Overall Battle System Adjustments for the Future

[Economizer]

Just trying to limit discussion here to the points you brought up now.

Spell adjustments seem pretty solid. Will they apply to Banish spells in any way? Will the AoE versions see a similar change? Will Ancient Magic see a similar change?

The Merit WS adjustment is a welcome change, but I want to reiterate that it is still not going to ultimately solve the problem. The problem is that a capped (meaning you have to pick and choose what you do) merit system is the antithesis of the job system. We will never be truly happy with anything less then uncapped merits, particularly in the field of WS. There has been an extremely popular thread on the English forums detailing this and how to fix it, and it was ultimately shrugged off. This difference in opinion isn't one of wanting things slightly different then what the dev team wants however, the difference is a deep, core opposition of the reasoning given for the capped merit system, with solid and unrefuted arguments for the opposition to a capped merit system.

Balance between two-handed and single-handed weapons

This is a topic that has been discussed in several threads, particularly one about making adjustments to single-handed weapons, and we would like to perform adjustments.

As has been mentioned, food and other choices are quite limited due to the fact that status modifiers are far greater for two-handed weapons and there is a higher need for accuracy when using single-handed weapons.

For example, we are currently looking into the possibility of adding some form of merit that would enhance the modifiers for the single-handed weapon main weapon slot.

This change is far too important for a form of merit that you'd have to pick and choose over some other merit. If this is merited, it absolutely must be in its own category, lest someone just be forced to merit something else for their 2h, ranged attack, or magic using job.

This change is also far too important to fix with some job ability. Most 1h users already lag well behind jobs with Dual Wield natively, and massively behind 2h users. For the sake of keeping player options open when using any job, the fix has to be universally available to all jobs.

Additionally, this change should affect Blue Magic and Hand-to-Hand a well. If making the default behavior change is not in your plans, please consider a quest to unlock the full potential of 1h, Blue Magic, and H2H weapons, similar to how the Gobbie Bag Quests unlock the full potential of your bag.

I'd at least like to see the maximum modifiers for 1h/H2H/Blue Magic raised to the same level as 2h weapons, even if 2h weapons keep the favorable modifiers.

Another option that I'd like to see explored in addition to other changes would be having 1h weapons that are single wielded see the same modifiers as 2h weapons, and perhaps even benefit from job abilities that only help 2h weapons, in an effort to open up more subjob options for certain jobs. I think a deep discussion of this as an additional change would give us more thought towards making interesting and tactical gameplay, even if it is ultimately decided against.

The reasoning for the changes to 2h weapons was that Dual Wield made 1h weapons universally better - well with large amounts of Haste in the game, this has changed, particularly at high levels. We have needed a fix for some time, and I'm happy to see the first steps towards addressing this problem.

[Cowardlybabooon]

Every Galka Black Mage and Scholar in Vanadiel will love you for this. Yeah we will have to go get magian staves and obi's for elements other than Thunder and Ice, but we will gladly do so for half the MP cost and a ton of variety added to the job!

Also the Single-Handed weapons thing really has to be seen in implementation before we can fully understand the impact, but the fact that you are addressing it at all is very welcome.

Could you make any comments on Red Mage? I don't have it leveled but I would if it were used for anything. You can at least tell people you're hearing their cry and simply don't like any of the wacky suggestions people make but also don't have any of your own at this time.

[Alhanelem]

DRK is too strong? that's the funniest thing i've heard in a while. DRKs complain pretty much every day about how much weaker DRK is than other DDs...

[Asymptotic]

DRK is too strong? that's the funniest thing i've heard in a while. DRKs complain pretty much every day about how much weaker DRK is than other DDs...

Did your server not get Resolution or something?

[Alhanelem]

Did your server not get Resolution or something?

All I know is DRKs have been complaining about everything on this forum since its existence began.

[Chamaan]

Not a big deal or anything. The WoE item is called Devious Die, not Trick Die. I can totally see the translation there.

[Alhanelem]

They should not allow you to fully merit them all, but the cap should be increased. However, the poster above is right in the sentiment that pretty much nobody is going to settle for "almost as good."

The whole point of the merit system is speccing your character. If everyone gets to merit all of everything, it fails hardcore in doing that, because everyone becomes the same. That being said, the current limits are not reasonable for the number of jobs most people play on a regular basis. Between 20 jobs, most people will end up playing more than just 3 of them regularly.

Everyone was fine with the idea of at least increasing the limits, so why slap people in the face and say 'we're not going to do that, but we will do this inferior idea instead that doesn't really do much to solve the issue?"

One of the best and unique aspect of this game has always been the ability to play all jobs on one characters

This also erases specialization. the merit system was created to give some specialization in a game that had basically none up to that point. That is why you do not get to max out everything. By allowing people to be better at some jobs than others, you still have reason to pick different people for different jobs- like I can play WAR in a pinch, but you should let this guy over here do it if he is available, because he focused more on meriting for WAR than I did.'

Of course, this view is and will be unpopular because given a choice between "less" and "more", everyone normally chooses "more" because more must be better.

SE: Ruinator = 85% WSC (17% per merit) final WSC.

So what their saying is changing the tier 1 to 65% final, so something like 75% initial.

That doesn't sound quite right though. The way I read it, the final values will be the same as they are now, but the initial values will be higher, so that there is less difference between a level 1 WS and a maxed WS.

[Insaniac]

The merit WS change is not very good. No one wants 2 full power WSs and some combination of 2 to 5 gimped ones. Raise or remove the cap. Everyone will love you for it.

Need more info about the 1h adjustment now!! Making whatever it is main hand only feels kinda wonky. The calculations for 1h and 2h need to be more normalized instead of adding more weird special conditions. I also disapprove of it being a merit category.

Everything else sounds neato so far.

[SharMarali]

The majority of the changes are welcome and quite well thought-out.

However, like others have said, I disagree with the proposed changes to merit weapon skills.

I get the feeling that the developer team doesn't quite understand the fundamental problem. In a game where we are able to level and gear 20 jobs, we are essentially being asked to choose 3 to specialize in.

We have the choice between having 4-5 extremely underpowered weapon skills or 3 full-powered ones.

With the proposed changes, we will have the choice between having 4-5 somewhat underpowered weapon skills or 3 full-powered ones.

I don't see that this is an improvement. In order to get the most out of these weapon skills, we're still limited to choosing only 3, which is in direct opposition to the ability to be flexible and versatile in job selection.

That said, once again, the remainder of the proposed changes are excellent ideas and should go a long way toward patching existing issues. I can only hope that the developers will reconsider increasing or eliminating the restrictive and arbitrary cap on merit weapon skills.

[Dreamin]

The majority of the changes are welcome and quite well thought-out.

However, like others have said, I disagree with the proposed changes to merit weapon skills.

I get the feeling that the developer team doesn't quite understand the fundamental problem. In a game where we are able to level and gear 20 jobs, we are essentially being asked to choose 3 to specialize in.

We have the choice between having 4-5 extremely underpowered weapon skills or 3 full-powered ones.

With the proposed changes, we will have the choice between having 4-5 somewhat underpowered weapon skills or 3 full-powered ones.

I don't see that this is an improvement. In order to get the most out of these weapon skills, we're still limited to choosing only 3, which is in direct opposition to the ability to be flexible and versatile in job selection.

That said, once again, the remainder of the proposed changes are excellent ideas and should go a long way toward patching existing issues. I can only hope that the developers will reconsider increasing or eliminating the restrictive and arbitrary cap on merit weapon skills.

The problem is that the Development folks DO NOT play the game the way regular players play them. Hence, they do not understands why most players would rather have the best 5/5 ws than an inferior 1/5 ws.