[byr1001] Uncapping the Merit Point Categories

[Babekeke]

Well if you assume that the majority of players arent totally retarded, then they are already meritting the most beneficial stuff already. This means that uncapping all of the merit point categories would only allow you to use all the stuff that wasnt good enough to merit in the first place.

I highly doubt that would be game breaking.

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.

[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.

[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?

[Babekeke]

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Nala]

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.

Why should these have been merited at all in the first place? why couldn't we just quest them like in the past? why couldn't the quests just require you to have merit points in addition to x item or objective instead.

Hell they want to add in time waisters, why dont they still make it so you have to do 5 quests that are long and involved to make these ws's fully upgraded?

And yes the merit system might as well not exist anyways there isnt enough diversity for most jobs/categories to really limit skill choices down. If the merit system were robust enough where your choices in them made the difference of a perle set war vs full endgame appropriate gear then yeah i'd be with the whole limits, as it stands though the merit system is not that critical to job performance in that there are no real choices as stated before, a war isnt going to merit aggressive aim, or int agi or vit.

Any capped progression system will never really have diversity. If you choose 2 out of 4 abilities for a job then you will choose the 2 best, and leave the others. If you choose 3 of 14 WSs you will choose the 3 that benefit you as a player, not necessarily the jobs you like. I think any capped thing, especially between all jobs, would be bad just because then people would go more for efficiency than for actual preference, like many do now if they play unpopular jobs like PUP, RDM, or DRG, when it comes to WS merits.

Here's an idea for all the snow flakes: capped mogslip storage capacity, each slip can only hold up to 5 full sets, must be of the same kind that way you have to pick and choose which 5 jobs you want to have empy gear, oh oh and then we can cap exp totals so that you can only level 3 jobs to 99 and the rest to 50 so you have to choose which 3 jobs you want to be max level that way every one is extra special. (only quoted you because i got the idea while reading your post)