Idea: Split Archer into Bard and Ranger

[Aiselia]

If you want variety, why would you ever want branching jobs? If you're really after variety, you'd want a completely new one because that would be... y'know, more varied, rather than being the same thing with a handful of different skills.

Branching jobs stifles variety.

If I put ketchup on one burger and mustard on the other, it doesn't change the fact that I'm still eating a burger. Some of us would rather they give us a rack of ribs and a burger than two burgers with different sauces. Because some of us prefer actual variety.

Red mage DPS branching from Gladiator, for example, is a bad idea in itself. Rampart is a tank skill. Flash would be useless. Convalescence is a tank skill. Provoke would be useless. Shield Swipe would be useless. Awareness is a tank skill. Bulwark is a tank skill. Sentinel is a tank skill. They'd be missing out on a lot of skills that are defensive skills that are useless to them because they're DPS and need offensive skills.

It's faster to list the things that ARE useful from GLD for a DPS. Fast Blade, Fight or Flight, Riot Blade, Shield Bash (assuming they have shields). Everything else is either defensive or has increased enmity.

Not to mention that the extra threat of Savage/Halone would work against them. Because remember, scaling is a thing. A RDM scaled below 30 in a low level roulette would be no different from a PLD. That means they'd need to completely redo how threat works in low level dungeons just to make it work somehow that the RDM wouldn't just be ripping everything off the tank. The only other way would be to literally have your RDM play as "Fast Blade, Riot Blade, Fast Blade, Riot Blade, Fast Blade, Riot Blade" for anything below 30. Which isn't much of a mage, now is it?

Or they could just create new jobs that don't branch, giving more variety and not having to rework the entire game.

[Shaddai]

Negativity

It's true that things would need re-balancing and reworked, however that's easier than having to start from scratch like your suggesting from a technical stand point. SE is generally very lazy so branching seems the better choice. Having to go back to lvl up extra jobs also seem like a waste of time IMO. After investing time in your class After a certain point ppl don't want to go back a re grind. That's insanely boring and repetitive. Base classes can be reworked to support branching. They were originally single jobs so lets be fair here and give some slack. SE already announced that they are willing to rework some things. I thought this idea would be neat because it gives new player options and old player new stuff without going so far back to grind. I understand where your coming from. I just think my idea is more forgiving to all players both new and old.

[Noelzzz]

Because, for some jobs, thief and ranger specifically but there are others, devs used iconic weapons or abilities belonging to iconic jobs, doing some kind of mixed classes. What if my favorite weapons are daggers but at the same time i dont like mudra system? same goes for bow, what if i like the bow but i dont like the bard-ish play style? Doing branching jobs they would give me the option to choose. This doesnt mean that extra jobs will not considered imo. Not all jobs can come from branching, this apply just to some of them

[Aiselia]

It's true that things would need re-balancing and reworked, however that's easier than having to start from scratch like your suggesting from a technical stand point.

Uh, no it isn't. They'd need to literally recreate their entire low level enmity system to make it so that DPS jobs branching from tanks would be able to use moves which have high enmity as a basic attribute without simply ripping everything off the tank due to that high enmity because as my example showed, a non-tank scaled to below 30 split from a gladiator would literally get to use two attacks and one buff and situationally a stun out of ALL of their moves. And none of those moves would have anything to do with their job as a RDM because none of them are magic.

SE is generally very lazy ... Having to go back to lvl up extra jobs also seem like a waste of time IMO.

I'm pretty sure that your suggestion isn't coming from a standpoint of SE being lazy. Sounds more like you're the lazy one. Because SE created three completely new jobs for HW plus Rogue/Ninja before that while you're the one complaining about how you don't want to put effort into playing the new classes that you say would be so great because of variety.

That's insanely boring and repetitive.

So is only being able to use two skills at anything below level 30 because the class doesn't allow you to play the job.

Base classes can be reworked to support branching.

Which is a lot more work than just creating new ones because they would have to recreate them to fit the theme (GLD uses no magic, so branching them to RDM which kind of needs to use magic to be a mage would make zero sense) and then rebalance absolutely everything.

I just think my idea is more forgiving to all players both new and old.

And your assertion that people wouldn't want to go back and grind doesn't hold up quite so well when you consider that they had to do exactly that to have DRK, AST, and MCH at 60. But I mean, there aren't any of those, right, because people don't want to relevel, right?

So the options are either rework absolutely every class in the game to fit with new branched jobs and rebalance absolutely everything, or just create new jobs which they only have to worry about fitting them into the balance, rather than rebalancing everything else.

Nobody who actually thinks variety is good will agree that branching jobs is the better option because they're less varied by being locked with a majority of the same skills as the other branch. The only people who think branching jobs is the better way to go are people who are just too lazy to actually want to play the "new jobs" that they claim to want so badly. If you REALLY want a new, varied thing to play, having to relevel it shouldn't be an issue because, well, it's something new.

[Dante_V]

They've pretty much already said the classes are being phased out and branching jobs of the same role are an extremely limited variety. Let's not also forget the reason for Bards doing less damage to begin with was not only due to support options but also mobility. So it would be reasonable to say that a ranger would also have lower damage and without any viable utility it would never compete with Bard.or Machinist. Without damage it would never compete with the casters. As the others have pointed out is that it wouldn't really fix any issues or bring any substantial changes to the game. making it a waste of development time.

[Dante_V]

They should continue with new jobs and let the class system die.

[RiceisNice]

I can provide. For your first point I don't think things are super great among healers. I like the idea of having main healers and support healers. People will always complain so that does not matter.

It's not even that people were complaining. It was an actual problem because you'd never see astros in cutting edge savage progression. Objectively, trying to have an astro heal in savage was detrimental to your party, because their healing output (which is their role) was lower than that of WHM and SCH, and their support abilties did not outweigh that.

Deliverance means nothing. It is just like monks have fist of fire. Jobs make the class what it is. You are severely underestimating the effect of changing jobs from a base class.

A warrior plays the same in delvierance as they were in defiance. A warrior plays the same in defiance as they were as a marauder. You are severely underestimating how far rooted the jobs are to the base class.

Level a tank and tell me what's the deference between before 30 and after 30 for example

.
There is quite literally no difference. At level 30 all they get is a stance, but they use the same pre-level 30 abilties as they were before. How am I supposed to make an argument that they would play any more different with a role change, using nothing but maim-extension combos (which is rooted to marauder, mind you)

Your third point makes sense I accept that I suppose a hand to hand tank would be difficult off pug unless they remove positional with lets say a lvl 30 tank stance which could remove positional req's. Try to be a little creative here. Extra jobs already provide new bases. Give SE a break in that regard.

Extra jobs provide new bases. Branching jobs do not, because they're sharing move sets with the base class. I'm all for adding new jobs, but making them branch off an existing class is literally shooting themselves in the leg in regards to what they can add. Arcanist has only one healing spell. Trying to branch any jobs off an existing tanking class (gladiator and marauder) is sticking them with all the defensive cooldowns and enmnity combos that comes with said classes. Not only do they not thematically match the branching jobs, it creates balancing issues because you don't want a dps or healer having access to powerful tanking cooldowns.

Because, for some jobs, thief and ranger specifically but there are others, devs used iconic weapons or abilities belonging to iconic jobs, doing some kind of mixed classes. What if my favorite weapons are daggers but at the same time i dont like mudra system? same goes for bow, what if i like the bow but i dont like the bard-ish play style? Doing branching jobs they would give me the option to choose. This doesnt mean that extra jobs will not considered imo. Not all jobs can come from branching, this apply just to some of them

Then it honestly does not sound like final fantasy is catering to your sense of aesthetics. They'd be far better off making weapons like longbows and dual swords for new jobs than trying to squeeze in branching jobs and limiting the amount of options the new job has. Otherwise you're essentially trying to force a certain gameplay onto a class/job because you personally do not like the original gameplay ("I like using a staff but I hate cast times", for example)

[Aiselia]

it creates balancing issues because you don't want a dps or healer having access to powerful tanking cooldowns.

Not to mention the nightmare of attempting to balance that it would take to make them do enough DPS to be comparable to the other classes without being able to use the class' base skills. A DPS branching off a Gladiator would have to do comparable damage to the other three melee to warrant actually using, but only within 10 skills. A DRG has 10 skills in their normal GCD rotation alone, so not counting their various buffs and OGCD attacks. A DPS doing comparable damage limited to only around 10 (okay, maybe they could use Riot Blade to refill MP or something) skills from their Job would pretty much need to be the simplest of all the DPS classes because you'd either have very few OGCDs and cooldowns to manage in order to have a lengthy GCD combo or a really simple GCD 1-2-3 combo with a few OGCDs to squeeze in.

[Shaddai]

Stuff

Stopped reading after you said their is little difference before and after 30. Both oaths, Dragon kick, Jumps in general. Sorry I'm no long paying attention to you.
Ok so a couple things. First enimity needs rework in general. Second people have already gone back BECAUSE of the extra jobs, so third times the charm? I do not agree with middle grounds, so I think either make entirely new classes with similar things is more of "carbon copying", or the hybrids people ask for are skill tree which is branching. I'd prefer branching. As far as savage is concerned it was made as an option. If you get eso's then challenge savage then its not as big of a deal. You dont have to go in with bare minimum available gear but no one waits to get stronger to challenge the hard mode of a raid. I suggested and evolution of the game, not adding new stuff of a poor foundation. Fix old stuff then add new to make things smoother.

[RiceisNice]

....

If you're not going to bother reading the other end of the discussion, I'm honestly not sure why you're even posting then. How does a paladin play differently with(out) sword/shield oath? The former two are literally buffs that does not change their rotational setup. Their post 60 skills are accomplished by what marauder does without needing warrior skills. Dragon kick, among the other monk skills, do nothing to drastically change the formula that pugilist has set up. It's a new skill, but it's a skill that has the same functionally as the other pugilist skills (form requirement, positional bonus).

Second people have already gone back BECAUSE of the extra jobs, so third times the charm? I do not agree with middle grounds, so I think either make entirely new classes with similar things is more of "carbon copying", or the hybrids people ask for are skill tree which is branching. I'd prefer branching.

This is an oxymoron if you're trying to avoid carbon copies; Trying to branch two jobs from a class means they have the same foundation, especially if they're remaining the same role. If they aren't the same role, then you better hope that it's not branching off a tank because of so many enmnity and mitigation tools being built into the class itself. You have much developmental room to work with by creating a new job entirely than trying to work another one off a base class, while considering all the balancing and such.