Quote Originally Posted by Konachibi View Post
You wouldn't see a Gladiator wielding a magical staff and a wand.

You wouldn't see a Botanist trying to log trees with a fishing rod.

Not to run by stereotypes but I couldn't really picture a Paladin in full plate armour taking pot-shots at a marmot with a bow and arrow either.

People expect thieves to use daggers and paladins to use swords and shields and archers to use bows and arrows and miners to use mining axes etc. Because really, that's what makes them what they are, sure some diversity with the style of weaponry would be nice, like Paladins being able to use an array of 1-handed weapon types such as maces, swords and axes, heck, in the case of Gladiators they can already do this, being able to wield just a sword, a sword and shield, or a dagger with/without shield. SE haven't said anything about jobs not being able to use a small variety of similarly based weaponry.

If you try to make jobs seperate from the class system though you're just going to turn them into yet more classes. Biggest problem with that is even though it'll operate as if it were a seperate class it'll still have many of the same abilities, skills and spells as another class, which will RETRACT from the games diversity, not improve it. A 180 degree sweeping strike is a 180 degree sweeping strike, no matter what name you give it, if two classes can do a move that's too similar, one of those classes loses a tiny amount of it's appeal. Plus it'd be pretty annoying if a Paladin had just one move you'd like your Gladiator to have, so you have to rank up Paladin for days/weeks, doing all the same attacks and using the same weaponry types, just to gain that one ability.

So yeah the idea I had earlier today with the whole *going to menu, selecting job, click apply* would be nice, but if I were playing a Gladiator and switched to a Paladin, I'd expect it to be pretty much the same stuff, since they use the same weapons, wear the same armour, both use shields etc.

As for roles, Conjurers wear cloth, cloth is notoriously not good at absorbing an incoming blow from a very large and angry dragon, you couldn't make a conjurer into a tank, so it can only be used as DD or Healer... whaddya know, that's exactly what they do already. Gladiators have heavy armour, can take a beating, but have really low MP, you wouldn't want a Gladiator as your healer as he'd run out of mana almost instantly, so he's only good for DD and tanking. Weeeell whaddya know, that's exactly what he already does.

You talk about locking classes in roles using jobs, as if they aren't already to quite a degree. These 'limitation's' you say are coming with jobs already exist, the only reason you're arguing about it now is that jobs pointed out their limitations as well as their advancement. They said "We can't do this anymore, BUT we're absolutely awesome at doing THIS!" and instead of you going "ooo yay they can do this" you went "oh no they can't do that", ignoring the fact that to some extent their class-equivalent wasn't exactly any good at doing 'that' in the first place.
I guess you never played FFXI, Paladins in that game (and red mages for that matter) could equip bows and use them, there were also NPCs who were dual class Pld/Rng, essentially a tank class that could hold hate through high damage as well as through emnity skills. (I even played Pld/Dnc in a few parties with some success, and I was also known for sometimes using greatswords rather than a sword/shield)

The biggest problem in XI was that even though the job system looked like it had flexibilty, the moment players DECIDED what role a job should be, you were treated like a retard if you dared to play it differently. Ninja went from DD to Tank, Samurai went from tank to DD, Red Mage was forced to sit in the back and toss refresh and pretty much nothing else, completely making the fact it was a multi-role FRONT-line job moot (I guarantee Dancer would have befallen the same fate if it's dances didn't require TP.) Parties were made or broken based on who had what, and I've been in parties that ended as soon as one person had to leave, simply because there wasn't enough flexibility among jobs to continue. Even worse, some jobs were almost impossible to level without resorting to highly risky methods, or waiting for hours, if not days for a party invite (I sympathize with any Thf, Drk, or Blm reading this who understands what I'm getting at.)

In short, the job system in FFXI is an example of what should be avoided in FFXIV, any job system should be flexible enough that it doesn't require you to form a specific type of party just to level up. You should be able to form an effective party with whatever classes are available, that means jobs should have some degree of flexibility. Gld may be considered the best tank, but Pgl and Mrd are no slouches in that department. Likewise, a Gld can play a good DD if required to do so. the only class that is exclusively a single role is Archer, and even it can play the support/healing role with the right gear and cross-class skills set.

Since the job system is being designed to complement, rather than replace the armoury system, it sounds like it won't be like XI. Still, we'll have to wait and see before we can make a final judgment.