Job Quests...please make them mandatory

[Craigen]

I remember ages ago the FC thought it would be fun to run CT as a full party of only classes. Just for the sake of a laugh and the bewilderment of the alliance. I say let them play as they like. If it was a tank or healer constantly making the party wipe than there would be a more pertinent issue, but there aren't too many DPS checks in the regular dungeons that someone running a class couldn't manage, especially teamed with an item-sync'd dps. Maybe they just really don't like the thought of having such a splendid feather in their headband and would rather idolize the old boxer. Or they're RP'ing.

[Kalinas]

So...I'm sure you have nicely and politely told him that future groups would greatly appreciate if he could do his advancement to Monk by leveling a lancer to 15 and accepting the quest "Brother from another mother" in the pugilist guild of Ul'dah, right?

I did actually share information. Well...aside from that passive-aggressive tone in your post. Thing is...they weren't communicating back, so there is no way to know how much they understood. Maybe they didn't speak english. This is why the game needs to make players to do the job quests or prevent people from joining higher level content on the base classes.

[FinalWolf]

Agreed. I would have never known about jobs if a friend hadn't told me you could evolve your class via soul crystal.

[Leigaon]

That person might not even have known that jobs exist. In-game there is very little information about jobs, and nothing at all to indicate how important they are.
The quest that points you to your job-trainer is easy to miss or ignore, and then you never find out about jobs.

I guess if you pay no attention and just go blindly in to the game you can miss things. The game does a lot of "Hey..you can do this!" but they also expect you to read a bit.

The quests tell you the next one is at level 5, then 10..then 15. So you were told to come back every so many levels. After all that you come back, seeing golden ! over a NPC. At 30 you finally see the red !, click on it. It says you cannot accept this until you have your secondary class leveled.

After that it's up to you to either say "Okay..now I just move on" or ask a friend "What's lancer? I need it to unlock this quest" or even look it up on the internet. It is a thought process. The person who didn't have their job unlocked shouldn't be put down in a harsh way, but rather told that an advanced job waits for them.

They can't make it more obvious. Well..I guess if they used that paperclip guy that you would see in Word. Just pops up "I see you're trying to select this quest. What would you like to know? Would you like me to teleport you there? If you could please walk away from your computer..I'll level this for you. You go have a pint on me, you earned it!"

[MistakeNot]

I guess if you pay no attention and just go blindly in to the game you can miss things. The game does a lot of "Hey..you can do this!" but they also expect you to read a bit.

The quests tell you the next one is at level 5, then 10..then 15. So you were told to come back every so many levels. After all that you come back, seeing golden ! over a NPC. At 30 you finally see the red !, click on it. It says you cannot accept this until you have your secondary class leveled.

Actually it would probably be more like: See the red "!", think "Oh, I must not be high enough level yet" - because that is pretty much the only reason for quests being red until then - continue with your playing and forget all about it. It is not even obvious one can click on the red "!" to get more information.
(And the quests will only tell you to go back at level 5. After that it will not tell you to go back for the next one, you need to figure that out for yourself.)

[Leigaon]

Actually it would probably be more like: See the red "!", think "Oh, I must not be high enough level yet" - because that is pretty much the only reason for quests being red until then - continue with your playing and forget all about it. It is not even obvious one can click on the red "!" to get more information.
(And the quests will only tell you to go back at level 5. After that it will not tell you to go back for the next one, you need to figure that out for yourself.)

I guess the struggle is real? There are two sides to every situation, and from there branch off to even more..it's all big "What If..." marvel scenario. Figuring out you have a quest waiting for you every 5 levels is not something that should require a ton of thought. If you are exploring it will happen naturally. Maybe the earlier ones do not tell you, if so I am wrong and it's just in the journal.

Still if you do the normal things that come in a MMO such as exploring by running around to seeing what this quest gives, talking with friends or FC \ LS members, if you have the internet you may read more about the game online. There are so many scenarios where you can gather information about this game compared to missing it. People love to chit chat. Heck even in dungeons if I see someone as a job I'll say "You'll love it when you're a Dragoon!" and they'll ask questions "When do I get that?" ..bam..now he knows...and we all can say that knowing is half the battle.

There are ways to find out, even then there are people who find out and do not put the job on. I had a Gladiator who was level 49 doing the guy with two shields trial. Basically told us that PLD wasn't that good and he does better as Gladiator. This game isn't too hard to figure out. 11..now that was a pain.

If you believe it to be too difficult for new people then make the suggestion on the forums. I feel they need to be social, 15 minutes talking with someone about this game who has played and you'll know about everything.

[MistakeNot]

Still if you do the normal things that come in a MMO such as exploring by running around to seeing what this quest gives, talking with friends or FC \ LS members, if you have the internet you may read more about the game online. There are so many scenarios where you can gather information about this game compared to missing it. People love to chit chat. Heck even in dungeons if I see someone as a job I'll say "You'll love it when you're a Dragoon!" and they'll ask questions "When do I get that?" ..bam..now he knows...and we all can say that knowing is half the battle.

One can learn it all, sure. But some people are just not going to read any guides unless they are forced to. And why should they? They surely expect the game itself to tell them what they need to know.
Me? I read guides, but I am under no illusion that everyone else does.

As for chit-chat I have not seen much of it in the game. Outside of my FC (and many people don't join any Free Company for a long time, if ever) I have seen very little chit-chat. Most dungeon runs I have been on have had practically no talking at all, and certainly no discussions of anything outside the dungeon itself.

As for linkshells - I know they exist, and that is all I know about them. Again they are not exactly something the game goes out of its way to teach you about.

For those who really want to learn and are willing to spend some time and energy on finding information there are plenty of resources where one can do so, no doubt about that.
But unless one actively seeks out the information (and lots of people won't) there are many things in the game that are very easy to miss, unless one just happens to stumble across them.

As an example, from checking some guide I see that one can unlock something called Treasure Hunting by doing a level 36 quest. I am currently level 44 and I have yet to come across that quest by just playing the game. I could of course go and look for it - but only because I know it exists, something I know only because I checked a (player-created) guide.

[Sorata]

Interesting debate on both side of @Leigaon and @MistakeNot, but maybe I'm a little older and have been playing games for a lot longer, as much as I think things can always be clearer, I am siding @Leigaon over this one.

Every single red "!" tells you what is the criteria to unlock it. I can see someone over leveled the first 30 levels and went back to do their class quests, and therefore see no red "!". But that still doesn't explain why you would not click onto a red "!" later at a job quest.

Unless the job quest is not within the range of anywhere you will visit, the red "!" is very hard to miss even if you do very minor walking around, and if someone see that icon and choose not to click on reading, that is pretty ignorant by nature.

[Sorata]

In a broader scheme, RPG is the sort of games that you do need to invest some time and resources, often outside of the game. Not everyone will do it, I understand, but consider this is an online game especially, where you will interact with people, I find it baffling people don't read some basic instructions, when your action will impact others. Again, it might be I'm from a different generation, but this kind of attitude, to me, is like walking into a wrong washroom and say "nobody told me", when the door clearly labeled otherwise.

In the grand scheme of things though, the amount of population that doesn't know about job quest is very tiny. You might have seen a few here and there lately due to the Christmas subscriptions of new players. In my four years of playing FFXIV, I never encountered a single player like that. So, is this a real issue? I personally don't think so.

Finally, yes @Leigaon... XI is not playable without the internet next to you

[MistakeNot]

Every single red "!" tells you what is the criteria to unlock it. I can see someone over leveled the first 30 levels and went back to do their class quests, and therefore see no red "!". But that still doesn't explain why you would not click onto a red "!" later at a job quest.

Unless the job quest is not within the range of anywhere you will visit, the red "!" is very hard to miss even if you do very minor walking around, and if someone see that icon and choose not to click on reading, that is pretty ignorant by nature.

Sure, IF you click on the quest and try to take it, despite it being red, then you will see why you can't take it. That is actually a pretty big "if".
First of all it is not obvious that one can do that.
Secondly why would you click on it? For almost all other quests a red "!" merely indicates that you are not high enough level yet, and it is thus just a matter of time (and levelling) before they open up. Clicking on those is just a waste of time, and there is no real reason to believe that the job quests are any different.

Note:
I am not saying it is too hard to find information in the game, or even that anything needs to change - personally I do not mind having to do some exploration to find everything.
I am saying that people should not be surprised/outraged that other people have missed stuff - much of it is really not all that obvious.

As for reading instructions - you have never done any tech support I assume. To a first approximation nobody reads instructions. If they do it is only as a last resort when everything else has been tried without success.