Show your support for making Classes viable.

[Dijana]

It was originally described as classes are for solo play, jobs for party play right? But the way the game is currently, you don't really need to switch back to a class when soloing.

I think an idea could be to add some challenging solo content where the flexibility of more cross class skills would be more beneficial than the higher damage stat bonuses jobs give. Of course, that brings the potential negative effect that people will have to lvl several classes they might not like. Maybe in the future as new classes and abilities are added, it will be worth it to play on your class.

(I will say, while I'd rather be rogue than ninja, I REALLY miss my carby on arcanist ): )

[Dyvid]

Ermm... no. I don't care about Thief OR Ninja. I play ranged classes. If it has to be anything at all, it's more of a thinly veiled "I want to be an Archer, not a Bard."

Have you ever been in a position where you don't need the abilities of BRD and would benefit more from cross class abilities? Perhaps in PvP or soloing?

The reality is simple. 1.0 had it where you could build your own class and it didn't work. Players wanted more defined roles and thus Jobs were born. Since I main ACN I always tell new players to the class that whether you play SMN or SCH, you're still ACN. Now if Titan Egi changes from tank to something else (which it should), I will be using golden carby for solo instead of SMN.

[Mysteltain]

Except... changes to the cross class system could easily be applied to jobs making them more unique and interesting instead...

nothing proposed in your statement would make classes uniquely better that couldn't be applied to jobs to a greater degree

I did say that it would take a lot of revision to the actual system, and that's why I doubt it will ever happen. However, to counter your point, SE has always said that they want jobs to focus on one specific task, whereas classes are meant for versatility. So going by their own words, jobs were designed to be 'blander', I guess, than classes, and aren't meant to become anymore 'unique' or 'interesting' than they come off as. WARs will always tank, MNKs will always DPS, WHMs will always heal. Sure, overgearing content means a WAR can DPS outside of Defiance (as I've done before on my alt, although from my understanding MRD is more effective at DPS), and WHMs can crowd-control just fine with Holy, but in terms of current-level content they're much more effective fulfilling their standard roles.

I've actually dabbled in classes a bit, myself, having my alt reach level 50 as a GLD without ever swapping, and I do see some potential. She can use Feint or Haymaker to slow the enemy and mitigate damage during tanking, pop Featherfoot to dodge some attacks, or use Blood for Blood alongside Raging Strikes and Fight or Flight to give her much higher DPS for a brief period of time, mitigating the increased damage received with Rampart. Yes, she lacks the stat boosts and the abilities granted by jobs, but the extra utility, situational as it may be, makes her much more interesting to play. I can definitely see classes allowing more interesting party compositions and playstyles outside of the standard Tank/Heal/2xDPS and the 1-2-3 skill rotations that the game largely is right now.

EDIT: Sorry, I quoted your post before you edited that last part in. For me, I just want to see classes mean something. If they're going to keep classes in, and keep the cross-class system in, and not simply overwrite classes with jobs when we hit 30, I'd like to see them do something about it. It's a silly hope, to be certain, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be nice to see something come of it.

[Kat_Manx]

Yeah basically classes could be more.. "versatile." Throw in more cross-class skills plus their own special skills that wouldn't transfer to any job. Work on the system.

I can see the issue with Archer if there will be a Ranger, but you can still make Archer different from Ranger. All in all, does it hurt to have 3 options instead of 1 or 2? The more the merrier.

[ParanoidHobo]

would rather they throw out classes altogether

[Destinova]

Could always make classes go to 30 then pick up jobs to take to 50 like I've seen posted before. So that means if they release a new job it starts at 30 and not level cap.

[Jynx]

Or....we could axe the class system entirely and make jobs unique unto themselves?

[Vespar]

thinly veiled "I wanted thief not ninja" butthurt thread.

Actually, Kat, myself and a few other folks have been discussing this for a little while now, it was just made that much more apparent today.

I personally would like to see classes become just as useful as jobs. Especially now that we see rogue/ninja. the two appear radically different to me, and the gear that both were wearing resemble AF already so it would appear they were two different jobs.

Other classes have features that would be useful outside their "job" form. For example, I really miss carbuncle on SMN/SCH post 50 but I can no longer use carbuncle unless I'm on ACN at that level. Thats one downside Ive noticed. The other is that certain classes also have access to more cross-class abilities than their job counterparts, etc.

I think making "classes" a more viable option (maybe with their own version of soul crystals and new abilities from 30-50) would bring more diversity to the game as well.

Anyways, I realize a lot of this may not make complete sense as I am very tired from staying up far too late watching e3 reveals here in Japan.