Soul stones really need to be required for 31+ instanced content.

I've run into players without their job's respective soul stone in level 31+ content several times now, and I don't think there's been a single occasion where it was a honest mistake and it was always someone wanting to "challenge" either themselves or the group because every time it got pointed out they only responded with dismissive remarks if anything.

Granted, there's the option to kick them if they're proving to be a huge liability, but there shouldn't even be a window open for this to happen in the first place because it's forcing the rest of the group into a lose-lose situation where they have to either carry players who are significantly weaker then they should be due to lacking key skills or face a potentially long wait for replacements if they end up having to remove tanks and/or healers.

Yes it should be a requirement but maybe not for immediate 31+ content just to allow the genuine new players to deal with levelling, gear and such. Probably after Brayflox's Longstop which is level 32. It's unfair like you say to enter the queue with such a significant disadvantage and expect the rest of the party to basically carry you though it because you will not have access to your job skills, weapons etc.

That said though the Devs probably would not make any changes as you can kick then, after the timer expires but then you have to go through the process of waiting on the timer and then a replacement.

Agreed. Maybe have the option to take it off in party finder just in case you have the odd group that wants to run an alliance raid with no crystals or something like that. But for Duty finder, there definitely should be a requirement.

I suspect it's spaghetti code - the game doesn't seem to be able to recognise them as continuous or something.

I'm particularly thinking of the unicorn mount quest where you have to be a conjurer to progess - it won't respond if you're a WHM, even though they're essentially the same.

I would guess they can make a job auto-equip a soulstone all of the time or none of the time, but can't make it calculate based on level.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I suspect it's spaghetti code - the game doesn't seem to be able to recognise them as continuous or something.

I'm particularly thinking of the unicorn mount quest where you have to be a conjurer to progess - it won't respond if you're a WHM, even though they're essentially the same.

I would guess they can make a job auto-equip a soulstone all of the time or none of the time, but can't make it calculate based on level.

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What is spaghetti code?

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

What is spaghetti code?

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The game was originally built in a completely different way with a completely different combat system (among other things). And then 1.0 bombed REALLY hard, it was a mess all around. But instead of just shuttering the game, they rebuilt it from the ground up and rereleased it as a Realm Reborn. To do so, they didn't have time to build a new engine from scratch, so they had to rebuild the game off 1.0's code. The problem is that a lot of what they did to make the game more internet friendly (and fun to play) required working against the existing code, so they had to make a lot of short cuts and such to get the game to work.

So basically the game's code is a big mess, like spaghetti. Hence "Spaghetti code". They often run into a lot of technical issues that they gotta work around, which is why the game lacks certain things that are standard in other MMOs (like a better glamour system). Hell, apparently even having height differences can cause issues, in E4S they nearly weren't able to have the mechanic where the platform lowers in certain spots, it was apparently pretty buggy and they had to figure out a way to make it work.

Could be Road to 70.

That thing causes you to speed level so people might be meeting the level reqs for these dungeons but are still locked behind the MSQ for their job stone. You are likely to hit 30 a while before you reach Sylph Management.

The 'spaghetti code' thing is just a stupid meme now - ARR does not use 1.0's code, it uses an entirelly new engine based on components of the Luminous Engine from FFXV (this is accepted fact). There are items, gear and character/enemy models reused from 1.0 but these are rendered in the new engine and are not using "old code".

Limitations with content are simply a result of a hurried development schedule due to needing to get ARR's base systems running and stable in order to meet the mid 2013 launch deadline, and they didn't want to screw up a second time around, so in order to make the base game functional that meant having to make as a closed system that was difficult to change or add new components to (such as glamour), and sacrificing allowances for futureproofing. It's not "spaghetti code" but just code that functions in such a way as to be limiting in how new additions are made (a lot of the problem is much of the processing for things like moving items around in your inventory is done server side instead of client side, so that all impacts on how content is designed for the game.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

Could be Road to 70.

That thing causes you to speed level so people might be meeting the level reqs for these dungeons but are still locked behind the MSQ for their job stone. You are likely to hit 30 a while before you reach Sylph Management.

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Yes, but aren't lv30+ dungeons similarly locked behind MSQ progression?
if you can queue into Stone Vigil, you should have already unlocked your job stone quests.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

The 'spaghetti code' thing is just a stupid meme now - ARR does not use 1.0's code...

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My understanding is that it doesn't use the code but had to be compatible with it? Certainly for 1.0 players transferring their characters in. And they generally build on top of old systems so it's... maybe not spaghetti but like a weirdly built house with extensions upon extensions but not remodelling the original building.

In the case of jobs, I assume it's still got one foot stuck in wherever that classes were the main thing and/or classes and jobs were both viable options.

Anyway, the age of the coding doesn't change my example about the 2.0 unicorn quest that can't proceed until you remove your WHM job stone so it recognises that you're a conjurer.

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Originally Posted by dangadget

Yes, but aren't lv30+ dungeons similarly locked behind MSQ progression?
if you can queue into Stone Vigil, you should have already unlocked your job stone quests.

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MSQ ones are. IDK about other ones that are just unlocked via short side quests like Cutter's Cry or The Sunken Temple of Qarn. Guildhests are also not MSQ locked.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

MSQ ones are. IDK about other ones that are just unlocked via short side quests like Cutter's Cry or The Sunken Temple of Qarn. Guildhests are also not MSQ locked.

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You can unlock those side dungeons while still quite early in MSQ progress, yes.

Some might require joining the Scions, I think, and by that time you're close to reaching the MSQ stage that unlocks jobs, but not quite there.

That should be one of the requirements set by Wheiskaet before let you accept the lvl 33 quest "As You Wish". Something like "Sorry kid, but.. yeah i know, you did what i told you and everything but... you still don't seem to be ready for what'll come so... go back and become a more "special/stronger/badass" someone, then maybe i'll tell you how you may face Titan. got it? good"

Every time I que to Main Story Roulette without jobstone, at least I am making sure that my gear is decent.
Sorry not sorry. I'm just tryna have some fun. :D

This does seem easy enough to fix. We know they can limit dungeon entry. Just put a 'soul crystal required' tag on all the level 30+ instances (ignored when in a full party or unsynced, as usual) and have Brayflox say "you don't look ready, come back when you have a job" if you get to the Longstop without one. Anyone queuing for leveling roulette without a job will get thrown into a low level dungeon just like if you intentionally lower your ilevel.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

You can unlock those side dungeons while still quite early in MSQ progress, yes.

Some might require joining the Scions, I think, and by that time you're close to reaching the MSQ stage that unlocks jobs, but not quite there.

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I know that Sylph Management comes after beating Ifrit and on an alt I have on a preferred server I fought Ifrit at around level 35/36 without having done much roulette. I had the quest to do Qarn in my logs, pretty sure. I looked it up and it seems like level is the only requirement.

Someone having done even a little roulette or sidequesting on a preferred server could be 38 at Ifrit without much trouble and that person could also could also very well have Cutter's Cry unlocked since the dungeon is located in a low level area.

I'm not saying this sort of thing happens all the time but new players on pref servers doing all the content they find could easily get ahead of the MSQ and land themselves in side dungeons without a stone as an honest mistake.

Yeah. I don't really care about what the MSQ asks of you, since people are still going to do this with classes other than the one they used to advance the main scenario.

Should lock you out of Duty Finder from 35+ if you have no soul crystal. Some tighter item level restrictions, too. Ideally with a weighted average system since weapon, chest, and legs are way more important than everything else.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I suspect it's spaghetti code - the game doesn't seem to be able to recognise them as continuous or something.

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Nah the technology is already there and has always been. There is nothing in the code that stops SE from locking duties above lv31+ to jobs only. The high-end duty finder already works this way. All it needs is a management decision.

Well I think some new players forget to update/save their equipment set under the character profile. If they switch lets say at level 31 PLD and they switch to level 5 whatever class and then they switch back it will default to 21 GLD because they forget to update the equip set with the jobstone they wouldn't realize it because you don't really see new skills until a little later in levels.

But I think it mostly boils down to people forcing a roulette to something they want to do. Best thing to do is treat roulette with a gear lockout. once you are in, you can't swap gear.

+1


Classes are really unnecessary at this point of the game and they become completely irrelevant after level 30.


It's not what it used to be, like when a tank could cast Raise on a dead player. Cross-skills were much more useful and fun to play with but jobs simply render them useless.

Soul Stones are overrated. Can clear things like A12 Savage, min ilevel and no echo without job stone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOHZBr4u7yk

Of course that was an era where cross-skills were a thing.

A lot of code in the game is tied to class so it's not something they can snap Emet's finger to change. Lookup most of your armor/weapons that are not relics even at level 80, they are equitable at CNJ/WHM, or MRD/WAR, LNC/DRG, etc.

Soul Stones need to be done away with as an equipable item. Once you do the job quest unlock, that should be it. And the job quest should be required to advance in the MSQ like they have done with Crystal Tower now and with the Role Quests in ShadowBringers.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I suspect it's spaghetti code - the game doesn't seem to be able to recognise them as continuous or something.

I'm particularly thinking of the unicorn mount quest where you have to be a conjurer to progess - it won't respond if you're a WHM, even though they're essentially the same.

I would guess they can make a job auto-equip a soulstone all of the time or none of the time, but can't make it calculate based on level.

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They can change the requirement of that quest. Better yet, they can hopefully eventually remove classes altogether.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

Could be Road to 70.

That thing causes you to speed level so people might be meeting the level reqs for these dungeons but are still locked behind the MSQ for their job stone. You are likely to hit 30 a while before you reach Sylph Management.

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Can confirm. Made an alt to play through with a friend who just came back to the game, and that plus the massive bonus to quest experience, I was above level 30 before getting to that quest. However immediately upon completing that quest the little indicator under the next MSQ quest in the top corner had the sub alert that I now have a new job quest available. So an attentive player will be notified at that point that they can go do the next quest.

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Originally Posted by technole

Soul Stones are overrated. Can clear things like A12 Savage, min ilevel and no echo without job stone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOHZBr4u7yk

Of course that was an era where cross-skills were a thing.

A lot of code in the game is tied to class so it's not something they can snap Emet's finger to change. Lookup most of your armor/weapons that are not relics even at level 80, they are equitable at CNJ/WHM, or MRD/WAR, LNC/DRG, etc.

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technole you are on to something!

from now on I am only queuing for CT without a soulstone; hopefully we can get an entire premade or alliance...

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Originally Posted by Avenger

technole you are on to something!

from now on I am only queuing for CT without a soulstone; hopefully we can get an entire premade or alliance...

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Our FC used to do jobless runs in alliance raids. We even did it day one for Dun Scaith, a lot of fun....and salt out there.

As long as it doesn't apply to premade full groups. Did a Puppet's Bunker run the other day with 24 people all without soul stones. Took 65 min with no wipes

Hm.. when I first joined I didn't do my last arcanist quest for summoner for a long time. Not really 'on purpose' per se'. Just that the quest itself was hard for me compared to any others. (NPC kept dying). But I stayed arcanist and was able to hold my own against monsters in dungeons every time it was required. Like I never saw myself carried by the other players... So maybe they just don't know how to play or are being lazy?

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Originally Posted by Nekaru_Infitima

Hm.. when I first joined I didn't do my last arcanist quest for summoner for a long time. Not really 'on purpose' per se'. Just that the quest itself was hard for me compared to any others. (NPC kept dying). But I stayed arcanist and was able to hold my own against monsters in dungeons every time it was required. Like I never saw myself carried by the other players... So maybe they just don't know how to play or are being lazy?

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All of the instances where this happened for me were with players who already had other classes capped, so it's definitely not a case of not knowing.

Lazy, maybe, but deliberate trolling seems more probable. If people want to do jobless challenge runs they should do it with like-minded players rather then forcing themselves into groups that just want to clear and get out.

I remember queueing up for Trials roulette and getting The Dancing Plague, for there to be a level 73 Pugilist with us. We weren't able to get past the DPS check, although I'm not even sure if it was just because of this one player or if everybody else was doing poor DPS. It definitely took a while though. We ended up kicking him out after a few wipes, and after the replacement came in, the run went pretty smoothly.

How do you go through the whole game without having your soul stone equipped? We asked this person to get their soul stone equipped and they had no idea what we were talking about.

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Originally Posted by Mengh

I remember queueing up for Trials roulette and getting The Dancing Plague, for there to be a level 73 Pugilist with us. We weren't able to get past the DPS check, although I'm not even sure if it was just because of this one player or if everybody else was doing poor DPS. It definitely took a while though. We ended up kicking him out after a few wipes, and after the replacement came in, the run went pretty smoothly.

How do you go through the whole game without having your soul stone equipped? We asked this person to get their soul stone equipped and they had no idea what we were talking about.

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I think only a level-skipped player could have that as a valid excuse.

Basically all of your new skills are tied to the soul crystal for HW onwards so any normal player would realize something's up after not gaining any new abilities for 20+ levels.

It's so rare to see this happen it will probably never be addressed.

Stoneless runs can be fun and novel, though it might be prudent to prevent individuals or small groups from entering content without their stone. That way parties that wanna enjoy running content like that still can.

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Originally Posted by Floortank

It's so rare to see this happen it will probably never be addressed.

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Yeah. While it would probably be really easy to fix, it's also probably unnecessary. It's not like this is a common occurrence. In 7 years and thousands of instances I can probably count on one hand then number times I've seen a class in anything higher than Brayflox.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Yeah. While it would probably be really easy to fix, it's also probably unnecessary. It's not like this is a common occurrence. In 7 years and thousands of instances I can probably count on one hand then number times I've seen a class in anything higher than Brayflox.

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I'll counter that anecdote with one of my own.
I've seen this at least 5 times just within the past year, in dungeons ranging all the way up to Aurum Vale.
At least two were genuine mistakes, and the player in question apologized profusely, and in one case volunteered to be kicked so we wouldn't be burdened, while in the other cases, the player in question was dismissive of the concerns, or outright hostile to it being called out.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

All of the instances where this happened for me were with players who already had other classes capped, so it's definitely not a case of not knowing.

Lazy, maybe, but deliberate trolling seems more probable. If people want to do jobless challenge runs they should do it with like-minded players rather then forcing themselves into groups that just want to clear and get out.

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Yes, even if I advocated jobless runs of content in my post, I would only recommend it in a full-party. That's how we always did it.

It used to be more fun when there was cross-skills, basically over time they have been dismantling the jobless concept.

It always required doing some things differently. Like at max level CNJ you don't have Cure III and Regen, as those are WHM only, but Medica II is CNJ so that works instead. That goes to show how old and how much work still has to be done to really clean out the class system. It's a lot of entrenched stuff.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Yeah. While it would probably be really easy to fix, it's also probably unnecessary. It's not like this is a common occurrence. In 7 years and thousands of instances I can probably count on one hand then number times I've seen a class in anything higher than Brayflox.

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I counter this with a regular occurance of classes in for that times current raids, 24 mans and expert dungeons over the last 6 years I played. Less then half of them were by accident, most were on purpose to "challenge the party/CoTank/CoHealer" or because they didn't like the asthetic of the job so they stayed by the class, main crafters that only have the class so they can progress MSQ and get carried by other players to reach new content.
But the biggest offender was a healer that shared the information he didn't do any class nor job quest as CNJ because he liked more simple ways of progression aka leveling only but he applied to our raid static for Sigmascape Savage anyway, despite not having Cure II or any WHM skill.

I see this often enough that I agree something should be done about it, but I wouldn't make it right at Brayflox or anything. ARR duties aren't so problematic that lack of job is a big deal yet at that point, and tank stances are part of the class now so we don't have to worry anymore about gladiators not being able to hold hate, for instance.

HW (50) and up though, definitely, mainly because that is the point where all new abilities/traits from then on are tied specifically to the job, so clearly that's the point where even the game no longer really considers it acceptable to still be on a base class and is really pushing you to get your crystal if you don't already have it.

And yeah, premades should be able to bypass the restriction if they want. Incidentally, I saw a PF last night for a 24-conjurer run of The Puppet's Bunker. Don't know if they ever filled out; that's a little too masochistic for my tastes, but I would have loved to spectate that somehow.

There definitely seems to be an increase in this occurring lately. While running around doing FATEs for the Yo-kai event, I've seen at least half a dozen people that were at least level 40 with no job stone and severely low level gear (one was even wearing the Valentione's Day boots with no helmet at all, and the rest of their gear was pretty low). I really think there should be a pop-up when you reach level 30 to say "hey you can acquire a job upgrade for this class! Go to [job-specific location] to begin!"

It wouldn't hurt as a quality of life feature. The development team already bent over backwards to implement an easy mode for solo duties. They also expect more experienced players to shoulder the burden when it comes to less experienced players - which isn't a terrible thing in itself but would be made much easier if the thread's proposal were to be made mandatory.

My guess is that it happens mostly due to people skipping dialogue/tutorials or just ignoring their job quests altogether.