Idea: Class split idea for all jobs

[Shurrikhan]

You ignored the rest of the thread where I already discussed not wanting to start off at 1. Also SMN/SCH both use books.

What you're quoting:

A class doesn't have to start at level 1 any more than a job does. It's a moot point. The only rule that must firmly hold is that they are are something more primary than a job. They can start at whatever level. They do not need to share experience between various classes. They can double as a job after the split point. Anything goes. Except that they must be more primary.

This is the only mention of a class starting from level 1 outside of your own, which mine was in reply to:

Except they can't remove the existing classes completely because the classes are fundamentally tied into not only the game's storyline but gameplay, it's not just a simple matter of changing a class's name to a Job from level 1.

Using your GLA example, the GLA's Guild is the Colosseum, which is a fundamental part of Ul'dah's story and lore. Just changing GLA to PLD would require a whole series of new quests would have to be written to 'explain' how a new adventurer is suddenly a 'free PLD' where as the game's storyline currently states outright that the skills of the Sultansworn are a tightly guarded secret and that they're only now passing on their knowledge to a select few veteran (not new) GLAs. Then there are all the enemies that have the class as well have to suddenly have their class name changed to reflect it for consistency, which again does not work when it's a Job that is supposedly rare (half the Jobs are outright stated as being forbidden or forgotten, like WHM). See my point? Pull one loose thread and the whole thing unravels, it's just not worth the effort on SE's part.

Hence, new Jobs added to the game will continue to be classless but the existing classes will have to remain as they're the Armoury System's very foundation (hence you won't see a FFXI-style system of Job and weapon type being separate and being able to equip multiple weapon types to a single Job).

So, how have I neglected your responses to the concept? I've responded directly to the only one you've directly made.

To reiterate, if clarity was the issue -- your not wanting to start off at level 1 is irrelevant to classes/jobs; there's no rule assigning classes to start at level 1, only incidence.

...why?

Branching classes need to share a weapon type as much as jobs need to have different weapon types. Namely not at all. They do that for the sake of diversity, not because of necessity.

Scholars and Summoners both use books. From a certain arbitrary point onward, neither the base class Arcanist, nor Summoners can use Scholar Books and Scholars can't use Arcanist/Summoner Books either. And not just the weapons are separate and can't be used by each other - The entire gear is split, as casters can't use healing gear. Functionally, that is no different than if Scholar was a standalone job without any ties to Arcanist. If they had wanted to, they could have given it basketballs for a weapon instead and restrict books to ACN/SMN, because SCH weapons can be and later are separated from ACN/SMN weapons and thus can be a different type of weapon altogether.

And similarly, they could make a new job, give it a Greatsword and simply restrict the Greatswords intended for that job to that job so that DRK can't use them and vice versa - Just as they already do with ACN/SMN and SCH. They can also copy&paste skills over if they deem it fitting. Or not. They can tie it into a different job's lore or not as well.

IF one removes the entire concept of armory and the armory system, this is true. But otherwise the removal of classes means one thing only -- that every job is its own class, while each class (and therefore job, barring the offending summoner/scholar) remains defined by a unique weapon type. Take that out, and now why can't a Paladin use an axe, and simply mode change by other form between axe-wielding jobs? I'm not saying that'd be worse, by any means, only that it's yet another change, and one around which animations and, where potentially distinct, mechanics and/or damage types have not been worked.

The only real benefit to branches that I see is that you can get two for the price of one. Other than that, there's nothing you cannot do with one that you can do with the other - Adding talents to split skills instead of having them separate from the get-go just seems a bit more cumbersome.

Fair enough.

To me, the advantage might not be functionally significant, but it is significant to maintaining at least a semblance of sense in character progression.

Jobs at present, thematically if not wholly, are essentially specialized skillsets only partly relevant to weapon choice. Dragon skills, Paladin arts, the Dark Arts, White Magic, Black Magic, Red Magic -- none of these necessitate their weapon choices, or even surrounding skillsets. They merely synergize better or worse with different types, much like Role Skills and particular encounters. And yet a basic skillset is essential. Even if we were given a more meaningful tools-and-devices Machinist it would still have time to fill between device usage; it would be that part augmenting a pistol-user in another direction. A Bard still needs something to do whilst singing; that could have been hacking, slashing, or stabbing, but to be amid a ranged-capable army, and better protected from the heat of battle, a bow is a more sensible choice. And yet because each is part-and-parcel with the weapon type, one cannot choose variants. There is no between Archer and Bard, nor a variant that extends pure bow mastery itself or other tactics not related to songs, raid auras, and spot-buffs, because it is already eclipsed by Bard.

Now, yes, you can make a Ranger from scratch, starting it at whatever level, from some 49 levels more skilled with a bow when starting as a Ranger as opposed to (what will become) a Bard to having unlearned some 49 levels of bowmanship despite near or wholly identical origins. That does not make sense to me. I honestly do not care what you call the tangential vehicles of our experience, be they classes or jobs or professions or paths or whatever, as long as we do not fully revert within a given primary vehicle for experience (our weapon). Ideally, at least until such time as a class can be viable in its own right, I feel that experience in any class should halt upon reaching any branching point for jobs, and unless a job branches off yet another (i.e advanced jobs), those branches should occur simultaneously. The devices of a Machinist are irrelevant to a Corsair. Both were gunners, and that's where their similarities ended.