Merit Weapon Skill Adjustments April Update

[Karbuncle]

They want to be unique snowflakes and without that uniqueness they feel cheated. Honestly, going to quote Star Trek...

"A Diamond is still a Diamond even if its just one of many, it still shines as bright".

Rather we have to chose, or can all possess the best, Doesn't matter, We're all still awesome. Some more awesome than others. Like me. :3

Edit: NO offense to Snowflakes, I love winter

[Alhanelem]

That aside, I don't see how removing the cap and allowing people who want to cap everything to do it negatively affects players who are fine with having 3 capped weapon skills.

Nobody wants to have less. More is always better! Do you think anyone would purposely stay at 3 capped WS if they could raise more?

As I said, part of the point is to give the player decisions to make. Ever heard the expression, "Can't have your cake and eat it too?"

Isn't this generally how games work ? ?

As I said, uncapping the merits takes what is normally a minor, unavoidable issue and makes it worse. Old content is made easier over time to allow newer players to catch up to minimize this, though of course you can't make it go away completely without a time machine. Why take an inevitable problem and do something that makes it worse?

Many games make you choose between having this and having that. I don't know why everyone in this game thinks that's so horrible.

They want to be unique snowflakes and without that uniqueness they feel cheated. Honestly, going to quote Star Trek...

So, you hate customization. Okay, well why don't you just say so? less beating around the bush. This isn't like making stupid people feel special. Why do you act like uniqueness is some kind of bad thing that people shouldn't want?

In most games to be the best at one thing, you have to give up being the best at something else. But in this game, everyone wants to be able to be the best at everything. Why am i the only one that sees this as a problem?

[Karbuncle]

Because FFXI is the one MMO that breaks that stupid "ONE ONRY" Stigma all MMOs posses, ONE JOB, ONE CHARACTER, FINAL DESTINATION, is boring. I don't hate Customization, I hate Limits. Limits are just artificial walls. Customizing is exactly what I want in this game, and no, Limiting my Ability to Customize isn't so how a Customization itself.

FFXI has a job system you can switch between at any time for a reason. merits contradict the logic to allowing free access to all jobs all the time. If use my Personality and playstyle to be unique in FFXI, I don't need Merits for that. Do you? Cause i feel plenty unique without the need to know I somehow have Merits to back up my lack of other qualifying features.

[Yinnyth]

How much time would it take you to get those merits? The ones you would actually put forth an effort to obtain instead of just spending your VW exp on them every now and then, I mean. Even if you're a casual player, you could finish that in one billing period.

I enjoy the fact that I am uniquely good at bard because I have invested my merits specifically into bard. I lose these defining characteristics which help to make me who I am so you can spend a few afternoons getting merits which "wouldn't even make the game any easier" for you? You can still play bard without singing merits, you'll just have a harder time landing songs on enemies than I will. I can still play samurai, I'll just do slightly less damage than a meritted samurai because I've specialized around bard, thief, and corsair.

These sorts of distinctions are a healthy thing in RPGs, particularly when it comes to forming and maintaining a varied community. You can master a few things and stay mediocre in others, or you can choose to be a jack-of-all-trades, master of none.

I oppose the idea of removing the merit cap. I would sooner have the lesser-used merits buffed to a point where the playerbase would find them useful so we get more variety, not less.

[Demon6324236]

I am really not in the mood to argue trivial matters like this, the simple matter of it is, you are probably the only person who knows your unique, so no one but you actually cares about your special BRD merits. When I goto a VW party I could go RDM, or I could be stuck on any other job in the game even though the majority of my merits are RDM focused, guess how many people care that I actually focused my merits on RDM? No one, because no one else sees them except on AH.com, and even then, who cares? The point is that its a false sense of being unique in my opinion, which is all it is, an opinion, and for that reason no one is right or wrong, but it seems we mostly have people here who think its a better idea to simply go with unlimited merits rather than limited merits I think.

[Asymptotic]

I enjoy the fact that I am uniquely good at bard because I have invested my merits specifically into bard.

Okay, so you have Troubadour and Nightingale maxed just like every other BRD. You have minuet capped and no one cares about the other song you capped, but it's probably madrigal - just like every other BRD. A BRD with MACC staves has no trouble landing songs, so those singing merits are wasted (if you have those) and the instrument skills are wasted because they're unneeded for anything. I don't even want to imagine what ridiculous stats you merited but none of those are making you "uniquely good" at BRD either. The difference between a good BRD and a "regular" BRD are affinity casting time magian staves, MACC magian staves, 99 Daurdabla and Gjallarhorn, and knowledge of how to overwrite Dardaubla songs with Gjallarhorn songs properly. None of these distinctions come from the merit system.

So actually, you're not uniquely good at BRD. You just made poor choices and are worse at other things. This is exactly what I was talking about earlier when I said that a capped system ends up penalizing people who make poor decisions more than it does more competitive players, because less informed players will dedicate slots to things that they think are helping them but actually aren't and will just be further behind in other areas.

These sorts of distinctions are a healthy thing in RPGs, particularly when it comes to forming and maintaining a varied community. You can master a few things and stay mediocre in others, or you can choose to be a jack-of-all-trades, master of none.

Except that's not actually what happens. When good players are presented with a cost-system (limits) they tend to prioritize harder along the lines of the utility function.

Well! BLM is my favorite job, but I chose to merit STR/DEX for the melee jobs that I play because the extra INT contributes significantly less to my overall output on BLM than STR or DEX does for my melee jobs. I also merited HP because it helps my on all my jobs and MP just isn't all that important with sources of refresh bountiful. I would really like to have Shattersoul to play around with for my Black Mage when I'm out soloing, but Ruinator for my Beastmaster is a much stronger choice, and I just can't find room for Shattersoul with the other weapon skills I use regularly.

I repeat, a low cap rewards people who sacrifice personal preference for functionality and punishes people who merit things like instruments and CHR (even if they don't realize it).

I oppose the idea of removing the merit cap. I would sooner have the lesser-used merits buffed to a point where the playerbase would find them useful so we get more variety, not less.

People would still overwhelmingly favor the most useful options. If more options from each job-specific merit category became useful then people would just try to bring 2 of that job instead of one and exclude people based on the combination of abilities they already have present in the group.

It will go from:

Sorry, we're looking for a DRG with Angon 5/5 . Do you have BRD?

to

Sorry, we already have a WAR with those two abilities. We're actually looking for a WAR with these other two abilities now. Do you have BRD?

Diversity is great and all but people will still overwhelmingly favor the most efficient solution.

an RPG which lets you be the best at everything is not really a role playing game at all. It's a god-sim.

Good to know that all that separates good players from being Gods is 12 in a bunch of uncommonly used stats , 150 MP, weapon skills for derping around on weaker jobs, and 16 accuracy / attack on weapons we favor less often.

Removing the cap would have ultimately zero negative impact on any player. I'm sorry but I'm just not willing to factor your feelings into a mathematical reality. Completionists would cap everything and have something to do, and people who don't want to cap everything would just continue on as per usual (although they'd probably end up dumping merits into random things anyway but I don't see how that's harmful to them).

That aside :

They won't uncap it though which is why I think they should just raise the cap to the point where the probability of people being annoyed by it is low.

(And for the record, I'm not a "cap everything" person. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been on a job besides DNC in the past month and two of those were to sit by the fountain in Adoulin on PUP).

[Yinnyth]

Trivial matters like this... false sense of being unique...

Sorry, but have I done something to offend you besides having a differing opinion? I assure you it has never been my intent to cause you harm, merely to call attention to the fact that an RPG which lets you be the best at everything is not really a role playing game at all. It's a god-sim.

A person must be good at some things, and they must be bad at some things. If you're good at all things, why would you ever seek the help of an itinerant minstrel when you yourself can handle that role just as well? Why would you grudgingly pay for the services of a surly mercenary if you're every bit as good at hewing bones as he is? We're not playing this game to be the best at everything. We're playing to take part in a story that we ourselves help write. If you think that no character in this story is unique then... well, I suppose there's no convincing you otherwise.

I have yet to play a good RPG which allows the character to have no weak points. You're accepting the role of a character. All his strengths, all his shortcomings.

[Demon6324236]

Trivial matters like this... false sense of being unique...

Sorry, but have I done something to offend you besides having a differing opinion? I assure you it has never been my intent to cause you harm, merely to call attention to the fact that an RPG which lets you be the best at everything is not really a role playing game at all. It's a god-sim.

Nah sorry, was in a pissy mood and looked at posts like a derp so I wonderfully threw some of my rage into my post like an Ahole.

In all honesty though I feel no more or less unique than the next RDM, merits in general annoy me more as a RDM because mine are fairly horrid in my opinion since its entire spells I am missing, most of which are my most unique spells of all. So in one respect I hate merits as my main job is worse off because of them.

[Alhanelem]

Okay, so you have Troubadour and Nightingale maxed just like every other BRD. You have minuet capped and no one cares about the other song you capped, but it's probably madrigal - just like every other BRD. A BRD with MACC staves has no trouble landing songs, so those singing merits are wasted (if you have those) and the instrument skills are wasted because they're unneeded for anything. I don't even want to imagine what ridiculous stats you merited but none of those are making you "uniquely good" at BRD either. The difference between a good BRD and a "regular" BRD are affinity casting time magian staves, MACC magian staves, 99 Daurdabla and Gjallarhorn, and knowledge of how to overwrite Dardaubla songs with Gjallarhorn songs properly. None of these distinctions come from the merit system.

you're describing what the REAL problem is with merits IMO, and that is some (not all) jobs have no real choice when it comes to merit simply because every merit is crap except this one, or you don't really need more of this stat on this job. However this also counters the argument that not having these merits makes your job unplayable in these cases. None of the merits should be 'useless." if they don't do anything, they should be changed so they DO do something. Of course, this is just as unlikely as a cap change...

[Karbuncle]

Edit: You removed these parts, But i think I'll still address them for you.

-you aren't a "cap everything" person, so this doesn't benefit you, or anyone like you who don't care that they can't get everything, because they're not trying to

Even these people will still put their merits into something when they're 30/30, They wont actively try too, but they'll dump them when they have them. Giving them something to do with those merits. So, Yes, it would benefit them, even if its a sense of "Well, Least this exp isn't going to waste".

-people who are "cap everything' people just want everything capped for the sake of capping it, and not because they're actually any better or worse off for it.

Your reasoning for their actions is a tad off mark. The "Cap everything" folk do it expressly for the fact that they want to be better. To them, having category caps and allowing you to max em all would be exactly what they've wanted becaue it allows them to be equally good on all their jobs, which they leveled for a reason. (some different than others)

-other people don't benefit because their merits are nearly irrelevant, according to you

If you're using this as a counter-point, you have to admit uncapping merits isn't going to suddenly drop armageddon on FFXI and kill the game cause its like playin' with a Game Shark.

With that said, Benefit or not, the effects are still there, the bonuses are still there. My THF Cat 2 Merit arangements put me at 1 Aura Steal, 5/5 Feint, 4/5 Asscharge, I'd love to have all of those 5/5. While not many people would notice my Aura Steal having a high rate, I would, and thats why i bother min-maxing, to improve my character, myself. Artifically placed limits and choices dont help me with my char, it just severely limits what i can do on my other jobs.

I often think I'd like to play BST Again, but realize I don't have Ruinator, and it lessens my want to play it. I'd like to take up SAM, but i have no room for Shoha.. Same problem... Having these limits lessens my want to play on these jobs because i feel subpar, even with the best gear i can get, some of these WS offer clear and irreplaceable bonuses to the job.

And this is unfair in a game with 22 Jobs all of which you have and are encouraged to level at any time. Now, Being able to fully level all jobs available to you? This is an example of good Game design. I would probably never have played this game if they treated it like, say, crafting. How much would you like FFXI if you could only have 1 99 job, and the rest cant go past 49... That would be nothing more than a "Choice" system as you describe it just like merits are.

And honestly, It would be stupid, unfun, and wouldn't really promote choices, so much as it would replace 22 choices with 1 forced choice. as are Merit Limitations.