Job Individuality/Pride/Dedication

[Bluewhite]

I really think the armory system is silly, especially being able to switch classes anywhere. Your class becomes a meaningless choice. Anyone can be anything anytime, so who or what you've grown yourself to be ends up being irrelevant. There's so many times where this comes into play.

1. People want you to swap to the job that is most effective for the situation, all the time; too bad if you want to play X, you're forced to play Y or be kicked. In FFXI I'm sure this happened too, but mid dungeon they're like "we're against coincounter? you can't play melee, swap to ranged now or we're kicking." This happened for many encounters. In other games such as FFXI it was like "I know that job you're playing isn't THE BEST for the situation, but I'm sure we'll get by." People also don't seem to understand that just because you have the class/job doesn't mean you want to play it and doesn't mean you are experienced/geared/skilled with it. I played WHM a lot and sometimes I was asked to go BLM and I said I probably wasn't going to be comfortable with it (lack of gear, didn't play it enough to feel safe on enmity, didn't want to take the risk) and people just didn't seem to understand why I wouldn't go BLM for them (and I was seen as rude).

2. It's not fun when you're like "oh check out my cool dragoon armor and lance" and the other guy goes "oh yeah" and just swaps to it too immediately. It ruins individuality, and gets rid of the ability to say "I AM A DRAGOON" (because technically you can be anything anytime). The class/job choice you make is meaningless, and you just don't have that good feeling about it. I understand people can swap jobs in FFXI too, but anyone can be anything anytime... I want to feel good about having Carbuncle walk around with me, and yet anyone can have him out with them with a push of a button.

3. A large portion of the reason everyone levels up every class/job is because it's so easy. Swap your weapon, gg good to go. It's difficult to feel accomplished saying like "I am a level 50 WHM" in your party. Not only does most of the party have that too, they'll be like "oh I can just switch to that." Sure, you can switch at your house or whatever in FFXI, but that was a LOT more effort to take for a lot of reasons (gotta have the gear which was harder to fully get, had to have the high level job which was harder, and had to spend a long time going back to who knows where to switch and come back). You were appreciated for playing that class, you had individuality, you felt good; in this game, who cares. If a party is 7/8 and just needs a WHM, instead of looking for that dedicated soul who actually is skilled and geared and loves the class, it's just "I'll just switch to WHM" *equip staff*. In worse situations, someone who loves their job (that dedicated dragoon guy) is forced to play WHM because the party is pressuring him to (they know he has WHM).

In FFXIV 2.0, I'm gonna want to main Summoner. But, what bums me out, is that EVERYONE is going to be leveling it at launch, even though a lot of people have zero interest in it. They're just doing it "because they can." Yeah I know a lot of people want to see the lower level content and don't have any other classes to experience it, but still... what's going to set me apart from the people that are just "summonerlols" and me, a serious dedicated person to the job? It should feel like a strong dedication and others should be like "wow, you got that far with summoner/you have that much gear/SOMETHING" rather than just *swap weapon* "yup I'm as good as you now."

I'm finding it difficult to articulate my point, but I hope you understand.

And I know I posted this in another thread, but I felt it was a slightly different topic and the content of the post deserved its own thread.

EDIT: Here's a good post by IronSoup that also explain some of what I'm trying to say:



Here's more from me:

That's because XIV is designed based on the concept that each player has no main career job, and you use best setup to beat the content, instead of your fav career job.

Which is a bit different design concept compare with XI. Although post Abyssea XI is getting away from it too.....everyone and their mother all has 10 jobs 10 empy 10 relic etc.

I have to point out though, old FFXI gives sense of career job for players, only because it takes LARGE amount of effort and time to lv/gear up 1 job, on top of limited inventory spaces.

It seems that majority of player base would rather want to play several jobs and be the same as everyone else, instead of focusing on 2~3 and get really good at it. I'm the minority, and I really only enjoy pushing the limit and mastering 1 job. But I guess minority can't change anything.

[Cedri]

Because switching jobs on the fly isn't something Final Fantasy is known for.

I think SOMEBODY forgot dress spheres!

[Solas]

Well this will be my first post I believe, and normally wouldn't write one, but then again, this is afterall a very important subject to FFxiv's future.

First things first is the problem of the low level of dedication needed to play eny of the current jobs well, and become extremely well geared without having to play the class you are gearing up for at all. With that in mind lets look to where the problem originates, compare alittle to ffxi as I am an old player, and then find a solution.

Origin and comparesing: In ffxi you had to be very good at your job to get enywhere as it was all teambased which was taken out of FFxiv to make it less time consumable which was very much needed, but because of this change the game became alittle easier and the pride one got from it was lowered.
Next was the job system changes with a view from reallife I imagine changing ones job with the switch of a weapon, since in reallife if you use a pitchfork you will be considered a farmer, and if you then change into a suit with pistols starting to kill people you will be something else. This means the old job system was "flawed" and this new one is by definition "better" or closer to the truth of life whichever way you want to look at it. The problem created with this change though was the drops you got from one job could be used by the other which meant the leveling was further lowered in difficulty and people having good gear didn't have to get it from using that job at all so things like uniqueness and comparing gear or abilities died off again lowering the pride one should have.

Solution: Now the first problem FFxiv got rid of as best they could by making mobs call for others to help them if you were in a party. It made it harder and was still rewarding as you had an easier time getting the exp chains so I wont really go into that one as its more tweaking how much it should be better or worse and if the harder mobs like bosses should get trash mobs with them if a party escalates from a half to full and so on and so forth.
The next problem however giving people grieve in this post is mostly the issue of gear as there should always be a fair decree change in gear between dedicated and parttimers. The only real way I see this change in a somewhat reasonable fashion all can agree on to a certain extent will be in two parts. First by having the endgame bosses only drop to your current job, because if you do it with lesser mobs people will complain, and in that way you will still be able see a real difference in peoples gear compared to what they are good at since no party wants a poor healer and so on just because they still need that gear. The next way is to use a "skill evaluation quest" from time to time like in you got in FFxi at last levels. Simply put make a quest line for each thing needed for that job, like with healing a npc party in a fight so noone dies and with the higher the level the more difficult it will become by having the healer to dispel and parhaps even raise at the same time. This could be done around every 10and give a really good item to use for the next ten levels or so tillthe next part of the chain comes up and again at max level.