I sort of wish players could only choose one job.

[Laume]

I can see your point about single jobs. And I'm pretty sure you know the myriad of reasons why it doesn't work too well in mmorpg's so I'll skip that. The point I wanted to make is, you think Vivi when you think of blm because he was a blm. You think Tifa when you think mnk because tifa was a monk. Let me ask this question. Who do you think of when you think Dragoon? Kain? Why not Cid Highwind? Or Mog from FF6/3 (yes, mog danced but he was the only character to start with a polearm in ff6/3)? Or Ward from FF8? I think the association is kind of reversed here. FF6/3 was a game where most of the characters didn't have set jobs (short of gogo, gau and umaro). Locke was a thief and Blitz was a mnk, but we don't really think of them as such. Even in FF7, anyone could steal, anyone can cast whm/blm/smn/blue/etc magic. But Vivi and Tifa didn't stick in our minds because they are a said job. They stuck in our minds because of who they are. Like Kain. A lot of people want to be dragoon to be like Kain. Not be like Kain and hence a dragoon. And, I personally, think that above it all, that's the most import thing. Not the job you, I, or they are, but the person we all are.

And yeah, a small part of me kind of wishes that you can only level one job. It would make people focus on being great at one thing rather than picking up a job and dropping it like one would with gum. But in the end, what's at fault isn't the system. It's not the system that made people treat jobs this way, it's the way we play and the way people treat the game. Like with To Kill A Raven. Guides and people kept telling me that you NEED blms for the meteors. Nothing else works. Well, our archer/bard was 1 shotting meteors. If we treat this game more like an exploration and less like "get ALL OF THE ACHIEVEMENTS!", we'll get more of what you talked about and less of this throw-away mentality.

[Mikita]

I'm not sure if being limited to one class would solve that. Probably it would just mean that if you are not the desired job, you get left out completely and just sit in town waiting for something to do.

It wouldn't solve it completely, you are right, but it there would content creators would probably be way more inclined to create job balance, so jobs would not get excluded, and the general population would probably try out different combinations for the sheer fact that it would be way harder to put together the "ideal" setup. Again, I support having multiple jobs, but it does create a situation where people will be more inclined to go with the ideal route because it is a lot easier to put together the ideal setup when everyone has every job leveled. Not that doing something with the route of least resistance is bad or anything, it's just that if you want to play a particular job, and it doesn't fit in line with that mentality, tough luck. Hopefully I'm explaining myself well enough, lack of sleep, brain dieing~.

Whenever SE released videos to show us new raids, their party set up included every class/job (plus one additional to make a full party of 8).

I really believe they test new content with mixed parties to make sure it can be done without class stacking, before they release it.

Class stacking is just a natural community pattern based on the human tendency to want to do things easily, quickly and efficiently.

Not everyone follows the prescribed party set ups. Our LS never did the Garuda BLM burn and we really struggled with that fight for a while. But in the end we could beat it with several different set ups, often with the only duplicate job being 2 Bards.

And yeah, a small part of me kind of wishes that you can only level one job. It would make people focus on being great at one thing rather than picking up a job and dropping it like one would with gum. But in the end, what's at fault isn't the system. It's not the system that made people treat jobs this way, it's the way we play and the way people treat the game.

I guess it depends on who you play with.

Most of the people I know excel in 1, 2 or maybe 3 jobs, even if they have everything leveled to 50... so I think specialization still happens even when you can play all jobs on a single character.

[Laume]

I guess it depends on who you play with.

Most of the people I know excel in 1, 2 or maybe 3 jobs, even if they have everything leveled to 50... so I think specialization still happens even when you can play all jobs on a single character.

Heavily. I personally specialize drg/lnc. I do whm and blm because people always need more healing or nuking. I'm not saying that it can't happen, of course, it's just I ran into a lot of people that can't do any jobs well. For them, getting all the jobs to a level was more a bragging right/achievement than playing a game. My party that beat "to kill a raven", at that time, most of us only had 1 job leveled to 50. I think me and the other whm were the only exceptions. Now those players (you know who you are ~.^), it was an honor to do climb to and past raven with them. ^^b