Jobs start @50?

[Vackashken]

Hi Dyne,

I posted this in an earlier thread, regarding the SE Interview in Dengeki Magazine. But this might help some of your concerns...

I understand both sides of the argument about the "Same Rank Class = Instant Same Rank Job." I think initially, my gut reaction was, "Aw... isn't that just too 'easy' then?" But then I thought about it some more, and thought about Matsui's official post about Job Quests to unlock the job and exclusive skills.

We don't know what the final implementation is like, so this is all speculation, but as physic and Wind have pointed out:

• Rank 50 Gladiator = Rank 50 Paladin is Not A Bad Thing.
  • Job Quest and Skill Quests: Matsui has said that we're getting Quests to unlock the Job and Skills. If this turns out to be *multiple*, challenging, interesting Quests to (A) Unlock the Job; and then (B) to Unlock Each New Skill, that's far more engaging and interesting than just getting "Paladin Rank 1" and grinding.
  • Job Specific Equipment (JSE) Quests: We've seen the Concept Art for JSE Armor for Black Mage and Dark Knight, and Yoshida-san has mentioned it's coming. So this is another set of more meaningful content (instead of just grinding 1 - 50).
  • Same Grind AGAIN (Leves, Efts, Raptors) To Be Able To Use New Job Fully? No Thanks.
    Let's say they gave us Paladin Rank 1 after you reached Gladiator Rank 50. Do you really want to grind the same Nanawa Mines, Efts, Raptors, Guildleves for another 50 (FIFTY) Ranks just to be able to fully utilize Paladin skills? (and then repeat that over every other Class in the game?) As much of a Final Fantasy fan as I am, I'd probably say "No."

• Class Rank = Job Rank Means You're Ready for Real Raid Dungeons & New Content Now.
  As Wind said, grinding Rank 1 to 50 *again* on, say, Paladin, is *not* real "content." I would hope most of us would want to *use* the (hopefully) cool, new Paladin Skills / Weaponskills, *for* stuff like the Rank 30 and Rank 50 Raid Dungeons and New NMs and New Frontier Quest Hubs.
  
  So, having it so that we're the same Rank at our new Job as the Class that unlocked it means we're basically "Ready!" to jump into the exciting, meaningful real New Content as soon as it gets delivered.
  
  If it was the other way, then, say a new Patch gets released. "Oh, we have New Raid Dungeons and New NMs and Grand Company Challenges... but they're balanced for Paladin, Monk, White Mage, etc. OK, let's spend ~4 - 12 WEEKS grinding Paladin from Rank 1 to 50 and THEN we can start to have fun with those new Dungeons and Challenges." That'd be frustrating, no?

• 1 Job for 1 Class. More To Come / More To Explore.
  For those that are worried about 1:1 unlock, it does seem a bit limiting, but there's no reason they couldn't add more Jobs per Class later. It's better to start small and focused, instead of having too many Jobs and not have them all balanced properly (or need a lot more time before unleashing them in a Patch for us).
  
  Also, it encourages more "Class Exploration." I think one of the biggest question marks is which Class unlocks White Mage vs. Black Mage? That's a great question.
  
  As an example, let's say, Conjurer unlocks White Mage, and Thaumaturge unlocks Black Mage.
  
  At first, you might think, "Aw darn it! I'm a R50 Conjurer already and I want to cast Elemental Spells / be a Nuker!" Well, it's not a bad thing to now *explore* playing Thaumaturge to unlock the Black Mage Class. No one has said that you have to play THM to Rank 50 to unlock the Job Quest. It could be Rank 20 or 30 (which is really easy to get to with the fast SP these days). You get THM to R20 or 30, unlock the Black Mage Quest and start working your way through that (hopefully interesting set of Challenges / Quests).

• Real Content: Raid Dungeons, Grand Companies, Frontier Quest Hubs
  The real "content" that's already been confirmed for this next patch 1.18 should be the R30 and R50 Raid Dungeons, which will hopefully be tied into the Grand Companies and a developing Rank System (SE has hinted that you can earn better equipment and items via the Grand Companies, so hopefully it's a long-term goal-oriented system, like a Reputation / Points System, or working towards stuff like Relic Weapons / Armor).
  
  In addition, we're getting the Frontier Quest Hubs, which should also give us more interesting things to do than repeat the same Guildleves we've been doing the past 9 months.
  
  This stuff should be the real content (along with more NMs (which they said are on the way), and more Dungeons, etc.). It shouldn't be grinding a Job from 1 - 50.

Of course all this could be moot after we find out the full details, but let's try and stay positive.

I hit like on your post even though I don't -- in essence -- agree with you. Really well made up post regardless; very thoughtful and intuitive in many regards. The reason I disagree is that I find it unlikely that the dungeons will be overly complex enough to satiate us for too long. Yeah, it will be nice to basically have a new set of powers right off the bat but thats part of this games failing: They made things far too easy. The dungeons, basically 8 months late, won't keep us occupied as long as needing to grind and quest our way up another job (or several) would have. Hopefully they will take out the leve fail junk - with that plus dungeons and (if they implemented it as such) having to level up new jobs (so to speak) it would have given us a lot more to do and them a longer respite to get other stuff going.

There is a balance of needing to give us a bone (instant gratification) and needing to give us a challenge (sense of accomplishment) this patch needs to bring forth. Come a month from its release, when we all attack the dungeons like a lion on a gazelle, it will be back to business of grinding crafts and battle jobs. Without a plethora of new things to work for in the sense of grinding them up there is a good chance people will be even more bitter then they are now. In particular mages who will still only have had two classes to level.

[Kiara]

I hit like on your post even though I don't -- in essence -- agree with you. Really well made up post regardless; very thoughtful and intuitive in many regards. The reason I disagree is that I find it unlikely that the dungeons will be overly complex enough to satiate us for too long. Yeah, it will be nice to basically have a new set of powers right off the bat but thats part of this games failing: They made things far too easy. The dungeons, basically 8 months late, won't keep us occupied as long as needing to grind and quest our way up another job (or several) would have. Hopefully they will take out the leve fail junk - with that plus dungeons and (if they implemented it as such) having to level up new jobs (so to speak) it would have given us a lot more to do and them a longer respite to get other stuff going.

There is a balance of needing to give us a bone (instant gratification) and needing to give us a challenge (sense of accomplishment) this patch needs to bring forth. Come a month from its release, when we all attack the dungeons like a lion on a gazelle, it will be back to business of grinding crafts and battle jobs. Without a plethora of new things to work for in the sense of grinding them up there is a good chance people will be even more bitter then they are now. In particular mages who will still only have had two classes to level.

Hi Vackashken,

Thank you for the thoughtful reply.

Oh don't get me wrong, if the 2 new Raid Dungeons turn out to be a short-sighted, "Guildleve Counter NPC tells you to go here and kill XYZ. Done."-type scenario that we can clear in ~ 1 week or less, I totally agree with your sentiments then; they didn't give us enough to do.

I'm trying to stay positive and hope that the the Raid Dungeons are tied into the Grand Companies and a Reputation / Rank System (within those Companies), and the ability to gain more powerful equipment (hopefully something like building Relic Weapons). From the Grand Companies of Eorzea page:

"Prove your worth by unfailingly completing the tasks assigned, and you will climb the ranks and be entrusted with missions of greater import and issued powerful equipment befitting your prowess."

If these Raid Dungeons are meaningful and provide incentive for us to go back again and again and explore different parts of it, like a Dynamis-Xarcabard, and the Frontier Quest Hubs they talked about have interesting, meaningful content, and the Job System has Quests to unlock the Jobs and to get Job Skills and other quests to get JSE Armor, etc., then it's not so bad that Class and Job are the same "rank" (i.e., no grinding Job from 1 - 50).

No matter what, we'll see something when 1.18 hits and we can laugh, cheer or cry at that point.

[normalforce]

Do you think all the specialized skills for these new jobs will be given to us, or will we have to do quests, spend guild mark points, etc for them?