Let Producer Matsui Know How He Should Catch Up on 2 Years!

[Byrth]

Taken from this thread: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...int-Categories

I have a simple suggestion that would help the game, would not be difficult to implement, and would not cause any serious balance issues.

Remove all the merit point category caps.

(Category Caps are the limits on a group of merits. So the category cap for Tier 1 merits is 10. The category cap for Combat Skills is 30, etc.)


A. Will this cause balance issues?
No, because:
1) The strongest players pick one of their jobs and merit for it.
2) If they are perfectly merited for one job, it presents the biggest balance threat when given more merits because you have to assume that they would be on that job in situations that require high performance, the hardest events.
3) If they are perfectly merited for one job, any future merits that they obtain from having the cap increased will necessarily be less valuable to their job than the ones they already have.
4) Optimally-merited jobs barely benefit from increasing the caps.

Example:
Warrior is in some ways the greatest threat for this kind of adjustment because they are so versatile, so the limitation on combat skills/stats stands to benefit them the most. Still, what happens if you uncap a perfectly merited WAR?
- They gain 12 DEX and VIT.
- Their Warcry and Aggressor recasts drops 50 seconds.
- Instead of meriting three of Upheaval, Resolution, Ruinator, and Stardiver, now they can merit all four.
- They gain 14-15 accuracy (0-8% hit rate) with some of their proc weapons.

So you have barely made Warrior stronger. The other jobs benefit even less than this. Plus, at a time when people complain about the difficulty of events (like Legion, Provenance Watcher, etc.) this gives them an opportunity to help themselves. I mean, what do you want our failure rate to be on these events? Is it really too low at the moment?



B. Why should we do it?
1) This will give players nearly-unlimited potential for character growth. - It would take 6706 merits to cap out. Players currently have ~2000 or less. Even with an epeening "I get 250k/hr" Abyssea party, it would still take them almost 80 rl 24-hour days to cap out from 2000 merits.

2) A limiting merit system has always been the antithesis of the job system. - One of the major draws to FFXI is that the game lets you play through with only one character, which you are free to become attached to. There are certainly times when you need to change your role, and the job system accommodates that. It is silly to suddenly reverse this at the level cap, which is where players spend almost all of their time these days. When the cap was at level 75, you go 1 to 75 as a Red Mage playing however was convenient in any type of party, but Tier 2 merits forced you to decide whether you wanted to use your Red Mage to solo or do Salvage.

3) Programming-wise, this almost has to be possible and reasonable. - The category caps have been increased before several times. You could either remove them from the interface (clean) or increase them to the maximum amount (dirty but definitely possible).

4) At a time when content is sparse, this would give a much-needed boost to activity. - People want to play, but don't have anything that they can do to improve their character. This would make it so there is almost always something they can do.

5) Increased participation in events/systems that yield XP. - More people would do Grounds of Valor. More people would do Campaign. More people would do Besieged. More people would do Dominion Ops. More people would do Voidwatch. etc. If you increase the incentives, you increase the odds that people will partake in an event. Giving XP value serves as an incentive.

6) It would stop well-intentioned and dedicated players from making bad decisions. - There is nothing more disappointing than seeing someone with a relic, mythic, empyrean, etc. that obviously cares about their job and then discovering that they have merited in a very inefficient way. If you eliminated the merit category caps, people would cap all of the relevant merits for the job they love and this would simply not happen.




Fellow posters, I challenge you. Come up with a situation where the above proposed change would alter the way we do any event. Where it would make something noticeably easier. Where it would affect the "balance" of anything. Try!

[Nala]

Ahoooooo, and Thank you.

Short and Sweet.

Blm.
1. Merit-able Magic Attack Bonus trait.
2. Add a job ability "Elemental Wraith" on a 20 minute timer allowing a blm to force a critical hit with their next elemental spell.
3. Place more emphasis on elemental weakness with all monsters (except for the few that are just all and all resistant to magic), making Stone and Water spells useful again.
4. Give all mobs a minnimum amount of mp so I can Aspir it, 50 would be great 100 mp would be better.
5. ..... that's about it.

Thank you for your time.

One thing I never got about 11 as opposed to older FF's spells of the same tier all had the same base damage but the situation they were useful was incumbent on the enemies individual weakness whether the spell was more effective, based on the tiered system for learning spells I semi understand the potency imbalance but it's just something that has always personally irked me.

Besides I think most peeps would be peeved even if all tiered spells were adjusted to have the same base damage as the thunder spell of that level it'd require them to possess more gear and merits for other elements to be versatile enough for the situation.

[Alei_Bahamut]

My name is Alei from Bahamut Server and I am the Linkshell Leader for AntiquityPlusOne.

Our FFXIAH Linkshell Profile is here: http://http://www.ffxiah.com/linkshe...tiquityPlusOne


The reason I'm posting on here is because I would like to see an improvement being made to the size of linkshell members that can be within a single linkshell. As you can see with the links above my linkshell has over 120 members. That is just the members that have registered. Last Saturday night my linkshell had upwards of 106 members online. We are unable to stay in our primary linkshell, because the main linkshell can only hold 64 members online at one time. As such we have become what is known as a two-linkshell linkshell.

Another way to work around this would be to impliment the capability to wear multiple linkshells at the same time similar to Final Fantasy XIV.

I look forward to the work that you will do to remedy this quickly. Thank You.

[Nala]

In response to Seankp: honestly when they added the buyable KI and the ability to access odins chamber back to back I thought it was intentional in order to help with faster ampule accrual, was some what annoyed/shocked when they adjusted it.

Basically would request that it be reverted.

[BDSM]

Firstly, I would like to thank the producer and dev team to allow us this incredible opportunity to express what we as a community would like to see, even if it's not implemented it's nice to know you guys are listening, it is because of this I feel we're heading in a great direction.

As there are many many reply posts already, I'm sure not all posts will be read ( I haven't read them all myself ) however I hope that my voice will be heard. All the posts I've seen in the replies deals with Job Abilities or Changes to current content. What I would like to see myself change is very different I think what will really change this game is the Community

There has NOT been any updates to the social aspect of this game, since it's launch. I have only heard countless times "I would quit this game if it wasn't for my friends" I would like to see us be able to kick members our of the LinkShells even if they are not online, I would like to see us be able to chat in more the 1 linkshell, I would like to be able to Blist a player even if he's not online anymore. These are only a few things that I, personally would like to see, I understand if not everyone feels the same way. However with the game population decreasing rapidly (look at how many servers we have left and what the avg log in is now compare to a year ago) It's more then ever important to allow players to make good friends to keep each other going. Any updates to the UI or Social aspect of the game is a huge plus for me.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post.

[RushLynx]

Having played this game for roughly 8 years I've seen it go from extremely challenging to fairly casual in recent years, but something remains the same. Players who are most willing to back-stab other players and find ways to cheat the system are the ones that get ahead of everyone else, and up until this point it's something that people just stay quiet about for the most part. I don't have a very specific suggestion for you, but I'd like you to take note of this moving forward and keep it in mind.

Back in the days where King Behemoth, Nidhogg, Aspidochelone, and Sky Gods were the primary target of end-game LSs there was a huge botting problem for a very long time, the Linkshells with the best hacks and bots ruled supreme over the server. Then there was the fiasco when Tavnazian Safehold was new, a small group of players exploited an error in the buying price of an NPC to such a degree that I believe the server economy has still not recovered. Until the Dynamis re-haul, relics were extremely difficult to obtain and many people obtained theirs (some multiple relics) simply by stealing from others and cheating. I know SO many people on my server that casually walk around with their relics when they got it by starting a LS, promising their members that they would store the dropped currency (typically sell it) and split it all once a month or so, and then proceeded to take it all for themselves. Now there's things like the new Nyzul Isle, some players have already obtained all the drops, but they didn't do it legitimately, they did it by cheating to see the order of lamps and stuff. Then they had the nerve to start selling the items via Jeuno shouts for absorbent amounts of gil. There are tons of examples like this. Over and over again these players get rewarded at every turn and it disgusts me.

I want this to stop going unnoticed, I want this game to be fair again. I've come to terms with the fact that much of the content in this game has become extremely casual in contrast with the past, but it seems like some of the easy things are unintentional. Players solo empyrean weapons and relic weapons every day now, but they don't usually do it by themselves, they do it in a duo... with themselves. It seems more and more common for people to have an alternate account that they "dual box" with to solo content, which is fine... I'd imagine it takes some skill do accomplish this, but they also use 3rd party programs oftentimes to control the other account. Stop pretending like these sorts of things don't happen. Stop pretending that programs like windower don't exist and that the vast majority of your players don't use them. By ignoring them you just encourage (and sometimes force) players that want to play legitimately to start using them, because they can't keep up with the others who do use them. Make this game fair again, not the anti-social cheat-fest it's often boiled down to over the years. Whenever fairness seems to start lacking, the fun aspect starts lacking as well; and even though you make extra revenue every time someone makes another account so that they can dual box and solo things, you also lose more real players who have no interest in doing what they feel is ruining the game they've loved for so long.

[Elais]

I have to agree Alei on Linkshell member cap being increased over 64 would be a nice change.


My linkshell Core on Sylph has 99 registered members on FFXIAH and at least a total 110-120 total members including people only on 360 or ps2/3.

http://www.ffxiah.com/linkshell/Sylph/Core

[Nala]

Suggestions To Improve FFXI:

-3. Enmity Fix = Make NM's do A LOT more Damage. The hate system isn't the problem. Everyone taking more damage, means mages have to prioritize MP as they should for healing tank > mages > dds as in the days of old. It forces dds to not go overboard or they end up dead/weakened etc. It's called strategy and it used to exist before: Embrava/Perfect Defense /afk while zerg on.

Though you had many good points/reiterating previously made points i'm unable to like yours for this reason alone this is not a fix nor does it help anything, they tried this already its called VW and guess what it's impossible without fanatics spamming.

[Claquesous]

Updated Player Search

Welcome Producer Matsui. I hope you will consider my suggestion.

I have been playing for about seven years now. For the first five years or so I was a very avid player, playing probably 40-50 hours a week. Over the last couple years, I haven't had nearly as much time to play and probably average under 5 hours a week now. I suppose that would classify me as a casual player.

Most of my friends with whom I played a few years ago have moved on. Though I meet nice new people almost every time I log in, it's very hard to form close friendships since I frequently go three or four weeks without playing. There is almost no one left in the game that I would feel comfortable asking for help. Since there are even fewer things I can do without help, this leaves most of my goals unfulfilled.

I spend most of my time "playing" the game by sitting in Jeuno and watching for events I need or I think would be fun. Needless to say, this is not very enjoyable and I've considered moving on as well.

I think all my concerns could be solved by updating the search function. In the past, I used to use the search function frequently to build experience parties, but now I only use it to see if a player is online or not.

Here are some of the features I would like to see added to the search function:

• Advertise multiple jobs instead of just the one I'm currently logged in as.
• Do not advertise jobs I do not wish to play.
• Indicate which mission story lines I would like to proceed with.
• Search for people which are on the same mission as me.
• Search for people on the same LB quest as me.
• Search for people who would like to team up for Campaign.
• Search for people with the same Assault rank as me.
• Search for people attempting the same Magian Trial as me.
• Search for people looking to do the same BCNM as me.
• Search for people willing to do Limbus/Einherjar/Salvage/Legion.
• Search for people who would like the hunt the same Notorious Monster as me.
• Advertise my willingness to do multiple of the above events / activities.

I would implement this by replacing the current search tab which allows you to select one of about six options (Looking for Experience, Looking for Missions, Looking for Items, etc.) with a complex dialog box similar to the ones used for options. I would still leave the ability to have a search comment.

After I set my options, they would be stored to the server and would be searchable whenever any other player uses the search function. When I log off, my search record would be deleted from the server. Since the new functionality would be server based, there would likely be no concerns about PS2 limitations. (Only the new dialog boxes would affect the client.)

I would understand if I was limited to say four or five of the options above. I am also unsure how I would implement the function to search for people looking for the same NM as me. Perhaps I would search for type (ZNM, NM, VWNM, etc.) and zone then leave a comment with the specific name?

I know I'm asking for a lot and I honestly believe is it all possible but I would be very happy with even a subset of these enhancements. Thank you very much for your time.

[Keinn]

-Please make the weapon skill Cloudsplitter do more damage so that it is worth using.
Almost as much damage as Ruinator outside abyssea with decent gear would be nice.

-Other Empyrian, Relic, and Mythic WS also need tweaking. Some that come to mind: Quietus, Camlann's Torment, Atonement, and many others which are terribly underpowered and underutilized.

-Please make Storage accessible from any moghouse.