Idea: Merit system

[Vaer]

This would just end up splitting the player base.

Mechanics like merits is a "time to win" mechanic. It wouldn't be a complete disaster in self contained content that doesn't affect the main stuff (so stuff like Eureka, Diadem, etc.) but making people grind for hundreds of hours to be end game ready isn't something that would work too well in this game due to how it has been structured in general.

Basically, people would end up taking people with more merits.

You could design things where merits are not needed or taken into consideration, but the people with them will crush the content.

XI had barely any balance to begin with so it worked decently there. It also had barely any instancing in it's prime and what instancing there was allowed you to bring tons of people into it. XIV is a bit more structured with strict player limits.