Abolish classes altogether.

[Kalamia]

I would have to agree with Biggs here, although I found his wording a bit hostile.

I certainly understand the desire to go back to what you found familiar and enjoyable, and FFXI definitely had its up points, but this system has its merits as well. Two in particular I have discovered:

1: The job system in FFXI, while true that it did clearly define your role, made is a little too defined. Ninjas and paladins were tanks, monks and black mages were damage dealers, white mages healed, and so on. Certain jobs (i.e. warrior) would change their role at specific levels, but anyone who even tried to break out of this mold was screamed at and immediately kicked out of the party. Their setup made them just a bit more effort than the rest of the group thought was worth, and so this simply never happened. Of course, I believe this is as much due to human nature as the programming, but still. The ability to mix and match your abilities and stats (although it seems this part will be going away next patch), it's not so required to work your job in a specific way. If, by your suggestion, conjurer gained all the "black mage" abilities and thaumaturge gained the "white mage" abilities (I assume would be the tradeoff), I frankly would be furious that my favorite job has been reduced to just another damage dealer. And face it, in a party's view, that's just what a black mage was.

2: For the majority of FFXI's existence, partying was forced upon you. With the exception of certain jobs--and then usually only at certain points or after obtaining certain abilities, no job could effectively solo. A paladin could laugh off most hits and could heal any enough to be worrysome, but his low damage meant the simplest battles would drag on forever. Any sort of damage dealer had the opposite problem--high enough damage to rip through enemies, but they had the same power over him. The current class system means that it's possible to solo with any job so long as you mix together some healing, offence and defensive abilities.

This certainly doesn't mean that the current class system is perfect, but I for one do not want a total overhaul.

[BiggsWedge]

I would have to agree with Biggs here, although I found his wording a bit hostile.

Yeah... after re-reading what I said I feel a little bad. I guess I was having a bad day and whiny people make me rage. Nothing personal to Sinistradian, every ignorant person still deserves to be heard although their opinion doesn't count for shit.