Could Merit Points/Job Points or another sort of character progression work for FF14?

[AlucaDragonheart]

Thinking back on Yoshi-P saying that he was considering another method of character progression past level 100 because it was a milestone of sorts, it makes me wonder if the way that jobs are designed and the way combat balance is handled, if the game could even handle some form of progression besides leveling up. I know 8.0 is the supposed "job identity" patch, but what do you guys think? You think we'll just get to level 110, or do you think there could be some way they could squeeze in another form of character progression, even with this game strict adherence to balance?

[Jeeqbit]

Blue Mage is an example of a different way to gain abilities and to have different specs.

Yoshi-P did specifically mention Skill Trees, Talents and Ability points as ideas they've been throwing around. They since said they've already decided what they are going to do but won't say yet. Most likely we won't find out until Fanfest, unless Yoshi-P slips it in an interview.

[Daralii]

At this point, I'm not convinced that they'll be able to come up with and implement an alternate advancement system, so my prediction is 110 or nothing.

[Kranel_San]

I believe we're at the end of the vertical progression and the beginning of the horizontal progression, akin to the lv75 era in FFXI

Whatever they do, the expectations are pretty low on the quality itself. They need to UP the game.

[Wyssahtyn]

please look forward to 110 level cap.

[Fawkes]

I feel like it probably wouldn't work well, they've pruned a lot of things for the sake of making the game easier to balance, so adding a system where players could put points into whatever would either need to not matter in regards to balance or they'd have to balance every combination of choices.

[Daralii]

I feel like it probably wouldn't work well, they've pruned a lot of things for the sake of making the game easier to balance, so adding a system where players could put points into whatever would either need to not matter in regards to balance or they'd have to balance every combination of choices.

I put on my tinfoil hat and came up with a theory: an expansion-specific leveling system akin to field ops(elemental/mettle/knowledge), with each job having something similar to a phantom job to provide skill progression. It allows Yoshida to have technically been telling the truth without them actually changing the formula.

[fulminating]

So say I have fully merit pointed my warrior. In practice what would this mean?

General stats - cap str, dh if possible else crit. We don’t have great axe/great sword/scythe to consider because equipping those would make you a dark knight/reaper. Enemy crit rate hasn’t been a concern for some time.

Cooldown reduction would have to be severe to not mess up alignment - IR drifting out of buffs in the current combat design would be pretty catastrophic, so full merits would need it reduced from 60s to 30 or 40 (4 or 6 seconds per merit for argument’s sake).

Potency increase is pretty boring eg fell cleave 540 -> 600 (12 potency increase per)

Gauge gained increased could change how the job plays briefly until you get used to the new rotation, but since it’s just the fell cleave gauge now I can’t see it being as impactful as it might be.

Cooldown reduction - vengeance/nascent/equilibrium being up more often would probably tend towards flavour rather than being a must have unless fight design assumes this will be the priority choice.

Enmity increase/decrease. Not really a consideration.

Durations- might be cool depending. Specifically extending the holmgang bind would be hilarious if it didn’t touch the invuln component, I can see a longer vengeance being appreciated if only to catch an extra hit if you time it well. Berserk/inner release would have loved this prior to endwalker.

Stack increase. If your berserk/IR gets an extra stack it might be sought after, IR timing might be getting a bit tight with the follow ups though. Still if it caps at +3 that’s a second primal wrath…

Double/triple attack rate. I can just see people falling over themselves to cap it for that extra 1-2 autos. Would be very funny to drop an anvil on the excel enthusiasts like that though, particularly if it extended beyond autos, similar to the ruin bug on scholar a few patches back.

Overall it just seems very difficult to meaningfully accommodate merits in the current system. Rolling back to even just shadowbringers style might make it more impactful, but they’ve just spent three or more expansions heading in this direction. Clearer display of raid buffs (both trick/chain and embolden/arcane circle style) could allow it to function in uncoordinated groups, but I’m unconvinced user customisation and rigid timelines are particularly compatible. Maybe if you’re expected to cap everything’s merits, but at that point is it even worth introducing that system?

[CaptainLagbeard]

There would still be room for level ups, if they went ahead and squished levels down in ARR... ARR doesn't really need 50 levels these days...

But I do kind of wonder what they have in mind for future character growth.

[fulminating]

I’m not really sure where levels could be removed from arr without making it feel a progressionless slog as with the 2.x patches. There’s already been some restructuring and I’d rather not see a third pass at it if it can possibly be avoided. It might be easier to convert the patches to 5 levels each and assume a level up after each dungeon. Holminster is when you reach 71, don mheg 72, qitana 73, malikah 74, big pulls 75*. Even then I think so much stuff with no perceived gain in power would be difficult to swallow for a lot of people. “Number go up” isn’t the most compelling motivation, but the infrequent reward for doing cutscenes/instances does serve as some feedback rather than fighting fog. It’s probably why there’s such a fanfare whenever you level or gain a merit point in xi; never mind that you need three quarters of a million exp, you’ve got 10k here’s some trumpets, now kill some more.

*actually these would be 61-65 but it seemed clearer when explaining to compress purely within that expansion’s usual range.