[@Devs] Please revise the current Armory System

To all forum members who might read this, please understand and keep in mind that I am voicing two concerns that some players have and not starting an argument, discussion, flamewar, or wishlist regarding the Armory System. If you have input strictly regarding the two concerns voiced below, feel free to add your own opinions, otherwise please keep irrelevant topics for other threads.


Dear Devs,

I'm aware that the number of topics and threads regarding classes/jobs is quite large, so please forgive me if I'm restating a concern that has already been voiced in any of the official forums (Japanese, English, French, German, etc). I have no doubt that the arrival of version 2.0 will usher in Armory System reforms, however I do have two major concerns regarding the class/job mechanics.

The first of these concerns is the class/job mechanic. Currently classes and jobs are too similar to justify having both. Unless jobs become significantly more distinguishable from their class counterparts or there is a notable amount of jobs that can branch from each base class, then it might be better to meld both class and jobs together into a single class. However, if several new jobs are indeed created per base class (maybe not all at once) then there is the problem of players having those new jobs automatically leveled due to the shared EXP pool between classes and jobs.

The second of these concerns is the restriction of a single weapon type per class/job. While it may defy the core principles of the Armory System, allowing players 1+ different weapon type options per class/job would lead to more flavors of the same class/job instead of everyone having the exact same generic build. Different weapon options or perhaps a secondary weapon (not to be confused with dual-wielding) could allow players to adapt their classes/jobs to different enemies or battle situations as well as give players the option to use more intricate battle tactics.

I'm aware you might not be in a position to reveal any information, but if possible it would be appreciated to know your opinions regarding these two concerns. Thank you for reading this post. Whether you [the Devs] consider these concerns or not, I have faith in your decisions and results you are striving for.

--Karazaki

You are correct, Jobs do not add a whole lot to what Classes currently are. I think I know how this happened. It goes all the way back to the days before Jobs were introduced. As I recall, the story goes something like this:

* The following is a dramatization *

SE: You wanted classic job names? You wanted more defined party roles? Well good news! You will get all that in the new "Job System".
Players: That's nice, but classes are still too homogenized and need more distinction.
SE: *sigh* Fine.
Players: Yay! Hey wait, now Classes are just like Jobs. What's the point of having both?

* End dramatization *

So what went wrong? SE gave the players what they wanted by removing class homogeneity, replacing it with more defined party roles, which was the primary purpose of the Job system. What results is a system that is more of a fun thing to do, instead of the party role-defining system it was supposed to be.

IMO, to fix the issue of Classes and Jobs being too similar, the Armory System needs to become a little less specific and more homogenized, something between what it was and what it now is. I believe what some fail to understand is that the Armory System at its core was supposed to be homogenous in order to allow people the freedom to play their way. Jobs were the perfect solution to defining party roles, but class and battle reform stole its thunder.

If Classes were to broaden in order to allow more viable cross-class functionality, then the one class, one weapon topic becomes moot, especially as it is a fundamental aspect of the Armory system and can't easily be removed without removing the system entirely. I like where they are headed, but I feel they made an error by creating such well-defined classes.

they just need to add job traits to amplify skills a bit when on a job. I think that could fix almost everything(including pld)

I do remember the dev staff mentioning that they were planning on having more than two jobs per class.
I have to, however, question your 'concern' regarding job growth. Remember that jobs have an 'alternate' levelling, being a quest-based advancement. I am not very sure at all what you see as a problem there.

Also, if you do pay attention, they're not exactly limited to one weapon per class but one 'type' of weapon, like axes (of which there ARE a variety of), polearms (there are a lot ranging from bardiches to quarterstaves), blades (from knives to bastard swords), etcetera. So yes, they do and can in fact 'vary' each class's weapons within the types and have each weapon 'subtype' have a variation in abilities (like, I do think that knives are faster and deal more crits and blades are slower and cause more damage. Also I do think that longbows and shortbows have different attributes overalls, same with small and large shields). I just think that this is the sort of thing they're leaving for 2.0 given it's not ACTUALLY worth the effort to implement it right now (or at least I do not think it is).

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Originally Posted by Karazaki

The first of these concerns is the class/job mechanic. Currently classes and jobs are too similar to justify having both. Unless jobs become significantly more distinguishable from their class counterparts or there is a notable amount of jobs that can branch from each base class, then it might be better to meld both class and jobs together into a single class. However, if several new jobs are indeed created per base class (maybe not all at once) then there is the problem of players having those new jobs automatically leveled due to the shared EXP pool between classes and jobs.

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Personally, I think they've done a pretty good job distinguishing classes from jobs. Yes, jobs do have every ability that their class counterpart has, but they have abilities that make them stand apart as well. Jobs are also restricted in what abilities they can pull from other classes, so you don't see the "Everyone must have Sentinel for Ifrit" anymore.

I don't think the shared xp thing is a problem either. As it sits right now, you're basically just adding 5 more abilities to your palette of everything you've already learned between 1-50 on the class, so it shouldn't be much of a learning curve to figure out the other abilities. This really doesn't warrant a need to level a job from scratch.

MY personal issue with the armory system is how classes are rendered nearly useless at max level. I mean I guess it makes sense since jobs were designed to replace classes for party play. THM is about the only one that has any situational use in the dungeons. Otherwise, classes are pretty much only useful for soloing purposes while leveling up.

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The second of these concerns is the restriction of a single weapon type per class/job. While it may defy the core principles of the Armory System, allowing players 1+ different weapon type options per class/job would lead to more flavors of the same class/job instead of everyone having the exact same generic build. Different weapon options or perhaps a secondary weapon (not to be confused with dual-wielding) could allow players to adapt their classes/jobs to different enemies or battle situations as well as give players the option to use more intricate battle tactics.

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I think if their plans are to have each class branch into multiple jobs, those JOBs should use a different weapon. I'm not really for each class/job using multiple weapons since the skills are class based and not weapon based. I used multiple weapons in FFXI because:

1) Each weapon skill level was something to advance
2) Each weapon had different skills associated with them

The issue I have with using multiple weapons within a class is that there is no variety in what skills you're using; you're just using the same WS with a different weapon. What I feel they should do is keep each weapon unique to its class/job.

Touching back on multiple job paths per class, let's say Gladiator becomes Paladin and Dark Knight. I believe there should be weapons developed that are DRK ONLY, just as there are weapons that are PLD ONLY. That way, they can create the Great Sword or Scythe weapon type and assign it only to DRK. I don't know if they want to go back and rework all the current jobs or not, but I think this would work pretty well, instead of making Great Sword or Scythe a class weapon that's shared with a job. One of the potential problems with this though is how much more itemization it'll add. (if that's considered a problem?)

In summary, I think things work pretty well now, but the system as a whole could use some tweaking. I'm sure this is under consideration for 2.0, but it remains to be seen what changes they'll actually implement. It seems right now their priority is to add another caster class, so we're probably only going to see one new class/job combo at 2.0 launch.

They need to just get rid of classes and keep jobs, and have us unlock jobs as stand alone classes not linked to anything. Linking jobs to classes will make it hard to make newer jobs down the line more unique if they have to be linked to the class and use its base skills. If they just released jobs by themselves they could make them as unique as they wanted to without having to worry about keeping them within the class they are linked to.

Another thing that would fix is the EXP being shared between class/job, which is horrible imo. In 2.0 when it hopefully brings in "new players" and we all have 50s, and they release new jobs, theres really no reason for us to go and play with new people who join if our jobs all start at 50.

i will add my concern: lets say they will add Dark Knight as a job for Gladiator, wouldnt he have the 15 base skills from Gladiator just as Paladin and have 5 new skills. But the diffrence would be rly small compared to Paladin. Also would the 15 base Skills even fit Dark Knight at all?

And how will they solve the Weapons? For example if Dark Knight has a two handed sword, but Gladiator doesnt have one? will they just add them for Gladiator too?

i rly want them to succed with this system but there are things which doesnt make sense atm. and just remove the Classes and replace them with jobs only doesnt work too, because the Armory system is to deep in this game. would be way too much work.

removing the classes would take way too much time and work. there are quests, lore, items etc you would need to rework. this would take months if not longer.
Of course the could make it so thats for example Gladiator is the mainjob and when you advance with it you will become a paladin. SO it would be just a higher ranking in the same job. but it would be still a lot of work and i dont see it happen.

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Originally Posted by Saiph

i will add my concern: lets say they will add Dark Knight as a job for Gladiator, wouldnt he have the 15 base skills from Gladiator just as Paladin and have 5 new skills. But the diffrence would be rly small compared to Paladin. Also would the 15 base Skills even fit Dark Knight at all?

And how will they solve the Weapons? For example if Dark Knight has a two handed sword, but Gladiator doesnt have one? will they just add them for Gladiator too?

i rly want them to succed with this system but there are things which doesnt make sense atm. and just remove the Classes and replace them with jobs only doesnt work too, because the Armory system is to deep in this game. would be way too much work.

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Actually, thinking about Dark Knight it'll either fit Marauder or Lancer better than it fits Gladiator, just as a note. Probably all the different jobs will be getting pretty unique with the 5 abilities they get, for example check Bard, do you think it'll play even remotely close to what a possible 'Ranger' job would?

It's also pretty possible for there to be job-exclusive weapons, after all aren't they adding Job AF Weapons in the close future after all?

yes of course the will be diffrent in their job defining abilities but 15 out of 20 abilities will still be the same and you will still use them more often then the job specific abilities because they have relative high cooldowns.
Its just a concern i have because i dont know yet how the devs will handle all this.
The Dark Knight was just an example. I also remember some developer post about how gladiator could get Dark Knight.

The armory system as it is now will restrict future jobs too much. I dont want to be playing "Dark Knight" using your example, with a bunch of Marauder or Glad skills with 5ish Dark knight skills. If its going to be a bunch of reused skills over and over again then No thanks! Id rather see jobs with their own 10-15+ unique skills.

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Originally Posted by PunkRocker

The armory system as it is now will restrict future jobs too much. I dont want to be playing "Dark Knight" using your example, with a bunch of Marauder or Glad skills with 5ish Dark knight skills. If its going to be a bunch of reused skills over and over again then No thanks! Id rather see jobs with their own 10-15+ unique skills.

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You are asking for new classes then, which will have their own jobs as well. I do believe they plan on doing that too

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Originally Posted by Skies

You are asking for new classes then, which will have their own jobs as well. I do believe they plan on doing that too

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I would rather see a standalone job system like FFXI had

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Originally Posted by Skies

You are asking for new classes then, which will have their own jobs as well. I do believe they plan on doing that too

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That goes back to the problem that classes are just stepping stones.

Maybe they should remove a few abilities from the base class for each respective job relative to the role of the job. So for PLD remove 3 or so offense oriented abilities (though, aside from ws's, gld would have to HAVE 3 offense oriented skills, as pointed out, the classes are rather specific too) and replace them with 3 pld oriented abilities, those plus 5 pld abilities would help the jobs feel even more different from one another and more so from the base class. Maybe even do the same with a few of the traits.

I really like the concept of multiple jobs per class, and also freeing up weapons instead of the who armory's "weapon equals class". It was a good idea, but it doesn't fit any more.

I do CERTAINLY like not having to level up 20 different jobs to be able to see all the content for those. I don't have the time, nor ever did to put countless hours into grinding just to see a sliver of story and then back to countless grinding. Being able to switch up my job for another while still progressing in the other(s) really helps keep things both interesting and flowing.

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Originally Posted by PunkRocker

I would rather see a standalone job system like FFXI had

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Aha, then you're asking to remove jobs and give added abilities to classes

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Originally Posted by Skies

Aha, then you're asking to remove jobs and give added abilities to classes

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Sounds more like removing classes and giving jobs the abilities to equip a variety of weapon types, not just subtypes.

Hello,
I recently created a post with a suggested solution to this issue here
Considering I wrote a wall of text, here is a brief summary.
-Keep Jobs, but remove the link to classes (allowing multiple weapons per class)
-Turn classes back into "Weapon Users", and use them as "subjob"
-------shifting some abilities to jobs
-Turn all first tier abilities free to all classes, with a number limit (10 equipped at a time)(The Armory System)

This combines the role-based, and skill-based systems that have been implemented, leaves the lore where it is, keeps the specificity of the job system while allowing customization, and creates a unique system for the game.
---It does still have the issue of XP-share across jobs, unless the XP was switched to jobs, but if that was done it would feel somewhat like a replica of FFXI, which I don't want to see. Each distinct Final Fantasy Game has been unique, lets keep it that way.

I would appreciate input, as I'm sure there are possibilities that I have not considered.

You could also add skills to each class that removes the "role" of classes, and have jobs add some skills and then allow those jobs to choose from the "focused" list of skills. For example

Lancer is a DD class and Dragoon is a DD Job. If you added skills for Lancer that gave it a tanking role but barred Dragoon from using Tanking skills you would build not only a use for Lancer itself (you could tank or DD with it) But also preserve the DRagoon job focus (DD specializeation)

If this was done with every class GLD, MRD, CNJ (Heals/DD) etc then not only would current jobs be a specialization/improvement on a specific focus. But also open up the basis for additional jobs that occupy a different role.

Maybe a a new job from Lancer could be a long staff using tanking job. And by equipping a longstaff this class can choose from a defined list of lancer abilities mostly consisting of the tanking type plus the skills that are rewarded by being this longstaff user.

And as far as a Dark Knight goes. By adding DD and tanking abilities to base classes you can now add greatsword as DK only Job weapons and say you choose GLD as the "Base" class you now have a choice of mostly DD skills for the DK while PLD gets choice mostly from the Tanking GLD skills.

ANd classes servive because though not specialized they can DD and tank. Switch as needed but not do as well as the jobs.

You get specialization with Jobs and a focused choice of class carry-over skills. And job specific skills.

You get versatility of Role and skill selection with classes but not quite the focused power from jobs. But you can Tank of DD with your GLD, or Lancer, or MRD.

If you like closely at the skills, you can divide them between 3 types
- Spells (Skills with MP cost)
- Weapon skills (Skills with TP cost)
- Job abilities
If you want to refer to FFXI, you can easily assume that all sword users will share the majority of weapon skills. In the case of GLA, it means that you'd probably have 9 of its skills wathever your job.
That leaves only 6 Job abilities open for the "GLA vs PLD" debate, while the PLD gets 3 abilities on its own (+ 1 WS and 1 spell).
Besides, keep in mind that the level will eventually be raised, and i think we will see fewer new class skills (Maybe 5 for the 25 next levels, if they go to 75 like in XI), and more of job skills, or even traits .

Stop complaining, this system is fine, and here is my counter argument:

the jobs now have the class's abilities, which makes sense since they inherit the class's philosophy in fighting; however, having less unique abilities allows for expansion higher than lvl50 cap. Secondly, don't try to make it an ffxi clone, that's why I left, i enjoy the difference in this game. And, I want the armory system to stay in that direction, you ffxi lovers go play ffxi.

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Originally Posted by cha0sking

Stop complaining, this system is fine, and here is my counter argument:

the jobs now have the class's abilities, which makes sense since they inherit the class's philosophy in fighting; however, having less unique abilities allows for expansion higher than lvl50 cap. Secondly, don't try to make it an ffxi clone, that's why I left, i enjoy the difference in this game. And, I want the armory system to stay in that direction, you ffxi lovers go play ffxi.

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Though the jobs may be intended to inherit the class's philosophy in fighting, by now that "philosophy" is roughly homogeneous for every class that any unique interest is mostly delayed until the job level.
<
Fast Blade, Heavy Swing, Heavy Shot, True Thrust...
I.e. You get one basic attack that functions in the exact same situations and with the same advantages as everyone else's.
Skullplitter, Savage Blade, Heavy Thrust, Concussive Blow...
You get another ability that you will probably only every use in a combo. Works basically the same as everyone else's. Class niche enforced through bonuses (for better or worse) -- increased enmity, increased damage, stun, disarm.
Next, all melees, grab one ability to be used from a random direction requiring you to move from wherever you're likely to be. This will also work in about the same manner as everyone else's.
>
Though differing in stats and advantages in certain conditions, the classes are well off from carrying any distinct combat mindset. The sad thing is that it existed better before: Lancers functioned as debilitators and linear cannons, with their own preferences on how they wanted their enemies to be lined up, escape paths, etc. The same was mostly true for Archers, moving between artillery and conical attacks based on threat, with their own deadzone both in general and in Arrow Helix. An archer paired with a lancer would work differently than an Archer paired with a Gladiator, not just in the statistical components of their combination, but actively changing the strategy of at least one of the players.

My first reason for loving this game was probably the Lancer's Skewer ability, and just how distinctly "Lancer" it felt. There's hardly one ability until past the point where one can become a Dragoon (even if continuing in Lancer) that gives a distinctive class feel. Granted, that's going to be a subjectively-based opinion; we are talking about a feeling, which is just about as vague as a philosophy.

I don't mean to rant about past patches--I'd agree that they were far from perfect as well--but the point is that the jobs are short a good portion of their mentioned 'inheritance.' Compared to the jobs, the classes feel lifeless, which leaves one with the obvious question of 'improve the part in need' (re-invigorate the classes) or 'improve the situation' (compromise, and make a more practical construction between classes and jobs).

As is probably obvious, I'd like the prior. I'd rather see both types feel distinct and original. But without that, the armory system feels more like a failed concept than a game's point of originality.

Jobs seem 'Meh' at the moment because they aren't really meant for mid-level play. Keep in mind, we won't be level capped at 50 forever. SE had to base the Job system off where we will be one day and not where we are now. I get it, you want MONK to just break-dance the socks of your PGL...and he will, one day, around level 75...until then, it's a slight difference.

Also, each class will be the keystone to unlocking several different jobs one day. Again, that will come down the road. New classes will be added. Yoshi P. already has said a new Mage class will be amongst the first to be released as we need more Mage Classes. New classes=new weapons types. Speaking of, each class/job currently can equip several different styles of weaponry they all just are the same type.

Basically, SE gave us the job system now, to show us what is to come, but it's not finished. Most people are only ever disappointed by the job/class system because they don't see that big fancy sexy end-all ability yet. But when has a video game, MMO or otherwise given you your best moves mid-game? Patience.

The armory system as it is now isn't so bad. Yes, it's more complex than FFXI, but not by a whole lot. It's just a matter of understanding simple things like Optimal Level gear = Level Synced gear or changing the main weapon = changing your job in a mog house.

Now as far as Dark Knight goes, IIRC spells like Drain, Bio, and Absorbs have been removed from the THM/BLM spell pool. However I also noticed that Lancer/Dragoon have signs of Dark Knight, like Dread Spike and Blood for Blood (Darkness/Souleater). This leads me to believe that Dark Knight is going to stem from Lancer in some way.

Still, it would be excellent to see new types of weapons available for advanced jobs. For example, original classes like Marauder and Gladiator are restricted to their specific weapon... but the advanced version (Warrior/Paladin) get access to new weapon types, such as Great Sword for Paladins or single-handed Axe for Warriors who also want to use a shield. In other words, options for the Paladin to be a bigger Damage Dealer and options for the Warrior to use something single-handed so a Shield can be used off-hand for more tanking/survival.

Since Lancer has more Dark Knight style skills than Marauder and Dark Knight uses spells, I can imagine having to take Lancer to 30, Thaumaturge to 15, and having Scythes available at that point for Dark Knights only.

Either way, I predict some for of Dark Knight in the future, if only because of the removed Dark Magic spells from THM's arsenal.