Originally Posted by
Glamdring
@Al
I understand where you are coming from, I really do. And FFXI as originally designed all your points were dead on, but: They doubled regular XP, added level sync, added pages, added XP rings, added leech play aka Aby, eased relics, eased Empy, added VW (force pop), admittedly completely burned Nyzul, salvage, sea, sky and HNMs into meaninglessness, added adventuring fellows and the like. The days of players-even casuals like myself-playing only 1-2 jobs are GONE. SE did this to themselves when they made it possible to go 1-99 in under a week, and pretty much just mailing it in to do so.
So, the request for expanded merits-especially when a casual like myself is playing 9 level 99 jobs-isn't out of the question, it actually makes sense. I don't even specialize in 2 jobs anymore, but 6. For players more dedicated than myself that number is no doubt higher. And so the bitch is that even though players have developed a high standard to their play there is an artificial limit to how good they can be. Example, I love my new rune, I really do, but all my merits are dumpped into buffs for H2H, dagger and axe (with a few in songs skills), I just don't have the ability to make a top flight rune without trashing the high level for my bst, brd, pup, dnc or thf. I'm sorry, I just can't see that as a good thing. My LS uses me as a utility player, I fill whatever hole we have in party builds (so the back-burner status of rdm is even more tragic), but by this philosophy of low merit limits I'm asked to be less efective in those roles, even though I have the skills to do it right.
So I'm sorry, but I gotta side with the people complaining/requesting here, even though as I said in an earlier post we are "beating a dead horse", since this has been asked multiple times and we got the generic "no, balance issues" reply.