Why are soul stones/job quests not required for MSQ progression or content in genera?

This thought just crossed my mind again after seeing that there's a new type of bot being mass-produced across the servers that progresses through the MSQ through "normal" methods to avoid detection from the STF.

They're all archers, but they never unlock BRD because they're too stupid to finish their job quests without dying (They don't dodge AoEs at all, which is an easy way to get yourself killed in any form of content). However, they do queue with randoms throughout their leveling process, forcing people to deal with a player who's both inherently limited by their lack of job progression and exceptionally stupid.

While this is a significantly rarer occurrence with actual players, the fact that it's allowed to happen at all when BLU is being limited specifically because they were worried about people doing content without skills that are virtually mandatory to perform your role properly is really baffling.

I'd like to hope this is part of the combat overhaul we're getting in 5.x, but I'm not feeling terribly confident about it.

Classes should have the same restrictions as Limited Jobs once they reach 35. Not unlocking a job immediately at 30 might be forgivable, but by 35, the game should force job acquisition at least, even if it won't force all job action unlock quests.

Oversight?

I don't think when building the game they really took into account bots doing this as well as players who refuse to switch because, "I'm a Ranger" or some other misguided reason. However, I agree by lv45-50, there should be something that slaps 'em on the wrist and points them to their job quest. Ideally, lv30 because of DRK/AST/MCH.

If it weren't for me taking off my job stone to get rid of the gauges for decorating, I would certainly like to see soul crystals bound and unable to remove. Turn them from items into something tied to your character wholly. But minimizing simple mode doesn't get rid of it when I'd like my screen clean for a specific instance.

Many people have been asking for soulstone and (lenient) min ilvl requirements in leveling dungeons for some time now.
Does anbody knows of official statements about this issue? While rare, I've seen people even in 50+ content without soulstones. Not quite as rare and equally annyoing for the rest of the party are severly undergeared people, wearing shire gear in late SB dungeons, Zenith relic in mid/ late HW dungeons etc.

I'd love to see some requirements added for leveling dungeons because most of them are harder than experts but unlike them, they have no requirement whatsoever.
Doesn't have to be much, something like:
- soulstone in 35+ group content (-> freepass for Titan & Longstop, required in Qarn and later)
- previous jobquest for min duty level done (54-56 dungeon -> lv 52 jobquest done)
- min ilvl according to previous NPC gear you can buy with min duty level

I think it's still pretty lenient because it basically means, you didn't rush through MSQ without doing job quests and managed to find the npc selling gear every 2-3 levels to fill in for slots you didn't get via dungeons/ quests. If one jobskill is missing they could already have, I'm okay with that. But no more than that, please. Escpecially at 50+ they're really making a difference.
Aside from the max level jobquests, they are usually done in no time anyway. So having those 5-10min every now and then shouldn't be an issue.

A nice red warning displayed in DF telling you:
"Following requirements not met:
* Level x Job quest
* min iLvl xy"
Ideally with a pop up offering to port you in front of your class dude to get it done.

I think it was simply oversight on their part because they probably didn't think people would be so neglecting with their job quests/ gear or even purposely refuse to equip their soulstone for rp reasons.

I've even seen lvl45 arcanist bots. They are for sure getting around it.

If they implemented this it would help them crack down on bots. Like why is this person named afdjklf fjkdslf a lvl45 archer? Lets check their chat history/game activity.

Restricting the upper-30-Dungeons just like Frontlines would make sense (Frontlines requires you to be level 30, but you can't enter as an archer or any other class without their jobstone)

Doing current content without soul stones used to be a lot of fun before Stormblood because we had the old cross-class actions back then. (Party of Thaumaturges with Provoke.) It's kind of pointless now.

Classes had some advantages over jobs back in ARR, usable but basically on the way out in HW, and pointless in SB.

Essentially, it's an old system that's never been updated.

How will that prevent bots? They have always been a problem and will always be a problem. Adding a check for a soulstone isn't going to stop the problem of bots in dungeons. You build a better mousetrap, they build a better mouse, etc. Then they go and get the level 30 soulstone and never do another quest again anyway.

Personally I'd rather SE focus on making the game a better experience for the players than spend all their time devising more restrictions in order to combat bots. I know it's considered a radical idea to some, but if gil wasn't such a big deal in this game (meaning certain sellable things being so rare that they end up priced extraordinarily high) then bots wouldn't have a job. As long as SE continues to treat the economy like they do, players will want to take shortcuts to earning gil to afford the things they want and can't get, and bots will continue to exist to farm gil.

If the content is designed with a certain min ilvl and with the assumption that the player has a certain set of skills, they should be minimum requirements for at least solo/non full party DF queue. Period. If the group is an entire premade, they can do w/e they want.

Honestly a lot of the things they put in or don't seems to be based on the assumption that no one is going to be a troll/everyone actually cares about what they are doing so it relies on the honor system. Sort of like how people used to spam ready check when they added it (now it shows who is doing it and can't be used in combat), or how people still spam vote abandon after wipes (you can't tell who is starting it so they still do it repeatedly even after it doesn't pass the first time).

Its the same as min ilvl for leveling dungeons. SE doesn't/didn't think it would be necessary.

The yoshi P answer would be Hardware limitations.

That aside, it probably has a lot to do with how the game is scripted when it comes to dungeons and implementing a job requirement would require a lot of recoding to make sure it works right. People got to understand that often enough, a lot of these 'simple changes' require actually a lot of work if theyre operating off of an older engine. Most of the core stuff the game runs on now came from 1.0, and as a result, theres some stuff coded in there that cant be pulled out without breaking a lot of things.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

This thought just crossed my mind again after seeing that there's a new type of bot being mass-produced across the servers that progresses through the MSQ through "normal" methods to avoid detection from the STF.

They're all archers, but they never unlock BRD because they're too stupid to finish their job quests without dying (They don't dodge AoEs at all, which is an easy way to get yourself killed in any form of content). However, they do queue with randoms throughout their leveling process, forcing people to deal with a player who's both inherently limited by their lack of job progression and exceptionally stupid.

While this is a significantly rarer occurrence with actual players, the fact that it's allowed to happen at all when BLU is being limited specifically because they were worried about people doing content without skills that are virtually mandatory to perform your role properly is really baffling.

I'd like to hope this is part of the combat overhaul we're getting in 5.x, but I'm not feeling terribly confident about it.

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This wouldn't be a problem if the playerbase kicked players without their job stones, or people that stood in aoes constantly even after being told not to.

It's mostly just a "We didn't really think this through" addition to the game.

Yes, job quests have recently been more active in pointing out your Soul Crystals and what not. But gameplay-wise they're a weird vestigial aspect.

Like, nothing is really done with them. They're just... There... Sitting in your armoury chest or in that little space on your character. Never being interacted with once you save a gearset that includes the Soul Crystal. Even Armoury Chest space gets updated with each new job so you don't have to juggle them.

It's sort of odd really.

Though, idiots being idiots... They find a way to be stupid and not actually do job quests and therefore not get a Soul Crystal for a job... Or better yet, they do the first quest and get the Crystal but then never equip it...

Still... It could be worse, it could have been like the Heart of Azeroth from WoW, complete with terrible Azerite farming in order to get stats and ilevels on the thing... Meaning that idiots would both NOT have it and thus not have the job, but also not have farmed it up and thus not have all the stats too >.>

We'll see if they end up doing anything about it... Like, will they simply get rid of them and tie them to your weapon? Will they add in restrictions to improve DF so that idiots don't make it worse for people? Will they do nothing at all and keep expanding the Armoury Chest to fit each new Crystal in?

Since I haven't seen it mentioned...

I think the simplest way to solve this would be to stop putting classes on weapons (and/or armor) beyond a certain level. To avoid mucking with existing stuff, they could easily just not put classes on things lv71+. We already have equipment that is job-only so it shouldn't break anything, and it elegantly skirts the need to add some new requirement onto the content itself.

"But wait!" I hear you say. "The market board filters by classes, not jobs! Anything that's job-only would not show up!" I hope that would be easy enough to change, though that does make you wonder what else is still relying on classes under the hood.


With all that said, I haven't seen anyone on a class in ages. This can't be that big of a deal. Personally, I'd rather see the job-only stuff on gear just to reduce the amount of extra garbage text in the tooltips. MNK DRG SAM is just cleaner than seeing PGL LNC MNK DRG SAM.

Anything past Haukke Manor should require a job stone for duty finder. If you want to challenge yourself playing with a class, do it with a preformed party.

Seeing a marauder in Orbonne Monastery makes my brain hurt.

On the subject of those weird bots, most of them have mysteriously vanished after hitting level 50.

I don't think they got banned, because there are still some stragglers in the mid-high 40s range spamming FATEs, but I'm curious as to what their ultimate purpose is/was...

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

How will that prevent bots? They have always been a problem and will always be a problem. Adding a check for a soulstone isn't going to stop the problem of bots in dungeons. You build a better mousetrap, they build a better mouse, etc. Then they go and get the level 30 soulstone and never do another quest again anyway.

Personally I'd rather SE focus on making the game a better experience for the players than spend all their time devising more restrictions in order to combat bots. I know it's considered a radical idea to some, but if gil wasn't such a big deal in this game (meaning certain sellable things being so rare that they end up priced extraordinarily high) then bots wouldn't have a job. As long as SE continues to treat the economy like they do, players will want to take shortcuts to earning gil to afford the things they want and can't get, and bots will continue to exist to farm gil.

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Because at least then the Bots will look like a brain-dead player rather than a bot. Would you rather have a conjurer healing your expert roulette at lv 70(it happened to me. Wasn't very fun)? This also prevents people from just not getting it in general and reminding them to do their class quests. It's something that sets a mousetrap for bots and keeps the outdated classes from hindering higher level content overall.

This change would really only hinder the MSQ bots and only those that are fully automated as opposed to just lazy players who actually play on occasion (And thus do the parts that can't be done using bots).

Virtually all of the job quests have mechanics that will kill you if you don't avoid them, Echo buff be damned, so the only bots that are actually completing them are those hacking gil farmers who resort to moving themselves out of bounds where they simply can't be hit.

It's not so much about the bots as it is enforcing a realistic performance standard and not creating a double standard with BLU, though, because they really have little reason to be restricting that class if people can get away with similar incompetence with other classes.

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

Personally I'd rather SE focus on making the game a better experience for the players than spend all their time devising more restrictions in order to combat bots. I know it's considered a radical idea to some, but if gil wasn't such a big deal in this game (meaning certain sellable things being so rare that they end up priced extraordinarily high) then bots wouldn't have a job. As long as SE continues to treat the economy like they do, players will want to take shortcuts to earning gil to afford the things they want and can't get, and bots will continue to exist to farm gil.

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Except it's not just bots that do this. I've ran into a few actual players who either didn't know about the job crystals or didn't care and held back their groups as a result. I don't see an issue with the proposed restrictions. There is 0 reason for a legitimate player to not have their job crystals equipped. It should be a requirement to enter any piece of content after level 30.

Yoshi P said they are eventually removing classes(as early as 5.0 if I recall) so perhaps by the end of next month this will be a non issues.

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Originally Posted by SerLuke

Yoshi P said they are eventually removing classes(as early as 5.0 if I recall) so perhaps by the end of next month this will be a non issues.

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To be 'that guy', he said that they were planning to remove classes eventually, but never outright said they were definitely removing them. Either way, the May Live Letter should give us an idea of where they are taking the battle system at least.

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Originally Posted by MrThinker

To be 'that guy', he said that they were planning to remove classes eventually, but never outright said they were definitely removing them. Either way, the May Live Letter should give us an idea of where they are taking the battle system at least.

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Hey, I'm 'that guy' too.

Yeah, it was might remove them, but not until 5.0 at the earliest.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

Hey, I'm 'that guy' too.

Yeah, it was might remove them, but not until 5.0 at the earliest.

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Frankly, they needed to go back in 3.0.

The way it is now tho, its easier to spot scrubs and bots. Although I do agree that it should be changed. Would like to see the total removal of the Class system entirely.