Classes vs Jobs status?

This has been a post I wanted to make since 3.0... But ever since I recently tried to explain classes vs jobs to my girlfriend who just started playing, the question came back up.

I remember since 1.0s Dev switch, the idea was to change the class mentality to jobs, with class being an option for more cross skills. The only time then it was viable that I recall was for thau on rare content for healing.

Then with 2.0 smn/sch came out on one class, and most people believed over time, other classes will get more jobs per class as well. Like say gladiator getting drk and pld.

Now with ninja and then the 3.0 jobs (all I'm happy for granted) it seems they're going far away from multiple jobs per class. Are they planning to change something to suit this, like abolish classes? Just curious...

SCH/SMN didn't turn out so well, so I don't see them repeating that. I don't know whether or not classes will actually get taken out or if it's just too much of a hassle to do at this point. Classes will fall further and further behind though, as we get more job skills.

The system is just a relic of 1.0. Don't ever expect a new Class. It will be all Jobs from now on.

It maybe a relic but rouge/ninja is fairly new and it came out with a class. I agree that classes are beyond pointless but have the dev team given any indication about them one way or another?

Also about the comment about smn/sch, did it fail? I thought it did great 0.o how did it fail?

ACN having two Jobs failed because of an oversight on SE's part connected to the change to ARR - in that each class/Job's abilities were specifically controlled or guided by one stat, thus players would naturally pump most of their AP into that stat (like, MND for CNJ/WHM). This worked fine for a single Job, as each Job generally refined the role of it's based class and thus continued to make use of it's controlling stat.

ACN though, which was officially designated as a magic DPS, (and thus INT would be it's guiding stat), suddenly had a healer Job option in addition to it's DPS Job - thus those who put all their AP into INT and wanted to play as SCH found themselves stuck, as their healing spells (which required high MND) was neutered.

A band aid solution was found by reducing greatly the price for Keeper's Hymns (which allow the player to reset a class's spent AP), but it wasn't really fixing the root cause of the issue. Either way, it showed too many flaws with the system and thus SE abandoned trying to give other classes multiple Jobs, leaving ACN's two Jobs as an orphan, an experiment that just didn't work as well as they had hoped.

As for the Heavensward Jobs having no base class and starting at level 30, that was born from an entirelly different cause and was yet another failed experiment on SE's part - as the new Jobs were gained from Ishgard that not only required level 50 access, it also did not have a level 1 area next to it - the min level for enemies in Coerthas Central Highlands is around the mid 30s. And given the fact the expansion's storyline kind of has the player on the run from the starting cities, it created a tight spot in providing a location to level new classes and Jobs with. Thus, the new HW Jobs were made as separate 'Extra Jobs' and not regular 'Disciples of War or Magic'.

Again this hasn't worked as well as SE were hoping - one of the main reasons for even having levels is it allows the player to gradually learn how to play as the class, starting with one or two basic abilities and then as they gain exp learn new abilities that compliment what they've already learned. With the HW Jobs however, that isn't the case. Players are suddenly chucked in the deep end and given 30 levels worth of exp instantly and told "Off you go, it's up to you now." Although most players did get the hang of the new Jobs more or less eventually, it was still a rather unfortunate affair all round and showed just how poor this idea really is.

Really (and I've mentioned this in a few earlier threads), in a perfect world I would love SE to actually bring consistency back to the Armoury System, and change these experiments to bring them in line with the rest of classes/Jobs - starting with removing SCH from ACN and giving it's own new base class (Mediator?), and then add three base classes to the Heavensward Jobs, thus changing them to proper Disciples of War and Magic - starting with bringing in the long dummied out class Musketeer which would be an obvious choice for MCH, with AST and DRK getting, say, Mystic and Ravager respectively? With that done, I would love to see maybe a change to the base classes made by removing cross-class limitations on class abilities while a Job crystal is not equipped, thus truly allowing players to experiment with customization, and leaving Jobs for duties, dungeons and raiding. But, such an idea is probably sadly unlikely by this stage (*sighs sadly*).

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

SCH/SMN didn't turn out so well, so I don't see them repeating that. I don't know whether or not classes will actually get taken out or if it's just too much of a hassle to do at this point. Classes will fall further and further behind though, as we get more job skills.

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Meh, that only happened because of how they implemented jobs.

Chances are classes will just sort of be ignored until SE decides to do a Cataclysm-style revamp of the game, which would lead to them changing the leveling experience and sort of drop classes and their respective quests. Say that in this scenario instead of starting as a lv1 Gladiator in Ul'dah, you can start as a lv1 PLD and go from there, with a lore explanation that the Gladiator's guild was absorbed by the Sultansworn and turned into a training school for them, and you'd be a random nobody that is basically being trained there. By the time you hit 30 the leader of the Sultansworn (Jenlyns) takes you under his wing, continuing the PLD questline as normal. Minor text alterations to fit this are a given.

The 3.0 WAR questline hints to this already, so I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of changes to how classes and jobs work if not in this upcoming expansion, the one after.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

ACN having two Jobs failed because of an oversight on SE's part connected to the change to ARR - in that each class/Job's abilities were specifically controlled or guided by one stat, thus players would naturally pump most of their AP into that stat (like, MND for CNJ/WHM). This worked fine for a single Job, as each Job generally refined the role of it's based class and thus continued to make use of it's controlling stat.

ACN though, which was officially designated as a magic DPS, (and thus INT would be it's guiding stat), suddenly had a healer Job option in addition to it's DPS Job - thus those who put all their AP into INT and wanted to play as SCH found themselves stuck, as their healing spells (which required high MND) was neutered.

A band aid solution was found by reducing greatly the price for Keeper's Hymns (which allow the player to reset a class's spent AP), but it wasn't really fixing the root cause of the issue. Either way, it showed too many flaws with the system and thus SE abandoned trying to give other classes multiple Jobs.

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The problem runs deeper than that. It involves more the core gameplay that SCH was given because of it branching off ACN without any notable changes to said gameplay. As much as some may hate me for saying it, SCH shouldn't have access to entire ACN DPS spellbook, and the SCH job crystal should have changed some of those abilities (and traits involved) to better suit a healer. SCH would end up with similar DPS potential to WHM while having more heals in its arsenal, and chances are the outlook on healing would have turned out different.

That's right I completely forgot about that. I thought what they did was make it so when you switched to sch and smn they had different saves for the stats (allocation would be inputed differently as though they were two different classes)
Shows how much I know (or recall). Have both to the class to 50 but I never use smn outside showing off gear.

I think the stats allocation is a shallow pointless system within itself. If this is what failed the multiple jobs idea just take out the allocations. Asides mages if you wanted a little more mp over other stats I never saw the point as its all being dumped into one stat anyway.

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Originally Posted by Keramory

That's right I completely forgot about that. I thought what they did was make it so when you switched to sch and smn they had different saves for the stats (allocation would be inputed differently as though they were two different classes)
Shows how much I know (or recall). Have both to the class to 50 but I never use smn outside showing off gear.

I think the stats allocation is a shallow pointless system within itself. If this is what failed the multiple jobs idea just take out the allocations. Asides mages if you wanted a little more mp over other stats I never saw the point as its all being dumped into one stat anyway.

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One of many cases where the idea was more varied and interesting than the reality. The only reason they can't take out allocations altogether now is because of SMN/SCH specifically. Otherwise I'd agree that it should be done away with.

Personally, I don't have that much of a problem with the way Heavensward did the 3 new Jobs, as a response to Enkidoh. It was *extremely* awkward the first day trying to get the hang of everything for each class, but spending a little bit of time with them, none of them were quite as alien as they first felt. DRK had something very akin to a Rage of Halone combo, AST has the basic heals and esuna equivalent, etc. I can't say how well or poorly this worked for the population at large, though since I haven't kept up with that. I'm curious how the next Jobs that get introduced will be handled. It definitely will be Jobs, though. The further we get into the game, the more irrelevant base classes become.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

ACN having two Jobs failed because of an oversight on SE's part connected to the change to ARR - in that each class/Job's abilities were specifically controlled or guided by one stat, thus players would naturally pump most of their AP into that stat (like, MND for CNJ/WHM). This worked fine for a single Job, as each Job generally refined the role of it's based class and thus continued to make use of it's controlling stat.

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The obvious fix going forwards is to let you redisribute those points per Job. Have the devs actually ever said it failed?

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Originally Posted by RyuRoots

One of many cases where the idea was more varied and interesting than the reality. The only reason they can't take out allocations altogether now is because of SMN/SCH specifically. Otherwise I'd agree that it should be done away with.

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Nah it could be done away with. Your stats change as it is when you equip a job Crystal. Just adjust that.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

ACN though, which was officially designated as a magic DPS, (and thus INT would be it's guiding stat), suddenly had a healer Job option in addition to it's DPS Job - thus those who put all their AP into INT and wanted to play as SCH found themselves stuck, as their healing spells (which required high MND) was neutered.

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Neutered is a bit of an over exaggeration. I play a SCH and the difference between having the MND and not with points is a low amount (added maybe 100-200 to my heals at 50). I figured out the problem around my 40s and decided to just put all the points into PIE and the mana boost wasn't great, but to me was better than the MND and it helps both jobs.

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Originally Posted by DragonFlyy

Neutered is a bit of an over exaggeration. I play a SCH and the difference between having the MND and not with points is a low amount (added maybe 100-200 to my heals at 50). I figured out the problem around my 40s and decided to just put all the points into PIE and the mana boost wasn't great, but to me was better than the MND and it helps both jobs.

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In Savage content, let's just say those 100-200 extra HP healing matters, especially over the course of the fight. Plus the extra mind means that when you step into Cleric Stance (something a SCH often has to do), you can pump out more damage (again, which matters in Savage, those enrage timers are harsh) since the extra mind then becomes extra int.

Honestly I think SCH didn't fail, it did pretty damn great at 50. It was a job much preferred in every static because it can easily do good DPS without wasting too much MP so I believe it wasn't a failure. It became even more powerful at 60, too powerful I think.
SMN's side however had left a bad impression to players because of how weak it is...not until Heavensward however.

EDIT: I understand that ACN branches to two jobs, meaning both share the AP of ACN. I guess the only way SE could fix this is by making the AP of SCH and SMN separate (which I think they mentioned they're planning or not?)

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Originally Posted by Keramory

Also about the comment about smn/sch, did it fail? I thought it did great 0.o how did it fail?

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There was the stats thing that people have mentioned, but that wasn't the biggest cause. The problem was that back in late 2.x, SCH was extremely good and SMN was not, compared to BLM. And the problem was that SE could not really buff any of SMNs main DPS tools, because that would also buff SCHs too. And so SMN was pretty much behind BLM towards the end because they didn't want to make SCHs even more powerful. Introducing new classes at this point would be unnecessary, but there wouldn't be any issue with them, providing they remain lv30 and below and don't split into two jobs.

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Originally Posted by dinnertime

Honestly I think SCH didn't fail, it did pretty damn great at 50.

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I don't think anyone's saying that SMN or SCH failed, just the concept of having a class being split into two. For reasons I mentioned above, as well as the bonus attributes thing.

Edit: And no, I highly doubt they would change the ACN roots of SMN or SCH at this point. If it were to happen, it would be taken away from SCH and that would ruin the job and role balance completely. I could go into a lot more depth, but that's for the healer forums. ;p

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Originally Posted by Kabzy

I don't think anyone's saying that SMN or SCH failed, just the concept of having a class being split into two. For reasons I mentioned above, as well as the bonus attributes thing.

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Yeah, edited to add that at the same time you posted. Still, SCH didn't really fail as a job but SMN actually did and the other points you made with buffing ACN skills being a problem that would make SCH even more powerful, which I think was the biggest issue about it as well.

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Originally Posted by dinnertime

Yeah, edited to add that at the same time you posted. Still, SCH didn't really fail as a job but SMN actually did which I think was the biggest issue about it as well.

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That could be seen as subjective though. It wasn't ideal but good SMNs could still complete FCoB without being a hinderance to their teams. Not to mention the extra utilities they brought via Resurrection / SuperVirus. It was a safer option to bring a BLM, but I wouldn't say SMNs failed by any means. It was just the concept of not being able to buff one job without it affecting the other which failed, in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

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At this point I honestly feel they should just fold those base stat bonuses in to the jobs themselves and ditch the bonus stat as you level system. Each class has only one stat worth putting points in to anyway, there is no meaningful choice or gameplay behind it. Especially now with tanks getting fixed so that full vit builds are the go to route, they may as well just get rid of it.

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Originally Posted by Kabzy

That could be seen as subjective though. It wasn't ideal but good SMNs could still complete FCoB without being a hinderance to their teams. Not to mention the extra utilities they brought via Resurrection / SuperVirus. It was a safer option to bring a BLM, but I wouldn't say SMNs failed by any means. It was just the concept of not being able to buff one job without it affecting the other which failed, in my opinion.

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I just really believe it was a weak job in 2.x. While they have more room for mistakes and mobility than BLM and the utilities, I still think BLM is a much better option because of their high DPS and infinite MP. I suppose saying that SMN failing in 2.x is quite harsh but I guess I'd call it as a weak job at the time...but not anymore. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by RyuRoots

Personally, I don't have that much of a problem with the way Heavensward did the 3 new Jobs, as a response to Enkidoh. It was *extremely* awkward the first day trying to get the hang of everything for each class, but spending a little bit of time with them, none of them were quite as alien as they first felt. DRK had something very akin to a Rage of Halone combo, AST has the basic heals and esuna equivalent, etc.

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My main learning curve was rearranging Ast and Drk's default hot bars to resemble my Whm and Pld's. FInding the base heal, AoE Heal, ect. Putting the HATE grabber, base 1>2>3, stun, etc together.

After that it was business as usual. And all I needed was the training dummy (and a few guildmates to test the AoE Heals) to figure out what skills were what. Mechanist didn't have nearly the learning curve for skills but to this day (Like with Bard) the rotation is still largely unknown to me.

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Originally Posted by dinnertime

Honestly I think SCH didn't fail, it did pretty damn great at 50. It was a job much preferred in every static because it can easily do good DPS without wasting too much MP so I believe it wasn't a failure. It became even more powerful at 60, too powerful I think.
SMN's side however had left a bad impression to players because of how weak it is...not until Heavensward however.

EDIT: I understand that ACN branches to two jobs, meaning both share the AP of ACN. I guess the only way SE could fix this is by making the AP of SCH and SMN separate (which I think they mentioned they're planning or not?)

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Neither job is a failure in and of themselves. What's a failure is how difficult it made balancing them because they share so many skills, not to mention the fact that they share those stat points despite each using a different stat.

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

SCH/SMN didn't turn out so well, so I don't see them repeating that. I don't know whether or not classes will actually get taken out or if it's just too much of a hassle to do at this point. Classes will fall further and further behind though, as we get more job skills.

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Issue for me is, SCH and SMN are the best jobs in the game (again to be clear in my opinion). The only issue with them being the same class is having to constantly swap your attribute points between them. That said, the attribute allocations are pretty useless and I'd rather they just remove it completely. With them gone, I'd have no problem having more job paths from base classes.

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

Neither job is a failure in and of themselves. What's a failure is how difficult it made balancing them because they share so many skills, not to mention the fact that they share those stat points despite each using a different stat.

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Indeed, as mentioned above, I'd remove the attribute allocations. Also, if I were to add new jobs, I'd probably either have them share a base stat/role, or not have the ability to share a stat with a stance. i.e...

ROG gets a tank job. They would need VIT, and I'd just have VIT work the way for that job the way VIT will work for STR tanks in 3.2 - in that VIT will increase damage for that job as well as HP in some combination with DEX. Conversely, this Rogue could have evasion skills that are based off DEX.

Ranger/Bard from Archer (both DPS, bard more support DPS ranger more straight DPS).

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

Issue for me is, SCH and SMN are the best jobs in the game (again to be clear in my opinion). The only issue with them being the same class is having to constantly swap your attribute points between them. That said, the attribute allocations are pretty useless and I'd rather they just remove it completely. With them gone, I'd have no problem having more job paths from base classes.

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It's one of the reasons I haven't used SCH much since 3.0.

One thing I think that they messed up too, is that while I love being a SCH and I love how the class plays, the immersion in lore is just entirely killed by it.

For whatever reason whenever you would see Hydaelyn, or have a vision of becoming your job from your class, the system ONLY recognizes the ACN-->SMN path. So all those times we got pumped up, that we were becoming more powerful and growing as a class, I got put in the SMN role and gear. It's like the system doesn't even recognize that you are a SCH because whenever anything has to do with your class, the game only thinks you will become a SMN.

Obviously it's nothing technical on my end why I don't like it, but if they can't even make the game recognize SCH as its own job, I am sure glad they didn't add more classes to be ignored by cutscenes and lore.

I have a feeling the class system is on its way out the door, just going by the fact that the Heavensward jobs have no class requirements (30 THM/15 ARC for BLM) to unlock like the original jobs do. As for cross class skills, even that system is kind of a mess. We got Goad as a cross class skill when Rogue/Ninja was introduced but no other job can use it with the way the current system is set up.

Like others have said going forward no more classes, but just jobs. I actually am sort of glad for the change in a way

How would classes go poof though, considering the guild houses in each city state?

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Originally Posted by Keramory

How would classes go poof though, considering the guild houses in each city state?

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Simple, those are your base "Here's your default weapon" classes while any jobs added to the game starting at 3.0 would simply get the "Extra Job" Crystals. 3.0's started at lvl 30, maybe 4.0's start at 50, 5.0's 60, and so on till the game runs it's self into the ground. (Again)

Not making new classes doesn't mean the existing ones get deleted. That's waste to much resources since they'd effectively have to recode everything. (Again)

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Again this hasn't worked as well as SE were hoping - one of the main reasons for even having levels is it allows the player to gradually learn how to play as the class, starting with one or two basic abilities and then as they gain exp learn new abilities that compliment what they've already learned. With the HW Jobs however, that isn't the case. Players are suddenly chucked in the deep end and given 30 levels worth of exp instantly and told "Off you go, it's up to you now." Although most players did get the hang of the new Jobs more or less eventually, it was still a rather unfortunate affair all round and showed just how poor this idea really is.

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A little dramatic there, don't you think? I would certainly hope that by the time someone has leveled a Job to 50, and subsequently unlocked their Ishgard-Job as desired, they will have some kind of idea of how to look through their abilities to see what matches up with what else.

Actually, no... you're right. There are players at Level 60, with more than one Job, that have not yet figured it out. I retract my post. Enjoy your day.

Wouldnt it be cool if you can customise skills?
Building individual your own skills from a pool of possibilities...

already said by Yoshida, no more class, they will not take out the one exciting, but don't expect to see another one added in the futur.