Quote Originally Posted by Mirage View Post
Item levels for character growth is a terrible idea in general. It would have been much better to just have added another merit category that would let you increase your character's powers dramatically, while also requiring lulz amounts of exp (or even special SoA "exp", if they want to keep all 99+ character progression within SoA, like they currently are doing with item levels.)
This.

I liked and agree wholeheartedly that it should have just been a series of merit expansions to increase job levels. It would sucked up a lot less development time than having to go through every weapon and then balance the ones for multiple jobs. And if they wanted a change from exp, it could be that doing SoA content unlocks levels of the merits which you have to fill in with EXP.