Possible removal of Classes

[Lirion]

If they did remove classes they would have to change the classes you pick when creating a character to the jobs and in that case the job unlock quests would need some reworking since you're now already the job. Another way is to have the classes as starting classes and once you reach 30 you need to unlock the job for that class to continue leveling. Past 30 there would not be anymore classes and you have the role abilitets from here on. Just a thought.

Edit: As someone who's been playing since 1.0 launch I couldn't care less if the classes were indeed removed, I haven't touched a class since jobs were introduced in 1.0.

[Brannigan]

Start as a gladiator
Hit level 30
You gain a big flashing message in the middle of the screen that says you can't level to 31 until you complete this one promotion quest
You complete it and now whenever you equip a sword you're a paladin, not a gladiator. You have no way to return to being a gladiator.

[Zhamkyong]

Start as a gladiator
Hit level 30
You gain a big flashing message in the middle of the screen that says you can't level to 31 until you complete this one promotion quest
You complete it and now whenever you equip a sword you're a paladin, not a gladiator. You have no way to return to being a gladiator.

This would be the easiest way.

[Duelle]

Start as a gladiator
Hit level 30
You gain a big flashing message in the middle of the screen that says you can't level to 31 until you complete this one promotion quest
You complete it and now whenever you equip a sword you're a paladin, not a gladiator. You have no way to return to being a gladiator.

Would have been nice if they had set lv30 as the starting point for all jobs, instead of arbitrarily changing it like they are for Stormblood...

I think the main problems with class / job interactions is that it causes programming nightmares for developers.

Scholar and Summoner are a good example of this; because they both come from the same class, it's difficult for them to make adjustments on one job without having an effect on the other. And then there's more minor issues like having to constantly reset attributes.

Firstly, attributes should have been removed once we went into 2.0.

Secondly, they didn't attach any meaningful effects to job crystals asides from 5 job skills. If they had set themselves up from the get go that job crystals alter class abilities, you'd have a lot more flexibility and you wouldn't have these problems where buffing one class buffs the other. It doesn't even need to alter every skill, but skills that are a) role relevant and b) make sense for the jobs.

What they did is the programming and creation version of this.

The same goes for a job like Bard. Because it comes from the Archer class, it can't have its own unique identity as a 'Bard'. And personally I think they squished these two jobs together just because they couldn't think of a way to balance a Ranger job that was full-on dd.

Let me start with this.

That aside, a bard is not just a guy that stands in the back and spams song. Look at the Dragon Age bards, the chanters in Pillars of Eternity and the protagonist of The Bard's Tale. I'd venture that our BRD is based on the Dragon Age bard, and acts as the drummer boy of an army; a drummer boy that can actually fight, but one nonetheless.

[Jandor]

I like classes. Me & some FC members sometimes run current content as them as a challenge.

Removing them is a lot of work, there are other things to focus on. That said, streamlining how you acquire your job would be a good change.

[Ama_Hamada]

It was simply this, most things could be used by anything, like I can play SCH while having fire III.

THM and CNJ used to be able to use shield abilities. It would be like if you leveled PLD now, and unlock sentinel, you could use sentinel on THM and CNJ just as long you had a wand/shield combo. There was a move called phalanx I think, it did not last long but if you took a hit, no matter how strong it was, it healed you not damage you.

Then there was the broken spike spell for THM, shock spikes or something. So say you had a leve to do while noticing it is not possible to clear because level 10 for one leve was not the same difficulty as a level 10 for another, so you really did not know how hard leves where unless you memorized them by name. So you have this leve with the cactus things that are not possible to kill for your level while the special move oneshots you. So what do you do? Use the spikes spell and hope it uses the needle move before the ability wears off. If it works, you just made the monster literally kill itself killing you. It was sooo broken it was hilarious .

[Zhamkyong]

It might be more easier to show you then explain ^.^ here's a very old video I made from those days that shows roughly how it worked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUR-lPpEbsU Basically nearly every skill for every class was up for grabs as a cross class action. Want to be a mage with tank skills? It could be done, want to be an archer healer? It could be done. Players had 10 cross class abilities they could take at max level and each skill had a set number of allocation points. The more higher level the skill, the more points it costed to put it in your cross class ability bar. When you leveled up, you got a number of points you could use to spend on whatever cross class skill you wanted from all the classes you unlocked.

It was simply this, most things could be used by anything, like I can play SCH while having fire III.

THM and CNJ used to be able to use shield abilities. It would be like if you leveled PLD now, and unlock sentinel, you could use sentinel on THM and CNJ just as long you had a wand/shield combo. There was a move called phalanx I think, it did not last long but if you took a hit, no matter how strong it was, it healed you not damage you.

Then there was the broken spike spell for THM, shock spikes or something. So say you had a leve to do while noticing it is not possible to clear because level 10 for one leve was not the same difficulty as a level 10 for another, so you really did not know how hard leves where unless you memorized them by name. So you have this leve with the cactus things that are not possible to kill for your level while the special move oneshots you. So what do you do? Use the spikes spell and hope it uses the needle move before the ability wears off. If it works, you just made the monster literally kill itself killing you. It was sooo broken it was hilarious .

Wait... What?!

The first version of the game had that depth of customization in the class system?? Why the hell did they change that? It sounds awesome! We have no choice right now in the way we want to build our own character. Yes, we have materia/gear with diferent stats and we can allocate those by level, but it's an "ilussion" of choice because there is only one viable path to work with. Every class is the same as the other except of the looks of glamour...

[Aylis]

Wait... What?!

The first version of the game had that depth of customization in the class system?? Why the hell did they change that? It sounds awesome! We have no choice right now in the way we want to build our own character. Yes, we have materia/gear with diferent stats and we can allocate those by level, but it's an "ilussion" of choice because there is only one viable path to work with. Every class is the same as the other except of the looks of glamour...

To put it bluntly. Yoshida wanted to dumb the game down to make it popular considering 1.0 in the eyes of making money was a flop. In contrast here is the same fight I did in the last video I linked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQOgtbwZ0-I on the 1.20 update when Yoshida took over and removed all the fun abilities and took away Tanaka's original identity to make FFXIV "mainstream"

[Zhamkyong]

Yoshida wanted to dumb the game down to make it popular considering 1.0 in the eyes of making money was a flop.

Then I hope they don't dumb it too much than it has been dumbed down. Talking about a Final Fantasy side on with classes in mind I have to admit each has his own identity based on the previous games. Sure, there had been some changes and adaptation in classes and we have (sadly) a linear progression on each class.

Wanting to have 1.0 back it's unlikely to happen, so I just hope they know what they are doing. They can't please everyone, they should just find and apply their own identity.

[ErikMynhier]

To put it bluntly. Yoshida wanted to dumb the game down to make it popular considering 1.0 in the eyes of making money was a flop. In contrast here is the same fight I did in the last video I linked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQOgtbwZ0-I on the 1.20 update when Yoshida took over and removed all the fun abilities and took away Tanaka's original identity to make FFXIV "mainstream"

I forgot how fine the music was.