Job Individuality/Pride/Dedication

[Onisake]

I really think the armory system is silly, especially being able to switch classes anywhere. Your class becomes a meaningless choice. Anyone can be anything anytime, so who or what you've grown yourself to be ends up being irrelevant. There's so many times where this comes into play.

1. People want you to swap to the job that is most effective for the situation, all the time; too bad if you want to play X, you're forced to play Y or be kicked. In FFXI I'm sure this happened too, but mid dungeon they're like "we're against coincounter? you can't play melee, swap to ranged now or we're kicking." This happened for many encounters. In other games such as FFXI it was like "I know that job you're playing isn't THE BEST for the situation, but I'm sure we'll get by." People also don't seem to understand that just because you have the class/job doesn't mean you want to play it and doesn't mean you are experienced/geared/skilled with it. I played WHM a lot and sometimes I was asked to go BLM and I said I probably wasn't going to be comfortable with it (lack of gear, didn't play it enough to feel safe on enmity, didn't want to take the risk) and people just didn't seem to understand why I wouldn't go BLM for them (and I was seen as rude).

I've never encountered this. If you ONLY do pick up groups, i can see this happening. but that's part of what makes playing an MMO fun. finding a good dedicated group of friends to play with.

I personally had every job at 50 except PLD and DRG. The two jobs I liked the most were BRD and WHM. everytime my LS did an event I was on one of these two jobs. We would occasionally ask people to switch jobs. but we asked. If they said no, we found another person with that job.

so in a nut shell: your mileage may vary. While this is a videogame, we're all still real people. so real-world lessons still apply. you get the experience out of the game that you put into it. if you're not taking the time to find a group that's right for you that's your problem. SE can't do anything about that. changing the armory system won't fix that problem, because that just means people will level 5 different characters to have 5 different jobs, rather than having one character with all 5.

2. It's not fun when you're like "oh check out my cool dragoon armor and lance" and the other guy goes "oh yeah" and just swaps to it too immediately. It ruins individuality, and gets rid of the ability to say "I AM A DRAGOON" (because technically you can be anything anytime). The class/job choice you make is meaningless, and you just don't have that good feeling about it. I understand people can swap jobs in FFXI too, but anyone can be anything anytime... I want to feel good about having Carbuncle walk around with me, and yet anyone can have him out with them with a push of a button.

Never had this experience. everyone i know has never had this experience. I understand you want to be a unique snowflake. but if you take a step back all snow flakes start to look the same.

if you dont' feel accomplished with having carbuncle just because other people have carbuncle you have a case of the e-peenitis. get over it >.>

3. A large portion of the reason everyone levels up every class/job is because it's so easy. Swap your weapon, gg good to go. It's difficult to feel accomplished saying like "I am a level 50 WHM" in your party. Not only does most of the party have that too, they'll be like "oh I can just switch to that." Sure, you can switch at your house or whatever in FFXI, but that was a LOT more effort to take for a lot of reasons (gotta have the gear which was harder to fully get, had to have the high level job which was harder, and had to spend a long time going back to who knows where to switch and come back). You were appreciated for playing that class, you had individuality, you felt good; in this game, who cares. If a party is 7/8 and just needs a WHM, instead of looking for that dedicated soul who actually is skilled and geared and loves the class, it's just "I'll just switch to WHM" *equip staff*. In worse situations, someone who loves their job (that dedicated dragoon guy) is forced to play WHM because the party is pressuring him to (they know he has WHM).

This is the same as point 1. find a good group. WHM was the second job I had at 50. after mnk. while I was leveling my other jobs I never had to switch to whm. If anything, I would say (In an SB pt) "Let me get my War/Brd/whatever to 50 and then i'll switch to whm and help out" but that's courteous. i don't HAVE to do that.

In FFXIV 2.0, I'm gonna want to main Summoner. But, what bums me out, is that EVERYONE is going to be leveling it at launch, even though a lot of people have zero interest in it. They're just doing it "because they can." Yeah I know a lot of people want to see the lower level content and don't have any other classes to experience it, but still... what's going to set me apart from the people that are just "summonerlols" and me, a serious dedicated person to the job? It should feel like a strong dedication and others should be like "wow, you got that far with summoner/you have that much gear/SOMETHING" rather than just *swap weapon* "yup I'm as good as you now."

same as point 2.

I'm finding it difficult to articulate my point, but I hope you understand.

And I know I posted this in another thread, but I felt it was a slightly different topic and the content of the post deserved its own thread.

No, I think most of us get it. you want to be a unique snow flake in the game and be the only summoner left in the world. sorry. not going to happen. a lot of people will level summoner when it comes out. but then they'll get over it and switch back to their main.

not everyone wants to be a summoner. so just relax.

EDIT: Here's a good post by IronSoup that also explain some of what I'm trying to say:

it's not easy to be good at any job. but some people have a different definition of 'good' if all your doing is leveling, than yeah. I'll agree with that. but once you start trying to do Garuda, Darnus, etc. you can really see weaknesses. I cannot agree with this.

in FFXI it took me 4 years of playing off and on to get my first 75. it took FOREVER. but that's mainly because i didn't know what i was doing, and i spent the majority of my time questing and helping my LS mates.

my second job to 75 took a week. Almost everyone I knew with multiple jobs at 75 had those jobs and swapped to those jobs because they WANTED to. if they didn't want to they didn't. end of story. that's been my experience in FFXIV as well.

Here's more from me:

As someone who understands how stats worked int he game, simply getting a Garuda bow did not make you a good archer. the rest of your gear kit and skill level made a BIG difference.

As an example. after the servers shut down my LS did a garuda run for giggles. we had an AF only BLM rocking a relic staff. I had my storm LT bow and I out-damaged the blm. on BRD >.> so having some epic gear doesn't automatically make you top tier.

[Soukyuu]

This guy sounds like a LS leader I know of.

[...]He told me "Sorry, but you don't have MNK all the way to 50, so we can't take you.”

Such irony.... when I remember me having hard times wanting to play MNK in the past.

I personally had every job at 50 except PLD and DRG. The two jobs I liked the most were BRD and WHM. everytime my LS did an event I was on one of these two jobs. We would occasionally ask people to switch jobs. but we asked. If they said no, we found another person with that job.

That's exactly the point though. Why does it have to be a set job? Why DRG over MNK (or vice versa?)

[Onisake]

That's exactly the point though. Why does it have to be a set job? Why DRG over MNK (or vice versa?)

most of the time we were looking for either a whm or a blm. we can't really bring a brd in to replace a whm. and a brd can't replace a blm as a ranged DD. the gap in DPS is just too great.

You don't want to bring a DRG/MNK in place of a BLM to great buffalo. because they will get slaughtered by the AoE. You can't bring a WAR tank to a Garuda burn because the war will not be able to generate enough enmity to keep the BLM alive.

MNK is preferable to DRG in a non-burn garuda because they can kill and damage both sisters due to elemental fists.

Every job fills a niche and there's not a lot of cross over. which is actually a very good thing. if every job was interchangeable the game would be too easy and there'd be even less point of someone wanting to say 'I'M A DRAGOON!!!!' because your dragoon is just as good as my BRD.

So TL;DR: because of class uniqueness.

[Arcell]

I never said that. I just want to restrict the ability to switch on-the-fly, perhaps by requiring you to go to a specific location to change classes. Yes, it will change things, because people are unwilling to accept party deviations due to how easy it is to change classes. It's a core game issue that has many negative effects on the community and the health of the game (the former is just one example).

And that would change exactly nothing, except time spent running back to change. It would go from changing when you get to the dungeon to people telling you what to come on beforehand and if you don't come on that then the whole party has to wait while you go back and change. It also means if you want to switch things up and try new strategies, most of the party has to run back and switch which takes up a lot of time.

You said yourself that you pretty much just play WHM, in response to my comments about AF not being good enough. I don't think you understand how hard it is for classes like DRG and MNK. Those two specifically upgrade far above AF, aren't suited to all content and are very often asked to switch out. Restricting when we can switch classes doesn't change that, it just means it'll take more time. People aren't going to start taking non-optimal classes just because it's harder to switch.

[Soukyuu]

most of the time we were looking for either a whm or a blm. we can't really bring a brd in to replace a whm. and a brd can't replace a blm as a ranged DD. the gap in DPS is just too great.

You don't want to bring a DRG/MNK in place of a BLM to great buffalo. because they will get slaughtered by the AoE. You can't bring a WAR tank to a Garuda burn because the war will not be able to generate enough enmity to keep the BLM alive.

So summing this part up, it's "because it doesn't work with this strategy". Why not try a different one? Why does it have to be a BLM burn? Because it's the fastest? Safest? Always repeating the same strategy is boring.

[Arcell]

So summing this part up, it's "because it doesn't work with this strategy". Why not try a different one? Why does it have to be a BLM burn? Because it's the fastest? Safest? Always repeating the same strategy is boring.

While I agree to a degree, some classes aren't suited to certain situations. If you've got physical resistant enemies you can still use MNK because their fists have magic damage (for 1.0 at least) but you can't use DRG because it doesn't have a means to damage those enemies. Conversely if you're dealing with magic resistant enemies you wouldn't use BLMs because they can't do high physical damage. Given, these situations generally don't exist 100% in the game as we know it now, I'm just stating examples. There are things classes are good at and there are things they are bad at. Strategies need to play to those strengths to succeed.

I will agree that there's no one perfect strategy and all classes can fit into most content somehow. But what if you have 3 people on DRG main and you can only afford 2 of them to come on DRG? Would you change the strategy to one that has a high chance of failure just to accommodate that person?

[Soukyuu]

While I agree to a degree, some classes aren't suited to certain situations.

Uhm, yes, I guess I should rephrase that. What I mean is, that I had many situations, where a job is a viable choice but another one gets chosen over it because it fits The Strat more.

[Reika]

Are you comparing WoW 40man content to FFXIV 8man content?

Wow is down to 10 man content actually, only 2 more than ffxiv... so...

And my main point is each class in WoW brings something to the party. FFXIV USE to be that way before they started removing skills. DRG use to have a skill that puts a debuff on the enemy so that increases everyone elses TP gain from attacks against it. Why take that away?

In any case, the only 3 arguments I'll get out of anything I have to add are "go play wow derp", even tho I was just explaining what they did GOOD with their classes, "play with friends if you dont like class stacking" or "Deal with it".

I'm not going to be some kind of jack of all trades, will play to master the few rather then pretend to be good at all, also wont be pretending "I play this so I need that piece of gear" and be greedy like I expect to see happening.

[Kiote]

You don't want to bring a DRG/MNK in place of a BLM to great buffalo. because they will get slaughtered by the AoE. You can't bring a WAR tank to a Garuda burn because the war will not be able to generate enough enmity to keep the BLM alive.

Not really looking to pick a fight, but LNC/DRG is easily the most fun class to fight GB.

I exclusively fought GB on my Lancer because it was the most fun, you just have to learn the range. MNK can do it to but its like a stick and run kind of tactic.

[Hart]

You don't want to bring a DRG/MNK in place of a BLM to great buffalo. because they will get slaughtered by the AoE.

Last time I checked, monk can stunlock GB's AoE. Might not be the most efficient setup, but every job has their use.