Job Personalization: Can I Have It?

[Gilthas]

Adding a merit point system to FFXIV would be a nice thing, because it would give us another way of improving our characters at level 60 besides gearing up.

But I have no delusions with it bringing "individuality" or "customization". It didn't in FFXI, and it wouldn't in FFXIV. The only real option that having exclusive upgrade paths would give us is the option to make bad choices.

That's why if a merit point system were to be added to the game, the preferable route to take would be to allow players to cap everything.

So long as FFXIV is following in WoW's footsteps of catering to raiders, where raiding is the foremost centerpiece of the game, where everything is designed around raiding ... you can expect the same banal Jobs/gear/items ... etc. because "balance > fun and interesting".

I'm hardly a hardcore raider, but balance is very important to me as well as for most of the playerbase, not just raiders. You act like "balance" opposes "fun and interesting", but that's simply not true.

It's not fun when:
- everyone only wants Rangers because their damage is so much better than everyone else's
- Rangers get nerfed into the ground and perform worse than almost everyone else so no one wants them anymore.
- people only want Warriors for their merit parties because they have great damage and good survivability
- no one wants your Dragoon because the community thinks the job is crap
- Black Mages no longer can get regular parties because TP-burns are much better experience
- Puppetmasters are considered a joke job.

And so many other glaring issues that FFXI had because the developers sucked at balancing.

Having unbalanced jobs is bad for everyone. It's bad for the player that likes the job because he gets shunned from most parties, and it's bad for those who don't play the job, because they get stuck with an underperforming job in duties.