Limited Merits at Player Discretion

[Mhurron]

Re: Limited Merits at Player Discretion

True, and I wouldn't even be making my arguement if those bonuses didn't carry over into other jobs before Lv75.

Lots of things carry over from one job to another because they enhance your character, not any specific job.

Do you think that you should have to buy spells again for every job that uses the same one, or that you should have to get your subjob again every time you want to level a job through the dunes, or do the limit break quests for ever job you decide to take past 50? Perhaps you should have to recap the same skills over and over and over again. Every time you level a job other then your highest you have benifits that someone else may not have.

[TenchiHawkwing]

Re: Limited Merits at Player Discretion

Lots of things carry over from one job to another because they enhance your character, not any specific job.

Do you think that you should have to buy spells again for every job that uses the same one, or that you should have to get your subjob again every time you want to level a job through the dunes, or do the limit break quests for ever job you decide to take past 50? Perhaps you should have to recap the same skills over and over and over again. Every time you level a job other then your highest you have benifits that someone else may not have.

But, the difference is, these are benefits they can not get. At 50, while I don't have to do the limit breaks again, they can still do them, they can still buy the spells, they can still level their skills.

They can not gain merits.

That is the difference, that is the reason I take my stance. People should be *able* to do it, it's just up to them whether they want to or not. Either that, or change the name from merit points to something else, because in this way, it's not based on merit(or else a lower level player would be able to work hard to gain the benefits too).

[BurningPanther]

Re: Limited Merits at Player Discretion

What I would like to see is the capability to obtain limit and merit points in when you meet level caps, specifically at each level barrier that requires the Genkai quests to break. This way, you have something to occupy you if you haven't completed the quest yet, but still want to participate in experience parties.

The catch is, the merits that you earn are useless to you until you reach 75. But many times, in between level cap quests, I'd cap out and still party, but to little benefit save for capping skills. This way, you still get earn something from partying, and at the same time see what could await you when you hit 75.

[DakAttack]

Re: Limited Merits at Player Discretion

Merits were originally meant to give people who are level 75 something more to do, but I've always felt such a system should have been installed throughout the entire game, or at least a good portion of it. Being able to merit mini-merits at level 50 and beyond would be nice.

People like to excell, but not everybody can afford the costly equipment. This could be a major area for players who can expend more time and enhance their character in other ways.

[Mhurron]

Re: Limited Merits at Player Discretion

Ah I get it. So as long as the benifit that extends beyond jobs is one you can take part in your fine with others not have them, but if it's something you can't thats not right.

Another character has to stop leveling at 50 to do G1 but you don't - Your benifit so it's ok.
Another character has to do their subjob quest and level it up but you don't - your benifit so it's ok.
Another character has to stop leveling to raise fame and do missions for drain for their DRK but you don't because you leveled BLM last year - your benifit so it's ok
Another character has a job to 75 and can merit their character but you don't - Not ok because you can't.

You can't level past 50 until you have done G1
You can't get a subjob until you have one job to 18 and done the quest
You can't quest Drain or any number of other expensive spells until you have enough fame
You can't merit you character until you have a job to level 75

Yet the only one people have a problem with is the last one. Why? For no other reason then they haven't done the work to do it yet want the benefits of it.

People should be *able* to do it, it's just up to them whether they want to or not.

Anyone can do them, once they've met the prerequisites. Choose not to do the prerequisites is choosing not to take part in the reward. There is nothing in the definition of merit that requires a low level character to be able to partake of them without putting forth the effort required.

[Ayrlie]

Re: Limited Merits at Player Discretion

merit points only at 75 is to get level 75 peeps to get XP even if they're at 43999/44000. While there are bunch of useless merits, I have found some good ones to focus on. You have to decide what to focus on. For non-job specific merits, your character can benefit with prorated merits as early as level 30. Imagine using Raging Fist at 40 and Howling Fist at 59 instead of 41 and 60. Oh course, there are catches to that as well: your level 75 job must be able to use hand to hand skill.

I got 1 dagger and 2 marksmanship merits to help my thief. I really don't have any time devoted into meriting but everyone that I have talked to said it takes about 1.5M in XP to cap out merits on one job

[Nazo]

Re: Limited Merits at Player Discretion

EDIT: To the above poster; so you feel that if some guy was a Network Admin for 10 years, then decides he wants a change of pace, and goes into a whole other (unrelated) field, that he should be payed more than you because he worked his ass off as a NA?

It's basically the same thing.

Not at all. A merited job doesn't get any more xp than the rest of the party (the pay for xp parties). In your analogy, the Network Admin would have gained experience and skills in his job that he would carry over, even if his technical expertise was not required in his new role. He would certainly have an advantage over someone who has never worked before.

Lots of quests / missions / abilities in the game are level capped, this is just another one of them. Don't forget it takes 30k xp just to raise your first stat point, it just wouldn't be worth implementing the change.

[Taskmage]

Re: Limited Merits at Player Discretion

There is one benefit I see to this that makes it a lot more appealing to me. Being able to go into limit mode and freeze your experience at any time would make it possible for groups of friends who invest disparate amounts of time into the game to hold their levels together while allowing the people who play more to continue to play their preferred job and still reap some benefit.

[Climhazzard]

Re: Limited Merits at Player Discretion

How is the system poor? It is the equivelent of leveling your character to 77-78 if you max things out. Why is making stuff available earlier a good idea? It makes no sense storywise for one, and gameplaywise for another.

It makes plenty of sense if you think about it. I understand the whole "reward for getting to 75" argument, but there are some merits that we'd be better off getting before 75 because they lose a lot of their effectiveness after we hit 75. The new Beast Affinity being a nice example of what I'm talking about. This merit has much more of an impact on BSTs that are 65-71 and it loses a significant amount of effectiveness when the BST is Lv75. It's not of much use if we're not going to benefit much from certain merits at 75.

I'm not saying give us all the merits because that would severely unbalance the game. But, the game wouldn't be unbalanced if we were given some job-based merits after we reach a certain level instead of only at 75. The stat merits I think should most certainly be left at 75. But some (not all) of the job-based merits would certainly give us more bang for our buck if we could get them at like Lv60 without having balancing issues.

[Mog]

Re: Limited Merits at Player Discretion

It makes plenty of sense if you think about it. I understand the whole "reward for getting to 75" argument, but there are some merits that we'd be better off getting before 75 because they lose a lot of their effectiveness after we hit 75.

Key word some. A lot of the merits can be geared toward any job, not just the main job you leveled toward 75. Think of it as giving you an extra edge with any related job that you level, as a reward of getting one job to 75.

Personally, I think it's pointless getting merits at any level less than 75. There would be too many different attributes of lower levels running around that it would complicate things more than anything else.

There's a certain milestone for everything:getting your +2 rings, getting your JSE gear, getting +3 rings, getting AF, G1, G2, G3, G4, that it's pointless to throw in a merit system into the mix.

[Climhazzard]

Re: Limited Merits at Player Discretion

Key word some. A lot of the merits can be geared toward any job, not just the main job you leveled toward 75. Think of it as giving you an extra edge with any related job that you level, as a reward of getting one job to 75.

The merits that give the extra edge for any job are the ones I think that should remain Lv75. I don't disagree with that at all. But these merits that help more pre-75 than once a player reaches 75, then I see nothing wrong with making those merits available at a level earlier than 75. We already get a ton of perks for reaching 75 as it is and the merit system doesn't offer anything we cannot do without.

Personally, I think it's pointless getting merits at any level less than 75. There would be too many different attributes of lower levels running around that it would complicate things more than anything else.

If they worked the way I personally would like merits to work, these merits wouldn't benefit any job other than the one you're playing at that point in time. Meriting Beast Affinity only helps BST. I do not agree with getting stat merits pre-75 that will help on another job. These particular merits would be the reward for reaching Lv75.

There's a certain milestone for everything:getting your +2 rings, getting your JSE gear, getting +3 rings, getting AF, G1, G2, G3, G4, that it's pointless to throw in a merit system into the mix.

The way I see it, merits are something that SE envisions everyone to use. Getting a job merit that loses it's effectiveness at Lv75 is a pointless merit. However, making those merits available pre-75, then it's a different story because people will level those merits at an earlier level.

Again, I don't want to see all merits offered pre-75. That would destory the balance of the game. I don't want to see stat merits unless the player has reached 75. If they've reached 75, then they deserve a little extra umph when leveling new jobs. I mean, someone leveling a job to 50 and getting +5STR because they meritted STR and then starting a new job is BS and it would unbalance the game. However, the job merits are a totally different story because most of them do not effect the balance of the game. The ones that do not effect the balance of the game are the ones I think should be offered pre-75.

The merit system is given to us as players to distinguish ourselves from everyone else that plays the same job. It helps break up the fact that everything in FFXI is the same. It offers individuality. This is where the merit system fails because almost everyone chooses the same merits as other people that play the same job. Even though everyone chooses the same merits, there's still very little difference because the job merits don't have much of an impact on how we play the game. There is no individuality in FFXI.

The "merit system" in EQOA is called "Class Mastery." This system offers individuality and allows the same job to specialize in certain areas. Take the Warrior in EQOA as an example. The Hero, Defender and Soldier subclasses are different from each other and each mastery has it's own function. Not only that, there are racial masteries for each class. If you'e a Barbarian Warrior, you get Berserker. This is what FFXI lacks and allowing a player to merit job specific merits would be the first step in countering this.

[Balodoth]

Re: Limited Merits at Player Discretion

Well, this certainly an interesting discussion. I don't think I've ever started a thread that's generated such immediate interest.

It looks like we have some fairly good points on either side. The only thing I'm genuinely confused about is the people who adamantly defend merits as a reward for reaching level 75 on a job. When merits were originally released, I read a great many posts on the subject. It seemed to me that while the community approved of it, the general consensus was merits were merely a method to keep players engrossed well after they had run the gamut of the endgame, which was far more limited then. If it's intended to extend playtime, then won't it still extend playtime at any level?

I also appreciated the point about other milestones when leveling. I hadn't considered other incentives S-E provides to accrue EXP. Or rather not in that fashion.

I also liked the points of wasted EXP at limit breaks and stall tactics for slow statics.

Now is it just me or are there a lot of people using the same points and coming to the opposite conclusions? I don't want to take away from the rewards for reaching level 75 so much as I want to share with people still leveling. Take a look at the glut of equipment in the 70's. Take a look at the story arches you can complete, the gods you can kill, the BCNM's you can enter, the ease with which you can earn money. 75 has got it all. And for good reason! You've got to the end. You deserve it.

When it comes to merits, how often have you been sitting. . . waiting. . . for that NM to pop? And have you never thought to yourself, "I could have gained a level and earned half the gil this drop is worth in the time I've been here"? Well, some people do that. Instead of spending one week waiting for a NM they may or may not claim that may or may not drop the desired item, they spend a week farming and earning EXP, and have about as much to show for it. That's all this is, an alternative. A way to earn something that helps us as we go along.

If merits really are the realm of 75, then NM's at or below level 30 should be the realm of noobs since some hunters haven't yet had the chance to get a job with wide scan or unlock treasure hunter II. I'm sure you feel this is ludicrous, but that's the point. If a high-level character can exploit that for the benefit of a low-level job, then a low-level character should have access to the same benefits accessible to the high-level character on his low-level job even if the access is more difficult. The only exception to this is mission-related issues.

[Vyuru]

Re: Limited Merits at Player Discretion

Anyone can do them, once they've met the prerequisites. Choose not to do the prerequisites is choosing not to take part in the reward. There is nothing in the definition of merit that requires a low level character to be able to partake of them without putting forth the effort required.

I don't think it has anything to do with people choosing not to take part in the reward of being lvl 75.

I'm currently a lvl 66 dragoon, it is very hard to find enough people to get a party started, if I had the same amount of people lfg as I did in the 40s range, I'd have been lvl 72 by now, I can solo very well, which is part of why I got this far in the first place, other jobs, warrior for instance, cannot solo as well as I can, if at all. To say that players are not choosing to get to level 75 is a bad choice of words since so many things depend on other people in this game, EXP being the primary thing we depend on other people so much for.

You can't level past 50 until you have done G1
You can't get a subjob until you have one job to 18 and done the quest
You can't quest Drain or any number of other expensive spells until you have enough fame

All of these, I have no problem with, because most of them are easily done. In addition to that, unless you have a job that is of the appropriate level to use Drain for instance, not having drain is rather pointless. The limit breaks are a rather fun way of breaking up the monotony of leveling, it doesn't take much time to get to level 18 and unlock the subjob quest.

You can't merit you character until you have a job to level 75

This is where things get a little sticky, if lvl 75s were not able to use all of those merits on other jobs pre 75, I wouldn't really care, yet they can. There are now, what, 7 times you can merit your hp/mp in any combination you want? That's either +70 hp max, or +70mp max, that's alot, with some people, that'd be enough to pick one person over another one for a exp party invite. Sure, you may say that isn't much, but I've had people complain to me for wearing a Jaridah Peti instead of a Scorpion Harness, I'd say missing +5 accuracy isn't alot of accuracy, especially for a dragoon, yet people still first select the people they percieve to have better gear to a party, over the people who they think don't have good gear.

We even do it with stats. When was the last time you picked a Galka White mage to main heal? How many of you have picked that Tarutaru Paladin? How many of you have picked the Galkan Paladin? What's the difference here? It's the racial stats, which are small for the most part, but people still make a big deal out of them.

+weapon skill, critical hit rate, +enmity, any of these are big things that a level 75 person can use on another job. Of course, I've heard that they don't get the full benefits of their merits right at lvl 1, but that it increases as they level, but that just makes me wonder, why can't other people who don't have a lvl 75 job merit as well now?

If for instance, a lvl 75 person can have access to 2 of his +str merits on a lvl 20 job, why can't a lvl 20 person choose to put in the time to get 2 +str merits as well? Both put in the time to get the exp for the merits

I would argue that most of these merits are really only good for the exp parties. Fine, I can get jump on a 1:15 and high jump on a 2:30 timer, now for end game activities, what are these useful for? Point me in the direction of a HNM LS that 1) let's dragoons in and 2) Let's people melee

There is Dynamis of course, and I don't know that much about the Limbus areas. Missions you can do as you level, there is the whole HNM scene, and unless I'm missing something, I think that is about it.

I would hardly call Assaults, Besieged, BCNMs or KSNMs end game activities, though there are a few, the majority are not.

If merits really are the realm of 75, then NM's at or below level 30 should be the realm of noobs since some hunters haven't yet had the chance to get a job with wide scan or unlock treasure hunter II. I'm sure you feel this is ludicrous, but that's the point. If a high-level character can exploit that for the benefit of a low-level job, then a low-level character should have access to the same benefits accessible to the high-level character on his low-level job even if the access is more difficult. The only exception to this is mission-related issues.

That is what it really comes down to. I have no problem competing against someone who is the roughly the same level as I am for a NM, but when 5+ lvl 60+ thf/rng or rng/thfs show up to camp Lizzy? Come on, how can a lvl 15 person compete against them? Especially for a pair of boots that you need to be lvl 7 to wear >.>

I have no problem competing with other people for exp party slots, but when they can say that they can do X skill chain 2 levels ahead of time, when they say they have +X points in X, Y and Z skills, I cannot compete with that, and what is worse to me is that it's not because I haven't tried, or because I don't want to get to lvl 75, it's because I haven't gotten to lvl 75 yet.

It's kinda like back when 4x ranger parties were the norm, and you being the non ranger melee job LFG.

[Legal Fish]

Re: Limited Merits at Player Discretion

While there are bunch of useless merits

What?

HP/MP

Stat

Skill both melee and magical

Most Job Merits are better than what you get on AF or Relic... only a few jobs get gibbed.

Others have pretty strong effects

Group II range from decent to very good.

If only SE could make gear as well as they make merits.

[Hamlet]

Re: Limited Merits at Player Discretion

I'm currently a lvl 66 dragoon, it is very hard to find enough people to get a party started, if I had the same amount of people lfg as I did in the 40s range, I'd have been lvl 72 by now, I can solo very well, which is part of why I got this far in the first place, other jobs, warrior for instance, cannot solo as well as I can, if at all. To say that players are not choosing to get to level 75 is a bad choice of words since so many things depend on other people in this game, EXP being the primary thing we depend on other people so much for.

Well, considering xp is so rare for you, would you actually consider meritting if it was available? Wouldn't it make more sense just to spend your xp leveling up, getting a whole bunch of benefits, rather than spending it to get +1 strength?

That being said, I was actually quite surprised when I found out merits were transferable. It made more sense to me that they would only be active on your 75 job.

Nerfing merits so they aren't transferable makes more sense than allowing lower jobs to merit (which I really don't see the point of, except for the few rare instances mentioned in this thread- doing lvl cap quests alot or wanting to stay in the same lvl range as your static, surely these reasons don't "merit" a complete overhaul of the system), but if you nerf merits you're going to make everyone at 75 very pissed off.