Has SE screwed itself?

[Meleena]

How about implememnting a new class to evolve into dark knight people, dont make this more complicated, its simple really...

[ZenBear]

How about implememnting a new class to evolve into dark knight people, dont make this more complicated, its simple really...

Except that's not actually simple from a design perspective. Making a new class for every (or nearly every) job is a huge strain on time and creativity of a team that already has to pump out new dungeons, storylines, and other such content as fast as possible.

A good rule of thumb; if the solution is simple, then it's incomplete. Nothing about game design is ever simple.

[RitzNBitz]

Except that's not actually simple from a design perspective. Making a new c

A good rule of thumb; if the solution is simple, then it's incomplete. Nothing about game design is ever simple.

A slightly simpler solution that is not incomplete would be to use the same class system they have now.

A GLA can use a sword(1h) or sword(2h) and the skills available to them would change based on their weapon on choice(an attack will lack emnity for example with a 2 handed sword). Class=GLA still

In order to use Dark knight stone you would need to be wielding a 2 handed sword, in other to use Paladin stone you would need to be wielding a 1 handed sword.

Conceptually its something they can easily achieve(since the functions already exist in code, so in the backend it might be GLA1 and GLA2 being two separate classes but to the end user would have the same name)

The hard part would be developing, balancing and testing the new skills.

[Sylve]

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Pretty much this. Had a discussion today in my FC where they tried to work out how they'd put a Red/Blue Mage in, and the general thought was "just use THM!" which was great and all, except then at 50 they'd be BLMs with 4 different job skills, and when i said as such, it clicked for them.

The thing is, theres nothing wrong with adding Base Classes to go with new Jobs. Hell, even making new classes that Sub 2 different Classes is a possibility.
Especially since we can *already*sub skills from 2 classes.
We have the one class we need at lvl 15 as the Subclass, then the second Class we can draw skills from. As an example, my Lancer needed PGL-15 to make Dragoon, but as a DRG I'm capable of also drawing skills from MRD.
Scholar needed CNJ-15 but also draws skills from THM.

I'd much rather every new job also came with a new class, so that all the new Jobs feel unique the way our current 9 jobs do.

[MartaDemireux]

I'd much rather every new job also came with a new class, so that all the new Jobs feel unique the way our current 9 jobs do.

The one major problem here then is you end up much like XI with a ton of base classes to choose from and level up independently. With the game catering a lot to the casual crowd, I don't see this working too well. The major draw for ACN for example is having the ability to fill 2 roles when you get to 50. ACN's jobs also have entirely unique feels to them. The way to go about this is to either change some effects of base class abilities (like my idea of turning flash into darkness for GLA>DRK) in the same way ACN did or to give the second job abilities that will shape it entirely the way SCH did. SCH's base mechanic is the same as ACN with Aetherflow but they won't use very many ACN abilities over their own SCH abilities.

[Sylve]

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They only dont use the ACN skills because the ACN skills dont heal.
I really don't see how new base classes equates to a problem of any description. How would the "casuals" be a problem for new classes?
A new Base class for a Red mage, would let it have its own completely unique abilities and story chains explaining how it came to be.
Otherwise, you'd have a core of Fire/Blizzard spam, with a sprinkle of random special skills.

Red and Blue Mages use very different kinds of Magic compared to a THM/BLM. the THM is all about destructive magics and personal fragility in its story, and the BLM continues that concept. Where does the Blue or Red Mage mechanics allow it to come from a class thats dedicated to pure destruction?

It might work for some classes, but many others will need whole new classes to function properly.

[MartaDemireux]

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Exactly. My point was that just because 2 jobs come from the same class they don't have to be similar. SCH and SMN are both unique while still coming from the same class; SCH is different because of its job abilities. They use primarily their job abilities while SMN uses primarily their class abilities.

I wasn't arguing anything about RDM or BLU in my last post as I was only directly replying to what I quoted. If you took a moment to glance at my signature you'd see that I have nothing against adding new classes for future jobs while also seeing that I advocate giving each current class a total of 2 jobs, each class getting 2 different roles to play at 50.

New base classes however does mean that casual gamers will have to level yet another class to 50 to participate in events. Before 2.0 if you wanted to be a magic DPS and a Healer you would have to level WHM and BLM. Casually playing in today's game that could probably be done in 4 weeks or less so you'd need 8 weeks or less in total. But now we have ACN, level that up and bam, you cover both roles taking half the time. You'll still have to gear both if you want to play both but the total time investment is lowered by a large amount. I know someone that has leveled a tank up and has said "I really want to have a DPS available in case the group doesn't need another tank but I just don't have the time to invest in leveling it from scratch." I know a DPS in the same situation that wished they chose ACN so they could be a healer too.

The same can be done in the future. Add DPS or Healing roles to current tanks (like DRK and BRS), DPS or Tank roles to current Healing (like GEO), Healing or Tank roles to current DPS (like DNC or TMP). For example: My idea for FNC>RDM+MST makes the Fencer a DPS class, Red Mage its DPS job and Mystic Knight its tank job. However, if RDM DID end up coming from THM, they could have job abilities that make it differ greatly just like SCH does.

[Sylve]

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I used the Red/Blue Mages as example to why jobs like that need their own base classes.

My point is that certain Jobs can be added to existing classes to give them new Roles, example: Gladiator gets Soldier allowing it to dual wield the sword or use it one handed.

Another issue is that if you're going to add enough new skills and modify existing ones to make a new job feel like a completely different Job than its base class, why didn't you just make a new class in the first place?

And finally, why on earth would casual players have trouble with new classes to level? The only thing that makes a casual player casual, is the time they expend on the game.
In your own example, you claim your friend wished he was an ACN for the dual nature of the Job, ok fine, now if they added a Job to 6 other classes he didn't level... that helps him how?

[MartaDemireux]

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A job, at the current level cap, will only ever add 5 new abilities. Tweaking the effects of some class abilities for a new job is less work than creating an entire class worth of abilities (on top of animations, gear and general balancing); adding one extra job per existing single-job class will be significantly less work and time for SE. SCH added 5 skills to ACN's repertoire and changed ACN's pets while giving the pets entirely different abilities. It's completely different than its base class as it's a healer coming out of a DPS. SCH's only really use 6-8 of ACN's 16 abilities in a group setting (not counting Summon I and II). Are you saying you think SCH should have came from an entirely different class? I think it functions perfectly with the skills it has and its uniqueness comes straight from its job.

And that's exactly my point again. Casual players spend less time on the game and therefor will take a longer time to level up one class. The majority of players are casual, playing for 1-3 hours a day. If they're playing so little and finally get their BLM to 50 only to realize that by the time they do their friends/FC really need a healer they'll have to level either CNJ or ACN all over again taking almost as long as the first time and by then new content could be out and he's off having to find people to do old events with to gear up for the new ones. If he leveled ACN to start, he could have just put on a different job stone.

It's not that adding 6 other jobs to the existing classes helps my friend but that it helps the people that leveled one role to do content that they wouldn't ordinarily get invited to. If every class can have 2 roles at endgame it not only opens up options for themselves but also for the group. Most endgame FC's want you to have several roles covered in case one person can't fill a given role due to absence. If you have a casual FC with a missing healer and only a bunch of tanks/DPS due to time restraints on leveling, you're in trouble and will have to fill the slot with a pug. But if one of those DPS was ACN, problem solved! They switch job soul and are good to go, now there's room for a DPS which is easily pugable or possibly filled by reserve members in the FC.