I sort of wish players could only choose one job.

[Laume]

I mean, how likely is it to meet someone who is an expert at everything? Because that's exactly what our characters in FFXIV are made out to be. If I were to try to make a correlation in real life, it would be like someone attending college and getting a masters degree in everything. Is it cool to play a character who excels in everything? Definitely! Realistic? I don't think so.

I do feel that I need to point out somethings. I have a friend who's mother has 7 master's degree. I have a friend who reads newspapers in 5 languages (english, chinese, japanese, korean and I think french was the last one.) every morning (he works in animation, not linguistics.). I, myself know 3 languages, taken 3 forms of martial arts, cooks traditional chinese cuisine well (yes, including the complicated stuff. I'd do hong-kong style bbq too if I had the oven.), do art, programming (c++, java, php, perl and shell scripting.) and run my own server (meaning, I do server administrations, write the software and handle the dns, designed and made the webpage, etc).


I think what you're forgetting is that it isn't realistic that someone can do everything perfect, it's that this is condensed, sped-up version of reality. Well, let me get my "things to note" written before I get into that.

1) Although npc is "surprised" at how fast we're picking things up, that's just the way RPG's dialogues are written. A hold back to the single player rpg days where you are the ONLY heroes of the land. Even if you started a quest 3 years ago and finished it just now so you can cast regen, they're still going to say how "fast" you're picking it up. I propse we don't blame the job system for that.
TLDR: NPC's are impressed by anything.

2) Our characters don't need to eat, sleep, use restroom, or even take a break from running across a continent for days on end. That and adding the compressed time our characters are in, that's a LOT more time than we, as regular humans, have. If you, let's say, lived 5~10x longer than you do now. Or, conversely, you lived the same life span as everyone else but you move and learn 5~10x faster. To the rest of humanity, it would seem like you've mastered everything as well, after a point.
TLDR: Our characters live in a compressed time AND don't need to stop for anything.

3) Due to reason 1 (npc's are impressed at everything we do) the "feats" we have done isn't akin to getting a masters, more like surviving a war having done 10 valiant deeds and won. Why is this important? A masters or phd HAS to take years. But what our characters have their reputations risen due to won battles, which can literally happen within a span of 6 months or so (yes, you can get a job's quests done in a few days. But that's probably a few months in eozerea time). Plus, to the NPC's we did all this on our first try. But in reality, we've died a dozen times, sometimes, to beat a fight. If I saw an immortal (but didn't know [s]he was) slaughtered an entire army by him/herself, I'd praise his/her name too.
TLDR: The "mastery" and "feats" we do in game aren't as insurmountable as the npc's seem to think.

4)If you (you, in the general term. Not you, Kyah, specifically) play this game like a casual player (no power levels, no LS giving you items to hasten crafting skills. No getting ran through dungeons to complete quests by way more experienced and better geared people. Walkthroughs to tell you exactly what you need to do, but figuring it yourself instead, etc.), you wouldn't have had time to get all your jobs and crafts to 50 and complete all the quests. My wife and I only were able to play on and off and the most I've gotten done is drg,whm and blm to 50. (I did get ran through a lot of blm's quest). Cooking to 30+. Harvesting and mining to 45+ (and a few subjobs). She only got mnk to 50, all crafts except cooking and alchemy to 43. The people that got all their jobs and crafts and stuff to 50 either spend a lot of rl time or got a lot of help (or a mixture of the two). Again, I wouldn't blame the job system for this.
TLDR: Some players spent a lot of time or got a lot of help or both.




So none of the above points by themselves explain why all this seems "unrealistic". But when put together (some bars lowered and other rates of things increased), you can see how these things, although unrealistic to normal people, is still in the realm of possibility, even in the real world, if certain criteria are met. None of which, are the job system.

TLDR: There are amazing people out there (I'm not saying I'm one of them). Just because you or I couldn't do it personally, doesn't make it unrealistic. The game is running under certain conditions that, even in real life, "mastering" everything would be possible is someone had the inclination. None of which is a fault of the job system.


P.S. I've seen people use "chi" to blow out candles behind a barrier. Shaolin monks bend and break spears in half by having them ran into their necks. There's also this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPM8OR6W6WE
Which, if you sent back 30 years in time, would be considered a) impossible. b) alien technology/witch craft. As the famous Shakespeare line goes "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, then are dreamt of in your philosophies.".