Possible removal of Classes

[Zhamkyong]

It might be more easier to show you then explain ^.^ here's a very old video I made from those days that shows roughly how it worked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUR-lPpEbsU Basically nearly every skill for every class was up for grabs as a cross class action. Want to be a mage with tank skills? It could be done, want to be an archer healer? It could be done. Players had 10 cross class abilities they could take at max level and each skill had a set number of allocation points. The more higher level the skill, the more points it costed to put it in your cross class ability bar. When you leveled up, you got a number of points you could use to spend on whatever cross class skill you wanted from all the classes you unlocked.

It was simply this, most things could be used by anything, like I can play SCH while having fire III.

THM and CNJ used to be able to use shield abilities. It would be like if you leveled PLD now, and unlock sentinel, you could use sentinel on THM and CNJ just as long you had a wand/shield combo. There was a move called phalanx I think, it did not last long but if you took a hit, no matter how strong it was, it healed you not damage you.

Then there was the broken spike spell for THM, shock spikes or something. So say you had a leve to do while noticing it is not possible to clear because level 10 for one leve was not the same difficulty as a level 10 for another, so you really did not know how hard leves where unless you memorized them by name. So you have this leve with the cactus things that are not possible to kill for your level while the special move oneshots you. So what do you do? Use the spikes spell and hope it uses the needle move before the ability wears off. If it works, you just made the monster literally kill itself killing you. It was sooo broken it was hilarious .

Wait... What?!

The first version of the game had that depth of customization in the class system?? Why the hell did they change that? It sounds awesome! We have no choice right now in the way we want to build our own character. Yes, we have materia/gear with diferent stats and we can allocate those by level, but it's an "ilussion" of choice because there is only one viable path to work with. Every class is the same as the other except of the looks of glamour...

[Aylis]

Wait... What?!

The first version of the game had that depth of customization in the class system?? Why the hell did they change that? It sounds awesome! We have no choice right now in the way we want to build our own character. Yes, we have materia/gear with diferent stats and we can allocate those by level, but it's an "ilussion" of choice because there is only one viable path to work with. Every class is the same as the other except of the looks of glamour...

To put it bluntly. Yoshida wanted to dumb the game down to make it popular considering 1.0 in the eyes of making money was a flop. In contrast here is the same fight I did in the last video I linked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQOgtbwZ0-I on the 1.20 update when Yoshida took over and removed all the fun abilities and took away Tanaka's original identity to make FFXIV "mainstream"

[Zhamkyong]

Yoshida wanted to dumb the game down to make it popular considering 1.0 in the eyes of making money was a flop.

Then I hope they don't dumb it too much than it has been dumbed down. Talking about a Final Fantasy side on with classes in mind I have to admit each has his own identity based on the previous games. Sure, there had been some changes and adaptation in classes and we have (sadly) a linear progression on each class.

Wanting to have 1.0 back it's unlikely to happen, so I just hope they know what they are doing. They can't please everyone, they should just find and apply their own identity.

[ErikMynhier]

To put it bluntly. Yoshida wanted to dumb the game down to make it popular considering 1.0 in the eyes of making money was a flop. In contrast here is the same fight I did in the last video I linked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQOgtbwZ0-I on the 1.20 update when Yoshida took over and removed all the fun abilities and took away Tanaka's original identity to make FFXIV "mainstream"

I forgot how fine the music was.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

It might be more easier to show you then explain ^.^ here's a very old video I made from those days that shows roughly how it worked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUR-lPpEbsU Basically nearly every skill for every class was up for grabs as a cross class action. Want to be a mage with tank skills? It could be done, want to be an archer healer? It could be done. Players had 10 cross class abilities they could take at max level and each skill had a set number of allocation points. The more higher level the skill, the more points it costed to put it in your cross class ability bar. When you leveled up, you got a number of points you could use to spend on whatever cross class skill you wanted from all the classes you unlocked.

This issue with a system like this, and why it was likely abandoned, is you'd have to tailor fights around these potential builds or make it so a healing archer were capable of being the teams' dedicated healer. Otherwise... there would never be any point to bringing an archer who could heal over a conjurer. Having an allotment of cross skills doesn't mean they'll be effective.

To put it bluntly. Yoshida wanted to dumb the game down to make it popular considering 1.0 in the eyes of making money was a flop. In contrast here is the same fight I did in the last video I linked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQOgtbwZ0-I on the 1.20 update when Yoshida took over and removed all the fun abilities and took away Tanaka's original identity to make FFXIV "mainstream"

See, I find that battle system incredibly dull, personally. It's slower than even ARR's 2.5 GCD, which is saying something. A better comparison is Ifrit EX 1.0 to its subsequent counterpart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unpWwn00mJs

That... is not an engaging fight.

[Talraen]

Wait... What?!

The first version of the game had that depth of customization in the class system?? Why the hell did they change that? It sounds awesome! We have no choice right now in the way we want to build our own character. Yes, we have materia/gear with diferent stats and we can allocate those by level, but it's an "ilussion" of choice because there is only one viable path to work with. Every class is the same as the other except of the looks of glamour...

They removed it because "customization" is a myth. You could do whatever you wanted for low-end content, but when it came to anything remotely demanding, you had to level almost every job and have the precise set of abilities everyone had determined was the best. Combine that with how many people think leveling (the only time customization was interesting) should go away, and the fate of classes is pretty inevitable. You can change a game, but you can't change the players.