Matsui Responses Compilation threadFollow

But taru can't be stylish. Their pants are like two funnels taped together. D:

I'm not really concerned with how much work it takes. SE is a big boy company charging a big boy price for their MMO. They can put their big boy pants on and get the hard things done if they really want to.

People have indeed been asking for more things to merit. I have my doubts that this is what anyone outside the dev team had in mind. To me, merits are supposed to be about enhancements and growth beyond the level cap. I don't think they should be used as a crutch for gimped jobs and lazy/inept devs.

Giving new merits is one thing. Fixing a problem through merits is another. Ultimately, when I think FFXI and merits, I see players being forced to make a choice, and usually they're not choices people want to make. If you dump your stat points into STR/DEX, you'll never be as good of a mage as someone who did INT/MND. Some might argue that that is the point, but in a game where we can be 20 classes on one character, it's just dumb. In a lot of cases, when people wind up talking about more merits, it's in the context of raising or even removing category caps. Occasionally you'll get suggestions like meritable Fast Cast, hMP, and so on, and those are all well and good. But there's also a good chance SE would dump those in the Other category and it'd become a choice against higher crit rate and the like. And given the merit system has its share of "no actual choice" in some merits being blatantly inferior to others, their stubborn insistence of not acceding to player demand has been historically irksome. And in the end, it's a lot easier to balance under the assumption of no or full merits than it is someone who's all over the place in the grand scheme.

The attempt to even spin this as "stupid players want stupid things to make the game even stupider" is utter bullsquat.

Edited, Jan 14th 2013 8:37pm by Seriha

The issue is you can't have the best WHM, BLM, WAR, and THF in the game all on the same character.

Redo-ing merits is an option if you want to change your focus (DD -> Mage, for example), but the cost is too high that you can't completely switch in one sitting and making frequent stat merit changes an impossible measure.

I have no problem with merits. I believe because we can have every job at lv20, that is precisely why merits need to be used for focusing, not that meriting stats really makes or breaks a job.... weapon skills are a different matter though- unlike meriting STR, not having Resolution at 5/5 on DRK will put you miles behind others. I'm glad SE is adjusting these merits.


Blaming others gets us nowhere. If you don't want to take about "endgame", then nominate a topic to discuss because after reading your post, I have no clue what you're interested in.

I agree completely, there are a lot of things that they do that are just lazy, and inept at times. I was just merely pointing out one of the likely reasons they did it. 1) it addresses players concerns of the 1H DD gap, and 2) allows players to invest their stagnant merit points. To them it seems like a win win, and realistically it address two of the issues players had with the game.

So I personally don't get the gripe towards it, its not like the DD gap is really noticeable on anything of level, its only when you step into endgame where the gap is apparent. So really it makes sense to adjust it like this, it doesn't impact any of the content at all, except for that level 75 (or possibly 99) and up. Hell most of us will have it capped in the first day and be back to ******** about our stagnant merits again a few weeks later.

I dunno I like the change, another thing to merit...meh. The only way Id be pissed off is if they tied it into the "Other Combat" Category with crit rate and such. (which knowing SE will likely be the destination)

Just like they thoroughly test things before introducing them to the game, right?




Job nerfs since 2003 say otherwise.



The number of Rag/other DRK in VW, NNI and other content say otherwise. If you really are claiming you only see DRK rarely, I doubt you play this game anymore.

I insist we keep it that way. No need to start reducing it down to saying that "Oh, so and so is just having a ***** fit" or something like that. Let's at least try and act like adults.

You have to spend time to make ANYTHING in FFXI relevant, nothing in the game simply IS relevant without sinking a bunch of time into it. This shouldn't be news to anyone who has played the game. Whether it's leveling up to cap, collecting expected gear, having necessary combat skills or WS, getting merit abilities (including sinking 90 merits into each 5/5 merit WS), investing large amounts of time in building a weapon (see: E/R/M DDs onry endgame playerbase), acquiring spells (was NIN or /NIN ever "relevant" without obtaining Utsusemi: Ni?), etc. I really don't see this as a hugely new way of thinking, it's just another minor hurdle to clear to play your job at a high level.

Now, the valid complaint would be if you have to choose between merits to make 1-handed weapons "relevant" at the expense of the ability to choose merits to make other jobs viable. I'm not just talking having to make a choice between MP and HP merits to have an ideal mage or non-mage and be able to completely min/max ALL jobs, but having to give up something that's a practical necessity to be on par with your job. I don't mind someone who focuses on 1h being able to have a slight edge on a jack of all trades by choosing 1h-focused merits though. Personally for me using 7 jobs that are all 1h/h2h/ranged, I wouldn't mind be rewarded a little bit for specialization (just as, say, an all out DD focused job like SAM or DRK is prioritized over hybrid DDs, or a dedicated healing job in WHM gets picked first when you're really need healing).

I don't really expect to this to force that kind of choice though. Even if they didn't add more merit capacity (seems like they probably will?), if you have to do something like drop Enemy Crit Rate- merits in order to level up some new "Other" merit, if that's the choice you have to make oh well. I'll go with capping Crit Rate and New 1h Merit in the Other category as the new optimal loadout.



This. If you've been playing regularly in the past couple years, you're likely capped on merits anyway. Just in the past couple weeks I wiped out an entire 5/5 merit WS and replaced it with a different WS, and drastically redid my DNC Tier II merits, and I was back capped at 30/30 merits with little more than joining a handful of VW parties. Probably not even worth the effort to complain when just getting the merits is likely to be less time and effort than stressing yourself out about it.

meh.

I am just trying to understand better. As it seems what you are saying is being understood. I do not care about damage this or damage that. I play for fun.

So what is your point? It seems you are upset that instead of damage dealt being equal between 2h and 1h weapons 1 handed weapons deal less. So would you be happy with many of the benifits on single handed weapons being dropped, or added to 2h, so that single weapon can deal more damage? How about higher penalty for dual wielding? Like say longer delay, less damage dealt (average of both weapons)?



Your wish will obviously not be granted. There are higher delays on 2h weapons, as well as less beneficial stats, to off set the higher base damage. So instead of complaining find a solution that will work and fit what you want so the game does not become unbalanced more then it already is. A skilled 1h, obviously going to be dual wielding, will out damage a lazy and unskilled 2h player.

I think the real question is whether 1h/h2h are even intended to use their melee weapons to DD on the same level as the 2-handers. I'd say only MNK and maaaaybe NIN even qualify for legitimate discussion. And it's not as if MNK is completely shunned for DD roles now. Your average well geared MNK can get invites to DD now, even if it isn't the current "top" DD star that DRK and WAR currently are (but watch out incoming DRK-nerf). And we don't really even understand yet whether these 1h changes will affect h2h!

EDIT: NVM, looks like h2h is already confirmed to be treated differently:


There are reasons the other 1handers, just by virtue of their job roles, probably SHOULDN'T compete in terms of physical weapon damage with the pure DD 2handers whose main role really is just "do damage" (and mind you, this is coming from a dedicated "light DD" player, with MNK THF RNG NIN COR PUP DNC):

i) Hybrid and pet jobs:
- BLU: Large portion of their damage comes from spells, so it's very justifiable that their 1h weapon damage potential should be considerably less than a 100% physical DD.
- BST and PUP: 1h/h2h using jobs where it can be justified that they shouldn't do as much damage from the player's weapons since they have access to a pet for a large part of their potential damage. PUP+automaton is actually a very competitive DD in the right situations, it's just that it's not very good for certain activities for other reasons (weak zerg tools, songs/rolls/embrava don't affect puppet in buff-heavy situations, hurt in VW by temps not affecting puppets) [EDIT: Since it was confirmed that h2h is going to be treated differently than "1h"]

ii) Jobs that serve some different function that can justify reducing weapon DD potential:
- THF: Has some solid DD capability, but some key unique features with TH (obviously the big one), lolHatecontrol, and superior evasion. Would certainly benefit from 1h adjustments, but I don't think it's at all unfair that a THF doesn't keep up with DRK/WAR/SAM damage-wise. Get back to me when they give SAM TH7 and we'll talk.
- DNC: Healing and survival capability, it's not really intended to be an all out DD.
- PLD, RUN: The physical/magical tanks, each in their own style. With upcoming enmity adjustments, maybe don't need to keep hate through damage as much as they have at times.
- NIN: The arguable case. They may not do so hot at tanking now, but evasion/shadow style tanking did rule the game for long stretches of time, they were highly useful in Abyssea, and still a must have job in content like VW with many exclusive procs - SE is still finding them a role, even if that's not as a 1h DD specialist. NIN also has some benefit in being a very good solo/lowman job, so maybe that versatility/survivability counts for something that justifies them not keeping up with the pure DDs.

iii) 1h users which are irrrelevant to this discussion:
- RNG: Definitely a DD (and a very useful one in many strategies), but ranged damage isn't affected by 1h melee buffs or lack thereof. Should really be seen more as "ranged" as opposed to "1h".
- COR: Can do a little melee damage, but clearly really intended for buffs > ranged WS damage > ranged damage. Melee isn't the priority by any means.
- RDM, BRD, meleeWHM, GEO: Mentioned because they can indeed use 1h weapons, but we all know they aren't designed to be high end DD jobs.


So... which jobs are really being treated unfairly? Is there really a 1h job that should be an elite DD that is being held back here? Why is there something inherently wrong with the jobs that are designed for the DD role being 2h?

Edited, Jan 16th 2013 6:38pm by Anza