Branching jobs / Advancements

[MariaArvana]

I don't like that everyone has written it off because of the SMN/SCH split though, it feels like that's just a botched first try which never stopped them in other forms like Diadem or Eureka

If you want to know the dev's reason, its because it made SMN/SCH infinitely harder to balance than any other job. By having multiple jobs draw from the same skills from a class, you cause a situation where any changes to those base skills intended to buff/nerf one job will inadvertently affect the other. SCH accidentally got multiple buffs/nerfs through the years because they gave/took away Ruin/Miasma/Bio potency on SMN, to the point they had to start de-coupling them in Stormblood and now in SHB, the two jobs basically have nothing to do with each other in the slightest skill wise and all the ACN skills have been replaced with job-specific actions. (Broil, Biolysis, Art of War on SCH, Ruin 3, Tri-Bind(or whatever its called now), Miasma/Bio 4 on SMN)

Which is honestly the only way this system is truly going to work. And if they have to make the two jobs so de-coupled from each other and the base class to make sure skill changes don't become a nightmare, why bother with the split in the first place and just make it a unique, fleshed out independent job?

Also thematically, SMN/SCH suffered a bit of an identity crisis since they shared so many spells till the de-coupling began. In 2.0 they played almost identically outside of a few OGCDs (Apply dots, use aetherflow stacks on single target damage ability, spam ruin between dot reapplications), 3.0 they still shared multiple core systems but had drifted slightly, it wasn't until 4.0 that they began to drift far from each other and gain identities. I dunno about you, but if I was playing Bard spamming heavy shot, then decided to try out sniper and saw I was spamming heavy shot still, I'd be raising eyebrows.

[Shurrikhan]

If you want to know the dev's reason, its because it made SMN/SCH infinitely harder to balance than any other job.

You realize SCH and SMN can have different potencies for the exact same spell, right? That's not "infinitely" harder. That's the addition of a trait to SMN.

[Ayuhra]

I know it would use up dev time to appeal to a niche minority but anyone else sometimes wish we could get more classes and jobs? Something to select at character creation or level 10 (like rogue). Sometimes jumping in at level 50/60 with a ton of abilities is overwhelming but starting from 1 or 10 and gradually learning systems might feel better.

[HeulGDarian]

I know it would use up dev time to appeal to a niche minority but anyone else sometimes wish we could get more classes and jobs? Something to select at character creation or level 10 (like rogue). Sometimes jumping in at level 50/60 with a ton of abilities is overwhelming but starting from 1 or 10 and gradually learning systems might feel better.

come on dude, you can just go to any low level dungeon and get less spells to use.

[Packetdancer]

I know it would use up dev time to appeal to a niche minority but anyone else sometimes wish we could get more classes and jobs? Something to select at character creation or level 10 (like rogue). Sometimes jumping in at level 50/60 with a ton of abilities is overwhelming but starting from 1 or 10 and gradually learning systems might feel better.

FWIW, I find the Palace of the Dead very useful for jobs that start at higher levels. PotD is honestly terrible for teaching you how to play your job in your role for real content, but it's great for letting you take a job that gets introduced at a higher level and going through the toolbars methodically rather than trying to absorb everything for it all at once.

I learned what all of Gunbreaker's abilities were by wiping my hotbars and heading into PotD to level from 1 to 60 when I decided to level GNB. As I unlocked each skill in there, I read the tooltip and put it onto the bar, figured out how it worked with the other bits, then continued playing. It gave me a clearer picture of how things fit together than just reading through the tooltips all at once would have, and it took very little time (since leveling in PotD goes obscenely fast). I still needed to then go play real content to actually cement how it all worked together, but it was a great deal less overwhelming to queue for something and land in, say, Weeping City for Alliance roulette or Castrum Abania for leveling.