Please DON'T remove the Armoury system

[Isaveron]

Why do you say they can't coexist?

Because a system which is suppose to give you absolute freedom can not coexist with a system that restricts you, both are mutually exclusive and should be common sense to you. What we have today isn't even the original concept of the armoury system, it's a shell of its former self, so the new development team proved me right by their slow destruction of it in preparation for the new Job System.

[Naqaj]

What we have today isn't even the original concept of the armoury system, it's a shell of its former self, so the new development team proved me right by their slow destruction of it in preparation for the new Job System.

What we have to day is actually much closer to the original vision of the Armoury than anything we've seen since launch.

The offical website has since been updated, but there used to be a short story to visualize how players are intended to use the Armoury, and it was pretty much exactly what we have now: You can have multiple classes spread over the 4 disciplines, and freely switch between them, with a few selected skills to use cross-class.

The idea was never to level all classes and build your own hodgepodge class.

[Velhart]

Because a system which is suppose to give you absolute freedom can not coexist with a system that restricts you, both are mutually exclusive and should be common sense to you. What we have today isn't even the original concept of the armoury system, it's a shell of its former self, so the new development team proved me right by their slow destruction of it in preparation for the new Job System.

And why not? The way I see things set up, CLASS is more flexible on solo play, and JOB is geared towards party play.

I like the way things are going, gives opportunities like GLA to branch off. Like if they released Dark Knight, it would be a job stone for GLA. Can switch between PLD and DRK within one class. I like this idea.

[Leira_Raine]

I'm aware that Pugilist has these options now, but as far as I've noticed they don't influence my play style as much as my chosen cross-class abilities do. Plus, most other classes don't have abilities like these, so they have to rely on cross-classing to define alternate roles.



Why do you say they can't coexist? Personally I feel that they complement each other very well, since they have different applications and different strengths and weaknesses. Keeping the class system doesn't take anything away from the job system as far as I can see, and vice versa.




I think of it in the exact opposite way, actually. Why should we be locked into one class or job when most people in the real world have multiple talents and multiple passions? If people are willing to put in the work to master every class and job, why shouldn't they be able to? Conversely, if someone just wants to be the best Conjurer or Paladin he or she can be, there's nothing stopping him/her from doing so. People are free to role play both as single-class virtuosos and multi-class masters.

FFXIV is a bit unique in this regard because a much higher number of players than expected have gone on to level all classes to 50. In FFXI, another multi-job MMO, the average player (in my experience) would only level one or two jobs to cap, and people with all jobs leveled were considered rare and quite hardcore indeed. However, because leveling has been some of the only content available for over a year now, people have found themselves going back and capping more and more classes, and I've already seen quite a few Paragon's Crowns running around. If we had more content to complete (another issue entirely...), we'd be less likely to max out all our classes and more likely to spend time on our particular favorites, creating a greater sense of attachment to the class and fostering some of the role playing atmosphere you're longing for.

THIS! I also agree on changing classes on the fly. I haven't seen anything wrong with it, and with changing jobs in FFXI, I wanted to kick a puppy or a thousand. It was surprisingly tedious to the point that sometimes I just didn't bother switching classes. That and the loading times of the screen for the MH. I know that the load times can be remedied, but I really prefer this system to the other. I feel as if I can become anything, and I am WITH the class anyway. I AM a lancer. I've played that class for over a year, and I fell in love with my character for that. That and you can role-play as other classes at once. Role-playing does not have restrictions.

I've been spoiled by it. I like the multiple class/job type. It allows for customization (I believe) and for me it just seems intriguing. I want to see how it will play out.

[Jinko]

I've always hated the armoury system, as other have said though it barely exists now, personally I am in favour of them doing away with classes completely and replacing them with jobs.

I do like that classes/jobs are defined by weapons though, as for cross class skills I couldn't care less about them.

[Spellbinder]

Maybe it's because I've only played mages and never melee, but they pretty much stomped on any diversification those classes could have had. You're either going to get yelled at for not being the healer (Conjurer) or get laughed at for thinking you can do something besides nukes (Thaumaturge). Even with cross-classing, it no longer seems feasible to create a mage that can find a middle ground between support and damage.

[Neptune]

@OP

Some things we need to realize before I respond to your post.

What people are saying is that the system should not be subtracted from, and no extra "classes" (read: jobs) should be added. They want to have one class system in the game and no more. More is confusing, and it's convoluted because they didn't dream up the class/job system from scratch, it mutated ungracefully after they decided to axe the Armoury system. So we want our jobs to be our classes, but we still want the table scraps of the Armoury system, including the ability to equip other classes' (jobs') abilities.

Also it's pointless to speak of preserving the Armoury system since what is the definition of that? If it's the Armoury system from 1 year ago it's already gone. So to speak of it is to speak of the dev team REVERSING decisions they've already made, and causing them to lose face. I don't like asking people to lose face because they're not going to listen to me.

The Armoury system as it was is already in a coma. It exists as the following: change jobs on the fly, and equip 10 abilities as a max level job from a very limited list of other abilities. I don't think any of us want to see that end, but we know we aren't going to get a real Armoury system until the next Final Fantasy online game comes out that isn't a screw-up.

So at this point you have two choices:

Settle for a convoluted class/job system with a lot of meaningless complexity and inconveniences, or

Ask for the abolishment of the class system so you can exist as a more well-rounded character in the game world free of fetters.

[Estellios]

I think more abilities might become cross-classable after more time has passed and they can gauge how exploitable they are. I don't think this is the case with most abilities, seeing as how traits boost some skills that are currently exclusive. I bet stuff like Blissful Mind would see a good deal of use on a few other classes, but then you get the whole "Sentinel" debacle all over again.

[Petdo]

The reason I didnt play DoW/DoM class because it lack of class uniqueness... but the current improvement bring back the class uniqueness and I prefer it this way.

I know that it fun to custom your character with anything from any class... but it proved that it suck in long-run.
Yes, some people love it but yes most people don't like it either.

[Maea]

The reason I didnt play DoW/DoM class because it lack of class uniqueness... but the current improvement bring back the class uniqueness and I prefer it this way.

I know that it fun to custom your character with anything from any class... but it proved that it suck in long-run.
Yes, some people love it but yes most people don't like it either.

I didn't mean to imply that I want them to reverse class changes. I agree that reforms were needed, and greater specificity for each class has made them more engaging and easy to understand. I just don't want SE to take this to the extreme and opt for totally fixed classes/jobs that don't allow for any sort of cross-classing whatsoever. I'll make an edit to the OP to make sure this is clear.

P.S. I'll respond to additional posts at some point tonight or tomorrow.