Merit Weapon Skill Adjustments April Update

[Asymptotic]

Ideally all of the abilities should be useful but if they ARE all useful it would lead to a lot of unhappy players when they get excluded for having the wrong combination for the moment unless they were to make them like Blue Magic spells where you can switch out which you currently have access to on the fly (but only from your Mog House)

[Triffle]

Or here's a thought. Why not give it so we can fully cap half the possible merit weaponskills? I think raising the max amount of merits u can put in from 15 to 35 is much easier on everyone.

[Alhanelem]

SO you have every job leveled, every merit possible spent, you have every piece of gear available and your macros are all perfect right? That's why you are saying that gimping your weapon skills would be the only form of customization right?

This isn't just about weapon skills, it's about the game as a whole. You're telling me that the only customizaiton that is and should be in the game is "choose not to level this job, choose not to merit this, choose not to do that. You'll be more gimp, but you'll at least be unique."

When you require that people choose between having one thing and having another (versus choosing whether or not you bother getting something), you customize in a positive way- by having something not everybody else has, instead of in a negative way- by choosing not to have something everyone else has or can have.

And I'm talking about the merit system as a whole, not just the weapon skills category. I'm seeing requests to remove all merit limits, not just weapon skills.

All they need is a respec feature like every other game has, allo2wing you to reconfigre your merits (in your MH, not just anywhere) without having to farm more merit points (maybe just charge a small fee in banked merit points for the respec). I always did feel it was silly that merits are lost when you undo them.

Let's apply your logic to a currently uncapped category:

Anyone can build any E/R/M weapon that they choose right now.

Why don't you have 99 Kenkonken with afterglow? I say it's because you chose to customize your character in other ways instead, but according to the above logic, you in fact chose to be a gimp because you felt like it was the only way you could customize seeing as anyone can have them if they so choose.

Sounds pretty silly to me.

Broken logic is broken.

Broken logic is broken- except that it's your interpretaiton of my logic that's broken.

What you said about "the above logic" in your post is basically true: in many cases, choosing not to get a R/E/M weapon is basically choosing to gimp yourself- at least by most elitist's standards. If all the merit categories are uncapped, the same thing will happen with them. anyone who chooses not to max them all out is choosing to gimp themselves. Many elitists out there will say you're choosing to be gimp if you don't choose / aren't able to obtain the latest and greatest gear.

The difference with your example though is a 99 afterglow weapon is so time consuming to get that you can't choose everything. Under the current merit system, if the categories were all uncapped, it wouldn't take all that much time cap everything out.

I would be less opposed to them doing it if meriting took so much time that it wasn't practical to max everything out- the problem with this is it would be unfair to everyone who hasn't already merited a ton of stuff unless they hit the reset button on the whole thing.

[Jackstin]

Several years ago your argument would have been sound Al, but the game has changed. There's no point in having the unique butterfly merit upgrades in a game which encourages you to be proficient at a wide variety of job types.

I agree that it is incredibly entitled to demand more merits, and is a silly thing to say you're gimp if you don't have max merits for all jobs you play but in today's Final Fantasy XI it makes more sense. What makes a player unique nowadays is what gear they have and what jobs they can play.

[Alhanelem]

Several years ago your argument would have been sound Al, but the game has changed. There's no point in having the unique butterfly merit upgrades in a game which encourages you to be proficient at a wide variety of job types.

I agree that it is incredibly entitled to demand more merits, and is a silly thing to say you're gimp if you don't have max merits for all jobs you play but in today's Final Fantasy XI it makes more sense. What makes a player unique nowadays is what gear they have and what jobs they can play.

I see what you're saying but it's a problem to me nonetheless. the merit point system should be fixed/tweaked/whatever needs to be done to keep it the customization system it was originally intended to be (or add a new system entirely). I don't think gear, which for the most part has clear choices that are "the best", should be the sole customization component in the game.

[FrankReynolds]

This isn't just about weapon skills, it's about the game as a whole. You're telling me that the only customizaiton that is and should be in the game is "choose not to level this job, choose not to merit this, choose not to do that. You'll be more gimp, but you'll at least be unique."

No, you're saying that. I'm saying that people don't have the need, time, desire, or financial means to do everything in the game and that for that reason, customization happens naturally regardless of boundaries put in place to force individuality.

If you could name even one person who had everything in the game, or even a single person who had exactly the same job levels, gear and macros as you, you might have a point, but the fact is that you cannot because such a person does not exist. Even if you could find such a person, one person having capped everything or two people who have the exact same jobs, gear etc. does not constitute the need for an arbitrary system that affects the entire populous.

When you require that people choose between having one thing and having another (versus choosing whether or not you bother getting something), you customize in a positive way- by having something not everybody else has, instead of in a negative way- by choosing not to have something everyone else has or can have.

I'm not sure that you understand what the word positive means. Positive is having the ability to play as much of the game as you choose. Negative is being told "You can't play this part because that kid over there wants to have something that you can't have".

And I'm talking about the merit system as a whole, not just the weapon skills category. I'm seeing requests to remove all merit limits, not just weapon skills.

There are threads for that too. This one is about the weapon skill category and it should be unlocked or at the very least raised.

All they need is a respec feature like every other game has, allo2wing you to reconfigre your merits (in your MH, not just anywhere) without having to farm more merit points (maybe just charge a small fee in banked merit points for the respec). I always did feel it was silly that merits are lost when you undo them.

That part I could agree with. If they upped the number of merits that you could store and gave swapping merits a fairly high cost, this could be a huge reason to get people meriting again.

Broken logic is broken- except that it's your interpretaiton of my logic that's broken.

What you said about "the above logic" in your post is basically true: in many cases, choosing not to get a R/E/M weapon is basically choosing to gimp yourself- at least by most elitist's standards. If all the merit categories are uncapped, the same thing will happen with them. anyone who chooses not to max them all out is choosing to gimp themselves. Many elitists out there will say you're choosing to be gimp if you don't choose / aren't able to obtain the latest and greatest gear.

The difference with your example though is a 99 afterglow weapon is so time consuming to get that you can't choose everything. Under the current merit system, if the categories were all uncapped, it wouldn't take all that much time cap everything out.

I would be less opposed to them doing it if meriting took so much time that it wasn't practical to max everything out- the problem with this is it would be unfair to everyone who hasn't already merited a ton of stuff unless they hit the reset button on the whole thing.

My view of your logic isn't broken. I understand exactly what you are trying to say. It just doesn't work.

Regardless of why people choose not to build every E/R/M or get every piece of cool gear for every job, or do every quest and obtain every title or level every craft or pick galka instead of elves etc. the fact remains that they are all unique snowflakes because of those decisions already and do not need the merit category to enforce that.

[Oddwaffle]

I think having more WS merit would make the game more enjoyable. I'd like 7~9 WS with 5/5 but 5 WS would be ok. The current restriction is like telling you "you can only like 3 jobs". You have to abandon jobs you are interested in but not enough to make them your bread-butter job. I like Monk and Bst so I have Shijin Spiral and Ruinator leveled. I also like Warrior but I'm interested in Rng, Drg, Drk, Thf and Sam. With only 5 merit left, I can only 'like' one more job. I don't have enough time or money to get R/M/E for these all these jobs and I prefer to try the new weapons rather than stuck with a lv90 weapon. If I level Tachi: Shoha then my Rng will not be very useful and won't be used even if I equip it. I can un-'like' a job and level Last Stand but I don't want to dislike a job I liked.

This is not hypothetical case. This is pretty much my current situation. I'd like to have a stronger WS for my Thf but I'm stuck with Dancing Edge (outside of Abby) so I don't want to invest in Thf even if I like it. I'd love to level Rng but I don't want to use Rng much so I don't want to put merits into Last Stand. However, not having Last Stand will make my Rng very obsolete as I only have Slug Shot. I have no choice but to stop playing Rng.

Even with the update, I'd still be very limited in my choices on jobs I get to like. Even with 2/5 merit, some merit WS are comparable to previous WSs so I don't think I'd want to spend merits on side-grades.

[Alhanelem]

I'm not sure that you understand what the word positive means. Positive is having the ability to play as much of the game as you choose. Negative is being told "You can't play this part because that kid over there wants to have something that you can't have".

I looked up the definition of those words in the dictionary, and it didn't match what you wrote here.

Just saying.

[Randnum]

It is generally a bad idea in a community based game to make a character's power at a given level completely dependent on nothing but a time investment.

Most really good gear requires either teamwork or clear skill. Merits may require these but they certainly require less of either.

If Samurai A is the same as or stronger than Samurai B even though Samurai B is totally devoted to Samurai and Samurai A just has more time to play, your design has failed Samurai B in a community based game. This may however make Samurai A happier.

That's all this is in the end, this 'argument'. Lots of Samurai A not caring how Samurai B is affected, and arguing that people who do care that Samurai B is affected are all being illogical and stupid.

If you find 4/5 to be horrible and make your job unworthy of bothering to play, think of all those people who, for whatever time restrictive reason, haven't reached 4/5 yet on whatever. If that makes no sense to you, you are Samurai A.

[FrankReynolds]

It is generally a bad idea in a community based game to make a character's power at a given level completely dependent on nothing but a time investment.

Most really good gear requires either teamwork or clear skill. Merits may require these but they certainly require less of either.

If Samurai A is the same as or stronger than Samurai B even though Samurai B is totally devoted to Samurai and Samurai A just has more time to play, your design has failed Samurai B in a community based game. This may however make Samurai A happier.

That's all this is in the end, this 'argument'. Lots of Samurai A not caring how Samurai B is affected, and arguing that people who do care that Samurai B is affected are all being illogical and stupid.

If you find 4/5 to be horrible and make your job unworthy of bothering to play, think of all those people who, for whatever time restrictive reason, haven't reached 4/5 yet on whatever. If that makes no sense to you, you are Samurai A.

What you are implying is that samurai B should be better than samurai A simply because (he thinks) he likes samurai more than samurai A.

I am not samurai A. I am simply a fair and logical human being who understands the correlation between hard work and reward.

Saying that you should be better than someone else simply because you think that they don't want it as much as you do, despite the fact that that person has put far more time and effort into it than you is ludicrous. Talk about entitlement...