I would like to see Classes treated as proper, separate "Jobs"

[Enkidoh]

The thing is though, what the OP is advocating is basically FFXI's Job System.... which FFXIV's battle/ability system has never been. FFXIV's system is the Armoury System, where 'class' is a misnomer and is actually about equipping a weapon and the class is merely a label used to describe the abilities related to the use of said weapon. Equipping a Job onto that class is merely refining the class's role in a party instead of being more versatile.

Fundamentally there is absolutely nothing wrong with this system at it's core, it's just the plethora of FFXI players used to the Job System are too stuck-in-the-mud to realize that each FF game has a different battle system and ability system and thus FFXIV's system is not a bad thing, it's just a different thing, and rather than simply adapt to it and learn to make use of it, it's easier to just whine and complain and say it's 'broken' and needs to be scrapped.

And before you pass judgement, players were asked way back in 1.0 when Yoshi first took over whether players would prefer to either have the Armoury System completely scrapped and replaced with an FFXI-style Job System... or retain the Armoury System and refine it with Jobs upgrading from the base class. Players decided on the later.

Really I wish SE would stop listening to that particular group of players and trying to appeal to them by tinkering around the edges with experiments that don't work (separate Jobs coming off a single class, classless Jobs that start at level 30) and instead refine the Armoury System (give classes to the Heavensward Jobs and separate SCH from ACN and give it a new base class), as it's becoming so convoluted now, it's losing consistency and becoming almost unworkable.

I admit I really like the Armoury System, I just think it needs a little TLC to actually show it's potential.

[bass9020]

The thing is though, what the OP is advocating is basically FFXI's Job System.... which FFXIV's battle/ability system has never been. FFXIV's system is the Armoury System, where 'class' is a misnomer and is actually about equipping a weapon and the class is merely a label used to describe the abilities related to the use of said weapon. Equipping a Job onto that class is merely refining the class's role in a party instead of being more versatile.

Fundamentally there is absolutely nothing wrong with this system at it's core, it's just the plethora of FFXI players used to the Job System are too stuck-in-the-mud to realize that each FF game has a different battle system and ability system and thus FFXIV's system is not a bad thing, it's just a different thing, and rather than simply adapt to it and learn to make use of it, it's easier to just whine and complain and say it's 'broken' and needs to be scrapped.

And before you pass judgement, players were asked way back in 1.0 when Yoshi first took over whether players would prefer to either have the Armoury System completely scrapped and replaced with an FFXI-style Job System... or retain the Armoury System and refine it with Jobs upgrading from the base class. Players decided on the later.

Really I wish SE would stop listening to that particular group of players and trying to appeal to them by tinkering around the edges with experiments that don't work (separate Jobs coming off a single class, classless Jobs that start at level 30) and instead refine the Armoury System (give classes to the Heavensward Jobs and separate SCH from ACN and give it a new base class), as it's becoming so convoluted now, it's losing consistency and becoming almost unworkable.

I admit I really like the Armoury System, I just think it needs a little TLC to actually show it's potential.

This 100%!

They are changing the core system to something that it wasn't suppose to be to try and please a group of people who don't understand the armoury system.

[Alahra]

instead refine the Armoury System (give classes to the Heavensward Jobs and separate SCH from ACN and give it a new base class), as it's becoming so convoluted now, it's losing consistency

I really wish they would do this. It drives me nuts that Machinist doesn't have a Musketeer base class (there's a guild for it in Limsa Lominsa!), and why Dark Knight didn't branch off of Ravager (from FFTA) is beyond me. Astrologian is a bit harder to decouple into a class and job, but I'm sure they could have done something.

I like the structure of base classes leading into jobs, both because I actually enjoy being low level for new classes (leveling is my favorite thing to do, so starting at level 30 means I get less content—but I also understand it's not everyone's cup of tea) and also because it tickles my nostalgia bone. The idea of "advanced" classes in Final Fantasy has been around since FF1, which had the class change trial. Fighter going into Knight/Paladin in FF1 is fairly analogous to Gladiator going into Paladin in FFXIV, and I want to see more of that, not less.

In terms of SCH/SMN, I've always felt that thematically, SCH branches off of the ACN questline far better than SMN does, but SMN branches off of ACN's abilities better, so which one should be given primacy is tough. But one of them probably should at this point.

But these are such fundamental changes, I don't see it getting done, as it requires a lot of reworking. Would a level 50 DRK need to go back and do 1-30 quests, for instance? Would they renname all of the base SCH abilities? Especially in the case of the latter, they might be tempted to redesign the class from the ground up, which could end up alienating a lot of current SCHs.