Job System details

[Alerith]

Why have 4 people spamming Cure II when you can have a WHM using Cure IV, or better yet, Curaga II?

[Travesty]

But then those classes could be losing out on some other aspect.

you can have 1 whm focusing on their job, or have 4 people doing it. But those 4 people are also supposed to be DD, so every time they toss a cure they lose out on an attack round.

Yes, they'd be losing out on other aspects, just like every other party member, because they are a jack of all trades. That's my point. A jack of all trades never is going to be the best at 1 thing. But are 8 of them going to be good enough at everything to make it so that a best of 1 thing is not needed.

Think of it this way. If you compare mathematically a party of 8 hybrid classes to one with 8 Jobs, each of the hybrid classes has to perform at 12.5% of the efficiency of a role that 1 of the jobs is taking. Obviously they're not all going to match that % exactly in equal amounts, but you have to wonder why 8 jack of all trades won't be able to collectively perform the same way or better than a group of 8 defined Jobs can.

I dunno about you, but when I play Lancer I don't want to stuck healing unless its vital for the PT's survival. Same goes when I play any melee class sans Gladiator because Cures are an awesome provoke.

Obviously people who want to DD aren't going to want to cure, but if it's a more efficient way to get things done then that might not matter.

[Vawn]

Not only will jobs fullfill a more specific role, it sounds like they will often be a completely different role. I am going from an Archer to a Bard?

[Coglin]

How can any of you sit here and claim what WHM and BLM can do, when none of you even have the slightest idea of how the jobs WHM.BLM will change the current classes?

This thread is full of debate on unfounded speculation.

[Betelgeuzah]

When you lowman easier stuff, why would you want to play PLD when all it can do is tank?

When you fight Ifrit, why would you want to play GLA when Ifrit hits for so much damage and you have party full of specialized DPS Jobs that do more damage than you ever could as GLA?

[Tsukino]

In almost all games, not just MMOs, jacks-of-all-trades excel on their own and with small groups while a team of specialists is able to accomplish more than a team comprised of generalists. It's highly unlikely they won't be able to easily accomplish this with FFXIV as well.

[Baxter]

In almost all games, not just MMOs, jacks-of-all-trades excel on their own and with small groups while a team of specialists is able to accomplish more than a team comprised of generalists. It's highly unlikely they won't be able to easily accomplish this with FFXIV as well.

^this,

people forget that paladin isn't just about "tanking", but also a major role is damage mitigation for them, and the party. Possibly even manipulating hate depending on how you want to look at it. Not sure if they will outsource this to a different job.

White mage and black mage respectively could operate as if you split ffxi's scholar in half. Giving an extended library of spells, and abilities, potency, mp management to each and enhance in the preexisting spells/abilities. (cure, protect, etc.,) also add traits.

[Answa]

Why have 4 people spamming Cure II when you can have a WHM using Cure IV, or better yet, Curaga III?

Fixed. :P

Wants jobs nao!

[Zion_Cross]

Personally I want some sort of grind involved when we get the job to learn our new found abilities. That could also mean that within each quest they give you, to attain abilities - they also give you a basic tutorial of how the skill works. So as the story unwraps, even though you might be a level 50 glad, you're still learning about your future-current job as a paladin.

[Tsukino]

Realized I had more to say than just responding to people wondering if it would work...

If they can pull this system off properly (it is a lot of work to balance) it could be a big step forward in balancing in the MMO world. Typically games have a difficult time of maintaining balance across all their content, because of the inherent strengths of different types of classes. For instance, a specialist will have an easy time doing large-scale PvE content because that's where they shine, but if they are too specialized soloing may be utterly impossible and they'll end up needing help to do everything. On the other side you have a jack-of-all-trades who can solo even some things intended for groups and has tricks for any opponent in PvP, but no one will invite them to any parties because they can't fill a specific role.

You can see this in FFXI (or could at least, I haven't played since the add-on BS) almost to an extreme. Jobs like bard were massively beneficial to parties and thus got invited to everything, but they needed help with everything that could "normally" be done solo, while jobs like beastmaster were amazing soloists but never got invited to anything. This is also the reason WoW introduced "dualspec," allowing people to choose a more well-rounded build for PvP and a more specialized one for PvE (generally).

If classes are still good generalists and jobs are true masters of one thing, and they level up together, you'll end up with an automatic situation where people have one solution for solo and another for big groups. In this way content can be balanced separately, and you don't have any of one bleeding into the other. Characters will neither be so similar there's no point in picking, nor will they be so different they're helpless without a group, because the player will always have both options.