SE enough of the treadmill, please make the game more interesting!

[Amiantos]

TBH, that would be fine. XI merits are a grind but they're a grind that involves no RNG whatsoever and for which you see consistent, incremental games. Additionally, if properly implemented, they add an effective long term goal and moderate degrees of customizability for different classes. SE straight up isn't gonna do anything like this for XIV though because "omg what about the poor, poor casuals!" and "lolbalance."

Only issue with that is that they would end falling into a cookie cutter build such as when the cap was still 75 pretty much if you ran a rdm you were expected to put your merits into stuff like Slow II, Paralyze II and other debuffs. I think people are wanting horizontal progression mainly to add variety of gears. I'm not sure how XI's merits hold up anymore with level cap increased to 99 but it felt like when first implemented it was to keep people from really wanting a level cap increase with the expansions.

[Avarghaladion]

Only issue with that is that they would end falling into a cookie cutter build such as when the cap was still 75 pretty much if you ran a rdm you were expected to put your merits into stuff like Slow II, Paralyze II and other debuffs. I think people are wanting horizontal progression mainly to add variety of gears. I'm not sure how XI's merits hold up anymore with level cap increased to 99 but it felt like when first implemented it was to keep people from really wanting a level cap increase with the expansions.

I know what you're getting at and there were cookie-cutter players, as there always will be, but there were also other valuable options, especially when factoring in how your character interacted with others in your LS. Really, I'd be happy with any addition to XIV that gave value to continued play and created choice/diversity/customization to some degree. Right now I can't really think of an RPG that gives the player less control over their development than XIV does in the name of balance. As is, we're virtually punished for playing, reward wise.

[Lemuria]

Only issue with that is that they would end falling into a cookie cutter build such as when the cap was still 75 pretty much if you ran a rdm you were expected to put your merits into stuff like Slow II, Paralyze II and other debuffs.

Phalanx II or fail RDM...

I loved the merit system in FFXI though. It gave players some nice options, and let you truly customize yourself since it was impossible to have everything at once. Sure, sometimes some skills were expected of you, but this was generally rare unless the other available options were lacking in imagination. I know a LOT of Scholars who put tons of points in Sublimation for that slight MP boost, but I also know many who went to maximise their helix spell output, adding duration and potency.

Something like this could add a bit of spice to the otherwise mundane grind, and give players goals to work towards which weren't just another gear upgrade.

Then again, FFXI also had gear sidegrades, since equipment was a lot more varied and interesting than the boring and vanilla system employed in ARR.

[Duelle]

I loved the merit system in FFXI though. It gave players some nice options, and let you truly customize yourself since it was impossible to have everything at once. Sure, sometimes some skills were expected of you, but this was generally rare unless the other available options were lacking in imagination.

BLMs being pigeonholed into 5/5 Lightning potency or 5/5 Ice potency while giving the middle finger to every other element is not what I call good options. Same for DRKs being pigeonholed into soul eater and last resort recast. Don't even get me started on RDMs and 5/5 Ice Accuracy and Convert Recast.

Something like this could add a bit of spice to the otherwise mundane grind, and give players goals to work towards which weren't just another gear upgrade.

You're asking for a grind that would be worse than grinding gear. At least when you grind gear you're doing things on relatively your own terms (since you're doing tomes and whatnot). Merits here would make people even more willing to speedrun stuff because exp/hour would become the name of the game. I don't miss that from FFXI and certainly wouldn't want that here.

[polyhedral]

Only issue with that is that they would end falling into a cookie cutter build such as when the cap was still 75 pretty much if you ran a rdm you were expected to put your merits into stuff like Slow II, Paralyze II and other debuffs. I think people are wanting horizontal progression mainly to add variety of gears. I'm not sure how XI's merits hold up anymore with level cap increased to 99 but it felt like when first implemented it was to keep people from really wanting a level cap increase with the expansions.

I said I was done with this thread, but the subject changed somewhat, thank god for that.

As a Blm when the level cap was 75 and ToAU was the latest expansion, I never cookie cut my merits. I invested both in elemental, and dark magic merits. I did not just merit thunder and ice, but rather, thunder and water for flood II then burst II dmg. Man, my drains/aspirs in Dynamis with dark skill/fast cast/haste gear macros would almost heal me completely, and reduced my downtime to where I rarely had to rest at all. Every 42 seconds I could cast both, I do believe, when without that gear, it was 1 minute flat.

I never wanted to play the same as others anyway, even if my IV spells hit for 40 dmg less than others. I never had to rest, while the others had to sit for 2+ minutes with refresh. Nobody ever ran a parser and kicked me out because of it either. They knew what was up, when I was the only blm standing and waiting for the others to gain full mp.

DPS numbers aren't the only thing that mattered back then. It seems in this game though, it may be a different story, but I do hope for gear that increases skill, rather than just stats.