[dev1033] Ideas for a Two-Tier Class System: Jobs on Top of Weapon Specializations

[Carpe]

A simple way to implement this kind of system would be to simply change the physical level into a job level.

Your current job/title would be determined by what skills you currently have equipped. For example, if you had certain sword, shield, and healing magic skills equipped then your job would be Paladin. Any EXP you gained would increase your job level and your job level would give you a bonus based on that jobs specialization, ex. Paladin would increase your defense and healing magic. As well as possibly unlocking job specific skills, though there would be fewer of these then Discipline based skills.

This would effectively allow you to be a Paladin with any weapon as long as you kept those required skills equipped (Though in the case of Paladin it would make those shield skills wasted slots). Ideally the skills required to qualify for any job would not use up all 30 action slots, allowing you to be a specific job with a specific role but still allowing for customization with the remaining slots.

Finally, for new players and for anyone who does not want to be a specific job. There would be a default job for when you don't have the skills to qualify for any other job. This could be Squire or maybe Onion Knight, and it could give a simple stat bonus or maybe a general bonus to all of your skills. That way people who choose not to be a specialist won't feel gimped or that they are wasting EXP.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I have a few concerns/questions for you.

If you change physical level into job level does that mean that your stats (STR/VIT/DEX/...) are going to be determined by your Job level? What happens if I change jobs? These physical stats become increased/decreased according to my other job levels?

-my problem with this is that there isn't going to be enough Job-specific abilities to learn to take me from 1-50 in a Job AND in a Weapon Class (unless you want to throw a ton of abilities/spells onto jobs and leave weapons closer to what they were in FFXI just learning some TP attacks). You need physical development to take quite a long time so as to have a nice stat progression. If you are going to remove physical levels I personally think it would be better to then have your physical stats be determined by your Weapon Class rank since it already goes from 1-50. But, then you get a problem like having a maxed out DRK change weapons from r50 LNC to r30 MRD and have all his stats reduced because of this just because he changed his weapon class. I think this puts too much limitations on people.

Also, you're saying that the skills/weapons you equip will determine your job. So for example, if I equip a sword, shield, and some abilities like rampart, heal, protect, etc. The game determines (FOR ME?) that I am a paladin?

-This is way more restrictive than what I am suggesting. In my proposal I choose to be a paladin (this gives me some specific traits/abilities) and then I pick from the weapon skills that I've learned what (non-class-specific) abilities I want to use with my paladin. With the extended favoring system I'm talking about, certain "paladin builds" are going to be way more effective than others, but this system doesn't constrain you as much as what I think you are suggesting, it allows you to go against the grain or more specifically adapt to a very specific situation.

[Eremor]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I have a few concerns/questions for you.

If you change physical level into job level does that mean that your stats (STR/VIT/DEX/...) are going to be determined by your Job level? What happens if I change jobs? These physical stats become increased/decreased according to my other job levels?

-my problem with this is that there isn't going to be enough Job-specific abilities to learn to take me from 1-50 in a Job AND in a Weapon Class (unless you want to throw a ton of abilities/spells onto jobs and leave weapons closer to what they were in FFXI just learning some TP attacks). You need physical development to take quite a long time so as to have a nice stat progression. If you are going to remove physical levels I personally think it would be better to then have your physical stats be determined by your Weapon Class rank since it already goes from 1-50. But, then you get a problem like having a maxed out DRK change weapons from r50 LNC to r30 MRD and have all his stats reduced because of this just because he changed his weapon class. I think this puts too much limitations on people.

Also, you're saying that the skills/weapons you equip will determine your job. So for example, if I equip a sword, shield, and some abilities like rampart, heal, protect, etc. The game determines (FOR ME?) that I am a paladin?

-This is way more restrictive than what I am suggesting. In my proposal I choose to be a paladin (this gives me some specific traits/abilities) and then I pick from the weapon skills that I've learned what (non-class-specific) abilities I want to use with my paladin. With the extended favoring system I'm talking about, certain "paladin builds" are going to be way more effective than others, but this system doesn't constrain you as much as what I think you are suggesting, it allows you to go against the grain or more specifically adapt to a very specific situation.

First off, I was under the impression that SE was planning to do away with physical levels entirely anyway. But with this double class system that does raise the question of which would give you stat points. Perhaps it could be both, you get a few points when you rank up your discipline and then a few more points when you level up your job.

Second, I wasn't considering making jobs into whole new classes in their own right, each with as many skills as the disciplines. Jobs would grant mostly passive benefits that would help to specialize a character for a certain role, with the possibility of giving them a handful of job exclusive skills to make them a little more interesting.

Finally, as far as choosing your own job, I see it as basically the same as the current system. Do you actually choose your discipline from a list? No, you choose your weapon and then the game sets your discipline automatically. In this case you would choose your skills and then the game would set your job automatically. Admittedly this may cause some unexpected job changes if you don't already know what skill sets go with what jobs, but that could be interesting itself, SE could introduce an unspecified number of jobs and leave it to us to figure out how to unlock them. Ultimately, there should be enough skills and combinations that you would have to know exactly what skills went with a certain job in order to choose that job. This could get annoying if you have to swap out 15-20 skills in order to change jobs, but skill swaps can be accomplished fairly quickly through macros. Ideally the required skills for a job would not include the basic weapon attacks, thereby allowing you to use any weapon in combination with any job so long as you keep the other required skills equipped.

It is true that this would be more restricting then a completely free job selection, but isn't that the whole point of having a specific job with it's own style and identity. But I would still like to see some customization, as I mentioned, there shouldn't be more then 15-20 required skills (possibly even less) for any one job, leaving the remaining 10-15 slots free for skills of your own choice. And as I mentioned, there would be a catch-all job for people who wanted to completely customize their skill set (assuming their desired skill set didn't match any of the requirements for another job, and if it does then it could be assumed that that job fills the role that person wants to play anyway. ex. if you fill up your skills with offensive actions and wind up being a DRK without realizing it, then DRK is probably a good job for you)

[Carpe]

Finally, as far as choosing your own job, I see it as basically the same as the current system. Do you actually choose your discipline from a list? No, you choose your weapon and then the game sets your discipline automatically. In this case you would choose your skills and then the game would set your job automatically. Admittedly this may cause some unexpected job changes if you don't already know what skill sets go with what jobs, but that could be interesting itself, SE could introduce an unspecified number of jobs and leave it to us to figure out how to unlock them. Ultimately, there should be enough skills and combinations that you would have to know exactly what skills went with a certain job in order to choose that job. This could get annoying if you have to swap out 15-20 skills in order to change jobs, but skill swaps can be accomplished fairly quickly through macros. Ideally the required skills for a job would not include the basic weapon attacks, thereby allowing you to use any weapon in combination with any job so long as you keep the other required skills equipped.

It is true that this would be more restricting then a completely free job selection, but isn't that the whole point of having a specific job with it's own style and identity. But I would still like to see some customization, as I mentioned, there shouldn't be more then 15-20 required skills (possibly even less) for any one job, leaving the remaining 10-15 slots free for skills of your own choice. And as I mentioned, there would be a catch-all job for people who wanted to completely customize their skill set (assuming their desired skill set didn't match any of the requirements for another job, and if it does then it could be assumed that that job fills the role that person wants to play anyway. ex. if you fill up your skills with offensive actions and wind up being a DRK without realizing it, then DRK is probably a good job for you)

I think what you're talking about is something similar to what Tanaka was implying in an old interview I read at ffxivcore:

We won't have the samurai as a job, because we don't have a job system. And we don't have a class like the Samurai. But it depends on how you're going to select your skills and developing your character. So when you reach a certain skill and/or gain certain skills, you will have a title for yourself. It may be Samurai or may not be - we cannot tell you that yet. So please look for an announcement in the future.

This seems like another possible way to go about doing things, but I feel like it would definitely be more restrictive that what we've been talking about so far. Some people might want that extra restriction while others don't, I guess that's a matter of personal taste.

As I suggested in the OP, with the title system I'm talking about you get a subtle guideline for creating your optimized build because you can go through the abilities that are available and choose only those that are favored for your class. I think some obvious "standard" builds will emerge, but they won't be dictated, the same way there is no particular build dictated in the game now (In the current system, I could equip an axe and use nothing but THM skills other than my basic mandatory axe attack).

I just don't want to limit someone's customization choices to just a couple of open slots after the mandatory core abilities have been set. What if I wanted to combine the passive/class-unique abilities from a particular title with abilities from weapons that weren't considered part of the "core" in the system you are suggesting?

The point you make about the skill swaps being annoying, but could be done more quickly through macros, points to a problem with the current interface. I think regardless of what system they implement the developers really need to let us save some custom skill loadouts through some GUI interface that is faster and simpler than having to write 3-4 macros to set up our 3 action bars/traits.

One question I have about your proposal is how do you implement PET classes like BST and SMN? If I had to set up a specific core of abilities in my loadout to unlock those two classes than I would think you would have to introduce some kind of pet master/caller weapon and have their abilities have similar shared names since there doesn't seem to be enough spells/abilities out there to justify having a separate BST weapon and a separate SMN weapon.

[Eremor]

One question I have about your proposal is how do you implement PET classes like BST and SMN? If I had to set up a specific core of abilities in my loadout to unlock those two classes than I would think you would have to introduce some kind of pet master/caller weapon and have their abilities have similar shared names since there doesn't seem to be enough spells/abilities out there to justify having a separate BST weapon and a separate SMN weapon.

That's a good question, and I have no idea how they would implement a Pet job. It probably would have to be a new weapon discipline with a whole new set of skills. But that seems to be a discussion for the future, for now we should focus on changes that affect the disciplines that are currently in the game.