Why the class system isn't bad, feat. Ranger

[Shurrikhan]

I feel like a Bard and Ranger easily could be distinct from each other. I just feel like XIV's current, very strict armory system -- applying a specific number of nonadjustable (except by being in PvP) abilities to a class, and then job skills atop them and beyond them with no meaningful expansive or synergistic passives being added by the job to alter or really play on what the class provides -- doesn't suit those potential distinctions. In part that's because the class is so bare-bone, though, not because it already lends itself so much towards Bard, nor because Bard already does or should fill every function or aesthetic that a Ranger might. In short, the ARR class was never really designed to be compelling in itself, and that's the real mistake. Not that it's holding Bard and Ranger back, but because it was only ever a non-entity, or a mere step in another's aesthetic. Had it been a fulfilling class from the start, which Bard then provides its own spin on, we could in turn see Ranger provide yet another.

The same is true of Rogue, Ninja, and any possibility of a Thief stemming from the same class. Rogue in its own right looks ridiculous. All of the gaudy wind-streaked spinning makes no sense until the advent of Huton, which, sadly, still makes little of the aesthetic. The later-added Armor Crush looks far more practical and sounds more the saboteur than Ninja feels—it seems a ready fit for a Thief more so than NIN. And yet, rather than all the wind-themed abilities that Rogue excuses through its later attachment to Ninja, it alone affects Huton.

I can understand the dislike of classes as they've been deployed in ARR. Their only fit to the game is that, frankly, a novice adventurer probably shouldn't wake up one day, grab a sword from a local coliseum trainer and think "I'm a level 1 in a lost art I don't yet know exists". It's a restriction to better suit lore, at best.

But it doesn't have to be. The concept itself is solid. So long as there are diverse ways to use a particular set of techniques, whether in bowmanship or hand-to-hand combat, the division between class and job, and any other jobs branching from the same class, can be a powerful tool for customization. But the class needs to then be the majority of the gameplay, at least at first (say, level 50), and the job shouldn't be purely additional strengths. Though that doesn't mean it needs to introduce weaknesses, there needs at least to be other meaningful, viable, and enjoyable benefits that the player is restricting himself from by choosing to specialize in the job. The job should allow an advanced and distinct path for additional skills, but the many combinations of borrowed aspects from other classes, focusing on x portion of gameplay, should be at least as interesting collectively and nearly as interesting individually.

To reiterate, the issue is the implementation and priorities, both, in how XIV's class-job system was designed. You absolutely CAN increase a Summoner's basic DoT damage without increasing a Scholar's by the same amount. We already adjust potencies, adjust stat multiplies, and even remove entire effects and add new conditionals by a check made to every ability from simply entering a PvP situation. Why should variance by job then be a necessary impossibility? It may not be possible with their current coding, but that's an issue of the code — not the concept itself. It's the implementation, and the fact that the class is being treated as a lore-based preliminary period rather than as a center or central node for customization.

By the time you allow for dynamic animations (even if as simple as adding particle effects, changing anchor points, or adjusting the animation's speed based on attack rate), for instance, there's really nothing to hold back a Pugilist from sourcing a Dancer, nothing to force the Rogue to be as gaudy as a Ninja, nor any undermechanic a Ranger can't play off of differently from a Bard.