System Reform Suggestion

So I've followed FFXIV since the start. The game shows a lot of promise to create a unique experience for players. Unfortunately I feel that the current system is a convoluted mess due to the numerous stages of developer changes.
-We have a white mage class that can do a similar amount of damage as black mages.
-Black mages that do not have all of the elements
-Jobs that serve the same purpose as classes
-A lack of customization for players

That being said, portions of the system are gems in the rough, that I feel have great potential with small changes. So here is a proposal for a new system that is similar to the current one, but fixes many of the issues I feel are there. It is a mix of elements from a number of systems, including the old system, the new system, FFXI, WOW, and more.

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It is my hope to get player responses, so the devlopers can see what players like, and what players dislike. If you feel that there are other elements that would benefit the game, I encourage you to share them in this thread.

Here are Links to the different sections (I know this is a wall of text)
System
Weapons
Jobs
Equipment and Materia
Responses to Feedback

>>>>System>>>>>

System Outline

Characters have a Job, which determines their role, a weapon, which further defines them, and a number of cross weapon basic abilities.

When starting the game, players choose a starting weapon. Players begin with no job stones, and thus are the base job, Freelancer. Players level up their weapon class, and gain spells, abilities, weaponskills, and traits from their increasing skill with the weapon. After reaching a certain level with a weapon, players can undertake quests to obtain job stones. When a job stone is equipped, the player’s job switches from freelancer to the relevant job, gaining abilities and traits specific to the role of that job.
A player can equip any weapon on any job, but each job will do better with specific weapons, and will have reduced abilities with certain weapons.

Character Attributes
Job: XXXXXXX
Weapon: XXXXXXX

STR: XXX
DEX: XXX
VIT: XXX
INT: XXX
MND: XXX
PIE: XXX

Player Spells: All Job spells, all spells of the equipped weapon(s), all basic* spells
Player Abilities: All Job abilities, all abilities of the equipped weapon(s), all basic* abilities
Player Weaponskills: All weaponskills of the equipped weapon(s)
Player Traits: All Job Traits, All traits of the main-hand weapon

UI Battle Interface – 2 parts
The UI interface for battle is split into 2 parts, the action menu and the action bars. The action bar has 30 slots, corresponding to #0-9, Cntr + #0-9, Alt + #0-9. These slots can either be abilities or macros. At the right hand side of the action bar is the action menu. This is the typical FF menu of attack, weaponskill, spells, abilities.

>>>>>Weapons>>>>>>

The biggest problem I see in many games is that players are restricted into basic roles that have been used in every single MMO made. FFXIV has the potential to break this trend.
Here are basic abilities that I believe should be accessible when creating a custom role, and should be available to all players.

Offensive/Defensive Specialization
-Berserk (increases attack while sacrificing defense)
-Defender (increases defense while sacrificing attack)
Why: Players should be able to choose if they want to play a character that is a tank, a pure damage dealer, or a versatile fighter (neither Berserk or Defender)

Elemental Attacks
-Elemental Strikes (Fire Sword, Fists of Earth......etc)
-Tier 1 elemental Spells (Fire, Stone, Aero, Water, Blizzard, Lightning, Holy, Dark)
Why: Players should be able to choose an elemental characteristic. Each element has its own characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses.

Self Healing
-Tier 1 Cure
Why: It is necessary for solo play, every player should have the ability to heal themselves.

Taunting
-Provoke
Why: It is a necessity for tanks

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Each weapon has at least 8 weaponskills. The weapons also each have 4 combos that are specific to that weapon. These combos take the following forms.
Front --> Side --> Back
Front --> Any
Back --> Side -->Front
Back --> Any
This combo form forces movement to be an important part of combat.

Long range weapons are the exception to this (Bows, and guns if added) and have the following form.
x2: Any Range --> Long Range --> Long Range
x2: Any Range --> Any Range
This is so that long range weapon wielders can use a combo at any range. It is important that players soloing with a long range weapon can still enjoy the combo system even with monsters right next to them, though their options should be limited.

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We also should have both a 1-handed and 2-handed version of all weapons, leaving the option of a shield to all players

Sword: Long Sword vs. Great Sword
Axe: Hand Axe vs. Great Axe
Fist: one hand vs. two hands
Polearm: one handed (1h-spear) vs. two handed polearm
Bow: crossbow (1h) vs. shortbow/longbow
Elemental Weapon: scepter vs. staff
Holy Weapon: wand vs. cane

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Sword

• Fast Blade (Front)

o Savage Blade (Flank)

 Goring Blade (Behind)

o Flat Blade

 Vorpal Blade

• Riot Blade (Behind)

o Spin Stroke (Flank)

 Rage of Halone (Front)

o Swift Blade

• Trait: Enhanced Physical Defense
• Trait: Enhanced Block Rate
• Trait: Enhanced Physical Defense II
• Trait: Enhanced Physical Crit. Resilience
• Trait: Enhanced Physical Defense III
• Provoke*
• Defender*

Axe
• Heavy Swing (Front)

o Skull Sunder (Flank)

 Godsbane (Behind)

o Path of the Storm

• Brutal Swing (Behind)

o Iron Tempest (Flank)

 Whirlwind (Front)

o Maim

• Trait: Enhanced Physical Defense I
• Trait: Enhanced Parry
• Trait: Enhanced Physical Attack I
• Trait: Enhanced Physical Crit Evasion
• Trait: Enhanced Physical Defense II
• Berserk*
• War-chant (enmity generation + party attack boost)*
• Foresight (Boost Parry)
• Fracture (Parry Attack)
• Bloodbath

Hand-to-Hand
• Pummel (Front)

o Concussive Blow (Side)

 Simian Thrash (Behind)

o Aura Pulse

• Pounce (Behind)

o Demolish (Side)

 Howling Fist (Front)

o Sucker Punch

• Trait: Enhanced Physical Attack I
• Trait: Enhanced Evasion
• Trait: Enhanced Physical Accuracy I
• Trait: Enhanced Physical Crit. Damage
• Trait: Enhanced Physical Attack II
• Aura of Earth (Converts attacks to earth and boosts defense)*
• Aura of Fire (Converts attacks to fire and boosts attack power)*
• Aura of Wind (Converts attacks to wind and boosts movement, also shortens weaponskill recast times)*
• Aura of Water (Converts attacks to water and boosts evasion)*
• Aura of Lightning (Converts attacks to lightning and boosts attack speed)*
• Aura of Ice (Converts attacks to ice and boosts accuracy)*
• Featherfoot (Boost Evasion)
• Haymaker (Evade Attack)
• Second Wind
• Blindside

Bow
• Heavy Shot (Any Range)

o Leaden Arrow (Long Range)

 Wide Volley (Long Range)

o Quick Nock (Any Range)

• Piercing Arrow (Any Range)

o Gloom Arrow (Long Range)

 Bloodletter (Long Range)

o Shadowbind (Any Range)

• Trait: Enhanced Physical Accuracy I
• Trait: Enhanced Physical Evasion
• Trait: Enhanced Physical Crit. Accuracy
• Trait: Enhanced Physical Crit. Evasion
• Trait: Enhanced Physical Accuracy II
• Chameleon
• Decoy
• Hawkeye

Polearm
• True Thrust (Front)

o Leg Sweep (Flank)

 Doom Spike (Behind)

o Heavy Thrust

• Vorpal Thrust (Behind)

o Impulse Drive (Flank)

 Chaos Thrust (Front)

o Moonrise

• Trait: Enhanced Attack I
• Trait: Store TP
• Trait: Enhanced Attack II
• Trait: Enhanced Physical Crit. Accuracy
• Trait: Enhanced Attack III
• Raging Strike
• Feint
• Invigorate

Holy Weapon
• Aura of Light (Coverts attacks to light and boosts magic defense)*
• Raise*
• Cure*
• Banish*

o Holy

• Cura
• Curaga
• Protect
• Shell
• Stoneskin
• Repose
• Trait: Enhanced Healing Magic I
• Trait: Enhanced Enhancing Magic
• Trait: Enhanced Magic Defense
• Trait: Auto-Refresh
• Trait: Enhanced Healing Magic II
• Sacred Prism
• Blissful Mind
• Shroud of Saints
Elemental Weapon
• Aura of Darkness (Converts attacks to dark and boosts magic attack)
• Fire*

o Fira

 Firaga

• Thunder*

o Thundara

 Thundaga

• Blizzard*

o Blizzara

 Blizzaga

• Aero*

o Aerora

 Aeroga

• Water*

o Watera

 Waterga

• Stone*

o Stonera

 Stonega

• Scourge*

o Dark

• Sleep
• Trait: Enhanced Magic Potency I
• Trait: Enhanced Enfeebling Magic I
• Trait: Enhanced Magic Crit. Potency
• Trait: Auto-Refresh
• Trait: Enhanced Magic Potency II
• Parsimony
• Resonance
• Dark Seal

Shield
• Shield Bash
• War Drum (enmity after block)
• Phalanx (weapon strike after block)
• Rampart
• Aegis Boon
• Outmaneuver

>>>>>Jobs>>>>>

Freelancer (No Job)

Paladin
• 15min: Hallowed Ground
• Flash
• Cover
• Holy Succor
• Spirits Within (Phalanx --> Spirits Within)
• Trait: Divine Veil
• Trait: Augmented Defense
• Great Proficiency: Sword, Shield
• Good Proficiency: Holy Weapon, Axe, Polearm
• Bad Proficiency: Elemental Weapon, Fist, Bow

Warrior
• 15min: Mighty Strikes
• Vengeance
• Antagonize
• Collusion
• Steel Cyclone (Heavy Swing --> Path of the Storm --> Steel Cyclone)
• Trait: Augmented Critical
• Trait: Augmented Attack
• Great Proficiency: Axe
• Good Proficiency: Sword, Fist, Polearm, Shield
• Bad Proficiency: Holy Weapon, Elemental Weapon, Bow

Monk
• 15min: Hundred Fists
• Shoulder Tackle
• Spinning Heel
• Perfect Counter
• Dragon Kick (Pounce --> Sucker Punch --> Dragon Kick)
• Trait: Augmented Evasion
• Trait: Augmented Attack
• Great Proficiency: Fist
• Good Proficiency: Holy Weapon, Elemental Weapon, Polearm
• Bad Proficiency: Sword, Axe, Fist, Shield

Bard
• 15min: Battle Voice
• Ballad of Magi
• Minuet of Vigor
• Paeon of War
• Rain of Death (Heavy Shot --> Quick Nock --> Rain of Death)
• Trait: Augmented Evasion
• Trait: Augmented MP
• Great Proficiency: Bow
• Good Proficiency: Holy Weapon, Elemental Weapon, Sword
• Bad Proficiency: Axe, Fist, Polearm, Shield

Dragoon
• 15min: Dragonfire Dive
• Jump
• Elusive Jump
• Lancet
• Disembowel (Feint --> Disembowel)
• Ring of Talons (Vorpal Thrust --> Moonrise --> Ring of Talons)
• Trait: Augmented Attack
• Trait: Augmented Accuracy
• Great Proficiency: Polearm
• Good Proficiency: Sword, Axe, Elemental Weapon
• Bad Proficiency: Fist, Holy Weapon, Bow, Shield

White Mage
• 15min: Benediction
• Curaja
• Regen
• Esuna
• Ultima (Banish --> Holy --> Ultima)
• Trait: Augmented Healing
• Trait: Augmented Enhancing Magic
• Great Proficiency: Holy Weapon
• Good Proficiency: Elemental Weapon, Sword, Shield
• Bad Proficiency: Axe, Fist, Bow

Black Mage
• 15min: Meteor (Scourge --> Dark --> Meteor)
• Convert
• Sleepga
• Flare (Fire --> Fira --> Firaga --> Flare)
• Burst (Thunder --> Thundara --> Thundaga --> Burst)
• Freeze (Blizzard --> Blizzara --> Blizzaga --> Freeze)
• Tornado (Aero --> Aerora --> Aeroga --> Tornado)
• Flood (Water --> Watera --> Waterga --> Flood)
• Quake (Stone --> Stonera --> Stonega --> Quake)
• Great Proficiency: Elemental Weapon
• Good Proficiency: Holy Weapon, Polearm, Fist
• Bad Proficiency: Axe, Sword, Bow, Shield

Generalist
• Trait: Dual Wield
• Trait: Pick one cross-weapon trait
• Trait: Pick another cross-weapon trait
• Great Proficiency: None
• Good Proficiency: All
• Bad Proficiency: None

Dual Weilding
When dual wielding; only the main hand weapon receives experience points. The exception to this is shields, which receive full XP while wielded off-hand. Dual wielding two weapons gives access to the abilities and combos of both, but only the traits of the main-hand weapon.

>>>>>Equipment and Materia>>>>>

Equipment is restricted only by job, not by weapon class.
Freelancers and Generalists can equip almost every item (Exclusions are Job specific armors like AF).
All characters have access to all of the elemental auras, but it is the equipment that will help separate players. Some equipment will have elemental bonuses. Materia can also be melded to equipment to increase affinity for specific elements. These elemental characteristics of the player will increase the effectiveness of certain abilities, decrease the effectiveness of others, as well as influence player's resistances to certain elements.

>>>>>Responses to Feedback>>>>>

Quote:

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Wait, wait a minute!
Those are no small changes you talked about in the introduction, I barely even understand what you want exactly.
How are classes and jobs different in relation with each other with your "new" system?
Can you give clear examples or even draw a comparison between the current system and yours?

Thanks!

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In the beginning of the system, classes stemmed from the weapon equipped, and you gained abilities as you leveled up. These abilities were then available to all other classes. There were issues because all tiers of abilities were transferable, meaning there was little distinction based on what weapon used. Complaints were mainly due to assigning classes the traditional roles that jobs took, resulting in extreme similarities between classes and jobs. Cross-class abilities also became far more restricted.

This proposed system is a combination of the old system and the new system. The weapons referred to are essentially classes, but referred to differently because weapons do not determine job.

Low, and Mid Tier abilities are still learned from weapons, but Upper tier abilities are learned from jobs. Low Tier abilities are accessible by all job/weapon combos after they are learned (Like the original system). Mid Tier abilities are accessible only when the corresponding weapon is equipped (Like the current system). Upper Tier abilities are only accessible when the corresponding job is equipped (Like the current system).

Thus in the current system you could play a pure BLM, or BLM (Thm), or simply a THM.

In this system you could play:
BLM (Elemental/Thm) : Upper Level Black Magic, Mid Level Black Magic, All Low level abilities
BLM (Holy/Con): Upper Level Black Magic, Mid Level White Magic, All Low level abilities
or even
BLM (Axe/Mrd): Upper Level Black Magic, Axe weapon abilities, All Low Level Abilities

Now in terms of nuking, BLM(Elemental/Thm) will still be the king. BLM(Holy/Con) would still be good at it, but would be at a reduced effeciveness due to BLM's only good proficiency with Holy, as well as being unable to combo Ancient Magic. BLM (Axe/Mrd) would be even worse, due to BLM's bad proficiency with Axes as well as being unable to combo ancient magic. However BLM(Axe/Mrd) gains melee capabilities, which could be useful in certain situations, or if someone just wanted to try it.

These are also comparable to FFXI job/subjob combos, respectively:
BLM/RDM
BLM/WHM
BLM/WAR

*I also tried to straighten out some of the other parts of the current system, like adding in missing tiers on spells.*

Quote:

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I'm not too keen on the rest, but I would love it if jobs weren't bound by weapon.

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Thats basically the whole point of the system. I'm actually not quite sure what the rest you are refering to is. The weapons that are mentioned here are pretty much the classes that we already have. The only thing I really changed was change conjurer to holy weapons, thaumaturge to elemental weapons (according to the Black Mage/White Mage roles assigned by SE), and shifted all elemental attack spells to elemental weapon (Thaumaturge). Are you refering to the ability of everyone to use low level abilities of all types, because thats what we started with in the original FFXIV system, there were just issues because everyone also had access to upper level abilities.

>>>Please let me know if any part of my explanation is confusing, and I'll try to revise it>>>

Wait, wait a minute!
Those are no small changes you talked about in the introduction, I barely even understand what you want exactly.
How are classes and jobs different in relation with each other with your "new" system?
Can you give clear examples or even draw a comparison between the current system and yours?

Thanks!

I'm not too keen on the rest, but I would love it if jobs weren't bound by weapon.

Seriously. I was wondering if I was the ONLY one that dislikes the Armory system. It is boring and restrictive!

Okay, so here are the reasons why I've made this suggestion.

Every single Final Fantasy game has explored new areas of gameplay, and most have a unique system behind them. The unique system for this game is the armory system, where people can change abilities based off of their equipment. The can also use cross-class abilities relatively effectively.

The issue with the current state of the game is that the armory system has been overshadowed by the implementation of the job system.

The armory system has all of the characteristics of a skill-based ability system, where people can level up multiple ability paths and use them all. However, in the end all players end up with access to the same abilities, causing dissatisfaction.
Another issue with this type of system is that people who have leveled a number of skills to their max will be far more effective than other characters of the same level that have only maxed one skill.

The job system has all of the characteristics of a class-based ability system, where people can only level up one ability path. However players of the same class will eventually end up almost exactly alike, with little non-equipment customization. Again, the lack of customization causes dissatisfaction.

In order to fix these issues, skill-based system normally have a limit to the number of skills that can be maxed. Class based systems tend to fix their issues by allowing multiclassing (seen in FFXI, WOW, and many more.)

So now we come to the issue of the current system. We have a skill-based system sitting as the base to the game, and a class-based system sitting on top of it. Both are affecting the same abilities, so the two systems clash.

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So what can be done? Obviously both systems will continue to interfere with each other if nothing is done, so either one system needs to be eliminated (not prefered), or the systems need to be combined in a hybridization.

FFXIV has the potential to achieve this hybridization, which I'm mostly certain has not been done in an MMORPG before. This could create a very unique system for FFXIV. Thus the reason behind this suggestion.

1) The skill based portion of the game.
-The greatest issue (power balancing wise) with skill-based systems are the exponential multiplication of skills and the homogeneity that it ends in. By limiting this to the low level skills, the exponential multiplication is not as evident.
-The other large issue, the need to obtain skill in EVERY job is also mitigated. By limiting the system to the low level abilities, much less time is needed to achieve low level mastery of everything. This is especially true as Most RPGs level exponentially, so the later levels are much harder to achieve. This also has the side effect of people getting experience playing ALL of the classes, while not being too-detrimental time-wise.
-Even though the exponential multiplication of low level abilities is not as game breaking, it would still be nice to mitigate this some more. We can use the usual method of fixing this by restricting the number of low level abilities available to the player at a time.

2)The class based portion of the game.
-Players like seeing the Job system, which is a familiar and recurring party of the Final Fantasy series. It is also very familiar to most people.
-Thus, we add in Jobs
-We also add in subjobs, to mitigate some of the issues of the class-based portion of the system.

3)The hybridization
-High Level Abilities determined by Job
-Mid Level Abilities detemined by Subjob
-Low Level Abilities free to all (But resticted in number)

4)Application
-High Level Abilities: Use the job system
-Mid Level Abilties: Use the class (weapon) system as the subjob
-Low Level Abilities: Use the armory system
*This can not only be used for abilities, but also traits as well*

5) Whats left: Determining what abilities fall where
-This is the reason for the list of abilities that all player should have access to.