Incentive at 60: Character Growth

[Zojha]

iLVL only goes so far.

As do all progression systems. The issue is that if you make it so that nobody who only plays "one" job ever ends progressing, playing multiple jobs at "endgame level" becomes impossible, undermining the entire purpose of the armory system. It's a bugger even right now with progression stops after like 11-13 weeks. And no, removing caps would not solve that issue, removing caps would only speed up the process.

The best you can do to alleviate this is a "global" progression system that's not tied to your job - kinda what Borderlands 2 does with its badass ranks. But that aside, I don't see many compatible options.

[Mraj]

As do all progression systems. The issue is that if you make it so that nobody who only plays "one" job ever ends progressing, playing multiple jobs at "endgame level" becomes impossible, undermining the entire purpose of the armory system. It's a bugger even right now with progression stops after like 11-13 weeks. And no, removing caps would not solve that issue, removing caps would only speed up the process.

The best you can do to alleviate this is a "global" progression system that's not tied to your job - kinda what Borderlands 2 does with its badass ranks. But that aside, I don't see many compatible options.

Any sort of merits would be capped at certain points. Much like how desynthesis is capped / expanded upon. A broad-reaching "character" merit system wouldn't be awful, but isn't what I'd look for in a merit system. Going back to desynthesis, you can't level up one giant "desynthesis" skill.

Also:

FFXIV supposedly allows freedom to play all classes, but with the tome system it usually means you can only have one best-geared class. So, given that, some sort of merit system might also be a decent way to give alt classes a bit more of an edge...