Rogue/Ninja Starting Class?

[ZReport]

Ridiculous role play reasoning, that you are using to pick and choose accessibility. If people want rog and nin to be restricted to post 2.4 story, then those same people should be advocating that anything pre 2.4 should be off limits to rog and nin. Because lore demands it yes?

It's more ridiculous for you to believe that Yoshi-P will completely forgo the lore he has already set in place to make a few more people happy. You act as if there are tons of people who haven't at least beaten Ultima Weapon SM yet, which is no longer the case.

Also, I'm not even here to advocate it being restricted to post 2.4 story, if you read my paragraphs correctly you would have seen that my guess is post 2.2. I don't even think that Ninja and Rogue will even bet part of the Main Scenario at all at this point afterwards, only that that specific 2.2 quest being a prerequisite to unlocking them. This isn't anything new to MMOs -- in WoW you have to be 55 just to play Death Knight, in FFXI you need to be 30 to access any of the advanced jobs. Personally, I could care less if it was story locked or not, I just know how FFXIV (and FFXI before it) works.

FFXIV is heavily lore-based, if you think for a minute that the team will deviate or mess with it in any way, you're greatly mistaken.

[Giantbane]

It's more ridiculous for you to believe that Yoshi-P will completely forgo the lore he has already set in place to make a few more people happy. You act as if there are tons of people who haven't at least beaten Ultima Weapon SM yet, which is no longer the case.

FFXIV is also extremely casual friendly and puts a heavy emphasis on helping those who are behind catch up. I would be very surprised if they expect brand new players to level 1 class/job all the way to 50 and play all the way through the main story line. And believe it or not there are brand new players (and I'm sure SE is hoping to attract some more with ninja).

Also, I'm not even here to advocate it being restricted to post 2.4 story, if you read my paragraphs correctly you would have seen that my guess is post 2.2. I don't even think that Ninja and Rogue will even bet part of the Main Scenario at all at this point afterwards, only that that specific 2.2 quest being a prerequisite to unlocking them. This isn't anything new to MMOs -- in WoW you have to be 55 just to play Death Knight, in FFXI you need to be 30 to access any of the advanced jobs. Personally, I could care less if it was story locked or not, I just know how FFXIV (and FFXI before it) works.

FFXIV is heavily lore-based, if you think for a minute that the team will deviate or mess with it in any way, you're greatly mistaken.

Death Knight is a bad example. Sure you had to be 55 to unlock Death Knight, but Death Knight itself started at lvl 55. So you level to 55, create a new character and pick up where you left off and continue to the max level of 70 at the time. So unless you're saying that we should start rouge/nin at 50 after unlocking it (horrible idea), this is a terrible comparison

FFXI is a bad comparison, it's a dated MMO structure with more hardcore and rigid requirements for things. FFXIV is intended to be much more casual and they do much to move away from this sort of thing.

For a game that just handed out i110 gear to hunt participants in order to catch them up with equivalent hard core content that was released 3 months ago, it would be baffling that they choose to require brand new players to attain maximum level in one class just to play another completely separate class.

[ZReport]

FFXIV is also extremely casual friendly and puts a heavy emphasis on helping those who are behind catch up. I would be very surprised if they expect brand new players to level 1 class/job all the way to 50 and play all the way through the main story line. And believe it or not there are brand new players (and I'm sure SE is hoping to attract some more with ninja).



Death Knight is a bad example. Sure you had to be 55 to unlock Death Knight, but Death Knight itself started at lvl 55. So you level to 55, create a new character and pick up where you left off and continue to the max level of 70 at the time. So unless you're saying that we should start rouge/nin at 50 after unlocking it (horrible idea), this is a terrible comparison

FFXI is a bad comparison, it's a dated MMO structure with more hardcore and rigid requirements for things. FFXIV is intended to be much more casual and they do much to move away from this sort of thing.

For a game that just handed out i110 gear to hunt participants in order to catch them up with equivalent hard core content that was released 3 months ago, it would be baffling that they choose to require brand new players to attain maximum level in one class just to play another completely separate class.

Dark Knight isn't as bad an example as you make it seem. You still had to have a job at 55 on a character to create a Death Knight, meaning you still had to put in the time to level up said character. It's essentially the same thing as leveling up to 50 and doing quests up to 2.2. The argument that Death Knight as a job starts at 55 is irrelevant, the simple purpose was to show you that you needed to spend some time leveling up before you could play the class at all (Wrath of Lich King Release, it's obvious that character boosts exist now)-- the job itself was walled by a level up barrier. Now people already had 55+ jobs at the time so it didn't apply to them, but newer players who were interested in the job had to start from level 1 like everyone else. I wasn't saying that we should start from 50, but simply using the example that a barrier existed before being able to play the job.

FFXI also isn't a bad comparison -- the MMO being dated or not is irrelevant. It simply had a level up requirement and the jobs itself were walled by quests as well, similar to how FFXIV works (but of course far harder to achieve). And again, leveling your first job to 50 and doing missions up to Ultima Weapon IS casual content. There's absolutely nothing hard about leveling your first job to 50; you're given quests along the way as well as rest exp bonus, new player dungeon completion exp bonuses, bonus dungeon exp, guildhests, leves, FATEs, and now the Challenge Log. They've made it very well known that leveling up is casual content and the real game doesn't start until post Ultima Weapon SM.

i110 gear being given away easily is entirely a new subject that will correct itself with the next patch. If you've been watching, they have been doing this since 2.0 release -- they have seemingly difficult content that give great rewards -- they make this content partially easy (or give reasonable alternatives) by the next major patch, and then outdate the gear completely by the patch after that. This is a 3 and 6 month process (so far). i110 is simply on a patch where they made it easy to obtain. The hardcore players who got it first have since gotten the gear and now they are making it more accessible for semi-hardcore and causal players. Patch 2.4 will have higher iLevel rewards, which in turn outdate the current gear. Barring this, iLvl really doesn't have anything to do with playing a new job to 50.

[Giantbane]

Dark Knight isn't as bad an example as you make it seem. You still had to have a job at 55 on a character to create a Death Knight, meaning you still had to put in the time to level up said character. It's essentially the same thing as leveling up to 50 and doing quests up to 2.2.

There is a major difference between leveling part way to max rank, switching classes then continuing to max rank (WoW) and leveling to max rank with 1 class, completing content, to unlock a separate class that you then have to start over with and level up to max content. There's a reason you didn't have to start completely over with the dark knight, and it's because it was deemed too tedious a requirement. If it's too tedious for WoTLK, I have a very hard time imagining that it won't be too tedious for ARR.

FFXI also isn't a bad comparison -- the MMO being dated or not is irrelevant. It simply had a level up requirement and the jobs itself were walled by quests as well, similar to how FFXIV works (but of course far harder to achieve). And again, leveling your first job to 50 and doing missions up to Ultima Weapon IS casual content. There's absolutely nothing hard about leveling your first job to 50; you're given quests along the way as well as rest exp bonus, new player dungeon completion exp bonuses, bonus dungeon exp, guildhests, leves, FATEs, and now the Challenge Log. They've made it very well known that leveling up is casual content and the real game doesn't start until post Ultima Weapon SM.

Being dated and ARR shying away from the more tedious aspects of it is exactly why you shouldn't hold your breath waiting for ARR to take inspiration from FFXI. Especially in terms of leveling requirements. Although to further the argument against it being an appropriate comparison, leveling a base class to 30 in FFXI was more appropriate to the job/subjob system than leveling another class to 50 is to FFXIV's cross class system. With the job/subjob system, your advanced job was going to probably want 1-2 of the base classes to be leveled up to 30 just so you could use it as the sub job. Having a sub job was almost mandatory after a certain point, because it represented an extremely strong part of any character's power. It provided extra stats and skills that could have a lot of impact on the main class.

On the other hand, ARR cross class system does not provide any incentive for you to level multiple classes to 50. All the cross class abilities are offered way before level 50, with the majority being under level 15. Which fits with the requirement to level another class to 15 to unlock the job specialization. It's also less important than FFXI's subjob. Cross class skills provide no extra stats, and are relatively weak in comparison to the main classes base skills with only a few exceptions. The only really mandatory ability is Provoke for the WAR from the PLD, and that's only for very high end content. Every other job can function with 90-95% efficiency even if you didn't have any cross class skills at all. So while I fully expect NIN to have a 2nd job requirement (probably MNK) to 15 before you can unlock the Job Stone, I don't see taking a full other class to 50 as part of that requirement. It's not that the other class is hard. It's just tedious. Because it's not that leveling the first job is all that bad, but you run out of all the story and everything that makes leveling occur naturally, so leveling a second class becomes more of a grind. I just don't see making new players grind out the second class that they wanted to start with as something SE is going to require from brand new players.

i110 gear being given away easily is entirely a new subject that will correct itself with the next patch. If you've been watching, they have been doing this since 2.0 release -- they have seemingly difficult content that give great rewards -- they make this content partially easy (or give reasonable alternatives) by the next major patch, and then outdate the gear completely by the patch after that. This is a 3 and 6 month process (so far). i110 is simply on a patch where they made it easy to obtain. The hardcore players who got it first have since gotten the gear and now they are making it more accessible for semi-hardcore and causal players. Patch 2.4 will have higher iLevel rewards, which in turn outdate the current gear. Barring this, iLvl really doesn't have anything to do with playing a new job to 50.

As you pointed out, it's not a new subject. The game is established with a very conscious mindset that helps players that are behind (or new) catch up to their friends relatively easily. They don't make them jump through all the same hoops on old/dated content. Content either gets skipped (garuda, titan, ifrit no longer required for levi or mog) and/or made easier (echo). And gear becomes easier to obtain. The i110 gear from hunts was just the latest example of this.

It's just really hard to imagine a game that has such a big focus on ensuring players can *catch up* quickly will require brand new players to go through the leveling process twice in order to play the class they wish.

[chocomaid]

Who knows, it might even be a complete different style to play than the rest no? Maybe you start off as a rogue in Limsa from level 1 to level 50. Then meet yugiri in the main story line, then unlocking ninja.

This will completely by pass the norm level 30 job notion requirement to 50 but hey, games evolve around new things. In this way, new players get to actually play the new class while also being lore consistent.

[silentwindfr]

after read some of my intervention, i notice that some choice of word was really bad and maybe have hurt people and i will not use the fact to be french as escuse, i want to say sorry if that the case, that wasn't intentional.

on the subject, i think the best way to explain why it's not needed to make it a starting class, it's mostly because you can play every class at a moment of the game with your same character, that different of game like WoW where you will need to restart a new character.
here unlock a class, unlock new possibility (like the cross skill), if you begin to limsa, you can't get acces to the other class before complete the airship quest in the game. (level 15) here the difference is more level, true. but it offer at the same time more experience to the player, that will be able to play better this class/jobs added.
i do expect, that even the new class added with the 3.0 will recquire to advance in the story before be unlocked. mostly because they are tie to the story and everything in the game it's link to that.

the new playe, have already a very very nice experience, Yoshi-P do try to make sure that new player will catch up for the end-game content. but the glamour and other stuff that recquire to have level 50 for be unlocked, are not lock away from the new player, it's a smart way to say to the new player to experience more the game, to expect that progress in the story and the level will bring them reward.

finally, like in the final fantasy, that use the jobs system, some class are called the starting class and other needed to be unlocked after a while in the story by doing quest or stuff. that not different there and i expect that every class from now, will be like this. do it is unfair for the new player? i don't think so, i'm pretty sure all the person that did try FF11 can confirm the feeling of accomplishement and joy when they was able to play a new class that they just unlock.

ps: i use FF11 as comparaison, because it's the only game that use a similar feature of class in this aspect (allowing to use all the class in the same character)

[MirielleLavandre]

After rewatching the CS, I'm thinking maybe, even though I'd want NIN to be available to new players @30, SE may actually make it be required that you finish 2.2 in order to open it and maybe just use THF to 50. Since Yugiri specifically says to the character that she wouldn't mind training them in her arts... maybe any player wanting to play NIN will need to get to the point where she offers to teach them in the script? But then again, I still contend that knowing SE, even if it goes against the lore, they will make THF be usable @character creation (due to Thancred already being a member of the guild so there's no lore issues), and they'll just find some way to let people be NIN @ 30 even w/out Yugiri volunteering to train them in 2.2.

[Jinrya-Geki]

Kind of a funny paradox like elder scrolls oblivion if you beat the mage guild before joining the thieves guild. Just gonna leave this note for myself that I stole my own staff for myself to read later.

Anyway more off topic is ninja gonna be a disciple of magic you know since ninjistu, is a form of magic.

[Wilhem]

I think that SE should make Rogue a post 2.3 job only making it a sort of "premium class/job" for those far enough in.
They also stated that the Rogue/Ninja class would play differently from any other class/job so it wouldn't hurt new player to start with more regular classes first then have access to Rogue and any other new classes/jobs after doing 2.3/2.4's story line that or SE should re-do a number of thing of the story line for new players like editing the whole story to have the Doman and Yugiri fitting in the story while removing and completely changing 2.2, 2.3 and maybe 2.4 just so it would make sense depending on whether you've started the game before or after 2.4 release which would be too much work I think.
To a side note I think that unlocking new classes through quests would also be quite enjoyable to me.

[LineageRazor]

It's not a dead art, and she may very well delegate some of the Ninja training to her associates. It makes absolutely no sense at all for Yugiri to be around before the 2.2 storyline if you are a new player. The player character doesn't know of her existence or the fact that Ninja exist. You can make the argument for Rogue however, as it is an art that was refined in Limsa Lominsa.

Yes! You have exactly supported the point I was trying to make, that a player doesn't need to have met Yugiri in order to learn to be a Ninja. There are other practitioners of the art, and it is not impossible that a player earlier in the storyline could meet one of those practictioners to unlock the job. Neither becoming a Rogue nor becoming a Ninja necessarily has to depend on one's progression through the storyline.

Thanks for the dialogue snippet!

Not all of the jobs have teachers that show you new techniques. Those powers are usually granted by the Job Stone itself which stores the memory and spirit of past practitioners. You could even just *find* a ninja stone and run around doing ninja-y stuff to unlock the latent power in the stone. Don't even need a direct teacher.

Another good lore-safe alternative. Though there would have to be SOME kind of NPC you interact with to start the quests, I'd think. Someone who's heard of Ninjas and studies them. Wants to BE them? Wants to totally flip out and kill everybody in the room??? And that's Real Ultimate Power!