Classes vs Jobs status?

[Keramory]

This has been a post I wanted to make since 3.0... But ever since I recently tried to explain classes vs jobs to my girlfriend who just started playing, the question came back up.

I remember since 1.0s Dev switch, the idea was to change the class mentality to jobs, with class being an option for more cross skills. The only time then it was viable that I recall was for thau on rare content for healing.

Then with 2.0 smn/sch came out on one class, and most people believed over time, other classes will get more jobs per class as well. Like say gladiator getting drk and pld.

Now with ninja and then the 3.0 jobs (all I'm happy for granted) it seems they're going far away from multiple jobs per class. Are they planning to change something to suit this, like abolish classes? Just curious...

[Ashkendor]

SCH/SMN didn't turn out so well, so I don't see them repeating that. I don't know whether or not classes will actually get taken out or if it's just too much of a hassle to do at this point. Classes will fall further and further behind though, as we get more job skills.

[Duelle]

SCH/SMN didn't turn out so well, so I don't see them repeating that. I don't know whether or not classes will actually get taken out or if it's just too much of a hassle to do at this point. Classes will fall further and further behind though, as we get more job skills.

Meh, that only happened because of how they implemented jobs.

Chances are classes will just sort of be ignored until SE decides to do a Cataclysm-style revamp of the game, which would lead to them changing the leveling experience and sort of drop classes and their respective quests. Say that in this scenario instead of starting as a lv1 Gladiator in Ul'dah, you can start as a lv1 PLD and go from there, with a lore explanation that the Gladiator's guild was absorbed by the Sultansworn and turned into a training school for them, and you'd be a random nobody that is basically being trained there. By the time you hit 30 the leader of the Sultansworn (Jenlyns) takes you under his wing, continuing the PLD questline as normal. Minor text alterations to fit this are a given.

The 3.0 WAR questline hints to this already, so I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of changes to how classes and jobs work if not in this upcoming expansion, the one after.

ACN having two Jobs failed because of an oversight on SE's part connected to the change to ARR - in that each class/Job's abilities were specifically controlled or guided by one stat, thus players would naturally pump most of their AP into that stat (like, MND for CNJ/WHM). This worked fine for a single Job, as each Job generally refined the role of it's based class and thus continued to make use of it's controlling stat.

ACN though, which was officially designated as a magic DPS, (and thus INT would be it's guiding stat), suddenly had a healer Job option in addition to it's DPS Job - thus those who put all their AP into INT and wanted to play as SCH found themselves stuck, as their healing spells (which required high MND) was neutered.

A band aid solution was found by reducing greatly the price for Keeper's Hymns (which allow the player to reset a class's spent AP), but it wasn't really fixing the root cause of the issue. Either way, it showed too many flaws with the system and thus SE abandoned trying to give other classes multiple Jobs.

The problem runs deeper than that. It involves more the core gameplay that SCH was given because of it branching off ACN without any notable changes to said gameplay. As much as some may hate me for saying it, SCH shouldn't have access to entire ACN DPS spellbook, and the SCH job crystal should have changed some of those abilities (and traits involved) to better suit a healer. SCH would end up with similar DPS potential to WHM while having more heals in its arsenal, and chances are the outlook on healing would have turned out different.

[Kaurie]

SCH/SMN didn't turn out so well, so I don't see them repeating that. I don't know whether or not classes will actually get taken out or if it's just too much of a hassle to do at this point. Classes will fall further and further behind though, as we get more job skills.

Issue for me is, SCH and SMN are the best jobs in the game (again to be clear in my opinion). The only issue with them being the same class is having to constantly swap your attribute points between them. That said, the attribute allocations are pretty useless and I'd rather they just remove it completely. With them gone, I'd have no problem having more job paths from base classes.

Neither job is a failure in and of themselves. What's a failure is how difficult it made balancing them because they share so many skills, not to mention the fact that they share those stat points despite each using a different stat.

Indeed, as mentioned above, I'd remove the attribute allocations. Also, if I were to add new jobs, I'd probably either have them share a base stat/role, or not have the ability to share a stat with a stance. i.e...

ROG gets a tank job. They would need VIT, and I'd just have VIT work the way for that job the way VIT will work for STR tanks in 3.2 - in that VIT will increase damage for that job as well as HP in some combination with DEX. Conversely, this Rogue could have evasion skills that are based off DEX.

Ranger/Bard from Archer (both DPS, bard more support DPS ranger more straight DPS).

[Zohar_Lahar]

Issue for me is, SCH and SMN are the best jobs in the game (again to be clear in my opinion). The only issue with them being the same class is having to constantly swap your attribute points between them. That said, the attribute allocations are pretty useless and I'd rather they just remove it completely. With them gone, I'd have no problem having more job paths from base classes.

It's one of the reasons I haven't used SCH much since 3.0.

[BrokenFox]

The system is just a relic of 1.0. Don't ever expect a new Class. It will be all Jobs from now on.

[Keramory]

It maybe a relic but rouge/ninja is fairly new and it came out with a class. I agree that classes are beyond pointless but have the dev team given any indication about them one way or another?

Also about the comment about smn/sch, did it fail? I thought it did great 0.o how did it fail?

[Kabzy]

Also about the comment about smn/sch, did it fail? I thought it did great 0.o how did it fail?

There was the stats thing that people have mentioned, but that wasn't the biggest cause. The problem was that back in late 2.x, SCH was extremely good and SMN was not, compared to BLM. And the problem was that SE could not really buff any of SMNs main DPS tools, because that would also buff SCHs too. And so SMN was pretty much behind BLM towards the end because they didn't want to make SCHs even more powerful. Introducing new classes at this point would be unnecessary, but there wouldn't be any issue with them, providing they remain lv30 and below and don't split into two jobs.

Honestly I think SCH didn't fail, it did pretty damn great at 50.

I don't think anyone's saying that SMN or SCH failed, just the concept of having a class being split into two. For reasons I mentioned above, as well as the bonus attributes thing.

Edit: And no, I highly doubt they would change the ACN roots of SMN or SCH at this point. If it were to happen, it would be taken away from SCH and that would ruin the job and role balance completely. I could go into a lot more depth, but that's for the healer forums. ;p

[dinnertime]

I don't think anyone's saying that SMN or SCH failed, just the concept of having a class being split into two. For reasons I mentioned above, as well as the bonus attributes thing.

Yeah, edited to add that at the same time you posted. Still, SCH didn't really fail as a job but SMN actually did and the other points you made with buffing ACN skills being a problem that would make SCH even more powerful, which I think was the biggest issue about it as well.

[Kabzy]

Yeah, edited to add that at the same time you posted. Still, SCH didn't really fail as a job but SMN actually did which I think was the biggest issue about it as well.

That could be seen as subjective though. It wasn't ideal but good SMNs could still complete FCoB without being a hinderance to their teams. Not to mention the extra utilities they brought via Resurrection / SuperVirus. It was a safer option to bring a BLM, but I wouldn't say SMNs failed by any means. It was just the concept of not being able to buff one job without it affecting the other which failed, in my opinion.