[dev1033] Ideas for a Two-Tier Class System: Jobs on Top of Weapon Specializations

[Duelle]

i dont understand what you mean? having a combinatory style doesnt mean they wont have histories and places in the world, its already implied they will have specific gears, which could link to specific plotlines, and history.

I'm hoping these plot lines are a little more focused on the history of each job rather than about people that happen to be of those jobs.

[Augury]

i dont understand what you mean? having a combinatory style doesnt mean they wont have histories and places in the world, its already implied they will have specific gears, which could link to specific plotlines, and history.

That wasn't what I meant xD A combinatory system was the fail-point of XI, because it worked only in favor of specific combinations- and sadly that's usually how it goes (if you've ever played WoW or RO, as well, this is why many people want to get away from the trappings of a talent tree). That was a secondary point to the "jobs need to be flavorful" thing.

[Cairdeas]

Best and most complete thread/posts by OP, ever. Hopefully, the developers took some notes and are working on it.
(Have you received your notice for employment from Square-Enix yet?)

EDIT:

And it is EXACTLY what I enjoy the most about the armoury system.

There are quite a few people who would do a good job of assisting in ideacrafting for the future of the game but its doubtful any of them would be hired. SE doesn't tend to hire fans that often. I wish they did do it more like Valve and hire fans.

[Daedae]

I was assuming that when advanced jobs were introduced, new weapons would be added to the game in junction. For example, RDM would use a Spellblade, or a Rapier, for SMN they would use Rods, SAM would use Katanas etc. But I am all for a revamped job and battle system, great thread. ^ ^

[Daedae]

@Misha, The cookie cutter mold is present in pretty much every game even XIV. Yes you can choose from any abilities from all jobs, but to be the best at one job in particular, you need specific abilities from other jobs. While sure you can say 'I want to tank on THM without a shield, and only using archer abilities!" that would be stupid. To be a decent THM tank you'd need to use emulate, defender, etc. There is no such thing as a unique combination, cookie cutting is present anyway. Trying to create a character to be unique just for the sake of being unique will wind you up with a silly character who's seriously gimped.

[Misha]

@Misha, The cookie cutter mold is present in pretty much every game even XIV. Yes you can choose from any abilities from all jobs, but to be the best at one job in particular, you need specific abilities from other jobs. While sure you can say 'I want to tank on THM without a shield, and only using archer abilities!" that would be stupid. To be a decent THM tank you'd need to use emulate, defender, etc. There is no such thing as a unique combination, cookie cutting is present anyway. Trying to create a character to be unique just for the sake of being unique will wind you up with a silly character who's seriously gimped.

Was going to give you a justified answer to this but then I just started laughing xD Games are limited in what they can achieve... and as far as 14 is concerned it's quite a bit above the rest in terms of options (When you add the changes incoming). With such limited AP there's more than 30 styles easily I can come up with PER class that fit and work to a great extent in a party set up yet are quite different from another.

Nothing in this world is unique and when I said it obviously meant in the context of upcoming abilities which they wanna add to start defining the job/class/role you're playing. People Will always have cookie cutter builds and people will always follow others even with unlimited options available to the player. You'd be surprised how well things work if you think for yourself and experiment a little, there's already more than enough abilities in the game that are quite different to fill up a couple 50's AP and then some.

Just gotta build your character a bit more horizontal, but the point is options are there. I'll stick to wanting to custom my stats, looks, materia, AND abilities to make my character great in what I need it to be while retaining a more individual appeal then those people who want to be exact copies of one another and can't even figure out how to stat themselves. Luckly there's alot of people out there who play mmo's that do otherwise, it has nothing to do with being unique for the sake of being unique... Anyways /rant off done talking about this, too many variables to explain I doubt the handholders would ever grasp LoL

[Carpe]

Well, no matter what you do, not everybody can be pleased, but people complain most about how each job "lacks uniqueness"- and there isn't a whole lot to make something unique moreso than making it irreversible. On the same note though, trying to take away from a job's overall modularity to give it some kind of "identity" works in the other vain against the "spirit" of such things. Regardless- some things must be given up for the game to be well rounded, and I'd much rather give up the direct approach of Job = Role in favor of Job = Toolbox.

I don' t get your point about permanence creating uniqueness, to me they are unrelated concepts. You can have uniqueness with or without permanence. Something is unique if it is uncommon, unshared, or strongly characteristic of something. The classes in ffxiv do have some unique abilities, abilities that require that class to be equipped to be used, but they are not permanent in the sense that they must always be set on the action bar. There just aren't enough of these abilities, to give these classes a strong sense of uniqueness.

[Carpe]

In your posts you seem to be using "class" and "job" interchangeably, which is something we are treating as different entities. By keeping the armory (class) system intact I don't think we are doing anything detrimental to the classes' "overall modularity", we are just suggesting adding a job system that will contribute to the options one has available to give their characters customization, identity, uniqueness, flavor, etc.

The armory system still works the same way as a "toolbox" of abilities and skills to help determine your approach to combat, but adding a job system on top of that gives you that extra dimension of customization that will give your character more flavor as a whole.

You can think of jobs as role templates, or specializations, but not all jobs would be strongly geared to a particular role, some jobs can be hybrids that can fill in multiple niches on the fly. There can also be some level of customization at the job level so that not all job/class combinations end up performing the same way. Ex. being able to customize DRK to perform as a kind of blood tank rather than a DD.

[Ejhuay]

The OP was very detailed and logical.

My only concern is that the new dev team does not try to salvage a failed system just because some people like the armory.

When the game re-launches (its only hope), the ps3 players will have no attachement to the current classes. It is more important to develop a great new job system than it is to compromise with the vocal minority who likes the armory system.