I'm fairly sure the original concept behind the merit system was to give players the opportunity to decide which of their jobs they wanted to take beyond their natural limitations - read: decide/force a specialisation. SE didn't want to us to have everything otherwise they probably wouldn't have put in there in the first place.

I don't have an issue in increasing the cap considering some jobs really do need those WS to have something decent. But rather than an increase in the maximum amount you can merit up to 5/5 - which is obviously the want here - I'd prefer to see these WS being usable naturally, with merits allowing a further increase in their potential. Maybe even having these merits raise the potential of all WS for a particular weapon type, perhaps by raising the relevant stat modifier by a % or the fTP values - I have no idea what the balancing implications of these would be. At the very least, everyone has a decent WS - where Empy/Relic/Mythic WS should get a clear advantage over them - that is capable of modernizing the jobs or giving them an alternative to the pre-cap ones that are starting to show their age.

Quote Originally Posted by Kysaiana View Post
Speaking of job specific merits, isn't is absurd we can put merits into every job we lvl to 75?
I had a thought about it too whilst reading this discussion. It would have been - under the common thought patterns of today - an awesome way to piss off a lot of players. Despite it being restricted, I, for one, would find this to be a fitting way to enforce the concept of a merit system which promotes careful decision making. A limit of 150-200 potential merits spread across all of the jobs. SE were being incredibly lenient in allowing players to merit jobs on an individual cap - they could have done both.

Quote Originally Posted by Alhanelem View Post
If it wasn't forced on people, nobody would specialize.
Closing point: The majority of players that I've read the posts of don't seem to want to specialize. They don't want to make decisions about where to take their characters. They don't want to choose between ability A and ability B. They want it all. And that's the recurring word of the moment: want. It's not about needing to have more choice to cater or enhance the game, they just want it. I may remember wrong, but I'm sure the increase in the limits on the general merit categories came about because people wanted to merit their new - easily - acquired jobs and not have to choose between having dagger or katana now. I think they should have been left exactly as they were, just to encourage this idea of decision making. The only categories that did need to be raised are HP/MP and Attributes - 80HP and +5STR wasn't going to cut it with the 24 level increase.

The problem I feel, in the end, has a lot to do with the fact that this is an RPG. It relies on it's mathematics, and with an MMO, you have to balance the min/max potential. The issue comes from the fact that players want to have that maximum potential in everything they do. This is why these threads come up: we need the cap on merits increased/removed, we need more inventory space so I can have this situationally better piece of gear etc etc. The thing is: it's not a need, it's a want, fed by the desire to be perfect in all that we do.