[dev1006] Merit Point Adjustments!

[Orson]

Definitely no reason to have a total cap on any of these categories. Even HP/MP, Stats, and Others would not be overpowered to give no total category cap.

The one thing I would really like to see though is have it so enmity merits can be toggled on or off. Better yet you could just let us refund limit points for free from +/- enmity.

I would like to see job specific merits possibly expanded too.

[Darthporisius]

Definitely no reason to have a total cap on any of these categories. Even HP/MP, Stats, and Others would not be overpowered to give no total category cap.

The one thing I would really like to see though is have it so enmity merits can be toggled on or off. Better yet you could just let us refund limit points for free from +/- enmity.

I would like to see job specific merits possibly expanded too.

I agree with the enmity one, I, for one, am a PLD and a SCH (along other jobs). There are days I wish my PLD would generate hate like my SCH, but that's a different topic. I wish I could merit Enmity for Job Specific, hell, I'll spend more merits just for that. Let me merit a job's enmity level to what I want it to. Would help both tanks and mages.

I do tend to counter my own statements just to think of both sides. Player skill, (one merit area that I wish I could merit in, not only for myself, but others) would be at risk. We have all seen how some people play when they are in Abyssea with their atmas then are complete <expletive> outside of it. A rookie would do a better job against a NM like Kirin, King B, etc than them, and I even talk about some who leveled the old ways. Sorry, my mentality is, if you can't play the job w/o any external support minus Pro/Shell/Cures, don't play it.

Okay, I'm done with my rant... sorry.

-DP

[Karinya_of_Carbuncle]

The point of the merit system is to force people to specialize, while the point of the job system is that you don't have to specialize.

Exactly. I was pretty pissed off when merits first came out -- one of the great things about FFXI from the start is that you didn't need multiple characters for multiple jobs the way every other MMO forces you to have. You still have to level different jobs separately, but things like rank, fame, and gobbiebags carry over. And then at merits it turns out they were just yanking your chain all along, if you want to be the best possible at multiple jobs you'll need multiple characters after all.

...btw, still no fix for enmity merits for people with both tank and non-tank jobs?

[AyinDygra]

Specialization in merits runs contrary to the design themes found throughout the rest of the game. Some design themes that come to mind as examples are:
Jobs: play all the jobs and level them all to max.
Subjobs: swap out your subjob to best suit the task at hand. (not locked into one subjob; note the outcry when certain subjobs are made "mandatory" by the player base. This goes against the concept of the rest of the game.)
Gear: swap out any piece at any time you like for any situation.
Abilities: learn them all as you level up.
HELM: anybody can gather materials; everyone can level fishing and chocobo digging to max.

The only other examples of "specialization" in the game's concept are:
Crafting: you can only specialize in one craft, but even that is being changed now to allow two max crafts, with future increases in this cap planned even further.
Penalized gear switching in Ballista: This sort of fits into the thought of specialization, but it could also encourage gearing for generalization for all manner of circumstances as well. I'm not quite sure why they penalize this, unless it's because it causes a player to lose target lock on someone when they blink.
Race: you can't change your race, and each race gives you a slight edge or handicap in certain areas (but there is gear that can change that.)

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I think many of the job abilities and spells that are only learned by spending merits should be moved into the natural learning-by-leveling structure of the jobs and the merits applying to them should simply adjust them somehow (duration, potency, recast, etc.)

Weapon and magic skill merits should only be individually limited, without a category cap.

Enmity merits should be toggle-able somehow. (allowing people to merit both + and - enmity, turning one or the other on or off)

I'm divided on the subject of removing the category caps on Job Specific merits, but if abilities were all natively learned and the merits were simply adjustments to the existing abilities, it would partially alleviate the situation.

[LeaderofAtlantis]

I'm happy with them raising the combo caps they are, but I do wish they would develop the individual Job merits (Group 1 & Group 2) a bit more. Being a THF, I was always curious why we couldn't merit the timers of Mug or Steal (yeah, I know it's not necessarily something any of us thieves would do, but since we are called THIEVES, shouldn't those 2 be something we can better specialize in?) or at the very least, increase the accuracy/potency.

There have been many lower level additions to the various jobs since the introduction of the merit point system. Dragoons now have Conserve TP, Samurais have Sekkanoki, Ninjas have Yonnin and Innin, Summoners have Elemental Siphon and Blood Boon, and I'm sure I'm missing many others, but many of these could have been possibilities in our merit paths.

For everyone who seems to think we should be able to make our characters as strong as we want (and maybe I'm just misreading several posts, but I don't think I am), the whole point of the merit system, at least to me, was to allow us to customize our characters for our own game play style - not just make a cookie cutter of what everyone else wants us to do.

Now as Rambus stated, I would like to see some changes to the job specific merits. The jobs that are forced to either choose between having a magic spell (or Avatar ability) or making 1 or 2 specific ones stronger, should probably have those merits shifted to potency/accuracy merits. RDM Group 2 could include a potency/accuracy increase for all Dia, Slow, Paralyze, Phalanx, Bio and Blind spells. I've always wondered why several BLM (and I think a DRK or two) type monsters have access to Bio III and WHMs to Dia III, but those spells can't be learned by us when we are those jobs.

Moving on away from just the mages though, I would like to see Aura Steal changed to a separate Job Ability or changed so that there's a possibility for us THFs to steal an item AND dispel/steal a buff at the same time - not the either/or scenario we have now. That's just 1 example off the top of my head, I'm sure there are others that some other people here can think of.

Finally, several jobs have many choices for Group 1 and Group 2 merits while others have few. I know, for example, that with Ninja it would make no sense to allow for the enhance of 1 or 2 spells on the elemental wheel while ignoring the rest of the elemental wheel, but it either hurts them because they are forced to divide up few merits into more choices than jobs like THF, or it hurts jobs like THF because we don't have as much of a selection. I look forward to seeing if we get either an increase in the combo points allowed per group and/or per individual item, and/or get an increase in the number of choices available to us on jobs with fewer choices. I would hope it would be all of the above, but that's just me.

The Merit System has always been something I've loved since I hit 75 for the first time on THF. It reminded me of my other Final Fantasy experiences such as Final Fantasy VI where I could use Espers to either focus on 1 or 2 stats per character or make a character average in all abilities if I like. I could "customize" each character the way I wanted to. It also reminded me of Final Fantasy X's Sphere Grid, but not so overpowered that I could walk up to a creature like the Jailer of Love on Thief and solo it within a few minutes. I look forward to the developers continuing to expand this system, but I hope they keep an eye on maintaining the balance of the game in the process.