Branching jobs / Advancements

[Penthea]

You're asking for 100% unique jobs, using weapon/spell-school proficiencies (which is all classes amount to) as reason by which to disallow potential jobs. How many jobs are there left that have no weapons, techniques, or sources of their abilities in common with the existing ones?

What you listed were not my opinions and not how I would personally react to the suggestions of those classes/jobs. You're making a lot of assumptions about my personal thoughts.

"I'd really like a Corsair!"
-- "Sorry, RDM and MCH are already in the game."

I would say that rdm chiefly uses rapiers and the corsair could use a cutlass, and the majority of mch's weapons are large guns, not classic revolvers. However I understand the concern that the corsair could end up being like a more physical version of rdm, but this can be fixed with class ability design.

"Puppeteer?"
-- "Sorry, we already have a pet job and a technician job."

The technician point didn't stop SE from introducing gnb after mch and it did not take anything away from sch that is supposed to be a strategist. Also pets can be literally anything. They don't have to be egis, carbuncles or faeries. There is no reason why we can't have another pet class with a totally different type of pet with totally different mechanics.

"Viking!!"
-- "Sorry. We already have a shield job and an axe job."

We don't have a melee class that specialises in blunt weapons such as a mace. Shields are not only associated with paladins across all media, and there is no reason why the viking cannot use a two-handed mace or dual wield them.

"Geomancer? It's gotta be Geomancer, right."
-- "We were planning on this, but it was impossible to make new hand animations by which to grip the bell, and any other choice of weapon was impossible because we already have two staff-bearers and one-handed blunt weapons were taken by Blue Mage."

This could be solved by putting the bell on the staff. As far as my memory tells me, there isn't a single staff in the game with a bell on it. Perhaps this is intentional because SE are still not completely decided about geomancer?

Right now whm and blm are competing with one another for aesthetics because they use the same weapon, so we tend to see certain visual aspects for one class but not the other. Blm staves often have a meteor/dalamud design at the top, while whm staves often have themes of nature such as branches, foliage and flowers. A bell or another unique symbol could be used specifically for geomancers. But I do understand SE's apprehension with bringing in a third class that uses the same weapon. Three is a bit too much. Many players would respond to this with "there are so many weapons types that are absent from the game that you could have used instead." I personally would prefer to see geomancer use something different to a staff.

Furthermore with the whm ShB offensive abilities and the removal of Stoneskin it is clear that SE are moving whm away from specialising in the earth element. I do sometimes wonder if this was intentional so that by the time geomancer comes we won't have two classes that specialise in the same element even at max lvl.

"Foebreaker?"
-- "Already have an axe, sword-and-board, single-sword, and technician job... And, c'mon, you know we don't do typal debuffs since Heavensward. That shit's only there to awkwardly hold back Monk and Red Mage a little extra."

We don't have a class that specialises in maces, morning stars or flails. As far as I recall foebreakers could use hammers. And no the blu weapon does not count because it looks like little other than a fancy walking stick. Their weapon looks more like a magician's accessory than something used for melee combat. An actual mace usually looks quite different to a blu weapon.

However my stance is quite different when it comes to a sniper that uses a bow.

Unlike whm and blm, bard is not competing with another job for the aesthetic of its weapon. Because of this SE have tremendous freedom in weapon design and it really shows. There are small bows, large bows, flamboyant bows, simple bows, bows that look like little other than vanity display pieces, bows with a strong military design, bows that fold and unfold...there is an exceptionally large range of aesthetics and sizes that bard bows cover. Because of this I would be concerned that a sniper class that uses a bow could have weapons that look too similar to bard. This is why I suggest a crossbow. There are some crossbow inspired bows for bard but they are a tiny handful among the large range of weapons. If they dual wield crossbows they would look even more different to a bard. And I think crossbows are cool so I would love to see a job in the game that specialises in them

Also whm and blm don't share the same base class, but OP appeared to suggest that a sniper would share the same base class as a bard.

[shao32]

Well we already have a branching jobs this expansion with Marauder spliting in to WAR and DRK at the cost of the last one and is not going specially well.

[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.

[Katie_Kitty]

I'd be more interested in a return to the old system but with advanced jobs. For example, maybe mastering Samurai and Red Mage could unlock Rune Fencer with their three big sen hitters upgrading to "elemental"-themed spellblade type attacks after building up their b/w mana gauge.

[tymora]

Branching classes doesn't really fit in well with the theme of jobs where you can master them all.

[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.

[BasicBlake]

Now I know the devs struggled with SMN and SCH split but I feel like that's partially due to the fact that they broke off into radically different roles with playstyles that didn't work due to thier shared beginnings. But, take this hypothetical: if the jobs that branched off were more close in nature (retained the same roles and similar playstyle) do you think it could possible in said situation?

ex. Archer ---> Bard OR Sniper

The summoner and scholar split works as is because they operate in different roles. Having one as caster and one as healer let’s them level together but operate independently.

Having two now users in the physical ranged category is going to step on so many toes thematically.

It’s why Geomancer would come as a caster rather than healer.

[MintnHoney]

Branching classes doesn't really fit in well with the theme of jobs where you can master them all.

What's to stop you from mastering all of the branches?