I hope this game doesn't follow WoW's expansion routine.

[Slaxx]

Thanks for those who agreed that the game DID INDEED LAUNCH with 12 jobs.

Where this game did not.

No excuses.

Please guys, stop white knighting this game. It's pathetic.

Not sure why the number of jobs is some kind of absolute standard this game needs to be judged on when comparing it to FFXI.

Food for thought:

At the launch of FFXI Red Mage didn't have Refresh or Haste, basically the only two things that got it party invites (White Mage and Black Mage could cover the debuffs that they were also known for).

No one wanted a Beastmaster in the party because of the XP drop that came with having a pet (an issue that was later addressed but A)we're talking about launch and B) the stigma never went away).

Dark Knight wasn't all that popular because of its notorious accuracy issues (sushi - accuracy food - wasn't exactly rolling around easy in the early days).

Bard didn't come into it's own until much later in the games lifespan when people had a much better grasp on the mechanics of Haste.

So out of 12 jobs 1 never got party invites and was solo only (remember FFXI was a game built entirely around party leveling), one was a tough sell until it got its defining spells, a third wasn't really considered usefull until game mechanics were better understood, and a fourth needed food buffs to even hit XP mobs let alone anything that passed for endgame at release.

Realistically 8 jobs for FFXI at release. Zilart doesn't count as release.

Edit : I completely forgot Summoner which had 1 avatar until Zilart was released and even after was relegated to being a piss poor substitute White Mage if you were desperate.

7

7 jobs worth a damn on release.

[Kazamoto]

7 jobs worth a damn on release.

At least people got to try them for them selves and they were eventually balanced later.

And true, early on, RDM suffered from the jack of all trades issues until it became a proper support class.

True, people didn't know how to use bards properly until much later, but is that the Bard classes fault, or peoples fault? People min-max much more quickly in games now than they did in 2003.


Dark knight had accuracy issues, but when they did connect they still did great damage. I think the overall popularity of the class is debatable.

Beastmaster was the 'solo' job in a party based mmo. True it was slower than party play, but you could solo your way to 75.


Even classes added later required a lot of player feedback and experimentation before they were recognized as viable.
Puppetmaster, my personal favorite was looked down on worse than lolDrg or nerfed Ranger.

people couldn't seem to grasp that PetDamage+PlayerDamage > PlayerDamage.

But a skilled puppet master could put down very impressive numbers.

[Malamasala]

Summoner was still the biggest balance failure in the entire FFXI.

I still remember submitting solutions like "extend ward duration to 5 minutes" which resulted in 5 minute Corsair rolls. I remember suggesting "modification of the pet stats", which resulted in automaton system. I remember others suggesting a way to control the spirit casting, resulting in puppet master pet control system.

I remember pointing out the difference between 60% haste and -15 BP timer caps, which nothing was done about. I remember pointing out that en-aspir for 50% of the moon phases on Fenrirs new high level BP was going to make people ignore it, but was told it was lore based so balance was not a factor.

I also remember pointing out the spirit recast bug, and how to reproduce it to show it actually is a bug, and be told that it is not a bug because it has been that way so long without SE changing it so it must be because it was intended (not because nobody uses spirits or reports bugs).

[Duelle]

And true, early on, RDM suffered from the jack of all trades issues until it became a proper support class.

Shoehorning a class into "support" due to not wanting to fix it is not proper.

True, people didn't know how to use bards properly until much later, but is that the Bard classes fault, or peoples fault? People min-max much more quickly in games now than they did in 2003.

Half and half. Bard was bogged down with a ton of useless songs that were there for flavor. I'm more likely to blame the game's mechanics for the rise of bard because Haste should have never been as powerful as it was in FFXI.

Dark knight had accuracy issues, but when they did connect they still did great damage.

DRK never had any real accuracy issues and was on par with other jobs. The problem was that their weapons had such a ridiculously long delay that you were forced to cap accuracy to maximize the amount of damage you dished out within the short amount of time you had to keep the exp chain going.

Beastmaster was the 'solo' job in a party based mmo. True it was slower than party play, but you could solo your way to 75.

It was deemed solo by the players, not the developers. XI's developers were scared of pet jobs, which is why SMN and BST ended up having either intentionally bad design or ridiculous penalties for the sake of "balance".

But a skilled puppet master could put down very impressive numbers.

Last time I heard of a PUP doing decent damage involved ADA, an oversight in design that I would even label as an exploit (because you're getting around recast timers in a way that blatantly screams "not intended").