Job Individuality/Pride/Dedication

[Crevox]

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:

In FFXIV, it is fairly easy to be good in any jobs it has to offer compared to FFXI where you needed skills to be able to simply play the job correctly. Even mastering a job is easier than it was in FFXI. Based on that and being an old FFXI player, I have a hard time feeling proud or using the word dedication to master a job since I put more time and efforts doing the same in FFXI.

Unless they completely change the gameplay, I don't think I'll ever feel the same pride in my main job as I did in FFXI or need to dedicate myself to a single job to master it. The level of effort needed is lower so the feeling of accomplishment is also lower.

Here's more from me:

Also, even if you're playing a warrior in a 2.0 dungeon, how easy is it gonna be for you to grab gear for your alternate jobs? Most of the time, you don't even have to play that job and you end up gearing it just because "hey look I got an garuda bow, now my archer is pro." That's not dedication to archer at all, you just happened to grab a bow playing a different class. If you were forced to play archer in order to get archer equipment, and some archer guy had TONS of great archer gear... now that's dedication.

[Soukyuu]

The original version of the armory made more sense. You could really build your character and it took time to redistribute the point, which prevented instant swapping. Armory as it is now is basically useless.

[Quesse]

You wanna be dedicated, level all your DoL to 50 >.>

I actually didn't really like that FFXI was so limiting in its job selection - in that it was completely annoying before abyssea to level more than 2-3 jobs to 75 and gear them. You had to really pick what to focus on and didn't get to enjoy all the jobs that FFXI had to offer.

In FFXIV I don't play a whole lot and I mainly solo, but I've been able to get 9 jobs to 50 and been able to enjoy the variety more. In 2.0 I'm going to focus on mage a bit more and then maybe tank so that I can offer dd/mage/tank in any situation. Its great to have a more flexible character - you can accomplish so much more that way.

One way I appreciate this a lot is the DoH classes. In FFXI you could choose one. Now I can level them all. Its great to have the flexibility to make/repair all my gear, attach materia, go for HQ, etc. I'm really happy about this.

[Shadow_Sama]

In many ways, I can relate to where you're coming from. My passion has always been Ninja, and its the class that I'm going to want to dedicate myself to. Put in all my effort to be the best Ninja I can be. It's going to suck wanting to play my NIN, but having to play something else just because some content demands the role of another job. It's my greatest hope that Square Enix can design content that is challenging, but doesn't "require" particular jobs to be successful. With any luck, maybe the content will be better balanced so that any job can do any content, so long as the player is skilled enough and appropriately geared.

[Felis]

Hmm, it begin again
This "20 threads for 1 theme" thing

[Crevox]

Hmm, it begin again
This "20 threads for 1 theme" thing

I felt my point was slightly different than the one other thread that existed on the subject.

If you don't have anything useful to contribute to the discussion (or don't care about the subject at all) don't post and don't enter the thread.

[indira]

OP i know what you mean.

i hate when i have my best equip job monk kicked to the curb then have to switch to something i hate and didnt bother equiping because i hate it like blm. because people refuse to try another way.

well im hoping the content finder works like wow's raid finder that way they select you in a role not a job.
everything about "do it this way only" is an excuse for people who cant think and need to be systematic. i been in plenty of good partys where they told everyone just pick whatever you want after the healer & tank was decided. in the end if everyones not on the same page you gonna fail regardless.

SE need to make a way where you define your character as that "job" is what i'am.

[Crevox]

because people refuse to try another way.

Yup, follow the guide that pertains to the content or else it's impossible. It's disappointing.

SE need to make a way where you define your character as that "job" is what i'am.

I would like to. If I could I would remove the ability to cross-class entirely and just play Summoner... I want to dedicate myself to that, I want to go above and beyond so I'm better than those people that don't care about it and have it as an off-job... but, can't really do that right now.

[Nayto]

I think it's more of a result from just what people see as the 'ideal role' in said position than the armoury system itself. I played FFXI till midway through CoP and always found that if you weren't a mage job, you'd pretty much spent hours just... waiting. Waiting for xp parties, waiting for BCNM, waiting for anything because 'well that job isn't neccessary so we don't need you'. In the end a job, was like an RL job, if you wanted to get somewhere you pretty much had to network yourself (ie get a linkshell, form statics, etc.) or start lvling whatever was in demand(which was what happened to my Brother and he got to experience the gist of FFXI while I pretty much just gave up and watched him), so nonetheless the same problem was still around back then anyways.

This quickswitch function counteracts that, so one would spend LESS time waiting around for an accepting party, and makes lvling to whatever is in demand a lot quicker. You wanna adapt to survive, not be the same and rot at lvl25 for a good week (which is what happend to me in FFXI).

Also the quickswitch allows those people with only few jobs lvled. I guess i'm lucky, but I've only have two jobs at 50 at the moment. And had parties kind enough (I assume) to switch to another job for me so I can play the role I have, and I'd do so for others as well if I'm able to switch to my secondary job.

I know it's nice to have more job specialization, but I don't want to wait 5 hours for that one job either. And unfortunately people are oppurtunists as well, if all the jobs were to be balanced out, people would still go for whatever job DPSs the highest and what not (even if it was 'balanced' there'd be that miniscule factor that hardcore players would scrutinize about), it happens with any game that gives you a list of choices.

[Ruisu]

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

The game has been built around the core mechanic of switching your role on the spot. It's one of the few things from the original game that worked very well. Allows for much flexibility of dungeons. Cutter's Cry having you go Black Mage > Dragoon > Black Mage > Monk is an example of one of these strats. This post just seems like someone who's upset that they aren't a special snowflake due to this system.

Also this is the exact same as one of your earlier posts. At least try to make an effort when starting a new thread.