2.0 Armoury System & Multiple Jobs? Concerns

[Dzian]

In all the anticipation for 2.0 one of the things that I do tend to worry about is the current armoury system. the way it's designed is apparently so multiple jobs can stem from one class which in theory is fine but I feel it doesn't really give much room for unique jobs and variety.

a popular idea on the forums and in the community in general is that of dark knight coming from gladiator to give gladiators a dd option. but would this really work? with the armoury system at present and with how jobs currently work. if you were to stem dark knight from gladiators then it would in its nature be a very defensive roll.

the dark knight would be there with sentinel, rampart, outmanoeuvre, aegis boon, shield bash, enhanced sentinel enhanced rampart, swift aegis boon and other traits and abilities. it would in essence be a very defensive job and as such it would be very much the same as gladiator and paladin. and its offence would also follow gladiator skills fast blade flat blade etc etc. with the current class system it seems impossible to truly create multiple jobs stemming from the same class without them being practically identical

it would seem to make a dark knight job unique then it would need a new unique class and frame to be built on. and much the same with other jobs.

a summoner if based on cnj/thm would have an ability/trait set of cnj/thm neither of which would seem very practical or beneficial to your summoned avatar.

personally I levelled my archer in the view of being a ranger style job. put out a lot of hurt from far away and they gave arc the bard job which I was fine with until the hot fix killed a huge chunk of it's damage potential and I've lost all interest in playing it so I'm kind of hoping there is at some point a real ranged dd class that does hurt things.

seems very common now that bards/archers don't care. the expense of arrows isn't worth the damage they can put out and I find that kind of disheartening. but my point really is that if they were to make a ranger job and it were to stem from archer it would be the very same as the dark knight example above. the same traits, the same abilities it wouldn't be unique.

this really is my problem with the armoury system there really isn't much room for flexibility. if you have 2 jobs from one class or 4 jobs from one class they are ultimately all going to be very similar in the same way that a gla is very similar to a pld a thm is very similar to a blm.

This really is why I think classes and the current armoury system should be scrapped. because to create truly unique jobs requires truly unique classes and having 20 classes for 20 jobs when they play almost identically just seems pointless in the same way most classes are and are never used because of it.

to scrap the classes or armoury system would give an almost infinite amount of flexibility for diversity and uniqueness in jobs.

Dark knight could be something totally knew. not "ok we're going to make dark knight but we have to build it around the gladiator frame" which is heavily restrictive. it could have its own traits and abilities and be truly unique.

I'm just hoping that any new jobs and stuff we do get are unique and different to play and with the current armoury / class system and those bits of information that have been said by Yoshi etc such as stemming multiple jobs from single classes I just kind of feel that it seems that they would all play the same way.

[Seohyun]

I agree with you in the case that if they do make more advanced classes, then they'll be restricted by the traits of the base classes currently released. But I'm sure they've found a way around that. For example, Dark Knights are all about hurting themselves in order to dish out even more damage. Thus, I believe a class such as gladiator is the perfect base class for them due to their defense capabilities. Their job is to take all the damage. Dark Knight can easily be manipulated by the damage they take, and returning it back. For example, a buff that lasts 30-40 seconds, the more damage you take... the higher your attack power starts to rise.

Then there's the traditional dark knight moves that consist of them hurting themselves in order to perform a really strong attack. If you're going to be fighting something, and also planning on hurting yourself as well. You better have a good defense planned in order to keep yourself alive. Things like aegis boon would help them bring back their HP after manipulating the enemy so that their attacks get stronger.

As for a long-ranged class, that's where musketeer comes in. Nothing says, "I'm going to kill you from a distance" than a gun aimed at the face. :P People are worried that archers will be replaced by musketeers, but I beg to differ. Archers have an amazing support role once they turn into bards and can also deal back up damage. Bards buffs are second to none. While musketeers would be merely about damage, and maybe crowd control.

[TaalAzura]

obviously it's going to have to change; obtaining a new soul would mean that you start your new job at (most likely) max level. How it should work, is for instance give Gladiator more DD skills, and when you equip a soul (i.e. PLD) you lose the damage oriented skills while still maintaining the defense skills. However, the soul starts at Lv1 again, and you don't unlock the "available" skills from gladiator until you reach a the appropriate level. The opposite would hold true for obtaining the DRK soul; the defense abilities would be no longer available, however the offensive ones from gladiator would be available for unlock.

[Rau]

It's probably too late for such a major change in direction, but I suppose you never know. I prefer your idea to the system we have in place/are getting.

The only way I see some part of your idea coming to fruition is if say, Dark Knight comes from GLA, DRK will get its on slew of abilities. In other words, despite having a Gladiator base class, it wouldn't have any GLA skills, but its own unique abilities(10ish, plus 5 from 2 other classes like MRD and LNC)

[Duelle]

a popular idea on the forums and in the community in general is that of dark knight coming from gladiator to give gladiators a dd option. but would this really work? with the armoury system at present and with how jobs currently work. if you were to stem dark knight from gladiators then it would in its nature be a very defensive roll.

You're assuming that GLA and PLD's scaling with stats would remain exactly the same. Do keep in mind that weapon damage is VERY important, and that what the armoury system deals with is clutter and has the potential to draw on application.

Fast Blade from a DRK would hurt a whole lot more than Fast Blade from a PLD. DRK would have a much higher chance to use Goring and Riot Blades, seeing that they'd be focusing on DPS rather than tanking. DRK would not be able to use Shield Bash and Aegis Boon, as those require shields and DRK would be all about Great Sword. This does, however, mean that some heavy adjustments need to be done to GLA so that PLD and DRK can grow out of it. I once suggested that GLA be adjusted to be more middle of the road and PLD being the tank option while DRK would be the DPS option. Move the heavy tank stuff to PLD, give GLA some offensive traits and build from there. Here's my suggestion in full.

the same traits, the same abilities it wouldn't be unique.

I don't put much stock in "uniqueness". We end up with messes like "class A can't get a needed fix because it might step on the toes of class B and thus make it less 'unique'". It's easy to lose sight that functionality is just as (or more, in my case) important when you focus too much on being a unique snowflake.

[darkstarpoet1]

the one worry i have is that they made the classes and the original jobs the same for the most part.

i'll use gla/pld for example because that was the first you used:

1. they should have left gla more like it originally was.

2. it had defensive abilities for tanking and also had some dd abilities.

3. i feel they should have left the classes with multiple basics in place so they could branch into multiple jobs.

4. when you switched to pld you lose some of the offensive abilities, but got boosts in the defensive ones along with additional defensive abilities on pld.

5. when they switched to dark knight they would have lost the defensive abilities from gla, but would have gotten additional offensive abilities.

6. this would have had gla as a solo class because it had the basics of both dark knight and paladin, but didn't have the boosts that the job stones gave for either offensive or defensive abilities.


this could have been done on each class in limiting it to being able to do the basics of 2 things and giving them room to specialize in either direction and given boosts on the abilities when specializing.

gladiator: tanking single mobs(pld/shield)/ damage dealer(no shield)
marauder: tanking multiple mobs(war)/ dual axe damage dealer
lancer: damage dealer(drg)/ crowd control(smaller lance with small shield)
pugilist: damage dealer(monk)/ thief(quick and uses a dagger)
archer: support class(bard)/ range dd(like muskateer)
thm: nuking class(blm)/ dot class
conjurer: healing class(whm)/ enfeebles

by just having each class with the basics of the multiple jobs they would eventually become it would have made the classes more diverse, but nowhere near as effective as the jobs in a party situation. granted the primary and secondary jobs i mentioned are simply ideas to show more of what i was talking about and not what i would actually want them to become.

i just feel they changed classes and made them into jobs and then added jobs on top and made classes and jobs the same things for the most part.

[Jynx]

I still think the class system does nothing but hamstring the potential of just having unique jobs.

[Jocko]

How unique can two jobs be if they share 75% of the same skill set? That's my big issue. In a sense, the job system would regress back to what we had before, lack of identitym instead of adding class uniqueness as intended

[Viritess]

I feel if they don't add more all around skills to the base classes. Defensive, Support and Damage type skills i expect at some point our Class traits to actually be replaced by a job stone. It would likely be one of the easier routes for them to go to start.

Then the remaining issue is how would a Dark Knight use Aegis boon. Job stones "re-names" and "re-icons" the skill to have the same effect, but to use a Greatsword block. Shield Bash becomes Pommel Bash etc

You may be used to the effects, and thus it would provide a smoothish transition, since i don't expect them to want to Totally change the experience from class to job to job except in a few cases (Summoner)

This wouldn't be my personal favorite solution, i kinda want each class to be able to do all three to differing levels of effectiveness, and the Jobs they recieve specialize them. DRG is DD, maybe some new Job they use a Staff like Spear as a more defencive Parry tank etc.

But my personal favorite basiclly means adding to each class alot more skills (and depending on your take on long lists of skills, you may like or dislike that. Which then means more cross-class options, which likely means balancing, which usually leads to skills that feel like they do nothing much, because if you cross-class a bunch of defence skills you'd be too hard to hit unless they make the cross classable skills a very tiny list...which kind of hurts the class idea a little, as much as i like it.

Something tells me my last paragraph is one of the things thats giving SE some headaches right now over how and where to take classes themselves.

Thats why my expectation is Traits swapping out, if its well recived by the community, they may just say, "They seem to like it enough, so we don't have to delve into the tougher idea." As much as i wish they would.

Making Job exclusive traits could also free them up to make the class traits more interesting for the classes themselves. Perhaps giving them their own interesting twist. Lancer with more parry due to trait? Parry materia looks slightly more interesting for a Lancer maybe? GLD defencive traits swapped out to Offencive traits for Dark Knights? Then DRK from GLD looks much easier to impliment.

Now going from 1h to 2h sword via armory system. Thats a different can of worms.

[Andrien]

they may completely revamp the entire class traits, and also add job traits when you switch into one as well. we are missing job traits after all.