Easier to create new jobs than base classes?

I remember reading somewhere, possibly from a Live Letter, that every new class took something like a year to create -- and that the team wouldn't be doing anything like they did with the scheduling of ninja again.

But that got me wondering, would jobs take less time to make since most of them build off of the base stuff we already have? I'd imagine (hope!) 4.0 isn't going to start us at level 1 -- maybe 40 with 70 as the new cap? Who knows.

I also remember reading that SE wasn't going to cram 3 new jobs into an expansion because it was just too much too soon (and you can tell they rushed with the jobs like machinist). I'm kind of hoping they'll launch 4.0 with two new jobs and then bring maybe a third and a fourth in soon thereafter as we explore new areas.

What do you think?

There's no need to create jobs with a base class anymore. Once people get their job crystal, nobody will remove it and play as a lv50 base class so the dev team has to make these base classes balanced somehow, even though no one is playing it beyond lv30.

New jobs branching off would cause people who already have it leveled to instantly be 60 or whatever level it is right away. Sort of like how leveling anything arcanist is like leveling both jobs at the same time minus gear of course so unless they change how that works I doubt they would do something like that. Plus they still haven't changed SMN and SCH sharing stat point pools.

They might be moving away from even using classes at all since the last three jobs don't even have one.

Branched jobs for existing classes will be hard to create as well. Hunter/Ranger for the example. Bard in this game isn't actually a bard but it already has a lot of Hunter's bow abilities. So making different abilities for the Hunter job must be difficult because most of their skills were taken by Bard. SMN and SCH were created when they already planned to make them a branch of ACN so there's no issue with them.

I'd love a hunter/ranger class much more than bard. Replace songs with traps. Yes please. That's why I was thinking they'll probably make archer a requisite base class to build upon for something else. Sometimes I wonder if they planned that far ahead since ACN> SMN/SCH didn't work out so well. Then again we could just have jobs start off at 40-ish with the expansion similar to how HW did. But then people would have no reason to go back to 2.0 areas, which SE seems fond of making us do.

Even if we don't have base classes, the jobs should start from level 1. Its just the bases of any RPG. Having the HW jobs start at level 30 was pretty lame IMO.

To go with what Evangela said, after 2.0 released, SE said they would never do branching jobs again because of how difficult it was to design and balance them.

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Originally Posted by Stormfur

I remember reading somewhere, possibly from a Live Letter, that every new class took something like a year to create -- and that the team wouldn't be doing anything like they did with the scheduling of ninja again.

But that got me wondering, would jobs take less time to make since most of them build off of the base stuff we already have? I'd imagine (hope!) 4.0 isn't going to start us at level 1 -- maybe 40 with 70 as the new cap? Who knows.

I also remember reading that SE wasn't going to cram 3 new jobs into an expansion because it was just too much too soon (and you can tell they rushed with the jobs like machinist). I'm kind of hoping they'll launch 4.0 with two new jobs and then bring maybe a third and a fourth in soon thereafter as we explore new areas.

What do you think?

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Well, they said after adding the Ninja that they wouldn't be adding a new job mid expansion because of how hard it was on the team.

I really don't get why we can't have more divergent classes into other jobs.

Marauder could branch into Berserker, dropping all his extra tanking abilities to allow for more DPS options.

Gladiator could branch into Myrmidon, dropping the shield along with shield abilites to pick up a second sword, to do dual wielding sword to turn into a DPS.

Pugilist could branch into Brawler, gain a stance that increases HP/Threat, and drop positionals on their abilities while dropping their damage.

The base abilities of these classes wouldn't change any, and you'd unlock their job abilities one by one, so wokring out how they play different should be that rough.

If they're not going to bother doing anything more with base classes/jobs, just drop the concept already. Jobs vs Classes are strange to new players, especially if they're ultimately pointless and no one has a good answer to anyone when they ask why it's set up that way.

They need to admit they goofed and just remove the class system all together. Give each job unique abilities that fill the current cross class meta and just smash the storyline quests together.

Nothing will be lost asides the relic of a system holding the developers down.

RE: classes vs jobs, for me the biggest design issue is that the classes continue leveling past the point where you can assign a job. Personally, classes should have stopped at 30 period, and to continue leveling you'd have to assign a job. All the class base abilities should be learned by 30 ( which might have required some ability simplification, but seeing how bloated skills are now that would have been a good thing). That way, adding new jobs would be easier to balance, and they'd start at 30 so not cumbersome to level, while still making you learn the class.

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Originally Posted by Lethallin

I really don't get why we can't have more divergent classes into other jobs.

Marauder could branch into Berserker, dropping all his extra tanking abilities to allow for more DPS options.

Gladiator could branch into Myrmidon, dropping the shield along with shield abilites to pick up a second sword, to do dual wielding sword to turn into a DPS.

Pugilist could branch into Brawler, gain a stance that increases HP/Threat, and drop positionals on their abilities while dropping their damage.

The base abilities of these classes wouldn't change any, and you'd unlock their job abilities one by one, so wokring out how they play different should be that rough.

If they're not going to bother doing anything more with base classes/jobs, just drop the concept already. Jobs vs Classes are strange to new players, especially if they're ultimately pointless and no one has a good answer to anyone when they ask why it's set up that way.

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The reason why they won't be doing this anymore is because of how much of a pain Scholar and Summoner are to balance code wise, and on the players side gear out, since they branch off the same base class. So, the likely hood of branching jobs happening anytime in the future in very very slim.

Also, once you hit 30, you put on your crystal and thats that. If you don't have it on, you start missing out on the stat bonus, the skills (which is only going to get more apparent as we go higher in level and get more skills and possibly traits), and the job specific gear. Like I've said in another thread, they need to just level cap base classes at 30. There really is no reason not to at this point. Toss all existing 30+ skills and traits on to the job (allowing a complete rework of scholar) and shuffle down cross class skills that are level 30+ to bellow 30. Which is easily doable and not game breaking by putting the level 34 cross class skills at 28 (in pugilists case put mantra at 28).

The reason why it's set up this way is because it's a hard coded remnant of 1.0 and because it's a FF1 staple to do a job change/advancement. If it was done like my suggestion, we really wouldn't have to worry about people being a 50+ archer because "They don't want to be a bard!" in any dungeon past Haukke Manor. It would force players to get their job crystal if they wanted to advance further.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

They need to admit they goofed and just remove the class system all together. Give each job unique abilities that fill the current cross class meta and just smash the storyline quests together.

Nothing will be lost asides the relic of a system holding the developers down.

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They've essentially done this already. None of the new jobs will ever have a class nor will current jobs be able to learn new abilities as a class. There's no point in officially pulling the system out of the game entirely.

I think they really need to overhaul the way this system works in this game. The cross class thing was one of the little things that made the FF MMO unique and at this point I don't know why they don't just get rid of it entirely with the treatment its gotten. I was really disappointed that rogue didn't have any cross class abilities for existing classes when it launched.

The dev team screwed themselves when they 1) made jobs in this game bound by weapons and 2) made classes + jobs. They would have more flexibility if they had just made jobs from the beginning instead of adding this "growing immersion" element that some people feel (like I'm training as a conjurer to become a white mage). In theory it sounds nice, but they realize what they did and are now trying to slowly untangle themselves out of this web. Flexibility with weapon types would allow them to add any job they wish in the future without fear that they will run out of job and weapon pairing, which in itself is kind of silly since white mage and black mage honestly use the same weapon type. Sure a cane is slightly smaller than a staff in reality but in this game, the weapon model sizes of both the white mage and black mage are identical. People honestly think this game is so polished and to a degree it is but honestly, the ideas lacked too much forethought and as time goes on it becomes more and more clear to more and more people.

One thing you can respect about Blizzard is that they are bold enough to revamp their class systems given how long the game has been out and for a little bit it greatly increases their sub base. Maybe the dev team and SE will learn by 5.0 that they have to go back to drawing board with a lot of their "core concepts" that people believe the team honestly believes in.

I kinda miss the sub class system of FFXI. I know the cross class system in XIV works similar to that, but FFXI allowed you to really experiment and make something unique. As for new jobs, I really hated that the HW jobs started at 30, because I felt robbed of time getting to know the role. The first time I started leveling DRK, I had no idea what I was doing because I had like 16 skills and abilities to learn at once. Starting off at level one feels like you're spending time getting to know your job. Starting off at level 30 feels like you just took over someone else's character.

They shouldn't do a job starts above level 1 again. I really didn't like being landed a ton of actions and have to sit and figure out what each and every single one does. And at the same time try to work out where to put them. Levels 1-30 don't take that long to play through anyway and it lets you get aquainted with the jobs mechanics and gives low levels more players to play with. Classes aren't really an issue but adding more classes is. If they changed it i would be in favor of that so long as they added depth into the system; not so they can take away choices or repackage what we already have.

I don't think the devs would keep having new jobs start at level 1. If jobs are going to be gated behind expansion packs like Heavensward did, then people are going to get tired of having to go back to very old areas just to level up their new jobs (or new low level areas if they even do that) before they can even begin to use them in the new zones and dungeons. I don't want to have it where 75 is the next cap and I have to start at level 1 and play the same old content for the umpteenth time for a new job.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

I don't think the devs would keep having new jobs start at level 1. If jobs are going to be gated behind expansion packs like Heavensward did, then people are going to get tired of having to go back to very old areas just to level up their new jobs (or new low level areas if they even do that) before they can even begin to use them in the new zones and dungeons. I don't want to have it where 75 is the next cap and I have to start at level 1 and play the same old content for the umpteenth time for a new job.

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Your still going to have to do low level content for the uptenth time anyway just not as low level. They have other ways they can mitigate it like more lv 1-x exp rings etc.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

There's no point in officially pulling the system out of the game entirely.

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Actually there is a point a good one.

They can get rid of cross class skills and focus on keeping each job unique and diverse giving them their own solutions to common problems while maintaining the flavor of the job and adding more diversity to the jobs themselves so everyone isn't so samey.

Yoshi-P doesn't really like the weapon gating and classes from what he's said, think those systems just stayed in for the sake of saving development time. Keep in mind if you remove cross class skills at this point in the game you have to either rebalance numbers around the lack of said skills or make entirely new "similar" ones for every job that could use that. You can argue that "well they can just use the current ones" but in that case would cost em alot less time to just leave it as is.

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Originally Posted by Gumbercules

Keep in mind if you remove cross class skills at this point in the game you have to either rebalance numbers around the lack of said skills or make entirely new "similar" ones for every job that could use that.

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That's exactly what they should do.

Will they do it? Of course not they have a habbit of allowing old systems and bad choices bog them down for years *Cough* Housing situations *Cough*

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Originally Posted by Alaltus

They shouldn't do a job starts above level 1 again. I really didn't like being landed a ton of actions and have to sit and figure out what each and every single one does. And at the same time try to work out where to put them. Classes aren't really an issue but adding more classes is.

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But, at level 30 you had essentially only 9 skills, only three of which were at all new to anyone who's played a tank: enmity combo, dark-RB Combo, mana-Lob*, dark-Flash, dark-Brutal Swing*, dark-Fracture, dark-Rampart, tank stance, and (stackable) damage stance*. They take barely a minute to read and set up on your bars. If you have used played any tank, used Blizzard II or Flash, DoTed, or stunned an enemy before, there's only 1 truly new button to figure out. (I keep this Darkside thing on, but, how would it run out in anything but the most massive AoE spams anyways?)

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Levels 1-30 don't take that long to play through anyway and it lets you get acquainted with the jobs mechanics and gives low levels more players to play with.

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It makes little sense for a hero who must be at least level 50 to necessarily drop to level 1 to take on a new form of an old role. Of course, I'd say that's an issue I have with the class and job system in general, as well.

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If they changed it I would be in favor of that so long as they added depth into the system; not so they can take away choices or repackage what we already have.

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That's pretty much how I feel on the subject as well. To replace cross-class skills with native job/class forms that function almost identically anyways seems a wasted opportunity.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

Actually there is a point a good one.

They can get rid of cross class skills and focus on keeping each job unique and diverse giving them their own solutions to common problems while maintaining the flavor of the job and adding more diversity to the jobs themselves so everyone isn't so samey.

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This can also be done while still being cross-classed. You borrow a concept from another job, such as TP restoration. The borrowing job in turn pulls that off in their own style. At that point the only real question is whether you want to have more than 60 levels of character progression. In the present system you're done at, say, 60/26/12. In the other, you're done at 60/15 tops, or if having removed even the off-class requirement for jobs, at 60/0/0/0/0/0/0. On to the next role.

Now, I'd be cool with that. But let's keep things in perspective. The mere fact you have that a set of abilities, from which you have an amount learnable exceeding the amount equippable, learned through and shared by various classes, does not mean that every class would be unable to use an individual form of each of those abilities (even if each by a different name). That is a separate issue.

The fact we never got Musketeer but instead straight up jobbed into Machinist was a real kick in the pants.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

The fact we never got Musketeer but instead straight up jobbed into Machinist was a real kick in the pants.

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Biggest let down ever!

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Originally Posted by Canadane

The fact we never got Musketeer but instead straight up jobbed into Machinist was a real kick in the pants.

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Musketeer class into corsair job.. rip