What do you want to see done with new Classes and Jobs?

To clarify: I don't mean which specific classes, jobs or abilities you want to see implemented (though feel free to use some as examples); I'm interested in how people think the Armoury system and character progression could accommodate new ideas and ways to keep things fresh, no matter how outlandish or unfeasible.

For instance, I'd like to see a soul crystal or two that could be applied to any base class and turn it into a second job for that class (or third, for Arcanist). Of course, that would play havoc with abilities; naturally, you couldn't make a single set of skills and spells to cater for all three roles. So while you might still gain generic abilities from job quests, like generic buffs and attacks, there would need to be a different way of earning class-specific job abilities. Something similar to the Blue Mage would be perfect for this, though there could very well be other methods.

But going with the Blue Mage example, class-specific abilities would be earned by clearing specific dungeons, or taking the attack from a certain boss, while as that class and having the soul crystal equipped. Preferably, these abilities would be at least thematically linked to the boss/dungeon, if not a direct copy of the boss's ability.

With this, each class gets differentiated from the rest and gets a unique set of skills distinct from its other job/jobs; and depending on how the job level is handled, you could feasibly skip the long grind to 60 and maybe even not have to expand the Armoury.

There's my idea. Discuss or add your own!

There likely won't be new classes. Even when Rogue was added, you'll note they did nothing to make 'Rogue' needed for the other classes, unlike Lancer, Archer, etc etc. Even the new jobs all pull from the same baseline (Marauder Glad for Tank, Archer / Lancer for Mach, Thm/Cnj for Ast)

This is because they have abilities you simply cannot ignore, and rather than scrap the entire armory system and create similar abilities between every class to maintain parity, you might as well use the system in place.

This means any DPS job in the future is likely going to pull from Lancer and Archer/Pug, any tank will pull from Glad/Mar, and any healer will pull from Conj/Thm. This eliminates both the need and hassle to make a baseline 'class'.

Without a fairly significant overhaul to the armory system, there's very little you can do to spice it up.

For example;

All 'ability' (not spell or weaponskill) unlocks via advancing classes are placed into a list that every class/job has access to.

This means a Dragoon could have swift cast if they really wanted, though it would have no point. (Wrong choices are still choices after all.)

You either have a limited amount of armory slots (as now) or a point total that accumulates by selecting outside-class abilities.

(Granted this would require a slight reworking of some CDs as they offer far too much bang for the buck, especially if we allow traits.)

A limited number of slots would allow the traited abilities, or in the point system, increasing the cost of said ability allows it to be the traited version if it's unlocked. Perhaps even allow -traits- themselves to be slotted into this armory system. Get -all- the stat boost. All of them!

The current system and direction does not allow for this. As it is now, it is merely acting as a place for all current and future jobs to pick up much needed abilities rather than incorporate them into the job as a baseline.

Kabooa hit the nail on the head.

They will not uproot current framework on new jobs. When RDM and BLU hit I am fairly certain, many will be sorely disappointed. BLU for instance, will learn an ability every 5 levels just like any other job and will start at level 30 (this precedent was set with DRK/MCH/AST). There will be no "learning" boss or mob abilities as it would not fit the mold that the game operates under, there will just be thematic skills learned every time you complete your job quest, as with any other job in the game.

Lastly, devs already said they made a mistake with ACN by sharing a DPS and HLR on the same root class, which they will not be doing again due to balance issues.

I'm not saying the current framework needs to be uprooted. If it ain't broke don't fix it, and all that. This is more of a "what if" thread than anything. But grinding out jobs in the same way each expansion is... well perhaps not boring, but uninspired. And something doesn't need to be broken to discuss possible alternatives or tweaks.

I like the traited abilities idea. You'd need to watch out for balance though, since (for example) in-battle resurrections are currently granted by traits in the healer classes. And you could partly get around the "needed" cross-class abilities from existing classes by allowing new classes to be cross-classed by old jobs, making sure to spread them evenly to keep parity, and offer different but still viable alternatives to current abilities. Difficult, for sure, but possible.

a taming system for beast master

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Originally Posted by m3eansean

Kabooa hit the nail on the head.

They will not uproot current framework on new jobs. When RDM and BLU hit I am fairly certain, many will be sorely disappointed. BLU for instance, will learn an ability every 5 levels just like any other job and will start at level 30 (this precedent was set with DRK/MCH/AST). There will be no "learning" boss or mob abilities as it would not fit the mold that the game operates under, there will just be thematic skills learned every time you complete your job quest, as with any other job in the game.

Lastly, devs already said they made a mistake with ACN by sharing a DPS and HLR on the same root class, which they will not be doing again due to balance issues.

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Hey, wouldn't it be easier to just make the Blue mage the job and have the Red Mage as the class, so that all of the job quests would involve learning a new enemy skill or something?

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Originally Posted by MPNZ

Hey, wouldn't it be easier to just make the Blue mage the job and have the Red Mage as the class, so that all of the job quests would involve learning a new enemy skill or something?

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I personally want Blue Mage to be a Mage-Based tank, with the capstone ability essentially mimicking whatever hits them (Though not the actual damage). Get hit with Ahkmourne? Sling it back. Get hit with Hypercondensed Plasma? Sling it back.

Get hit with Tapasaya? SLING IT BACK!

Red Mage is just in a strange boat. They're the jack of all trades in a game where specialization is what matters. Keeping that flavor is going to be difficult while still making it something you'd want to bring.

Personally I could see it being a Magic based Melee DPS class. It'd probably have the standard 'two combo chains', but to differentiate it, you have an interchangeable 'Fourth' combo that highlights the variety a Red Mage is supposed to bring, with separate cooldowns so you can't just mash the one with highest potency.
One Fourth Combo might stab and heal the party for a fraction of the damage.
Another would be a ranged lightning attack.
One might enhance the attack speed of nearby allies.
Etc etc.

I wish they would scrap the original classes and figure out how to fix it properly. Its a relic from 1.0, where it worked fine, but as the game adds more jobs and new classes, it starts to mess with things. I understand certain jobs are required to have certain skills. I think they need to fix this moving forward with any new jobs.

I would like the jobs to each branch of skill wise bc as the level increases in the game the more skills we get and less room. Easy way to fix this is have all jobs basically have to different play styles or have them branch off to two different roles. The one thing of ff11 was that i liked was that even tho a played as a red image I was different from my other peers. example let's take bard. And give it two play styles.

Bard
Marksman - Dps bard will stay the same(focus on dps with bow)

Songcraft- Healer bard will focus more on music to heal allies and weaen the for.

So basically you could play as a bard and go either role.

I'd like to see the entire combat engine scrapped and replaced with something actually fun.

no thank i like combat system. define your term fun i like this combat system all jobs are fun.

This may sound nuts, but for new jobs or existing jobs, I would like to see things that help with certain aspects of the game. Such as increasing buffing or debuffing by certain classes/jobs. I think we're sticking with the job system which is sad in a way because I really enjoyed the way classes looked and the quests.

For example, lancers use to have an ability that when activated, gave them TP regeneration and would give the mob a debuff of HP drain for the entire party / alliance hitting it. Something like that wouldn't be game breaking, and most likely you're going to have a DRG in the party.

There was once a great feature, at least to me, that would let you take a single target and make it AoE. I think being able to toggle that with things like aero or aero II would make things go smoother because we're not sleeping monsters anymore and killing one by one. The game is forcing us to take on groups, and people get over geared creating larger pulls. Something like this would help I think take down adds / trash.

Gladiators had a move that if you used and weren't main tanking increased your damage by a % for a period of time...

Things like that, with obvious adjusting, would help a lot. If we can't have a support and debuffer in the game then boosting that on classes/jobs would go a long way. I know people are worried that certain people will only want X job, I think there is no avoiding that no matter what you do as you progress to endgame. In the forbidden game, FFXI for example, I was told exactly what to spec my bard out for endgame runs. Or as a SMN I knew my role and was told...literally at one point to put my Pokémon away.

I enjoy buffing and debuffing, in some situations where we don't need to apply certain party buffs or debuffs like dungeons wouldn't mean much but in endgame it would maybe benefit people.

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Originally Posted by DarthVella

For instance, I'd like to see a soul crystal or two that could be applied to any base class and turn it into a second job for that class (or third, for Arcanist).

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I think stance dancing is becoming more of the norm for most classes, to me stances and changing the way they perform to an extent would do the same thing as soul crystals maybe? It would be nice to have stances to help with certain situations like THM/BLM, increase Fire II and make it a single target stance, or an AOE and a 3rd that would give a balance of the 2 and give them some magic defense buffs. Even though resistance means nothing that would mean that would have to change.

Or maybe I'm just over thinking and creating something that would be too much of a headache. In terms of BLU I think it would be great to gain a quest that has you run through dungeons to find a special monster to obtain and learn its moves. I would put a bit of RNG in there, make it 50%, then 75% then finally 100% chance of learning it, keep it in the rules of 3 I guess. RDM I think would benefit from debuffing DMG dealing melee, that each combo would create a debuff and grow with each combo.

I'd like them to be well designed and balanced. Skills that actually have synergy would be nice. I mean, they did it right with warrior then went in the complete opposite direction with DK. A class design that isn't completely homogeneous with another class would be good too (looking at you gun/bow mages), and lastly something fun, I'd like to avoid spending my entire time fishing for procs or managing fickle and multiple timers (mch and blm)

I would like to see spells having the option to be toggled aoe-single target, and honestly the crystals are kind of dumb imo. I mean what if i wanted to be a warrior with a lance? you could if all you needed was the soul crystal, but they require the weapon as well. I like customization and what not. But Archer couldnt use anything other than bow...for obvious reasons.. I know this would never happen. But maybe at least more cross classing. So i can solo on DRK and revive people who shout in the zone for a rez and not need to change classes just to help them. Not being able to use certain skills because of what pants your wearing is kinda... odd. imo.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

This is because they have abilities you simply cannot ignore

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It didn't prevent them from giving a raise to Arcanist and Astrologian even if they could have taken it from Conjurer.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

It didn't prevent them from giving a raise to Arcanist and Astrologian even if they could have taken it from Conjurer.

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Conjurer is no battleres without the trait from lvl 28.

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Originally Posted by Legion88

Conjurer is no battleres without the trait from lvl 28.

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Which is still extremely stupid...considering that Arcanists can as early as 22.