Quote Originally Posted by Xantavia View Post
You seem to be looking at the merit system differently than others of us. To me, merits are that little bit of extra for the jobs I truly enjoy. I max out sword merits and its "Now I'm a little bit better when using a sword". If I'm interpreting you right, if you don't put any merits in sword, you see it as your sword skill not being capped. The only thing I could see as a hinderence to another job is the emnity+/-, just because some jobs want the hate and others don't.

This is reminding me of when I played D&D. I pick a rough idea of what I wanted with my character, and would maybe end up with 2 or 3 classes. Other people would spend hours trying to min/max everything they did trying to take 1 or 2 levels from 10 different jobs, then complain to the DM that the experience penalty for multiclassing was unfair.

I understand that there might be tradeoffs to being strong in one area but having to become weaker in another and I'm O.K. with that. But not everybody thinks that way.
I like this post.

It's pretty close to how I view the system.

However, to expand a bit on the D&D bit, it's a bit different of a view. While in D&D, or WoW, or any other MMO where your character selects a class, a path, etc, and retains that path through their life, its far different in FFXI. From the onset, you're given 22 jobs, all of which can have any of those same jobs subbed. Makes for a rather in depth system. Unlike those other games, you're able to change your job to suit your needs, rather than say, make a hybrid character that's capable of healing, DDing, and taking a few hits, but at the cost of higher tier specialized abilities.

Considering that your character's job can be changed to suit your needs at will, that's where the merit cap doesn't make sense, IMO. Trade offs on a per job basis are fine, but when your choices for one job affect another job, it's no longer about tradeoffs to be strong in one area but weaker in another, as those tradeoffs are very likely not even incorporated in the job you're playing.