Remembrance of Old; A Galka's Tale of Character Uniqueness

[Kimahri]

Me too! In fact ive level all 7 classes together so far and i love it. I really dont wanna find out ive just wasted alot of time. I think that they can find away to give each class it own abilities and a few abilities that you might wanna bring to your other classes as well. What i hope if that they end up having high end graduated classes. like lancer gets a dragon, Mar get chance to multi hit like old warriors, conj's get summons. something like that.

Yes, I know what you mean, Celtodeno. I, too, have leveled all seven ranks. I was never talking about keeping all the abilities of those ranks in the confines of it's rank. Only key specific ones that keeps the uniqueness of that class. As stated in some previous threads, there are just some abilities that would not tie into other classes. I do not believe elemental magic should go out of it's respective disipline. The same goes with weaponskills.

[Rhomagus]

There is one thing I really miss about playing my old game, Final Fantasy XI, Job Uniqueness!

I honestly don't mean this to be rude at all, but that is precisely what makes Final Fantasy XI unique. Final Fantasy XI is still a great game and you can still play it. I miss materia from Final Fantasy VII but I don't need it to be reimplemented into any other game after that as I can just go play Final Fantasy VII again.

Where's the uniqueness that let me pick my Samurai job over other heavy DD such as Dragoon, Dark Knight, and Warrior?

The thing is, that you are more unique now with the system as it is. You are not only different than those other classes, you are different that the same class. If two people only have Gladiator leveled and are in the same party, it is recommended that they spec themselves differently to add to party efficiency, especially as you get higher in Rank. If you can't spec on the fly and adapt to the situation grouping is less feasible. In the Armoury, the possibilities are vast per individual when you take into account that not every individual has leveled ever class to it's cap.

The uniqueness is now spread from just your job to a complete expression of your own individuality in the Armoury. Even in Final Fantasy XI, jobs and their subjobs, were still cookie cutter. The individual was expected to act a certain way if they were a certain job and they, and their party members, were reprimanded for any deviation of what would be considered normal behavior. Not only that, but in the dynamic world of real life, the party as a whole was left to suffer if only one member had to attend to real life concerns. The Armoury system enables the flexibility for real working class adults to be able feasibly play the game and adapt to a world populated by real people with real lives.

Final Fantasy XI's design, in general, was a lifestyle choice, specifically if you wanted the higher end rewards. Unless you were a Beastmaster.

Also, because of the pigeon holing effect of XI's class system you'd get copy cat cookie cutter players. Not to dismiss your Samurai job choice, but as soon as Hasso and Seigan were implemented Samurai, was no longer a unique class, as everyone would level it. Same goes for the use of Ninja as a subjob for meless prior to Hasso and Seigan. So now, not only were you just like everyone one who played your job, you were just like everyone else because everyone else leveled your job.

The notion that Final Fantasy XIV does not offer class uniqueness is a farce and overblown misconception.

This game has the potential to be great, but right now it just seems to be a garbled up game with too many defects.

I agree with this point, but we get there from entirely different angles.

Sound
- No in-game toggle function for sound.
- No "Ambient Sound" slider bar.

Log on
- Won't remember password if chosen by user despite having Security token active
- Separate out of game log on

System
- Lack of alt+tab in true full screen mode. (windowed mode can appear to be full screen through a script but does not run as optimally as true full screen.)
- Long waits for relogging in after disconnection

Linkshell
- Lack of linkshell leadership features
- Lack of ability to speak to multiple linkshells on the fly

User Interface
- Lack of promised full customization
- Alien keyboard UI design

These problems are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the "defects" that you mentioned. Notice most of these subjects are almost non debatable as their exclusion/inclusion/change do not adversely effect the end user experience in any way and only serve to make the user more comfortable with their own playstyle.

Restraining the Armoury to a strict class system would restrict the end user, needlessly at that.

[Rhomagus]

...my Samurai was completely different over a Dragoon.

.. but not different from another Samurai.

Black Mage is another job I wish to press on this blog over Character Uniqueness.

... and was largely shunned as a group contributor post Aht Urghan, because it was unable to adapt.

If you're like me, then you'll agree that the unique job abilities and traits were the pinacle of which jobs you liked best to use and which one's stayed with you through the years without ever being bored of them.

Unfortunately I am not like you and I wish to keep my own identity. I also don't believe that the pinnacle has been reached for any MMO and I'm grateful that there will always be someone looking to reach it. I find beauty in knowing that it is impossible to do so.

Go back to that fork in the road. Take the old route again and see what happens from there.

This only seems appropriate:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

-Robert Frost

source:http://www.amandashome.com/road.html

I say let the individual choose their own road.

[Vanguard319]

as far as class uniqueness, if you are referring to the typs of armor available, I believe they are currently developing armor sets for each job that are exclusive to that job only, that should help somewhat, in addition, they can add to the list of job-exclusive abilities, which would help give each job some kind of basic role in a party, without being locked into it, or losing the ability to solo.

[Reika]

Yes, I know what you mean, Celtodeno. I, too, have leveled all seven ranks. I was never talking about keeping all the abilities of those ranks in the confines of it's rank. Only key specific ones that keeps the uniqueness of that class. As stated in some previous threads, there are just some abilities that would not tie into other classes. I do not believe elemental magic should go out of it's respective disipline. The same goes with weaponskills.

I kind of like being able to use Riot Blade as a Thaumaturge if I so choose to do so...

[Kimahri]

No. My Samurai wasn't different from another Samurai other than the currently equipped gear. But as far as being different from the other roles? Yes.

I never said to cut, slash, and paste the old FFXI system into this version. I said that they should go back and try to improve on THAT system, rather than start from scratch with this one. When I was refering to these statements up above, I was trying to tell you that in FFXI the roles were unique in themselves by only accessing the abilities of it's own class, and half of another. How would you say you're more unique now when in the future you'll see almost everyone with the same abilities in their action bar?

A lot of the posts I have discussed over other threads mentions that I would like certain abilities to be class specific. Gear to only fit a certain role. Weaponskills to be based on the weapon and not be used by others. (Why can a Lancer use an Archer's weaponskill?) This thread is about the classes, and only so. If you want to make a thread regarding the sound or linkshell issues, then please do so in another thread.

Right now this game feels like I have a cheat book in using whatever abilities I desire with minimal consequences. I'm sorry, but I don't like playing a game that's boring when I level a different class with the same abilities I've used for the past three.

[Karvapeikko]

Very good thread, I must say. I must point out, that any route the devs are gonna take will piss some people. Considering classes are supposed to be weapon specialists, it only makes sense that weaponskills would be class spesific. In my opinion weaponskills and regular skills should be seperated and regular skills could be crossed to other classes freely with little penalty. Not only this improves improves uniqueness to seperate yourself from other classes, but allows devs to replace the lackluster animations with likes we've been expecting as they wouldn't need to try to think a way to make legsweep to look good with archers.

Also I would like to see current classes to have multiple roles to adapt to. That way there would be less copy-paste classes, but you could have those skills ported for vatiations like having cure II for emergency situations even, if you're archer in the backgrounds. Just to make clear, even if DoW classes could use curing/buffing spells, they should be made non-spammable with adjusting enough cooldown.

Last point I would like to mentions is that, in any battle system in any MMORPG there will be skills that stand out. Always when people are given the option to choose to use them, they will use them. I hope the system will evolve to make these skills to effect as boosting your role or giving it a little wider role to make smaller parties work without waiting for that single role to come.

[Abraxai]

I agree. I completely agree..

[Kimahri]

In my opinion weaponskills and regular skills should be seperated and regular skills could be crossed to other classes freely with little penalty. Not only this improves uniqueness to seperate yourself from other classes, but allows devs to replace the lackluster animations with likes we've been expecting as they wouldn't need to try to think a way to make legsweep to look good with archers.

I can agree that if they still continue to refer to classes as "Weapon Specialists" then I would see no other way than to keep the weaponskills in the confines of their respective weapons. As you say, it'll help with the class system in terms of making the classes more unique than before.

What I do not agree with is that you said to let the other abilities be passed over with minimal consequences. I would not mind making low level abilities be able to cross over, except in terms of DoW using DoM. I still don't see how any of the DoW classes besides Gladiator could benefit from using magic to define it's uniqueness? That's what seperates the two disiplines. They're warriors, not magicians.

If we allowed everybody to take abilities from other classes, then it would have to be at a certain rank before it becomes exclusive to the class. It's why you always seen pld/war or pld/nin because it was more effective of making that job unique than having pld/war/nin/blm/whm/rdm/etc. Now I'm NOT saying bring back the sub job system. With the way they have Ability points now, they should make it that any abilities you want to take from other classes require a certain amount of points to carry over.

If they did this. Certain abilities would have to be considered more potent than others and would require more ability points to carry over to the other classes. Less potent abilities would require less ability points and so on. However I would assume that some abilities wouldn't be allowed to carry over, such as magic to the DoW like I stated above. And also such abilities as Speed Surge from Lancer at that low level.

You're right. No matter what they decide to do will end up making some people angry over the changes. However they know it'll be far more beneficial for changes because it'll bring people back to the game and claim more over the years.

P.S. Another thing I wish to state right now is where are the class traits? I would really like to see them introduce this back from XI's job traits. Would really help. Maybe I'll write another thread about it.

[Karvapeikko]

Certain abilities would have to be considered more potent than others and would require more ability points to carry over to the other classes. Less potent abilities would require less ability points and so on. However I would assume that some abilities wouldn't be allowed to carry over, such as magic to the DoW like I stated above. And also such abilities as Speed Surge from Lancer at that low level.

I agree on most parts. I didn't mean to say there shouldn't be class spesific abilities like Speed Surge, I like how abilities like that bring some uniqueness even now. As with magics, some could be crossed between discliplines with big penalty in cooldown. In my opinion it only helps smaller groups to a certain degree, without replacing the need of the actual class in big/serious groups.

P.S. I love the idea getting more traits to further specify roles.