If they were all uncapped, there might as well not be a merit system.

While I mostly agree with you, I would really like a slight bump in the number of ws merits so I could have 1 point in everything and have the existing option to 5/5 3 weaponskills.
I know some weaponskills are utterly worthless unless they are 5/5'd, it bugs me to no end that I dont have the ability to do all ws for every job leveled.

As it stands, forever 5/5 Last Stand/Resolution/Exenterator for life I guess

[Rekin]

If they were all uncapped, there might as well not be a merit system.

Might as well just give the most used merited JAs/JTs/spells as something natural to the jobs and nothing will have changed if the merit system was removed. As already mentioned even in the OP people who merit efficiency over novelty will already have merited the worthwhile stuff. As for stats just increase the base growth for jobs on some stats and natively have crit+5% to any melee job and enmity+ to pld/nin/mnk/war and have enmity- on all mage jobs aside blu. To offset the loss of weapon skill levels just increase skill caps and for wses just have them gained naturally at full power at 99 for the jobs that can already use them.

Do all the above and with the removal of the merit system will be doable with no ramifications. The unused abilities will be deleted and no one will care at all.

[Lokithor]

Uncapping merits would do nothing to affect game balance. Uncapping would, however, create content for those who've already capped. If SE were to move in that direction, it would be deliberately slow to stretch out the content lure to maintain subscriptions.

One of the major things that differentiates FFXI from other MMORPGs is your ability to play all game jobs. You are never forced to choose - except when it comes to merits. To me, that is a bit inconsistent.

[Taint2]

They atleast need to loosen up the restrictions.

3 WSs is terrible, 5 should be the min with 7-8 being preferred. As said a few times certain WSs are MUST HAVES for their jobs which limits the entire system.

The other categories that need some flexibility are Combat and Magic, just open it up so we aren't pinned down to just a couple weapons/magic types.

[detlef]

No longer are there a few elite brds with just singing/wind/string merited, because the BLM mains will eventually also have them merited, even though they may only rarely use brd.

Yes, that BRD was me. Was. Then I had to merit enhancing for SCH. And I had to become a little worse on BRD so I could become much, much better on SCH. Why should I have had to do that?

[Byrth]

Well, this thread is now 4 pages long and the OP has received 167 Likes, so I read the responses and edited it slightly to include a common request (higher storage cap) and deleted point B6 because it was petty. This seems to be an idea that resonated with a lot of players, especially considering the pretty incredible ratio of likes to posts in the thread.

Looking over the thread, I'd say that the most popular reason for uncapping is B4 and the most common counterpoint to raised issues are the explanation in A and B1. I haven't read any posts that don't have a counterpoint already contained in the OP.



Let me briefly go over how I see the uncapped merit system working in practice for myself, at least.

First, I care primarily about two jobs at the moment, Dancer and Warrior. Were the system totally uncapped, I would merit things in approximately the following order:
(1) Warcry Recast, Aggressor Recast, Warrior's Charge, Fan Dance, and Closed Position - 96 merits
(2) CHR, AGI, and VIT - 387 merits
(3) Spell Interruption Rate, Upheaval, useful merits for other jobs (like INT, etc.)
(4) All the rest of the merits

The only merits that provide a measurable boost to my performance in some situations are the number (1) Merits. Number (2) merits might improve my performance in some situations, but honestly not very much. Number (3) merits are more for novelty. I would only actively acquire the first 96 merits because intentionally gaining XP past that is a waste of time given my interests. That said, I would expect to continue acquiring these merits because many events yield XP, sometimes I'm bored and want something productive to do (like Campaign), etc.

So in practice you'll note that the specialization argument (like this or this or this) doesn't really work. I am not going to run out and merit all of my jobs absolutely to the cap, because I don't care about my other jobs. If I could choose between capping Charisma for Waltz and meriting my Ranger at all, I'd cap Charisma and leave my RNG meritless. Uncapping the system leads to more specialization, not less. My RNG only has merits because I couldn't spend them on something I care about and I earned them anyway doing Abyssea and Voidwatch. Also, guess what? It has the same merits as every other Ranger.


When I made the OP, I was using my BLM, SMN, BST, THF, DNC, and WAR regularly. Lately I've been using SCH, DNC, THF, and WAR. I dropped my Axe merits (99 Double Attack Axe is sad Q.Q) in favor of GS Skill and Ruinator for Resolution when I got Ragnarok to 99, and as a result I retired my Beastmaster. Similarly, I dropped my Elemental and Summoning merits so I could merit Enhancing and Dark Magic for Scholar. As a result (and also because of inventory), I retired my BLM and SMN.

I now have 15 level 99 jobs, all of which have capped Tier 1 and Tier 2 merits and 8 of which are geared well, but only 4 of which I use at least partially due to merit limitations. Uncapping the merit levels would not necessarily reduce specialization, but it would let me spend 121 merits so I can use my Beastmaster again without shame. I hate exclusively using Galeon as a proc Axe on WAR.

[Doombringer]

argument still feels strong, would like again.