Noob question about classes and jobs

Hi all, I'm a "totally new" player :D

I did play the original release (1.0) for a total of 1 day before I decided I hated what shipped, but that is not here nor there. Also got the game a while back but only got started for real last Saturday and having tons of fun, seems the game is indeed a whole different thing this time! However, now I'm extremely confused with the whole class and job structure. :(

So far, what I understand, it seems that Jobs are an advance class... a Marauder evolves into a Warrior, etc. But it seems the game still gives me some option to keep on playing as the base class... so a Rogue can still be a level 50 rogue with no Ninja and a lvl 50 Marauder can also be a thing. :eek:

And here comes my big question: is there a point to this? Is there any advantage, be it solo, or raid, or small group, to playing a base class without a job over the advanced job itself? So far, the bit I seen, the job can do anything the base class can do. :confused:

Short answer no.
Short long answer, having the job applied gives you a stat boost and additional abilities, at the expense of half your cross coass slots and narrowing the classes you can pool those from to 2 specific ones. Outside of pvp you dont see many people going jobless (dont really see it much in pvp anymore either) and the only reason they do is to frontload dmg buffs for spikes. Since pvp is less about sustained and more about out dmging the healers.

There's effectively no advantage to remaining with base classes after reaching the point where you can unlock jobs. Base classes do get a wider option of which skills to bring in as cross-class skills, as well as more cross-class slots to assign those skills to, but that very slight advantage is totally outclassed by the boost you get to your basic stats by switching to the job, as well as the extra job-specific skills. (Presumably, the original intention was that the extra cross-class skills would make you more versatile for solo play, while the job specific skills let you specialize better for group play, but the stat boosts override the former enough that the jobs end up better for both solo and group content.)

Now, there may be some classes that can get by for a few extra levels (through the lower 30's anyway) before needing to switch to their job. It's not all that unusual to see a base class character in the level 32 dungeon Brayflox. But once you get any higher than that, you're really better off switching over to the advanced job, and it will be expected for any group instances in the mid-30's or above.

Thanks for the answers, sounds like not much, but there is a reason for them to not force me into a job right away. Needless to say, I'll run to do my warrior quest ASAP once I hit 30 :)