Giving each job a second spec: would it work?

Actually, I think that the community is to blame for the status of jobs.
Back in 1.0, classes were totally different, and lots of people complained that they lacked identity. So, they were changed to be more unique. Then, people complained about the lack of usual jobs. Then, FF staple jobs were created.
Then, people complained about the absolute utter sacrifice of having to chose between Mind or Intelligence for the Arcanist, claiming that it totally cripples one of the jobs (As if the bonus points were that important...).
Then, the branching idea was scrapped...for now.

Let's not give current classes anymore utility. I'd rather see more jobs cover it. This games all about balance.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

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Cool idea but we got the DRK we got. And yes the devs decided to stray away from the whole class design as much as possible.

honestly I think the customization will come naturally as the game grows. We are seeing it already with the first expansion alone. Give us another expansion or two worth of skills and we will be able to more finely tune our playstyles. I like the WAR but I always wanted it to do damage like a Viking, now with these new skills, I can out DPS the MCH (lol, just a little playful dig).

I guess I'm more patient than most people who post on the forums...

As shown with Arcanist, it just creates a restriction to how unique you can make each job as a seperate entity. Summoner and Scholar share alot of abilities and it's mainly because of their pets that they have a somewhat unique set of abilities granted they are tied to the pets.

Believe each pet has 4 abiltiies. So when you consider SMN they get 5+12 unique abilities, SCH gets 5+8 unique abilities, then of course in expansion both get +5 so SMN has Arcanist+22 unique abiltiies and SCH has Arcanist+18 unique abilities to pull from however because of this SCH obtains 0 healing utility through Arcanist from 30+ we are forced to rely on those 5 abilities we obtain through job quest for healing utility, hence why in 2.0 our esuna was lv 40, because they had to fit it somewhere but they couldn't leave us at lv 30 with just 1 healing ability.

Overall the system is way better if it's just class/job and nothing more nothing less, the time it takes to create a secondary job that uses the same abilities without being the same or altering them in a way to fit the new job playstyle is just wasted effort that could be better spent just making Red Mage, Blue Mage, Runic Mage, Beastmaster etc etc.

That's why I said traits could be useful. They could greatly change a single skill by adding an effect specific for each job.

As for the numerous jobs they could add, I don't think it's really a good idea. The more jobs you have, the less you can keep the game's balance. FFXI is a pretty good example of how lots of jobs are just useless, even it they tried to rotate them with each patch.

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Originally Posted by Prestige

If a secondary specification was implemented that allowed each job to queue as a different role in dungeons/raids, it would allow those DPS-craving DRKs and WARs to fulfill that desire. It would allow WHMs and SCH to join in a group as a true DPS. The only part that might be difficult, is figuring out what second specification the pure DPS jobs could have.

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Scholar already has two specs. The other one is called Summoner.

You would basically need to do that with every Job.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

As for the numerous jobs they could add, I don't think it's really a good idea. The more jobs you have, the less you can keep the game's balance. FFXI is a pretty good example of how lots of jobs are just useless, even it they tried to rotate them with each patch.

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FFXI's problem is that the jobs did not have well defined roles. Ninjas are considered tanks, but they were originally intended to be damage. Summoners are a mixed bag. The trinity system may seem constrictive, but it sets limits on the expectations and abilities of the job and gives the designers the freedom within those limits.

To answer the OP's question, no it wouldn't work. One spec would always perform better than the other, and the community would expect players to use that spec for content. As many have pointed out, FFXV version of skill trees and specs is the ability to switch your job at any time (outside of instanced content).

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Originally Posted by Makeda

Scholar already has two specs. The other one is called Summoner.

You would basically need to do that with every Job.

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You mean arcanist, and the design team already said they would not do that again.

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Originally Posted by TessaJalloh

Summoner and Scholar were their attempt at a specialisation within a class and it turned out to be a terrible decision

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People keep saying this, but SMN and SCH are amazingly successful.