Merit Weapon Skill Adjustments April Update

[Snowlock]

3/5 in 5 WS lets you merit enough weapon skills that most of your jobs will have one they can use.

Increasing the Weapon Skill category's merit point cap would serve the same purpose, and is a harmless, rational, and popular request. Can you formulate a comparably rational, sensible defense for maintaining the current cap?

[Zumi]

With the cap at 3 fully merited WS that limits your choices a lot only playing 3 jobs to the their full potential. Having like 25 merits in WS will allow people more options and the ability to play more jobs at their full potential. Since you can only be on once job at a time there really is no harm in this.

Really there shouldn't be a cap on merit WS at all if we want to go out and get 100 merits to unlock each one then we should be able to.

Merit WS should just be treated the same as the job catagories. Imagine if you could only pick 3 jobs to use merits on for the job merits. The limiting WS merits clashes with the whole ability to change job system.

[Alhanelem]

Increasing the Weapon Skill category's merit point cap would serve the same purpose, and is a harmless, rational, and popular request. Can you formulate a comparably rational, sensible defense for maintaining the current cap?

Yes. Increasing the base attribute bonus for the weapon skills is a harmless, sensible and rational request that would serve the same purpose.

If your suggestion would serve the same purpose as what they're already doing, then you should be happy that they're doing what they said they're doing.

Merit WS should just be treated the same as the job catagories. Imagine if you could only pick 3 jobs to use merits on for the job merits. The limiting WS merits clashes with the whole ability to change job system.

It really doesn't clash at all. You can play any of the 22 jobs that you want, and the jobs that you like the most you can choose to make even stronger. This customizes your character and makes it different from other people's. Apparently though, the popular opinion is no cusotmization, make everybody be the same. But then they may as well just get rid of the merit system, give us all the abilities they created for it, and pump our stats. SE WANTS you to make decisions. The only problem with this is people hate making decisions.

I don't know about you, but I'm totally fine with not being the best at <insert job1 here> in exchange for being better at <insert job2 here>. I can still provide Job1 if it's truly needed, but when job2 is needed, I really get to shine.

[Trumpy]

im with Alhanelem here, is it the solution we want, no. but it isnt the worst situation. Its not a nerf in anyway, as its actually a buff so really it isnt that bad. again I would love for them to increase the cap, but im happy enough with this. Sorry i just dont have a big e-penis like some of those guys who have to perfect everything, which by the way you can still do, just only 3 (as has been always so).

[Snowlock]

Yes. Increasing the base attribute bonus for the weapon skills is a harmless, sensible and rational request that would serve the same purpose.

If your suggestion would serve the same purpose as what they're already doing, then you should be happy that they're doing what they said they're doing.

That was a particularly transparent attempt to re-frame the challenge I gave you. The base attribute bonus is proposed to increase on the first point, and all further points convey a reduced bonus. The net result is a maximum stat modification of 85%

The harmless, rational and popular request documented in this thread is for the ability to raise one or more additional weapon skills to the same 85% modification value. What you're suggesting is a compromise, which is laudable, but frankly off-topic, and so I repeat my question: Can you formulate a comparably rational, sensible defense for maintaining the current cap?

[Alhanelem]

That was a particularly transparent attempt to re-frame the challenge I gave you. The base attribute bonus is proposed to increase on the first point, and all further points convey a reduced bonus. The net result is a maximum stat modification of 85%

The harmless, rational and popular request documented in this thread is for the ability to raise one or more additional weapon skills to the same 85% modification value. What you're suggesting is a compromise, which is laudable, but frankly off-topic, and so I repeat my question: Can you formulate a comparably rational, sensible defense for maintaining the current cap?

I already gave one. There was nothing irrational about it, nothing not sensible about it. You can disagree with it, but that doesn't make it irrational and non-sensible.

The reason the limits exist is customization. Contrary to popular belief, it was not purely intended as a post-level-cap advancement system. And, in fact, merits can be earned or applied at any time after level 75- you don't have to be at the level cap. By asking players to make decisions about the way they grow stronger, the result is a shred of uniqueness to each character in a world that has more and more people with every single job leveled to 99. Maybe some/many people don't care for customization and uniqueness, I don't know. While its nice to have everything, in the end the game will become more dull (in my opinion) when you know that the majority of people there are basically the same as you except for their gear, and usually that's simply because the player with less gear hasn't been playing as long or hasn't been able to get the help they needed.

The widely held belief seems to be that because we can play and level every job on one character, that itself lends to not having customization. But in any other MMORPG, while you only play one class on a character, you can make as many characters as you want to play all the classes- I don't see the difference, personally.

[Snowlock]

I already gave one. There was nothing irrational about it, nothing not sensible about it. You can disagree with it, but that doesn't make it irrational and non-sensible.

You didn't. You suggested ways players could gain extra weapon skills by lowering their existing weapon skill stat modifications. That's a compromise, and a response to a completely different position to the one taken in this thread.

The reason the limits exist is customization. Contrary to popular belief, it was not purely intended as a post-level-cap advancement system. And, in fact, merits can be earned or applied at any time after level 75- you don't have to be at the level cap. By asking players to make decisions about the way they grow stronger, the result is a shred of uniqueness to each character in a world that has more and more people with every single job leveled to 99. Maybe some/many people don't care for customization and uniqueness, I don't know. While its nice to have everything, in the end the game will become more dull (in my opinion) when you know that the majority of people there are basically the same as you except for their gear, and usually that's simply because the player with less gear hasn't been playing as long or hasn't been able to get the help they needed.

That is a valid defense of maintaining the current cap. It's a fiat, and not a position based on logic but instead on authority, but valid nonetheless. Even so, it's the same fiat that's being challenged in this thread, so it's still not a very productive direction for the topic. You're not going to convince anyone with that argument, but it's the first on-topic statement you've made so far, so cheers.

The fact is they're still adding new jobs, and it's not unreasonable to request an additional weapon skill with the same 85% stat modification potential now and then to keep pace with job inflation.

Imagine, instead of merit point caps, we were instead talking about maximum allowed aggregate job level cap per character (e.g. 450 job levels spread however you like across available jobs). As new jobs were added, it would be logical to expect players to request an expansion of that job level cap to accommodate the new jobs. And so with weapon skills.

You can assert your fiat about customizability here, but it's just not very compelling.

[Zumi]

The problem is the game lets you level to 99 on every job but then turns around and says. Now that you got 99 you can only be good at 3 jobs.

I could play my 99 sam yes but it doesn't have Shoha because I used my merit WS on Resolution, Requiescat, and Exenterator. The job without Shoha does very low damage compared to with it. Playing a 99 sam with no Shoha is not something I am willing to play becasue I know it will under preform no matter how good I am at playing sam.

The game is forcing you not to play certain jobs because you can't get the merit WS for. With every melee the merit WS is good, its almost too good.

[Alhanelem]

You can assert your fiat about customizability here, but it's just not very compelling.

I can't tell a lie, I don't know what a "fiat" is, other than a brand of car. I had to look it up (An arbitrary order). I guess it's arbitrary, but so isn't everything else in the game? the amount of damage we do, the HP we have, it was all just decided upon by the people who made the game.

I can understand it not being compelling if you don't like customization, but I'm unable to comprehend why people don't like customization. I'll admit that. It's not like the changes you make with merits are permanent. You can always unlearn a merit ability and level something else up. I could more understand people hating the system if you couldn't change what you put in.

Playing a 99 sam with no Shoha is not something I am willing to play becasue I know it will under preform no matter how good I am at playing sam.

So if your group badly needs a SAM for voidwatch, where Shoha is not a proc, you're still not willing to use it? You'd abandon your group rather than play it, just because you wont parse as high, even though you'd still win with flying colors? That seems irrational to me. Is Shoha really so blows-everything-out-of-the-water-by-massive-margin that the job is completely unplayable without it and makes it impossible to win by having the SAM in your party?

Just so you know, with new jobs, I don't oppose an increase in the limit- I only oppose removing the limit entirely. Allowing 5 WS maxed (which would also allow nearly every WS to be taken to level 2, which is higher than what level 3 would be before this patch) isn't unreasonable. All I'm saying is their solution is reasonable and rational.

[Yinnyth]

Increasing the Weapon Skill category's merit point cap would serve the same purpose, and is a harmless, rational, and popular request. Can you formulate a comparably rational, sensible defense for maintaining the current cap?

Diversity in the game environment lending itself to more unique situations and people's ability to specialize themselves towards certain jobs. Back in the day, exp was one of the largest things defining which jobs you are more effective with, and which jobs you are less effective with. Since it is now less time consuming to get 10 jobs to level 99 than it was to get 1 job to 75, merits are now what helps to define your specialties. Well, that in addition to gear and player understanding and capability.

No truly great RPG allows one person to be the best at everything. Merits help to define who you are in game. My magic merits are in string, wind, and singing, so I am a more effective bard than most players. However, that means I'm a less effective BLM. I prefer it this way to having everyone be a carbon-copy of one another where it's ok to expect everyone has every job leveled with all merits and a base level of gear for each. I like the environment that this specialization helps to create.