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

[RiceisNice]

They are not and nor should they add specs or skill trees etc... People would find which specs or trees that worked best and are the most optimize, and people without said skills or specs would be insta kicked from parties and the GMs wouldn't do anything about it, because of the playstyle clause they have already stated is the TOS. Most games that had skill trees have done away with them, because of cookie cutter specs.

We already have this in the form of different jobs. You have jobs that fill the same role but so do different. There will always be an optimal set up (you'd be a damned fool to not have a scholar warrior in a progression group), but it's not as bad as you'd make it out to be. But because of what I said, I dont nessescarily think we need each jobs to have a branching talent tree or the like, but more jobs that add diversity to the gameplay.

I dont understand why they deemed smn/sch a failure, imean unless you consider a dps-healer and a support-dps that have similar skills a failure. But what do i know i just like scholar, XD.

Balancing the two jobs (specifically, summoner's dps) is a nightmare without affecting the other. Consider how a SCH primarily deals dps in a group; its in a near identical manner as SMN. During hte days of 2.x, SMN dps was arguably in need of some tuning, but scholar didn't (in consideration of it being a healer).

Now take that problem, but instead carry it over to something like an Archer branching to bard/ranger. They're both going to be drawing from the same 1-50 skills and traits. You'd have your hands tied trying to nerf/buff ranger's dps without also affecting bard's, and that's not even getting into diversifying gameplay. It's also because they don't start gaining job skills until level 30, much of the foundation is already established; Take a marauder > warrior/bersererker, a berserker is still going to do the same rotations as a warrior with 8 or so skills sprinkled on top of it. Unless it retroactively changes the skills and traits (that in itself is a very huge revamp of what we currently have) in relation to your job crystal, branching jobs simply isn't going to work and is a huge restriction on an otherwise expansive concept.

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.

Let's be honest though, in the end it really adds nothing to the design of jobs in the long run except for lore (which is typically not a good restriction, see PvP). Machinist would have to be redone from 1-30 in regards to skill to make sense for musketeer (because honestly, the aethertransmitter, a defining feature of MCH is justifying all the abilities we use from level 1 and onward). Not that I'd have a problem with it, but skipping classes has worked out and honestly, the job crystals as of now are very archaic, pointless, and causing design problems in the instances that try to utilize it (SMN/SCH for example).

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.

Fundamental changes can work provided it makes sense, fits the fantasy, and adds more to the identity of the job rather than taking away from it. Take WoW's hunter for example, going into Cataclysm they removed mana bars for them entirely and gave them something akin to TP. Instead of doing skills to dump mana until you hit 0, you'd focus jump to empty out your resource (which takes 2-3 shots, compared to 40+ previously, which is incredibly motonoious) and instead alternate between focus dumping and using a focus regen skill that has a cast time (you have to stay stationary). It didn't change the core foundation of hunter's gameplay of using weaponskills and optimizing their resource use, but made it much more faster paced and rewarded good play. Compared to say, straight up getting rid of all the disease abilities from SCH, ruin becomes broil, and physic becomes aldo. You take away their DoTs and baked in scholar theme'd abilities in place of it;s standing spells, but now you're just a WHM but with shields and lower healing potencies. Or Wanderer's Minuet. Honestly speaking, "it's a lot of work" should never be an excuse to not implement something, espesically when we're looking at an expansion.

[Dualgunner]

Fundamental changes can work provided it makes sense, fits the fantasy, and adds more to the identity of the job rather than taking away from it. Take WoW's hunter for example, going into Cataclysm they removed mana bars for them entirely and gave them something akin to TP. Instead of doing skills to dump mana until you hit 0, you'd focus jump to empty out your resource (which takes 2-3 shots, compared to 40+ previously, which is incredibly motonoious) and instead alternate between focus dumping and using a focus regen skill that has a cast time (you have to stay stationary). It didn't change the core foundation of hunter's gameplay of using weaponskills and optimizing their resource use, but made it much more faster paced and rewarded good play. Compared to say, straight up getting rid of all the disease abilities from SCH, ruin becomes broil, and physic becomes aldo. You take away their DoTs and baked in scholar theme'd abilities in place of it;s standing spells, but now you're just a WHM but with shields and lower healing potencies. Or Wanderer's Minuet. Honestly speaking, "it's a lot of work" should never be an excuse to not implement something, espesically when we're looking at an expansion.

Had a thought the other day for Dragoon to change out its MP bar with a Blood of the Dragon bar. Same essential mechanic as BotD, only your bar (much more visible than a small buff icon) represents how much BotD time is left.

[RiceisNice]

Had a thought the other day for Dragoon to change out its MP bar with a Blood of the Dragon bar. Same essential mechanic as BotD, only your bar (much more visible than a small buff icon) represents how much BotD time is left.

That'd be a quaility of life change which honestly puts some use to the UI. As of now, mana is entirely useless on MNK, NIN and DRG but is still there because reasons. If each job had it's own interface to show their respective resources (such as ACN having a better indicator of their aetherflows, or the aforementioned BotD timer). It lends a bit more flavor to the job. But I'd imagine they've shot themselves in the foot with the design of the UI, since classes like LNC, PGL and ROG can use mana, but job crystals take away that ability ,but is still technically the same class.

Let's all assume for a moment that classes ought to be simply removed. Would anything replace those aspects? You've gone from near-zero healing on caster classes to truly zero, removed the majority of (extra-rotational) burst options from all but Bard and Dragoon, wasteful but high-enmity add-grabs from melee, taunts from non-tanks, and enmity management from casters. Does any of this help gameplay?

To chime in, this also goes in line with the cross skill mechanic. Honestly it really adds no depth to the individual jobs other than button bloating. It's literally the same skills sans traits and takes away from the individuality of the job. Especially for "essential" abilities like invigorate, swiftcast, and provoke. Instead of giving each job their own way of managing TP, it's all done in the same manner. Tanks lost a flavor in the taunt department, and swiftcast feels obligatory for healers in almost any content. Not to say remove it completely, but those utilties and dps would be baked into their inherent moveset, if not added as a new skill entirely since you're freeing up 5 skills from cross classing.

But let me present an alternative. You revamp the classes, filling out more of each class's gameplay and identities through mechanical traits, which can then be cross-classed. Each class gets, say, 5 traits. Each job brings in 2 more. Each class at level 60 can take on 8, while having access to the majority of other class's traits cross-class. Each job can take on 7, with fewer cross-class trait options. Now, by combination of gameplay-affecting mechanical passives, you might just have a Gladiator who is both highly customizable and therefore distinct from a PLD.

In general, cross-skilling always comes back to the same problem; there will always be optimal choices and ultimately the ability to select those traits takes away from job identity and homogenizes them. Not to mention something like mechanical traits are designed with the job in mind, whatever works on archer may not nessescarily work on gladiator. For a big change to work, you don't want to take away the idenity of a an existing class, you want to expand on it.

In my honest opinion, it's not the classes that are holding us back, or even any adherence to a class system. It's the adherance to a specific number of stat-increasing traits, the exact same number of traits and abilities given to each class, the exclusion of job traits, similar arbitrary but stubborn rigidities, and the complacency to scarcly differentiate classes integrally—in their gameplay, in their undermechanics, etc.—that cut short any future development.

It's both imo. The way the class/jobs are now, you can't reasonably make branching jobs due to how they share abilities and traits from 1-50. The way cross skills work now, they are essentially required (and this really isn't up for debate when a fight demands tank swaps) and you end up having skills that are exactly the same on multiple jobs, taking away from individuality, fantasy and flavor. Jobs not having traits is also locking it to those soul crystals, and leads to button bloating (which cross skilling also does) while being unable to add depth or identity.

[Shurrikhan]

In general, cross-skilling always comes back to the same problem; there will always be optimal choices and ultimately the ability to select those traits takes away from job identity and homogenizes them. Not to mention something like mechanical traits are designed with the job in mind, whatever works on archer may not necessarily work on gladiator. For a big change to work, you don't want to take away the identity of an existing class, you want to expand on it.

Agreed; for me there is just one key aim—for the player to love his class/job. But, while that has foremost to do with its core gameplay, it all has to do with its progression and opportunities. In both cases—it comes down to his experiences with it, in and between fights, and perhaps even where it carries over into other classes. I'll prioritize the class itself, sure, but if there's something that adds to the player connection to any and all classes, potentially, rather than homogenizing them, I'll take that. It might not be appropriate until certain changes to how leveling itself works (shared EXP between classes when performing similar functions, or being able to spend EXP on a related class's skill even before you've reached its normal acquisition level on that class, etc.), but I think that's a goal worth undertaking, especially given the lackluster nature of character progression in this game, especially across multiple classes/jobs on the same character.

That said... Is there not a mathematical best in job selection? Yet we still have jobs that aren't technically optimal even in their surrounding compositions, which may already be sub-optimal in a way that advantages that job, attending and clearing content. You're using number-balancing as a reason not to have complexity. It's external complexity in this case, where balance may conflict with what feels "natural" or (therefore) "fun" for a given class/job, and therefore, depending on how you look at it, more appropriate to sacrifice. But it is still that same key argument. I could have sworn you preferred that gameplay & identity be looked at, almost exclusively, before worrying about numbers? I could understand an argument as to this slowing balancing changes necessary for different classes, etc., who are more key to the iconic raiding environment, but to say it's flawed just because balances will be necessary? Just because it might inevitably end up varying a few percent in output over a given fight?

It's both imo. The way the class/jobs are now, you can't reasonably make branching jobs due to how they share abilities and traits from 1-50. The way cross skills work now, they are essentially required (and this really isn't up for debate when a fight demands tank swaps) and you end up having skills that are exactly the same on multiple jobs, taking away from individuality, fantasy and flavor. Jobs not having traits is also locking it to those soul crystals, and leads to button bloating (which cross skilling also does) while being unable to add depth or identity.

It's the adherence to a specific number of stat-increasing traits, the exact same number of traits and abilities given to each class, the exclusion of job traits, similar arbitrary but stubborn rigidities, and the complacency to scarcely differentiate classes integrally—in their gameplay, in their undermechanics, etc.—that cut short any future development

That's exactly what I'm trying to get at though. There's nothing about "a" class system that says that jobs stemming from it must take all the same base skills. You could just as easily give a class more skills than any one job expanding from it can take atop its own unique job skills. Nor is there any rule in a system that happens to have source classes and expanded jobs that the jobs aren't at all allowed to modify the effects of class skills passed on to them. It's not the fact that we have two tiers of broad / customizable and deep / iconic classes-jobs that's holding us back. It's the execution in relating the two to each other.

Idk, it feels really arbitrary when they're essentially forcing you to level other classes just to be able to function in end game (and sometimes not even) content. Specifically abilities like provoke. If it means getting rid of the homogenization of all physical dps getting B4B and invigorate, but instead have 5 new abilties in it's place that gives more depth and identity to each job, I'd rather ditch the cross classing.

This much I definitely agree with. When they continually make fights that necessitate those skills, they just become a part of an awkwardly extended check-list, with yet more components that likely aren't intrinsically fun whatsoever. Being able to explore new avenues though, and being more fluidly able to bring them into your combat style to augment it in ways you wouldn't have expected from your class thematic alone, even if it does in the end fit quite nicely... I would love that.

Of course, we'd first need real class thematics for that to even be a thing.

I'd be fine also with just replacing the cross-class skills with more distinct versions stemming from each separate class; I just don't want to jump to the easier solution without exploring what all character progression advantages a cross-class revamp could offer. One of the things that's always bugged me about this game is how it sells itself as being "all classes on one character" as if that were "alt friendly" when it effectively just means "main + cross-classes per character for best gearing opportunities" and "no quests for your other jobs' leveling, sorry... but at least you get bonus EXP."

[Alahra]

Honestly speaking, "it's a lot of work" should never be an excuse to not implement something, espesically when we're looking at an expansion.

Sometimes, though, fundamental reworks don't provide a lot of actual benefit, as would largely be the case with any reworks of Extra Jobs to include base classes or for SCH to receive its own base class. They all function fine as is within the framework as provided, with SCH perhaps only needing the decoupling of its stat points from ACN now. That's ultimately why I don't see them doing anything in this regard: they would need to create new quest content for all of the jobs from 1-30, which includes a lot of content (cutscenes, dialogue, instanced battles, and so on)—again, all for very little benefit for the majority of players (and provides for logistical issues like whether or not existing level-capped characters need to do the new quests and the like, though there is some precedent for this with Legacy players I think).

If SCH or one of the other jobs had a bit of an identity crisis, something more drastic might have been appropriate. SMN/SCH did have some identity issues prior to HW, but instead of reworking one of them from the ground up, they elected to make the necessary changes post-50—which achieves the same end goal but without need for fundamental modifications.

[RiceisNice]

If SCH or one of the other jobs had a bit of an identity crisis, something more drastic might have been appropriate. SMN/SCH did have some identity issues prior to HW, but instead of reworking one of them from the ground up, they elected to make the necessary changes post-50—which achieves the same end goal but without need for fundamental modifications.

This comes at it's limit when you're looking at skill bloating though. And in the case of summoner, they've become less pet oriented in favor of being more of a caster. How do you think they'll expand upon it with an increased level cap now? It's still not very much room to work with when their base rotation, and it hasn't been very exasperated since SMN and SCH fufill different roles by definition... and this isn't getting into the balance of SCH compared to the other healers, and while that's a discussion for another time, it;s still the consequence of SCH drawing from the same ability pools as SMN since they are inherently much more capable of doing dps than their peers.

The ranged dps are also in somewhat of a similar scenario since they're essentially all casters, and MCH/BRD sharing a lot of parallels to each other. Something like WM is making a change without addressing the foundation, and the result is that you have a very poor interaction between oGCDs and cast times. The way it is right now, it really doesn't feel like there's an approach to what they want the jobs to feel like. There's currently no focus on pet jobs and there's no ranged-dps in the traditional sense, both something they've actually moved away from.

[Alahra]

This comes at it's limit when you're looking at skill bloating though.

Well, yes, they can only add so many skills before they'll need to begin condensing things. But there are avenues they can use to tackle skill bloat, not all of which would require fundamental redesigns of classes. Abilities past level 60 could instead take the form of traits, modifying existing abilities, rather than adding new buttons, or future abilities might instead be choices, some of which might replace older ones or the like (which is something Black Mage and White Mage already have to a degree, though it's a bit clunky in execution due to level syncs).

While I want to see some general restructuring of the classes in general, I suspect we won't see anything like that until 5.0 at the earliest, as Yoshi's mentioned that they're aware of skill bloat, but he seemed to think they'll tackle it at the top end of things rather than the bottom, at least for now. (He specifically mentioned having options for abilities as one thing they're considering, which suggests that their thought right now is to curb further growth, rather than chop away at what's already there.)

SE's MMO teams have a long history of making very conservative adjustments, and even the largest adjustments always tend to be built on what has come before. Even the transition from 1.0 to 2.0 was done incrementally, and despite Classes being relegated to the dustbin in terms of game and content balance, the Job system is still in many ways tacked on top of the older system from 1.0, with some adjustments. Even when they were rebuilding the game arguably from the ground up, they maintained many of the core elements from it. I wouldn't be surprised if they're apprehensive about large-scale, foundational, changes, as a big part of the reason this game exists at all the way it does is to say thank you to their Legacy players—a crowd they probably wouldn't want to alienate by straying too far from the original system.

Is that best for the game in the longterm? I'm no soothsayer—but I'd say they will have to make changes eventually to some things, as the system is a little unwieldy and counterintuitive at this point, and runs the risk of only becoming moreso with time. I think we'll have a better idea of where they're planning to go with classes and jobs after we find out more about 4.0's new jobs—will they continue with the "Extra Jobs" label of DRK/MCH/AST? Will we see any new base classes (I think this is unlikely, but not completely out of the question)? Will there be yet another category of jobs instead? It's pretty hard to say right now.

[RiceisNice]

Is that best for the game in the longterm? I'm no soothsayer—but I'd say they will have to make changes eventually to some things, as the system is a little unwieldy and counterintuitive at this point, and runs the risk of only becoming moreso with time. I think we'll have a better idea of where they're planning to go with classes and jobs after we find out more about 4.0's new jobs—will they continue with the "Extra Jobs" label of DRK/MCH/AST? Will we see any new base classes (I think this is unlikely, but not completely out of the question)? Will there be yet another category of jobs instead? It's pretty hard to say right now.

Let's be honest though, I doubt legacy players at this point of the game make up a good amount of player demographics, it's mostly new and casuals at this point. Dilute that even more to those players who actually like the cross-skill gimmick or think it adds depth to each job. Extra jobs (starting at level 30) in design is really no different than how ninja/rogue was handled, the problem really roots back to the cross classing when you see that rogue has no cross-skills for any of the current jobs, not even the new ones. And consequently, because the 3.x jobs don't have a class, they by default have no abilties that can be crossed either. In a broad view, they're specifically moving away from the cross-skilling (which stems from classing) rather than classes as a whole, and likewise with branching jobs due to how SMN/SCH turned out with how it limits their design.

There's a lot more room for creativity if they had gotten rid of cross-skills altogether; it's five extra slots for each job and another way of giving them mechanics to handle their resources (specifically physical dps in regards to tp) or flavor (since they're entirely fine with making abilities functionally the same, like WM/GB, why not do the same for provoke and protect among the tanks and healers?)

[Alahra]

There's a lot more room for creativity if they had gotten rid of cross-skills altogether

In general I don't see them doing this—part of the reason cross-class skills exist is to encourage people to try and play other classes. Personally I'd rather they expand cross-class skills in some way, rather than removing them.

Rogue actually does offer cross-class skills (Shade Shift, Goad, and Death Blossom), but since none of the existing Jobs have Rogue as a requirement, they don't see see any use. Future jobs may have access to them, though, especially if they move to a point where another job uses Scouting gear—any such job would be more thematically likely to have Rogue as a subclass than others would be.

[RiceisNice]

In general I don't see them doing this—part of the reason cross-class skills exist is to encourage people to try and play other classes. Personally I'd rather they expand cross-class skills in some way, rather than removing them.

Idk, it feels really arbitrary when they're essentially forcing you to level other classes just to be able to function in end game (and sometimes not even) content. Specifically abilities like provoke. If it means getting rid of the homogenization of all physical dps getting B4B and invigorate, but instead have 5 new abilties in it's place that gives more depth and identity to each job, I'd rather ditch the cross classing

Rogue actually does offer cross-class skills (Shade Shift, Goad, and Death Blossom), but since none of the existing Jobs have Rogue as a requirement, they don't see see any use. Future jobs may have access to them, though, especially if they move to a point where another job uses Scouting gear—any such job would be more thematically likely to have Rogue as a subclass than others would be.

I already addressed this; I said that none of the existing jobs can use rogue skills, not even the new ones.

...the problem really roots back to the cross classing when you see that rogue has no cross-skills for any of the current jobs, not even the new ones.

The way it is now is also a retroactive problem; MCH, AST and DRK offers no cross classing. Some of them would not even make sense conceptually if you tried (trying to cross class something like wildfire, rapid fire, or reload) to put it on another class/job by itself.

That's exactly what I'm trying to get at though. There's nothing about "a" class system that says that jobs stemming from it must take all the same base skills. You could just as easily give a class more skills than any one job expanding from it can take atop its own unique job skills. Nor is there any rule in a system that happens to have source classes and expanded jobs that the jobs aren't at all allowed to modify the effects of class skills passed on to them. It's not the fact that we have two tiers of broad / customizable and deep / iconic classes-jobs that's holding us back. It's the execution in relating the two to each other.

Well I'm speaking for it as is. If they want to make it work, the changes need to be implemented to how it works in general from the ground-up. Skills need to be retroactively changed as you equip a job crystal, traits need to be job exclusive, etc etc. We just have none of that in the current workings, unless you count MCH/DRK/AST traits by definition since they are job-only.