Class => Job => ???

[kupokage]

What if instead of adding new jobs, SE lets us branch off of existing ones like ARC getting to choose between Healer or DPS? Example, MCH getting to choose to stay DPS at lvl 80 or a gun wielding Chemist Healer? Just a thought.

[Aronys]

Not happening, they said they will never do anything like that again as they are having so many issues with SMN and SCH.

[Jijifli]

If SMN and SCH are anything to go by, that's not a welcoming idea.

Don't get me wrong, it seems cool, but that's what was in their minds with arcanist being able to go multiple paths. It became a balancing nightmare as you couldn't touch, say, half of scholar's kit without also touching summoner. Let's say black mage and summoner are doing too well, because of fire I and ruin I. You can easily fix fire I, but if you weaken ruin 1, now scholar got hit, even if it wasn't doing well.

[Youkulm]

What if instead of adding new jobs, SE lets us branch off of existing ones like ARC getting to choose between Healer or DPS? Example, MCH getting to choose to stay DPS at lvl 80 or a gun wielding Chemist Healer? Just a thought.

They plan on removing classes ( by 5.0 launch if I remember correctly. May change who knows. ). This wont happen.

[SendohJin]

If SMN and SCH are anything to go by, that's not a welcoming idea.

Don't get me wrong, it seems cool, but that's what was in their minds with arcanist being able to go multiple paths. It became a balancing nightmare as you couldn't touch, say, half of scholar's kit without also touching summoner. Let's say black mage and summoner are doing too well, because of fire I and ruin I. You can easily fix fire I, but if you weaken ruin 1, now scholar got hit, even if it wasn't doing well.

while this was true, they've gotten very far away from this.

SCH doesn't have Bio/Miasma/Ruin III, SMN doesn't have Broil or Quickened Aetherflow.

[bass9020]

They plan on removing classes ( by 5.0 launch if I remember correctly. May change who knows. ). This wont happen.

This isn't true either. They said they would think about removing classes only IF they can find a way to make the early game work without classes. But as of right now classes are too rooted in the early progression of leveling, lore and story.

[Youkulm]

This isn't true either. They said they would think about removing classes only IF they can find a way to make the early game work without classes. But as of right now classes are too rooted in the early progression of leveling, lore and story.

If they didn't want to do away with the class system eventually all the new jobs would have started at level 1 with a class. Just my 2 cents. Their actions speak just about as loudly as Yoshi's words about disliking the class system.

Classes are an antiquated system from 1.0 that need to be overhauled. It would go a long way to helping Summoner/Scholar as well.

[Canadane]

It's a shame, I'd really welcome multiple job stones on a single class.

[Snow_Princess]

It's a shame, I'd really welcome multiple job stones on a single class.

It is but they can't balance it, I look forward to overhauling SMN and SCH from splitting them once in for all, the balance issues is madding.

I doono what "ARC getting to choose between Healer or DPS" means though... but now that I looked in the game and saw "ACN" is the TC talking about the ACN/SCH/SMN thing? because that is exactly why it shouldn't happen, lol

[Dark-Saviour]

I've always been in favour of the class+split-jobs system, so it's sad to see them turn against that.

Honestly, classes are the better-designed facet of the game to me as it is (and when cross-class skills were a thing, even more-so) while jobs just felt tacked on and many of them just seem... off, for lack of a better term...
Flipping the roles of Thaumaturge and Conjurer way-back-when simply to have them go to Black Mage and White Mage respectively wasn't cool either, IMO, but whatever. :-/

Granted, the whole Arcanist->Scholar/Summoner was kind of wonky from the get-go, but Arcanist at its core just seems kind of random and poorly-thought-out to me (with Summoner and Scholar being the most 'forced' of all evolving jobs on top of that).
Lorewise, I'm not sure why the Biomancy angle was even there, and even the carbuncle summon was more like a "Naturally, our studies lead to the summoning of Carbuncle... Naturally" kind of justification than anything that actually seemed... well... natural.
The current lore would seem to lend itself more to an AoE trap-master style of gameplay to me, but eh...
Disregarding that though, I still say that arcanist should have been split from the start with both splits getting branching jobs.
1) Take the biomancy half and build a class around that, then evolve it into Scholar (ideally with a plague-doctor motif) and and DoT-heavy 'plague-bringer' kind of class.
2) Take the summoning half and build a class around that, then evolve it into a proper summoner, and possibly a new take on Blue Mage (Summoner could be like Ellen from Folklore, while Blue Mage could be more like Keats).

If we did get continue with classes and split jobs though, we could have had
1) A proper gunner/musketeer that could become a machinist or a sniper (still salty about this one. Musketeers already had a damned guild!)
2) Archer could split into Bard or Ranger (though with better foresight, the whole Archer->Bard thing could have been avoided too)
3) Necromancer could be an alternate path to white mage (And I still say both should have come from Thaumaturge, but eh...) Ship's already sailed here though, TBH. They wasted the character best suited to being the teacher here.
4) We could have had advanced jobs where Red Mage was actually unlocked by progressing to a certain point with White Mage and Black Mage.

Basically, I'd say we should start over and retcon everything that's already been shoved into the lore about them so classes and jobs can make more sense. >_>
Which isn't going to happen, granted, so at least it would be nice to see new classes/jobs/splits handled well rather than abandoning the core basis of it because they didn't handle Arcanist properly (and because they don't want to make anyone start at level 1 again).