Jobs: unconnected and now feeling flat

[Sinh119]

I can understand the idea behind it, but from a design perspective it doesn't make much sense. There are probably quite a few players who simply don't care about the feeling of strengthening the character as a whole that you describe, and a change towards this will most assuredly feel like arbitrary busywork to new or returning players. I, for example, heavily dislike playing Black Mage and Red Mage, and yet under this system I would be obligated to level both of them to max in order to effectively participate in the majority of end game content.

Balance also enters the equation. For example, what if a WHM at 70 benefits far greater from its cross class skills than a Diurnal Sect AST does? Will this further skew the representation of jobs in higher end content? These sorts of things usually drift towards homogenization as maintaining balance while retaining uniqueness becomes more difficult, and if there's anything FFXIV doesn't need, it's more homogenization. Time is also a big issue here. We are only in our second expansion, and while we can pick out a couple of useful skills now, will that be the case 5 expansions down the line? Bloat becomes a factor very quickly. New classes also throw a wrench into things. Logistically it's a nightmare to balance, and the amount of people that would actually benefit from such a system is very low, hence why it was removed in the first place.

I want to make it clear that I didn't play during Heavensward, so I'm not that familiar with the system in question, but as an outsider looking in, it seems far more like an inconvenience than a benefit.