Shared Classes Are Not Failures (ie SCH/SMN)

[Wiccan026]

What’s even worse about Dark Knight, Machinist, and Astrologian being unlocked at level 30, is that they are gated behind Heavensward, while Red Mage, Samurai, Gunbreaker, and Dancer all unlock at 50+ without being locked behind a physical barrier. They are all available in ARR areas.

I honestly think sometimes some people post what they want and desire without thinking of the realities needed to create what they want (not to mention whether or not that's healthy for the game as a whole). Will come back to this in a bit... because we have two quick detours to make before looping back to this point.

When heavensward was created there was a reason why the jobs were gated at 30 versus starting them at 50 and it was due to for two reasons. The first was to create extra things to do, you'd have more people running fates and leveling dungeons to get those jobs up to make them playable for heavensward and the second reason it helped them understand their job better. The second reason was to help keep people from jumping into existing content new content with the new jobs without playing them to some degree, which is a precedent that exists with the newer jobs (sure there is a less of a level gap but the xp is a lot less needed to get from thirty to fifty and you have even more options to level once you hit fifty).

Also, moving those in charge of the jobs from heavensward to other areas doesn't make sense for lore or any of the intertwining stories that come out of it and at the time you get there you already can unlock the jobs. (Also if you're playing the game and are level sixty and haven't gotten ishgard you've either bought a job potion or you're playing the game very very differently than most do).

The instances created for the heavensward jobs alone currently don't make sense (at least for machinst or astrologian) because the job no longer works that way at all and they never wasted time to redo the instances. If they wasted time to recode things (get the jobs to adjusted to fifty once you get to heavensward) they would have to redo the instances.... which would cause a content situation we have for this expansion (yes I understand covid has caused a lot of delays, even without covid though the content were getting is completely different and "less" than other expansions because of there ARR rework.... and that was half needed for overall complaints they got from both new players and existing players).

Which than loops back to the point I made. Trying to lump the classes (because that's what they are based at on a coding level) into "combinable" jobs so you can level two jobs at once, like summoner/scholar... would take a massive re-work (whether or not they adjust the heavensward ones being started at fifty or not) which would mean allocating resources from somewhere else just to do that.

The fix to ARR was a necessary evil, most people, even if they are complaining about the "lack of content" at least get where the resources went to and why it had to happen. Trying to get folks to get on board another similar system for the next expansion just to combine jobs more than likely wouldn't.

[AceofRains]

X

So let me see if I understand you as to not misrepresent what you’re saying.

-I’m stating a desire with out thinking about the consequences or requisite effort.

Disagree. I’m brining this up now, so they devs will see it and have time to consider it going forward. A consolidation like this should happen at the start of an expansion. Not some arbitrary point during the patch cycle. I understand COVID-19 has brought a lot of delay and issue to the team. I’m not asking for overnight solutions, I’m asking for a serious discussion on the topic.

—At the time, gating jobs at certain levels at the release of an expansion made sense.

I agree. That was then, this is now.

-Moving Job NPCs to new areas doesn’t make sense.

I agree. I did t mean to imply they should be moved at all. What’s weird is You can unlock ones that are higher levels now, without having to get inside Ishgard. It’s reasonable for there to be some kind of adjustment to that. There is obviously work to be done adjusting quests as well. It’s a part of the clean up process.

Which than loops back to the point I made. Trying to lump the classes (because that's what they are based at on a coding level) into "combinable" jobs so you can level two jobs at once, like summoner/scholar... would take a massive re-work (whether or not they adjust the heavensward ones being started at fifty or not) which would mean allocating resources from somewhere else just to do that.

Attaching existing expansion jobs to existing classes just to share the experiance points for horizontal growth does not require some major coding effort or rework of the jobs. They rework jobs basically every expansion so, even that doesn’t hold up as an excuse.

Reworking old content isn’t a necessary evil. It’s just necessary for a good game. When a player base becomes so top heavy, developers old decisions can become alienating to new players. It’s essential that they rectify things like this.

I would like to thank you for a well put response. While in some places I kind of disagree with you, overall being able to overcome objections is what’s important in a discussion.

[Wiccan026]

So let me see if I understand you as to not misrepresent what you’re saying.

-I’m stating a desire with out thinking about the consequences or requisite effort.

Disagree. I’m brining this up now, so they devs will see it and have time to consider it going forward. A consolidation like this should happen at the start of an expansion. Not some arbitrary point during the patch cycle. I understand COVID-19 has brought a lot of delay and issue to the team. I’m not asking for overnight solutions, I’m asking for a serious discussion on the topic.

—At the time, gating jobs at certain levels at the release of an expansion made sense.

I agree. That was then, this is now.

-Moving Job NPCs to new areas doesn’t make sense.

I agree. I did t mean to imply they should be moved at all. What’s weird is You can unlock ones that are higher levels now, without having to get inside Ishgard. It’s reasonable for there to be some kind of adjustment to that. There is obviously work to be done adjusting quests as well. It’s a part of the clean up process.



Attaching existing expansion jobs to existing classes just to share the experiance points for horizontal growth does not require some major coding effort or rework of the jobs. They rework jobs basically every expansion so, even that doesn’t hold up as an excuse.

Reworking old content isn’t a necessary evil. It’s just necessary for a good game. When a player base becomes so top heavy, developers old decisions can become alienating to new players. It’s essential that they rectify things like this.

I would like to thank you for a well put response. While in some places I kind of disagree with you, overall being able to overcome objections is what’s important in a discussion.

Do you code for a living? Do you know how badly the base code is for this game, their running off of shoots of 1.0 which is why at the end of the day "we don't get to have nice things". If you're asking for older classes/jobs... which you did in your OP... than they have to readjust the coding for that because gladiator equals paladin and for anything else to get added to it you have to work it in to that base class (or just abolish the thing to begin with.. but again major rework). Also, the whole point of this streamline was to adjust it so they don't have to retweak everything for the next expansion (Shadowbringers was the first major over haul of the whole system, the previous ones just added and tweaked a few things.. this was definitely a overhaul and other than healing, if their even considering that, I don't think they intend to overhaul the rest of the system).

Like I said previously though, trying to give access to the jobs outside of Ishgard don't make sense not just for lore (which is already gutted enough at this point) but because at the end of the day you still have to go back and rework it so that it can happen... it's not just put character here to let you do things. You are right it may seem weird that you can be the other jobs, although other than samurai and red mage again if you're unlocking the other jobs and haven't gotten to Ishgard you're playing the gave very weirdly.

I've played several games like this and yes they always try to rework things to make things easier to catch up, they've done that since the beginning of Heavensward.... what were talking about is completely different. They went back and slashed out quests that don't matter (and their not returning them into side quests to go back and do for later) and it's because this was filler stuff that didn't need to be done, in order to stream line.... and while that may seem like an easy task it really isn't and this rework is the major reason why were getting so little content this expansion.... they've mentioned this.

Leveling isn't that hard in this game, it can be tedious but than again most aspects of MMO's get that way. It's the nature of the beast.

[AceofRains]

X

No, I don’t code for a living, I work on cars in a hot and sweaty shop. It’s exhausting and sometimes I don’t have the patients to even turn on my game system. Coding complex, but they are employed as coders because they know where to look for problems. Coding is not an excuse.

That is not what we are discussing. We are discussing the pros and cons of job/class consolidation. If every time someone made a suggestion in these forums and someone brought up coding as an excuse, I’d be a gillionaire.