A Suggestion for the Job System

Keeping Classes tied to our Weapon of Choice:

• Weapon choice determines base abilities, weapon skills, and traits.

If you use a Lance you'd gain Lance based skills and some lower tier Dragoonish skills.

If you wore a shield it would grant you low tier Paladin skills like Sentinel or Cover etc.

Or if you use a staff you gain some basic spells like how wooden Wands/Radicals give basic elemental spells through Conjuror and how metallic Rods/Staves gives Light/Dark spells and more supportive spells.

I also thought maybe class could define armour types available, but I'm rather torn on how that'd turn out.

Making Jobs tied to our main stats and core strengths with Weapon Class providing small scale perks:

• Job gives a specialization in Abilities and Spells gained on top of bonuses provided by base weapon class but not necessary for Character Development.

Like I could be using the Black Mage job over the Musketeer class. I'd take a small hit on magic damage for not using a magic based class, but if I pulled too much hate through magic I could pull back and take pot shots with my gun until things cooled down.

Note: I'm aware the dart spells on mages already serve this purpose to an extent; this is just an example.

Grantedas a gun toting Black mage I'd never be as strong as a Ranger using a gun (I'd imagine 50% or less effective but still doing passable damage) or a pure mage using a wand/radical (Being like 75% proficient with magic because of my non-magic weapon as apposed to being 100% with class bonuses of a magic based weapon), but I'd have a kind of hybrid allowing me to be custom with little impact on my main Job's stats and abilities while still providing minor bonuses similar to a subjob but not to the crippling effect a incompatible subjob would have in FFXI.

Note 2: I pulled those number out of thin air; Again they're just for example.

I liked how Characters in Final Fantasy 7 and 8 had a base archetype that defined their weapons, base stats, and Limit Breaks but the Materia/Junction System really defined their roles and weapons really didn't matter with the right Materia/Junction. I always thought that was a missed opportunity for a Final Fantasy based MMO during my time on FFXI.

Anyone else agree/disagree? Or have some suggestions? (Sorry about length :()

We definitely need variety, or at least the illusion of such. I like the idea of being able to mix and match jobs with classes as opposed to being restricted to a specific job for a specific class. I don't see it being implemented like this, but hopefully it will move in this direction. +1