How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Armoury System

[Forgo]

I love the armory system and before I get flamed or called white knight i want to point out i played ffxi for quite along time and the running back to the moghouse to change jobs to run back to the party was very much a waste of time.
Being able to change on the fly helps a lot and yes everyone can use any job they want but most people have a job or 2 they love more then others and will play them first, like me im a DRG/WAR kinda guy i'm not a big fan of other jobs (though i got 49 blm and raise on cnj...i think O.o) so it might not be for everyone but its going to stay and i love it

[Xeia]

Aside from the occasional Samurai whipping out a polearm for a bird party or a kiting Paladin swapping to a DEF staff, there really wasn't all that much reason to swap weapons around without getting yelled at in FFXI. Sure, you could be a Paladin with a great sword... but why? How much did we really take advantage of that freedom compared to how likely are we to take advantage of the cross-class skills sans sub-job system?

This, exactly this. While I understand that people want to be able to choose between a scythe and a greatsword on their Dark Knight, there's still going to be a "best weapon" for the class/job -- and I don't just mean weapon type. I mean that if Ifrit drops a GS and Garuda drops a scythe and the relic is a GS, then you're more than likely going to be using a GS if you've only beat Ifrit, a scythe if you're strong enough to farm Garuda, and a GS again if you've put effort into the relic. The extra "freedom" you get is sort of irrelevant.

In fact, it's so irrelevant that we actually already have it and people continue to complain that we don't. Gladiator can wield longswords or daggers, both mages can go for what XI would have called a club or a staff, all depending on the preference of the player -- and the differences are reflected in the stats, like they are in other games. Daggers do less damage, but hit quicker. Clubs are less powerful but give you the advantage of being able to equip a shield, etc. So there's no reason to assume that when we see Dark Knight we won't see both weapon types implemented, though of course there's no guarantee we will either.

Most other considerations can be filed away as semantics. "Oh, no no. Thieves use daggers. This Dancer is clearly wielding an anlace."

Again, this is a concern I hear voiced a lot, but one we've already seen a solution to -- in precisely the way you described -- regarding the two mages. They both look like they wield staves and clubs to me, but nonono, you see only thaumaturges get staves and those clubs are actually scepters. The conjurers get radicals and wands instead.

Really, the only difference between this and XI's system as far as weapons are concerned is that I can't use the same individual weapon on multiple classes, and with the gear set system taking those extra weapons out of our inventories, I don't see this as a big issue at all.

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Gear sets are also going to remedy what, for me, had been the only thing making classes less useful in 1.0 -- artifact gear. We all know that, after hitting level 50, AF gear is the easiest decent gear to obtain (since you basically get it incidentally on your way to your level 50 skill). So I'd toss my level 45 gear cuz it wasn't as good and I don't have that kind of inventory space, but since the AF was job only that meant my corresponding class was naked until I got around to farming better gear.

But if we're getting a gear set for each class in addition to each job then I'll be fully gearing my classes and using them often for sure. Might even invest in some of the class-specific gear that previously felt like a waste of inventory slots to me. :P

<3 Armory forever.

[Alaltus]

Maybe i'm wrong but atleast as a FFXI player it wasn't my impression that players felt the "on the fly class/job changing" was what they wanted to be changed. Discussion usually came to weapons being restricted to a single Job where many liked to have a number of different options depending on the situation. Among other staple complaints about the class system being irrelevent etc etc.. But they are locking out class/job changing inside dungeons and other instanced content so it's not like they left changing on the fly untouched either. Many did complain about that during the 1.23 era.

[Dannythm]

What it bothers me, or better, worries me about the class/job system, is not how it works now, as I think it's great and have endless possibilities, but how it will evolve in the future. I mean, will it be again like patch 1.20 when new jobs are added and bam, all veteran players already have lvl 50 jobs right there, just having to perform 5 easy quests to get the skills and abilities? The current systems promotes that every time a new job is added a new class has to be introduced, because if the new job class is already in the game, mos players will already have that job at max level on day 1.

[Xeia]

What it bothers me, or better, worries me about the class/job system, is not how it works now, as I think it's great and have endless possibilities, but how it will evolve in the future. I mean, will it be again like patch 1.20 when new jobs are added and bam, all veteran players already have lvl 50 jobs right there, just having to perform 5 easy quests to get the skills and abilities? The current systems promotes that every time a new job is added a new class has to be introduced, because if the new job class is already in the game, mos players will already have that job at max level on day 1.

Right, exactly, and that's my big worry about claims that we'll eventually be seeing more than one job stemming from the same class. As far as adding a new class for each new job they add, I don't see that as actually being as big a deal as people make it out to be. It's more work than just doing a new class, yes, but since so many of they job's abilities come from the class it really isn't double the work like people keep saying.

But classes and jobs are so intrinsically related I really do hope we continue to see the 1:1 ratio that we have at present.

[Kinseykinz]

What it bothers me, or better, worries me about the class/job system, is not how it works now, as I think it's great and have endless possibilities, but how it will evolve in the future. I mean, will it be again like patch 1.20 when new jobs are added and bam, all veteran players already have lvl 50 jobs right there, just having to perform 5 easy quests to get the skills and abilities? The current systems promotes that every time a new job is added a new class has to be introduced, because if the new job class is already in the game, mos players will already have that job at max level on day 1.

If we ever get more than a 1:1 Ratio on Jobs, I'm going to assume the pre-reqs needed to unlock them will be more steep. Either:
1. They will add them when they add a level increase and you'd need to be level 50+to unlock/quest them. (So sure, a level 50 could unlock the job, but not learn all the skills until higher levels etc.)
2. Require that you have more than 1 class to level 30/1 to 17. Maybe 2 level 30's or a level 50 and a 40 etc. Still a benefit to those who leveled all the jobs, but not as much as level 30/17.
3. Making it that you have to clear certain advanced storyline/content before you can begin to unlock the jobs (like the crystal tower for example).

These are just a couple ways they could do it...there are many more. Personally, I hope they DO give us more than a 1:1 ratio on classes/jobs as I think it would add more texture to each base class. (Gladiator already unlocks a stout tanking role for example, would be great to see it get a pure DD role as well).

[Xeia]

Personally, I hope they DO give us more than a 1:1 ratio on classes/jobs as I think it would add more texture to each base class. (Gladiator already unlocks a stout tanking role for example, would be great to see it get a pure DD role as well).

At the risk of derailing this topic into a discussion about what might possibly happen in the future... this is a perspective I've seen fairly often that also makes no sense to me. Gladiator doesn't just unlock a stout tanking role, gladiator is a stout tanking role. Could it really be turned into a pure DD with just 5 extra abilities? Not one nearly as viable as WAR, that's for sure, look at its damage output (as of v1.23). DRK is usually the go-to example for what GLA's second job should be (and I believe the example came from Yoshi-P himself, so it has some heavy backing)... but that just doesn't make sense with the current system unless they plan to change everything DRK has ever been.

Plus, in a rant I went off on in a previous topic, that means they need to think of a partner job as well as a corresponding class for every new job they want to add, and that seems to restrict the influx of new jobs more than the armory system as it is now ever has or will.

I suppose it's a discussion that will have to wait until we get a good look at ARR's set up, since Gladiator may now be a viable base for a DD, but if it stays as it is then I just don't see how this could possibly work well.

[AmandaHuggenkiss]

Anony Moose, after reading the OP if I wasn't in love with you before...

I am now.

[Mjollnir]

Screw his fabulous lore posts. He has my ultimate respect because he spells "Armoury" correctly.

[Orophin]

Screw his fabulous lore posts. He has my ultimate respect because he spells "Armoury" correctly.

That's a matter of opinion. Americans don't care much for adding those extra u's to every other word. :P