Just feels like bad design

[AdamFyi]

But they flat out still haven't because they don't want to, else they would've done it with Shadowbringers, they have the capacity to change job unlock quests requirements, since you used to have to level Cnj to 15 for sch now just Arcanist to lv30 and finish questline, so would have no issues changing sch job unlock quest to just require any lv30 class to unlock and make said quest give a sch book as a reward on top.

They have the capability to split them completely, but probably won’t because it usually comes down to spaghetti code that they’re forced to work with that causes all these weird decisions. Just as a hypothetical, possibly making Scholar its own job akin to every new recent job would mess something up with how Sch’s level is currently tied to Arcanist. Stuff like unlocked abilities and quest progress can impact that too. They probably couldn’t find a feasible way to let players keep their current Scholar levels while splitting the two up.

There’s a lot of variables with why they made these weird decisions, but honestly, what splitting the two up really boils down to is the possibility that you’ll have to level Sch up back from scratch just to play it again. Sure, I have other jobs levelled, but what of players who only have Scholar unlocked? I know I’d hate to suddenly log in one day and be unable to actually do current content on the job I play because it’s basically reset to level 30.

[Irenia]

Indeed, when it comes to the devs, I tend to not doubt them at their word. For all of the issues we have with healers, I believe there is enough here to reasonably deduce potential reasons why things turned out this way without having the devs be liars trying to sabotage their own game.

[Sloprano]

Just feels like bad design.

That which had no preview of confidence, glossed over in presentation, felled on deaf ears as inquiries began, confusing answering, unrealistic statements, no attempts to defend a creative visiion, hemming and hawing as they remove and then re-add skills, seemed made in five minutes by the fruit deliveryman who comes around every second tuesday (who's excellency in delivery is only eclipsed by his inability to make games) and finally a work of design by commitee that shows not a single shred of conviction behind it.

If it feels like bad design, smells like bad design, plays like bad design, then it definitly is bad game design.

Seriously the Scholar stuff gets me more baffled due to it feels like as you put the sch stone around your neck/wrist/wherever Lily is behind you with demon eyes and a giant hammer ready to beat the tar outta you to make you forget your skills and afterwards your like thx Lily I needed that.

SCH issues: This is because they regret their decision to tie two jobs to one class, making it difficult to balance them as two distinct jobs. You should really just consider SCH an entirely seperate job that you simply unlock via the SMN questline. After all, you don't remember all your black magic spells when you switch to WHM, so why would you remember anything from SMN when you switch to SCH?

The SMN and SCH myth has been busted: It was a grand idea to have two jobs share one class. This understandably took a lot of time to make skills and attribute points that would work on both, time they didnt have when making ARR. This relationship has really not been a problem since HW and when they got rid of the attribute points: SCH and SMN have both been getting 100% exclusive skills and Arcanist none over the years. The only thing left has been shared xp for arcanist.

Which haven't stopped SE fucking over SCH with a scorching diesel rod every single expansion as SMN changes took precedence and they flat out keep forgetting the skills read "ACN SMN SCH": The untraited Ruin upgrade; the loss of debuffs; Miasma 2; Shadowflare is a use-on-cooldown; Energy Drain; the pet changes. What the fuck does SE think I've been doing since HW? Pressing Broil? Then manually replacing it with Ruin and press that at <52?

Oddly enough, Ressurection STILL is ACN. Something my money is down on being they saw how much of bleeding effort it was to write the three letters "S", "C" and "H" back onto (old) Energy Drain. Because, let's not forget there exists two Energy Drains in this game with exact same icon and name but completely different description. Chrust, what a mess.

You know, I could take all the hand-waving, lore destroying and poorly-thought-up excuses, even re-leveling, for 5.0 SCH with one single thing: Had the end result been good. They wanted to finally put the money where their mouth is and divorce SCH and SMN? Fine. Any organism possessing more than one cell would have the common decency to then treat Scholar as it's own thing, take a drive down the Aisle of History, see how it has largely worked for over HALF A DECADE, maybe even see my comments in HW saying "I'm good for leveling other jobs thanks, SCH is just so much fun even if we get Sastasha" and then come up with some unique, but retains the busy, engaging and rewarding feeling of from early levels being a dot-, debuff-, Aetherflow- and pet-management job that attracted people to it in the first place.

And they did nothing of the sort.

Come 6.0, I will personally make and deliver a five-hundred feet trophy in pure platinum if they somehow manage to NOT butterfingers-delete Bio, Ruin 2, Summon Selene and Energy Drain (again) while dislodging an eyeball with a drinking straw and the screams of pain is heard as "I'm balancing healers!"

[Crushnight]

They have the capability to split them completely, but probably won’t because it usually comes down to spaghetti code that they’re forced to work with that causes all these weird decisions. Just as a hypothetical, possibly making Scholar its own job akin to every new recent job would mess something up with how Sch’s level is currently tied to Arcanist. Stuff like unlocked abilities and quest progress can impact that too. They probably couldn’t find a feasible way to let players keep their current Scholar levels while splitting the two up.

There’s a lot of variables with why they made these weird decisions, but honestly, what splitting the two up really boils down to is the possibility that you’ll have to level Sch up back from scratch just to play it again. Sure, I have other jobs levelled, but what of players who only have Scholar unlocked? I know I’d hate to suddenly log in one day and be unable to actually do current content on the job I play because it’s basically reset to level 30.

That's probably the only reasonable reason why they still tied up together but they still could have done as I said and put Sch job unlock quest at needing any lv30 class rather than tying it exclusively to Arcanist, just they would have to put in makes Arcanist lv30 upon finish if <lv30 Arcanist clause. So long as Scholar is exclusively locked to needing Arcanist I will judge the design as such.

Yea the 2 different energy drain phiasco just makes me want to point to Summoner's Physick and go why is this still Garbo but that I think is more for the Dps section of the forums.

[AdamFyi]

That's probably the only reasonable reason why they still tied up together but they still could have done as I said and put Sch job unlock quest at needing any lv30 class rather than tying it exclusively to Arcanist, just they would have to put in makes Arcanist lv30 upon finish if <lv30 Arcanist clause.

I think it’s moreso that it’s too late for them to do much about it now. Had they split them up, say, in Heavensward, the possible backlash wouldn’t be as bad. As the level cap is at 80 now, having to relevel a job would likely get on people’s nerves (especially if they already maxed it out). One solution would probably be having the unlock at a higher level like level 60, but then there’s only one healer left to play all the way to Heavensward which would be pretty bad. Also would feel kinda bad for players that had spent the time levelling current Scholar and they randomly decide to make you level from scratch again.

I can also foresee a possible issue with players who don’t have Summoner unlocked and no equippable Arcanist book in their inventory. The game would probably freak out now that there’s players running around with no weapon or an invalid weapon equipped. Lots of possible reasonings for what they do. But that Diurnal Sect and Aspected Benefic thing definitely doesn't make much sense other than being just a relic from an old design. Should definitely do something about that, lmao.

[Loki]

They should just erase classes and we should lv up jobs from lv1 imo. Classes are useless for 95% of the game so....what is the point to keep it.

[DPZ2]

They should just erase classes and we should lv up jobs from lv1 imo. Classes are useless for 95% of the game so....what is the point to keep it.

The point in keeping it: Not having to rewrite the entire set of ARR job quests from scratch. That part of the game is already written, and, sure, they're pulling stuff out in 5.3 to make it easier to get past the 2.0 storyline, but they would have to cancel the entire 6.0 series if they were to erase classes from this game.

It would be easier to do something like that in FFXIV: Next Generation.

[Jkap_Goat]

They should just erase classes and we should lv up jobs from lv1 imo. Classes are useless for 95% of the game so....what is the point to keep it.

agreed, they are just very useless, plus it takes away other FF jobs like Ranger and Thief, there is no point in classes. when you start up FFXI, you can choose a job right from the start.

[Sloprano]

They should just erase classes and we should lv up jobs from lv1 imo. Classes are useless for 95% of the game so....what is the point to keep it.

I like classes as stepping stones, the idea that you have a base where the core of what you'll be doing comes from so you get that into your fingers as Guildmasters directly references your skills and techniques and when you equip the job stone you start getting additional enchancements and mechanics to think about.

But that would require SE to not try and ignore Classes into non-existence. With how they streamline with reckless abandon I'm surprised they haven't gone away with levels at all. You already get to max level with each expansion's MSQ and leveling up other jobs goes by so fast and is so mind-numbing when they store all the interesting skills at the last leg of the leveling process. Or nowhere at all on SCH.

[File2ish]

They should just erase classes and we should lv up jobs from lv1 imo. Classes are useless for 95% of the game so....what is the point to keep it.

FFXIV 1.0 was designed with classes only. Jobs were a later addition to the game (after Yoshi-P took over if I recall) because there were no classic/iconic FF jobs in the game. To keep everything in line with the original they decided to code in class->job progression for ARR rather than get rid of classes completely (because they are part of the original FFXIV lore).

Besides lore value, technically they can just get rid of the classes, but, depending on the coding (which was likely a lot of spaghetti code considering the time frame ARR was built) would prove it to be more difficult than it seems at a surface level.

Even converting the classes into jobs at a code level would likely cause issues elsewhere in the game code they would need to find and debug. There's a little coding song that goes "99 little bugs in the code, 99 little bugs in the code, take one down, patch it around, 172 bugs in the code"