Letter from the Producer, I (1/21/2010)

[Spider-Dan]

Proof? I wasn't fine with it.

You're right; I take it back. When I said that "everyone was fine with it," I did not take into account that somebody, somewhere said "I can't merit all of everything at once? FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU".

What I meant was "the vast, overwhelming majority of players understood the reasoning behind merit specialization, and did not object to that design decision." But thanks for pointing that out. Because there might have been someone who read this thread and thought that I was actually referring to literally every human alive (not just FFXI players, even!).

[Elrina]

Actually Dan, to be honest, I wasn't fine with it either. The system itself, in concept, was fine I suppose. But I absolutely loathed the amount of time required to actually merit. Especially if you had a job or jobs that were unpopular, and weren't able to gain anywhere near "efficient" exp with it. If the cost of some merits (especially base attributes and 2nd category job specifics) was reduced some, and merit points only cost 5-7k each instead of 10k, I think it would have been a lot more reasonable. That was my biggest complaint, was that it just took so much damn time for what seemed like extremely minor adjustments that you needed several of to make any kind of real difference.

Of course, now, with what I hear of abyssea exp, it's a different ballgame. But I'm talking about all that time before the ridiculous abyssea exp alliances.

[The Q]

At this point I hope jump is added just to rustle the jimmies of those who are so adamantly against it.

Hell I'll jump around in town shouting the lyrics to every jumping-related song I can find.

[Hyan]

Well, I'll be annoyed only if they do it just because. If there are genuinely useful use(s) for it, it's a welcome addition.

Otherwise yeah, you can jump around knowing they shat on the game by developing a feature that didn't deserve to be developed and that real fixes are still months away.

This is pretty interesting

Quests revolving around the danger facing Eorzea

Sounds like class quests are going to be taking the backseat for now, which is good. They can continue them after 50 when we aren't starving for normal quests anymore.

[kyod]

Holy shit, of all the things to bitch and moan about it's fucking jump. This is much worse than Core and Zam.

God damn.

[Spider-Dan]

Actually Dan, to be honest, I wasn't fine with it either. The system itself, in concept, was fine I suppose. But I absolutely loathed the amount of time required to actually merit. Especially if you had a job or jobs that were unpopular, and weren't able to gain anywhere near "efficient" exp with it. If the cost of some merits (especially base attributes and 2nd category job specifics) was reduced some, and merit points only cost 5-7k each instead of 10k, I think it would have been a lot more reasonable. That was my biggest complaint, was that it just took so much damn time for what seemed like extremely minor adjustments that you needed several of to make any kind of real difference.

Your complaint has nothing to do with what we are discussing.

We are talking about the concept of specialization, not the speed of exp parties. If you could get 100k/hr on your desired job, your problem ceases to exist.

[Soupbowl]

so much angst in this thread..... and over jumping lol.

[miokomioko]

Mioko trolling hard today, I see.

ProTip: if you want to be a jackass about it, nothing in this game is permanent. Since re-rolling merits from scratch apparently sets off your NOT PERMANENT alarm, re-rolling your character should do the same.

Merits were not permanent by any definition of the word. You could erase all of your proficiency in one aspect of your job and build it back up to its maximum in a different aspect within a matter of days or maybe a week or two, depending on how much you exp, maybe even less thanks to Abyssea. In the scope of 5+ years of character progression in an MMORPG, this time spent to re-spec your job is nothing and nowhere near whatever the hell "semi-permanent" might mean. It is also no where near your retarded exaggeration of starting a new character from scratch (come on, that was just dumb). The only irreversible things you could do with your character in XI was, picking a race/gender/hairdo, throwing away some quest/mission-related EX items, or your decision for a the reward at the end of a mission line (most of which were eventually interchangeable because people generally hate the idea of having to make permanent decisions like such).

I'm not being a jackass about it, you're simply wrong about calling the merit system permanent when it was specifically built not to be permanent along with almost everything in the game.

[Riposte]

Merits were functionally set in stone. If you wanted to "respec" your merits you had to throw out the baby with bathwater. Hundred thousands of exp for even small-scale change. Hence the phrase "semi-permanent", to get rid of it you basically have to shred the skin its touching. And sure, I guess it is a small cost in the scope of FIVE YEARS. lol. (So is remaking a character(as hundreds of quitters-returners will tell you) unless specific accomplishments have been made. For example: several relic weapons or perhaps 100% merit completion.)

I can't imagine why anyone would try to argue this(I am not even following the argument). You are being a jackass about it. Stop masturbating your keyboard.

(Lets be literal now! How permanent will your merits be in a billion years?)

[miokomioko]

Merits were functionally set in stone.

No they were not, and that's the whole point. They can be overhauled in a matter of days.

Hundred thousands of exp for even small-scale change. Hence the phrase "semi-permanent"

Eh, a "small-scale" change could mean more like 10,000~30,000 exp. So, hardly. Yeah, the example of ripping down max STR merits to 'respec' entirely into a different attribute is going to take a lot of (aka: the most) exp. It's also a terrible example because this ultimately has the smallest effect on a character's performance anyways.

And sure, I guess it is a small cost in the scope of FIVE YEARS. lol. (So is remaking a character(as hundreds of quitters-returners will tell you) unless specific accomplishments have been made. For example: several relic weapons or perhaps 100% merit completion.)

No, remaking a character is not a small cost, as elitist as you might want to sound as you lump together the only "accomplishments" as relic weapons and such. This is also completely irrelevant because we are talking about individual characters and their jobs/merits here. You're being especially contradictory here when you think these are the only meaningful accomplishments yet the cost of couple hundred exp means enough to you to call merits "functionally set in stone."

I can't imagine why anyone would try to argue this (I am not even following the argument). You are being a jackass about it. Stop masturbating your keyboard.
(Lets be literal now! How permanent will your merits be in a billion years?)

Then thank god you randomly decided to chime in to be a giant hypocrite. The only thing I'm being literal about is that "semi-permanent" is a stupid oxymoron.


Either way, leave it to Spider-Dan to refuse to admit he was wrong about something and then you to descend upon a thread and BRP all over it. Have fun with your constantly blowing shit out of context.

[Falisa]

Spoiler: show

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3.../ffxivjump.png

[Lucavi]

You're right; I take it back. When I said that "everyone was fine with it," I did not take into account that somebody, somewhere said "I can't merit all of everything at once? FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU".

What I meant was "the vast, overwhelming majority of players understood the reasoning behind merit specialization, and did not object to that design decision." But thanks for pointing that out. Because there might have been someone who read this thread and thought that I was actually referring to literally every human alive (not just FFXI players, even!).

Again, wrong. You keep assuming that because people played with the system, then they must have enjoyed it. I merited the shit out of my Dragoon, because I wanted a stronger Dragoon. Does that mean that I automatically thought it was a great system? No. It simply meant that I was more than willing to use the tools within the game to make my character as powerful as I could.

You're looking at this the wrong way, completely. Just because the system worked doesn't mean it was a good system. Just because people utilized the system laid out in front of them, doesn't mean that they liked the system compared to other systems.

Also, grow up a little. Don't be so immature because someone called bullshit on your wild claim. You certainly can't speak for everyone, and I'm sure there are quite a few people even in this thread that, while using the merit system and understanding its place in the game, certainly wouldn't call it some amazing system, and certainly wouldn't want to see it clicked-and-dragged into XIV, simply because it was the system used in XI.

[Spider-Dan]

Merits were not permanent by any definition of the word.

Nothing in FFXI is permanent, by any definition of the word.

You could erase all of your proficiency in one aspect of your job and build it back up to its maximum in a different aspect within a matter of days or maybe a week or two, depending on how much you exp, maybe even less thanks to Abyssea.

Completely redoing group1+group2 merits = 740k exp
Releveling from 1-75 = 802k exp

Apparently, 60k exp is the threshold between "permanent" and "not even remotely close to permanent".

The ironic part of this whole discussion is that in my original post, I actually added "(well, semi-permanent)" specifically to avoid jackassery of the kind that you are perpetrating. Whether or not merits are LITERALLY PERMANENT has no relevance whatsoever to the actual discussion, since WoW specs are also not permanent (in fact, they are even less "permanent" than merits, as you can pay a fee in gold and simply reassign them).

But of course, you aren't interested in context or making a coherent point; you're still busy frothing at the mouth over being called out on your idiotic "price-gouging" whining, so you're trying to grab any opportunity you can see to rebut me, no matter how pedantic or irrelevant the point. You didn't quite get it this time, but keep trying! One day you will earn your hard-fought victory.

[Riposte]

"Semi-permanent", like "almost permanent" or "somewhat permanent", is simply not an oxymoron. That claim could only make sense if you mean to say permanent can be expressed only in the most absolute sense, which would make the word impossible to use in the first place(and it would take an illiterate mind to think anyone is using it in that fashion when talking about a videogame). It should go without saying that permanency is relative. Semi-permanent means something falls more on the (relatively) permanent side of the spectrum, but is has a greater degree of change than something that falls deeper in. In this case it is the cost of merits that make them semi-permanent. They may be changed, but in order to do so you must rip away what they have been written on, like a piece of paper and permanent(!!) marker. This is widely understood by the XI population and by the developers - merits were not meant to be changed freely(compared to changing your job, for example. Imagine how many exp someone would need to spend in order to change their merits as often as they changed their jobs).

Stop trying to slime in an argument by creating a semantics issue that doesn't exist. Why the fuck are you even arguing about this word? Surely you, who just permeates "SE fanboy" in every piece of logic you give, understand what merits were like and can understand the point being made? Also stop trying to slime in argument by ignoring "context" - for example ignoring when I say stuff like "in the scope of FIVE YEARS" or "small-scale" being 100,000s of exp(as opposed to the million required for a big-scale change).

[Degenxerate]

Is any of this necessary?

(I know this isn't either)

[Lucavi]

Nothing else to talk about for awhile, so why complain? News comes so slow with SE that its like starving piranhas feasting on fresh meat when something is thrown into the mix. The food will be gone soon anyway, and then the fish will disperse.

[Amastacia]

How? How exactly can combat be complex by restricting freedom of movement? All you're doing is limiting NM/boss mechanics to tank and spank or standing on the sides.

I do agree that if the update doesn't have at least a couple thousand quests then they shouldn't even bother. Those take time to write if they're not half asses, which is probably the main concern as i can't see how they're not going to be.

Page old and all, but I don't care.

One of the gripes people have had with FFXIV so far is that the world is too shallow (not enough lore, etc.). This gripe is clearly expressed by a plurality of the community's desire for additional story/mini-quests.

At the end of the day, regardless of anything else, it's titled a Final Fantasy game, so there are going to be some standard Final Fantasy tropes, especially when it comes to game world/game paradigms/lore.

One of those is people stand still while casting. In classic FFs that was thanks to the way battles were fought. Newer FFs do it out of a combination of lore and tradition. Expecting FFXIV to be any different just because it would make combat more complex (an arguable statement to begin with) is silly.

And from the melee side of things, there's a bizarre mix between totally unrealistic combat, and keeping some pretense of realism. One of the pretenses of realism that has consistently stuck around is characters attacking in ways that make a degree of anatomical sense. Ever try to swing a sword at something while running sideways, unless it's some carefully practiced maneuver (e.g. some goofy kendo thing, I can't even think of an example)? Not only are you going to have extreme difficulty hitting anything, but you're going to hit like a bitch if you manage it at all.

That's not to say there aren't other things that absolutely should be doable on the run. There most certainly are. Most JAs, for example, shouldn't animation lock you. Drawing/sheathing weapons on the run would be tremendously convenient as well, but that's a gray area depending on how realistic SE feels like being (ever try to draw a sword while running?).

[solracht]

At the end of the day, regardless of anything else, it's titled a Final Fantasy game, so there are going to be some standard Final Fantasy tropes, especially when it comes to game world/game paradigms/lore.

One of those is people stand still while casting. In classic FFs that was thanks to the way battles were fought. Newer FFs do it out of a combination of lore and tradition. Expecting FFXIV to be any different just because it would make combat more complex (an arguable statement to begin with) is silly.

You can move while casting in FFXIV.

[Alderaan]

I have no problems drawing swords or shooting bows on the run.

But in all seriousness, having played mmo's that allow for such freedoms makes it almost impossible to go back to the archaic system XI/XIV use.

[Hyan]

The fortunate thing here is that they are "overhauling" the combat and whether that means more strategic approach or a more action based approach (most likely at this point) I think the system can bend well enough for either. I think some aspects of the combat are going to be scrapped or made even more trivial than now if they end up going the action route though.

The only concern at that point would be whether the game can differentiate itself from the rivals. If a potential customer asks "Why play this game over the other game?" the answer should be clear.