Good or Bad Idea? Merits at level 60.

[BRP]

I was thinking about how some jobs seem to just depend more on merits, especially Category 2. PUP would be a prime example of that. There is always stuff like a BLU's Diffusion which basically adds a whole bit of new gameplay style. So it came to me, the idea of merits being available before the final level cap. Naturally, it would work the same way merits do now. How high you can level weapon/magic skill still being capped lower than you could at 75 and being able to switch back and forth at a whim.

Just traditional merits alone it is not even a powercreep, just allows people without a 75(s) or certain job to level a certain skill be equal to those who do. It also has a fun effect on PvP which is most popular and balanced at cap60. Finally, it lends a hand to those few instances in missions or assault where the cap is 60.

Things get hazy when it comes to the original purpose the idea. Category 1 and 2 merits. Category 1 hardly seems like a big deal. I'm pretty sure every meritable ability/spell is available by level 60. One could limit much like the HP/MPWeapon/Magic/Other/etc categories, same deal with Category 2.

Category 2 becomes rather tricky. Some(read:most) abilities/traits would work perfectly, especially to counter the unbalancing of the game that takes place after 60. However, there are some Category 2 merits which are just iffy. Mostly the spells and bloodpacts.

Protectra V and Shellra V... AM II... and potentially the magical Bloodpacts.

The latter two could really work fine with some kind of scaling damage per level. AM II doesn't really threaten tier 4 magic with its poor magic/damage ratio. Bloodpacts could potentially replace the lvl60 magical bloodpacts(IV magic effected by TP), but something tells me that wouldn't be much of an issue.

Protectra V and Shellra V seem like an unavoidable problem though. It almost makes me wish rather than spells they had just been traits that gave those bonuses to any Protect/Shell spell(single or aoe). I don't suppose SE could just ninja those spells out for a trait ;/.

Well, it was on my mind, and I thought I would share this random idea.

[Lordwafik]

They should be in the 60-70 range, because that's the part of the game that feels like SE forgot to design. There's not many amazing items in those levels like there are in the 50's and the 70's. The jobs become defined almost completely at lvl60, and there's nothing but grind in those levels to 70, so it'd keep things fresh.

Anyone who's levelled a few jobs knows what I mean when I say 60-70 is pretty much mindless grinding without much to look forward to aside from the big 70.

[Zilong]

They should be in the 60-70 range, because that's the part of the game that feels like SE forgot to design. There's not many amazing items in those levels like there are in the 50's and the 70's. The jobs become defined almost completely at lvl60, and there's nothing but grind in those levels to 70, so it'd keep things fresh.

Anyone who's levelled a few jobs knows what I mean when I say 60-70 is pretty much mindless grinding without much to look forward to aside from the big 70.

I kinda find the grinding from 60-70 more fun than 70-75 though

Maybe it's because 70-75 is mostly just whoring party in the same place where you merit most of the time

In any case, it being a good idea is never a reason for SE to implement it anyway

[levish]

A lot of the meritable stuff should have just been added as JA/JT instead of being meritable but from SE's perspective it wouldn't have gotten you to xp for another 120,000 experience points to cap out just one of them tier2's

Just imagine how useful something like Feint would have been in XP on a 5 min (or less) timer helping turn a chain 4 pt into a chain 5 (or a chain 5 pt into a chain 6 pt) or maybe better or Chivalry for pld and so on. Would have helped things along a bit in those cases where there is just no bard that wants to pt with you.

[isladar]

60 - 70 is probably the most hellish stretch of leveling ever. Camps that don't suck provide about the same exp / hour that you'd get at a camp in the 50's.. with a billion more exp to get.

Maybe I just haven't found anywhere good to exp, but there was one shining beautiful stretch of colibri at the leypoint. And that was it. Welcome to sucksville, sucky, keep pretending you're gonna hit the meritish camps in the next month.

I would agree that having some access to merits pre-75 would be incredible, but wouldn't it be rather horrendous to implement? I would instead suggest giving us more burn-style camps to tear through pre-73.

If I'm retarded and have simply by sheer idiocy missed the existence of said camps, for the love of god tell me. I dinged 69 on my SAM on Wednesday and I hate everything. Hold me.

[Shuemue]

It'd have to be pretty subtle or people would run around soloing BC60s to death.

[Ferien]

60 - 70 is probably the most hellish stretch of leveling ever. Camps that don't suck provide about the same exp / hour that you'd get at a camp in the 50's.. with a billion more exp to get.

Maybe I just haven't found anywhere good to exp, but there was one shining beautiful stretch of colibri at the leypoint. And that was it. Welcome to sucksville, sucky, keep pretending you're gonna hit the meritish camps in the next month.

I would agree that having some access to merits pre-75 would be incredible, but wouldn't it be rather horrendous to implement? I would instead suggest giving us more burn-style camps to tear through pre-73.

If I'm retarded and have simply by sheer idiocy missed the existence of said camps, for the love of god tell me. I dinged 69 on my SAM on Wednesday and I hate everything. Hold me.

You can get at least 8k/hr through that range, 10k+ if your party's solid. Colibri, Erucas, and the Caedarva pond are all really easy to burn through with the proper setup. I static with a BRD and a WHM on my SAM, and when looking for other members, we pick up two melee and then either a tank or another support, depending on what's seeking. Our BRD pulls (she can't stand playing the job unless she is, so *shrug*) and we generally don't pause unless I die. It's not as high as a merit party, but it's better than the 50s.

[isladar]

Colibri, Erucas, and the Caedarva pond are all really easy to burn through with the proper setup.

I guess I'm just too used to merit, I get 8k an hour and I'm grinding my teeth.


But as for merits @ 60 cap and BC60s.. that would be rather broken. I'd be interested in seeing them implemented at 65 or something. Okay really I'm just QQing about the 65-70 grind at this point.

[levish]

Increased XP, Double meal duration, and Auto Refresh for mages are just too pwn couple it with Exp band (and those <3 Double Exp band days), and the Raise changes and Death xp loss cap was just the icing on the cake.

Getting 75 is finally in my opinion not a timesink*.

Capping merits is a completely different story though

120,000xp for a Single Tier2 merit capped and many many more for actually capping a job rivaling actually leveling the job from level 1 -> 75

*Edit

[Therin]

They should be in the 60-70 range, because that's the part of the game that feels like SE forgot to design. There's not many amazing items in those levels like there are in the 50's and the 70's. The jobs become defined almost completely at lvl60, and there's nothing but grind in those levels to 70, so it'd keep things fresh.

Anyone who's levelled a few jobs knows what I mean when I say 60-70 is pretty much mindless grinding without much to look forward to aside from the big 70.

I kind of see your point, but I think you might be forgetting that most of your big WSes (Spinning Slash, Tachi: Gekko, etc.) are gained during that stretch (with the exception of WAR, Scythe DRK, and a few others). Plus, 66 is the level where most melee gain the ability to make Light, which vastly changes the way parties are played (though, given, few people actually skillchain these days so this point might be something for the past).

[Zilong]

What the hell? 60-70 grind provide like some of the best camp in the game closest to that of a merit party.

Marsh Murre/Imp/Qiqirn in Caedarva Graveyard, Colibri/Date Eruca/Troll in Bhaflau right outside Halvung, Ephramadian Shades on Dvucca staging point.

You'd be hard pressed to do below 10k/hour with a decent party on any of those camp. I've capped on like 14k/hour on Ephramadian and Colbri/Date Eruca/Troll camp.

You've got to suck a shitload of ass to only get same amount of exp as the 50s. I personally hate the 50-60 stretch, since 50-54ish is just a hell exping in old areas against crabs, beetle, or other equally gay mobs. 54 on you can actually fight with lessers to pretty close to 60, but most DD don't actually get their kickass WS until 60 (Yukikaze, Raging Rush, Guillotine) so getting super high chain/infinite is kinda hard.

In any case, adding g1/2 merit at 60-70 range shouldn't break anything too much, but then again, some job just have too good or effective g1/2 merit set (WAR,SAM,RDM, etc) that it'd just flat out break those jobs on those range.

Still though, I really don't see the problem much, since their existence will make grinding that much faster, and it's not like everyone is overflowing in merits to be able to abuse it anyway.

[isladar]

What the hell? 60-70 grind provide like some of the best camp in the game closest to that of a merit party.

Marsh Murre/Imp/Qiqirn in Caedarva Graveyard, Colibri/Date Eruca/Troll in Bhaflau right outside Halvung, Ephramadian Shades on Dvucca staging point.

You'd be hard pressed to do below 10k/hour with a decent party on any of those camp. I've capped on like 14k/hour on Ephramadian and Colbri/Date Eruca/Troll camp.

You've got to suck a shitload of ass to only get same amount of exp as the 50s. I personally hate the 50-60 stretch, since 50-54ish is just a hell exping in old areas against crabs, beetle, or other equally gay mobs. 54 on you can actually fight with lessers to pretty close to 60, but most DD don't actually get their kickass WS until 60 (Yukikaze, Raging Rush, Guillotine) so getting super high chain/infinite is kinda hard.

Marsh Murres absolutely -- in the 50s. What I'm complaining about is that if there are mobs that are suitable to kill, the camps don't support us with fast enough respawns. Eruca's are fairly squishy, but again, whenever we fought them we ended up with too much downtime, simply from lack of pulls.

I don't have any recent figures of the loads of ass I suck, at least in comparison to statistical data of average shitloads of ass-sucking per server, but I'm pretty sure I was making a rough estimate with regards to exp/hour.

[Ganzar]

Go to the cliffs camp and pull the pugs when there aren't any eruca left.

[Whatinthe]

The problem with this is that it creates the same issue that you have at 70+ exp right now. Ever tried leveling something from 70 to 75 without a static or conning^H talking your way into a merit party? No one wants to invite a Level 73, or a 74, because they won't have any merits, and most of the camps are taken already by merit parties already. It creates a have-and-have-nots situation, where people who already have won't invite those who they know that are have-nots.

And asking a level 6xish to gain 300000 exp to cap Tier 1 and 240000 to cap Tier 2? That's just cruel, and would cause people to stop exping at that level because they won't get invited into parties without already having merits. Imagine a new char that finally got to that pseudo-merit level, and realizing he basically has to spend the same amount of exp that he got from 1-6x just to get invited so he can get past those levels. Not everyone has a 75 job that they can merit in, which means you're going to create an overcrowding around that level by people who "has to get merits" so they can get invited.

[Zilong]

What the hell? 60-70 grind provide like some of the best camp in the game closest to that of a merit party.

Marsh Murre/Imp/Qiqirn in Caedarva Graveyard, Colibri/Date Eruca/Troll in Bhaflau right outside Halvung, Ephramadian Shades on Dvucca staging point.

You'd be hard pressed to do below 10k/hour with a decent party on any of those camp. I've capped on like 14k/hour on Ephramadian and Colbri/Date Eruca/Troll camp.

You've got to suck a shitload of ass to only get same amount of exp as the 50s. I personally hate the 50-60 stretch, since 50-54ish is just a hell exping in old areas against crabs, beetle, or other equally gay mobs. 54 on you can actually fight with lessers to pretty close to 60, but most DD don't actually get their kickass WS until 60 (Yukikaze, Raging Rush, Guillotine) so getting super high chain/infinite is kinda hard.

Marsh Murres absolutely -- in the 50s. What I'm complaining about is that if there are mobs that are suitable to kill, the camps don't support us with fast enough respawns. Eruca's are fairly squishy, but again, whenever we fought them we ended up with too much downtime, simply from lack of pulls.

I don't have any recent figures of the loads of ass I suck, at least in comparison to statistical data of average shitloads of ass-sucking per server, but I'm pretty sure I was making a rough estimate with regards to exp/hour.

Graveyard camp is decent exp to 62 if you fight the qiqirns on daytime and use bird when the skeletons are roaming the graveyard.

There are like 4 colibri, 4 erucas, 2 troll automatons, 1 RDM troll, 1 PLD troll, 2 PUP troll outside halvung waiting on 5 min respawn. I didn't even bother going to Zhayolm because that Bhaflau camp was just too fucking good.

And for shades, there are like 6 of them and 2 jnuns roaming the pond camp, hitting them all in 5 minutes would mean you're doing well over 10k/hour up to 71 or so, with 12k+ or so cap on the "sweet spot" levels.

Really, 60-70 is pretty fun grinding just because support jobs get a lot of job defining ability like regen III, cure V, minuet 4, victory march, elegy by that point, and with 2hander gaining access to their kickass WS.

50-60 is like the range where you waste your time on dungeon repops on conquest zones until you can comfortably exp on colibri, and that my friend, is hell.

[Khamsin]

From my experiences when I levelled my jobs, the worst levelling stretch was actually 45-55 or so, not 60-70.

[Ferien]

From my experiences when I levelled my jobs, the worst levelling stretch was actually 45-55 or so, not 60-70.

What, don't like the beetles > beetles > crawlers > beetles > crabs > crawlers progression?

[BRP]

derail ;o

I find it that as the game gets higher in levels, kills generally speed up. This is assuming there is no powerlevel and not counting those few hotspots.

At 60 the game feel complete and I almost wish it was the cap for awhile after NA release. Which is why I would target +60 for when you get access to merit system.

[Naphtali]

Worst level without a doubt is 49-52/53.. thats the lvl range that just sucks for camps. Quicksand sucks balls period. And its too low for Kuftal ( 53 ok if good PT ). Last time around I actually hit Ule range at 51 I think and did rabbits/Tiger which actually was good. However you need a good PT.
45-48/49 you can fly through on Gobs in Jungle near Ifrit's Cauldron. 53-55/56 you can fly through on crabs in Kuftal or Tree. 55/56+ is total joke once you hit Aht Urghan areas.. leveled DRK for the 2nd time month or so ago and it was like 23>75 in 2 weeks-ish with only 1pt/day. DRK/COR/MNK set though..>.>

Aht urghan really is so easy.. chain10-100+ all the way from 56-75.. Mount Z. is so awesome because you can literally exp their from 61 with a good pt until 69, even 70..

[Celebrindor]

Talk to RDMs about our Category 2 merits- we all think that they should have just been learned spells in the 60-70 range ; ;

If EXP parties still went to Toramas in LoO and the like where overcamping and shooting for chain #5s against truly resistant mobs was still the norm, then I would have loved to see this. Having Slow II, Para II, Blind II, and Phalanx II would have been godsends (ok probably not Blind II, not touching that with a 10 foot pole even now) at those sort of camps. Hell, think of phalanx II even at level 60 enhancing skill- we're talking probably 10-12 damage absorbed per hit- think PLD invites would have gone up slightly if you could have saved an entire Cure III every fight at those levels? And think- Phalanx II would probably last for 2 or more fights, making it seriously MP worthwhile.

I think honestly that several Category 2 merits were "whoops- we meant to include these in the jobs anyways, and this is our way of fixing it without admitting our mistake" situations. BLM AM II, RDM Tier II enfeebles, WHM Pro/Shellra V, are by far the first ones that come to mind. Others are great "meritable" abilities that I do think work best in a merited situation- Chivalry, Devotion, Feint and Angon come to mind here. Its a nice thought, but I personally find that the category 2 situations that fit your suggestion best are ones that I don't think should have been merited in the first place- they should have been included in the job from day one.