Job points has ruined one of the foundations of this game

[Castanica]

Job points are a good idea in principle but in reality they have pretty much killed the "you can use any job on your char" idea. Now you have a main job and that's it.

Job points are such an extreme grind and are so important now to playing this game that you can only really use 1-2 jobs anymore. The rest are scrub jobs.

I've been back on ffxi for maybe 6-7 months and I have around 400 job points on my main job, my other jobs have barely any. I find myself only wanting to use my main for everything now because a) I want to get any possible job points on that b) they make so much difference that I feel gimped on any other job c) the prospect of taking on the massive job point grind on a new job is insanely NOPE.

The lower end of the job point acquisition curve really needs to be lifted or unlocking a set amount of job points on your main should unlock them on all jobs (say 100 job points on one job, unlocks said amount of all 99 jobs), the amount of soul crushing grinding needed to make a job serviceable should not be as much as it is.

Anyone that thinks FFXI is easy mode now isn't looking at the real picture, on most mmorpg games you get your gear and you're the best you can be. On FFXI you can have all the best gear and still be garbage, until you have grinded out a mass of job points.

FFXI is no different now at cap than it was back in the day, they just swapped the massive long winded grinding of fighting low drop rates with getting mass amounts of job points.

[Elexia]

Job Points are nothing but an extension to Merits. The big problem is, XI wasn't able to expand in order to properly support it and if you missed the initial "leveling" rush, it's pretty brutal to catch up, especially on multiple jobs. XI is only realistically "easy mode" in the fact it no longer takes months-year+ to hit 75 on your initial and secondary job like it did back in 2002 and 2003 and of course moving to a more "vertical" progression made older content extremely easy.

Job points were done in a way to give us additional abilities/magic/stats beyond the clients hardcoded setup more or less. So it's not a huge problem if you played consistently even when they introduced it, it's just hard if you join the game now or returned recently and had barely any JP to your name because the best way to get JP, requires already being fairly invested.

[Stompa]

The original game was totally unforgiving, your base character was feeble, and your event could fail because you were 10mp short of a final cure. An extra Merit would have saved your event. That doesn't really happen anymore, thanks to ilvl gear.

I have Jobmaster WAR, and around 200~ jobpoints on most of my other jobs. But I play jobs that have like 50~ jobpoints too, in events, and it doesn't make a huge difference really. My Jobmaster WAR still misses mobs a lot, still dies. Having a lot of Jobpoints is not as important as having good gear, good strategy, and being able to play your job effectively on the player-input side.

So again, I think Merit Points in the old game, were a huge grind, and they were often critically important to the outcome of battles. The game was totally unforgiving back then, and you needed every little bit of extra power you could get, and Merits was the way to get this. Today, gear will give you a serviceable and survivable head-start, and you can get Jobpoints afterwards, to increase power and because it is fun to customise your character.

[Castanica]

A large amount of merits were character wide, job points are 100% job based.

One of my suggestions was to unlock 100 JP on all jobs once you unlock that amount on one. 100 isn't ground breaking but it's a start.

[Olor]

I agree, even with all the capacity boosts, Job Points are still a ridiculous grind. At the very least they should massively boost the number of CP you get for doing various contents. Like 15K CP for every 119+ unity NM you defeat for example, 30K for every completed alluvion skirmish, 5K JP for every rieve you defeat, 15K CP for a wildskeeper reive 20K CP for doing those stupid dragons in escha etc - because as of now the most efficient way of getting JP solo is the most boring thing imaginable, which is grinding easy mobs... and yeah parties are better but only few jobs wanted and they want you to have amazing end game gear for them.... it's a really bad set up where the people who need JP the least have the most ability to get them

[Spectreman]

This has happened since the introduction of REM weapons actually. How many jobs were considered useless unless you had one of those? This still happens today. The Job Point system is just another extension of the epeen/elitist requirements for endgame that are not really required at all, but due to the mindset created in the elitist community of this game, it became another must-have feature.

[Stompa]

So I think Jobpoints are awesome, but they are not essential. Player game-skills are still the most important thing, reflexes and knowledge etc. And in-game the actual gear is what matters, for the most part. If the player has a lot of Jobpoints, this will make the battle faster and more efficient, it is unlikely to determine the outcome of the battle in terms of fail/success. Jobpoints are nice to have, but they are not going to swing the event.

And again this is totally different to Merit Points in the old game. If a player told me they had zero Merits it would make me actually panic if we were going to be fighting a hard battle. So again, it is the difference between essential Merits in the old game, and desirable Jobpoints in the new game. I think the system today is fun, because it allows you to boost your Character's power and make battles faster and more efficient, but at the same time you are not really going to cause a wipe by having low Jobpoints, you're just going to be slightly slower and less flamboyant in your play-style. It is a good balance today, really. IMHO.

[detlef]

Many players have the opposite issue in where you cap out your raid job. As an example, I have a character that plays GEO/SCH and both jobs are 2100/2100 and 500/500.

[Castanica]

I think the crux of this is difference between the old game, with the old grind, and the new game with the new grind.

In the old game, having the capped-skills and a lot of Merit Points from grind was "essential." If somebody in your event told you that they didn't have capped skills, and they had zero merits, you got that sinking feeling, and you knew this was going to be a critical flaw in the event.

Today, your skills being capped is just taken for granted, with sparks books and other skill-up bonuses, and having a lot of Jobpoints is "desirable" rather than "essential." If somebody in my event says they have zero Jobpoints, I will simply shrug, because it doesn't matter. I will /check their gear, it is all 119, it has a lot of accuracy+ etc. and then I know we will be OK.

So I think Jobpoints are awesome, but they are not essential. Player game-skills are still the most important thing, reflexes and knowledge etc. And in-game the actual gear is what matters, for the most part. If the player has a lot of Jobpoints, this will make the battle faster and more efficient, it is unlikely to determine the outcome of the battle in terms of fail/success. Jobpoints are nice to have, but they are not going to swing the event.

And again this is totally different to Merit Points in the old game. If a player told me they had zero Merits it would make me actually panic if we were going to be fighting a hard battle. So again, it is the difference between essential Merits in the old game, and desirable Jobpoints in the new game. I think the system today is fun, because it allows you to boost your Character's power and make battles faster and more efficient, but at the same time you are not really going to cause a wipe by having low Jobpoints, you're just going to be slightly slower and less flamboyant in your play-style. It is a good balance today, really. IMHO.

Back in the day I was asked to level sam for nidhogg claims, I capped the must have required merits I needed for my 75 sam in 4-5 hours in a pickup group by using a job I liked to play (white mage). Not only did merits carry over to all jobs in many areas (str/dex/hp/emnity) but I could get them on any job I wanted to use too, the freedom!

To use a job for serious content now you're expected to have many hundreds, if not 1k+ job points and you have to learn them on that job. The game is so incredibly grindy and restrictive now, more than it ever was before. Taking a job to 99 now is about a million times more grindy than it was back when the game came out even (because it's not 99, it's 99 plus 1k jp).

Job points are incredibly boring to get (to the point I see lots of people botting them in Escha, and I can't blame them), merits were nowhere near as bad and a lot easier to get too. I go out during gain xp and in 2-3 hours I'll be lucky to get 20 job points towards the 2.3k? total. It's ridiculous.

Totally ruined the job system, as I said before I rarely want to use any job other than the one I have most jp on because I'm trying to get as many JP as I can on that one and other jobs are now far weaker and less desirable to others. You will never win because even when you finally cap out and think you can now use other jobs since you don't need them on this one anymore, you are so much stronger on this main one that it disgusts you to use the uncapped.

[Elexia]

that are not really required at all

..Have...you actually seen any of them outside of THF? lol