Why did SE decide to make the three new classes not require base classes?

[Dervy]

When was the last time you used a Class? It's not about dumbing down the game or making it easier. They provide absolutely no depth to horizontal progress. Classes provide absolutely no additional complex mechanics to this game. It's just fluff. They mean nothing. They do nothing, other than provide a bit of lore. Cross Class skills can easily be eradicated and just given to Jobs instead and be Cross Job Skills instead.

In fact, Classes make it harder to design completely unique jobs. For each job, you'd have to also create a base class as you can't use already existing ones. They'd only change 5 skills, (7 in the expansion). But 7 additional, different skills, doesn't make classes or jobs unique at all.

[Xhominid]

snip

Agree with this. One of my hugest hangups with the game is the fact that Classes and Cross Classes honestly offer no true benefit compared to a Job. Even forcing us to play another class to get the Cross Class skills is just tedious because they could have easily just GIVEN the skills to those Jobs just by simply leveling, especially when they are far weaker than the base job's version already(I honestly don't want to level to 34 just for Eye For An Eye on my WHM when it has such a huge CD that it would only be valuable when in Coil and maybe some HM and EX bosses.)

It honestly feels like Fake Longevity because on one hand, you need some of these skills anyway due to how valuable they are(Swiftcast) and they don't require you to be over halfway to 50 to get. Then there's others that require you to be at 30+ to get a skill that's either somewhat valuable(Invigorate, Quelling Strikes) or just barely so(Eye For an Eye) and then, there is still the fact that a good chunk of Cross Class skills for Jobs is nigh useless anyways so it's mainly worthless.
I honestly do hope that they remove the Cross Class requirements and just give us the skills in our leveling path when we hit their level to get.

[Synestra]

When was the last time you used a Class?

Theres usually few Marauders in Frontlines :P