Shared Classes Are Not Failures (ie SCH/SMN)

[AceofRains]

x.

Hmm interesting. The reason I was intentional about avoiding, for example, all the tanks in a pairing was to give the options for at least some DPS classes to go the other route altogether and become a Tank and vice versa. I do like your approach, and I did think about it that way at first actually. But when it came down to it, there’s an option for everything under my pairings. There’s alternatives tanking, healing, or DPS in style. Or there are alternatives to swapping your role in general

And I have to say, 1.0 was the Bee’s Knees, problematic as it was.. I wish all the time I could back that- despite it nearly frying my computer. Had a good nostalgia rush when I saw it one of today’s reddit posts. 1.0 was def one of the biggest highlights of the end of my teenage years.

And again, thank you for standing up for me. I think this topic is going to start evolving more because people are antsy for solutions to job homogenization among other things.

[NYCAcimStudent]

As the title suggests, I first would like to say that Scholar and Summoner are a success. I’m tired of pretending it’s not. Because the devs felt like it was some kind of failure and difficult to balance, the community as a whole seemed to have let HORIZONTAL growth go by the way side. Instead we can individually level almost 20 Jobs. Job Stones had such a cool vision back when I was a 1.0 player and they just dropped it because they could not make ability sharing work well between Scholar and Summoner. It's too stifling on design and I completely get that.

All jobs should share a base class with another job, SOLELY for exp purposes. It does not mean they necessarily share the same role, or abilities. This is a means to consolidate level progression, and give players flexible options when it comes to end game metas. Only have Arcanist at 80? That’s cool because I can choose to Heal or DPS.

Thank you, AceOfRains. I love this idea!

It reminds me of having different specs in WoW. Having the option in FFXIV to be Tank/DPS or Tank/Healer or Healer/DPS is both more efficient and more fun, at least for me. This is especially true in a game that only allows for 2 DPS in a light party! We have run into the issue where all 3 of us want to play as DPS. The only way to resolve that is if we make certain to level 2 different jobs simultaneously. Leveling up different jobs at different times is a lot of fun! But being forced to level 2-3 jobs at the same time and constantly dealing with the XP deficit that comes with the non-MSQ Job kind of sucks. And then there is the matter of Job quests at different locations.

[Wiccan026]

Hopefully eventually all the actual trolls will be ignored and the people who care about logic and reason will possibly have a discussion one day. Although new people join often, so I doubt thats going to happen. But you can always hope!


Now, for the topic. I'm aware "why" the jobs were released at the levels they were released. I'm saying the inconsistency is nonsense. Especially to a new player.

This proposed idea cleans it all up.

The argument against it so far has been only "you're lazy" and "coding/its hard."

When all the systems for it are already in place.

Jobs sharing exp already exists, and level sync already exists. This, to my knowledge address' every single issue that can arise.

And no, OP is not asking for them to share skills. He literally asked they ONLY share EXP and nothing else.

Again, all this does, is clean up the exp progression. For people who level all jobs, they unlock classes already leveled. For people who dont, they dont have them leveled.

This in my opinion reduces people having jobs leveled and not knowing how they work.

Unlike OP, I would only link similar jobs though. DRK to WAR, and GNB to PLD as examples.

I also prefer to have things to do, and classes to start at level 1, but I also prefer things to make sense more than "having things to do."


Also, blaming 1.0 for all the problems is also nonsense.

People cant glorify Naoki Yoshida for "creating a brand new game from scratch" then also blame 1.0 for all of 2.0's issues. Did he create a brand new game with brand new servers, or did he do something "great" and "fix" a "horrible" game. It cant be both.

Lastly FFXI is a thing. So saying 2.0 has horrible coding because of 1.0 which FFXI was created by the same team as 1.0, yet it is to this day the most successful Final Fantasy, is a bit ridiculous.

FFXIV 1.0 is not even as close to being as bad as people make it out to be. if it was... then blaming 2.0's coding on 1.0... means 2.0 cant possibly be good/and-or Naoki Yoshida cant be credited for the success of 2.0, as he has taken a lot from version 1.0. Which in fact he has. He didnt create Elezen, Roegadyn, Eorzea, Miqo'te, Ishgard, Coerthas, even Hydaelyn. The 1.0 team did most all the work for FFXIV 2.0. All the 2.0 team did was lower the graphics demand and make the game more "user friendly." Again, they need to pick their argument.

There are so many things that you're twisting or just ignoring so I'm not going to waste energy going over everything again.

I was the one who mentioned "coding was hard"... and the reason why that's a valid argument (because I'm not even trying to focus really on if this is a good idea or not but rather why it would be a wasted effort, when at the end of the day it's to quicken leveling which isn't really needed if you're using the tools at their disposal and it can done be casually at that) any time and energy spent on trying to change the existing system to the way the OP wants would take a lot of effort due to how things are set up already in game. They never even went back and cleaned up jobs after they drastically changed them and there quests don't fully make sense anymore (Astrologian for example). We already have an expansion where content is gutted because they need to fix the ARR mess.... most players understand why this is necessary. I doubt the major population would be happy to tolerate another expansion with less content due fixing something most people do not have an issue with.

[Sabrenn]

Okay, here's my thoughts on this:

As the current system works now, I would not agree with you.

Why? Because I actually dislike how people can jump in to duties without knowing anything about a job just because they leveled the other.
Example: SMN player joining an extreme trial as SCH even though they have never played it at all and just bought gear.

If you'd have said that you level together only until you become a job I'd have been on board, but unless I misunderstand you actually want the leveling to continue past the class and into the job, and that I disagree with as much as I disagree with the current lvl smn and get a free sch model. Especially with how different the jobs become as levels increase.

But I see a good potential for capping all classes at lvl x and letting jobs level individually which would increase both proficiency and streamlining of classes/job.

I don't think bringing up the job skip counter-argument makes sense because you only level to 10 levels below cap so you still have to get some experience with the job for 10 levels before you're allowed to jump in to end game content, which is good. Some people learn fast and don't want the full tutorial and that's fine.

But I would prefer linking gladiator to samurai/paladin/dark knight/gunbreaker because samurais are actually in the paladin job story, which I won't spoil here. Gunbreaker being a blade that's enhanced by magic bullets also makes sense to branch it off gladiator. Dark knight is literally the anti-paladin who doesn't follow orders blindly any longer, again won't spoil the story because you just have to experience it.

(continued, post is too long)

[Sabrenn]

Conjurer would branch into white mage/astrologian/geomancer since the two latter also share their job story and they all share elements. I mean conjurer is so very nearly a geomancer as it is already.
Thaumaturgy should branch into black mages and red mages because again, it shares their job story. red mages literally exist to redress the imbalance that the white and black mages create.
I can see machinists and dragoons branching off lancers because of the story where they show that it's as effective against dragon hunting as dragoons in the machinist storyline.
I'd like to have rogue branch off to ninja and dancer, it makes sense to me that the rogue would end up preferring being ranged chakram thrower instead of magic ninjutsu user.
arcanists can stay as they are with smn/sch, it makes enough sense as it is
then we'll have monk, bard and warrior stay as a separate branch, they already have their classes and I don't think they mesh well with others in terms of lore.

So for example: you could level gladiator to 30 and become a lvl 30 paladin, if you have heavensward, you can become a lvl 30 dark knight. if you have stormblood, a lvl 50 samurai, if you have shadowbringer you can become a lvl 60 gunbreaker.

Why keep the level disparity? Because it doesn't make sense to get those jobs until you've progressed at the story that meshes with the job story unless they rework all the story but I don't think they would seeing as we're getting less and less backstory on jobs.

Hopefully this all makes sense, I'm not the best at explaining things clearly. :P

[Denzyl]

Hi All

While I think Dual Classes are just for Lazy Players.

If you wish to include this then you will need to make sure that all Gear and Weapons in game are Single Class only or you will end up with the problem below.

I play White Mage as my main, I currently have all fully melded 490 Gear apart from my penta-melded 455 Staff.
This week I got my Summoner to L80 and still have a mix of 385 & 400 gear.
I haven't played Scholar since L50ish in ARR as I don't like it.

But because White Mage & Scholar Share Gear, I can now quite happily enter a High End Raid as a L80 Scholar with fully melded 490 gear, a unmelded L50 Ironworks Magitek Codex and absolutely no idea of how to do the job.

If you dual class jobs then a lot of people will level one job, and leave the other to level itself. If gear can be shared then be prepared for a lot more entries in the 'Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent.' Thread

[Whatzituyah]

I would actually have liked FFXIV to be like FFXI but I guess times have changed. All these suggestions would have been great if they did it when they made the 2.0 build but its a little too late now as what your asking is a new total restructure thats better off saved for the next MMO entry.

[Shurrikhan]

That's a lot of nonsense for something that is just for "I want to level 2 jobs at the same time."

Except the jobs could be leveled separately, or at only partial carryover, and people would still enjoy the idea of reasonably overlapping skills across reasonably overlapping aesthetic or skill-source.

Alternatively, one could go the other way, allowing all overlapping skillsets to overlap in abilities unlocked. If two forms of aetheric manipulation are nearly identical, should learning one have no consequence on learning the other?

Such is a matter of cohesion, of world-building and sense of character. Why try to reduce it to "You're lazy; git gud grinding" when it's far from the main point of the idea?
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Personally, I think we should return to actually having some manner of character customization in terms of skills learned, but as more than the half-assed Additional Skills menu we had originally, able to take synergetic traits from other classes previously learned in place of native skills or traits, as to customize our playstyle nearer to what we already know if we so wish. Ideally, such would almost never be optimal, but always near enough to so to find a place.

Alongside this, I'd allow jobs to again use any and all primary stats, albeit to varying degree (via soft caps at varying points consequent to their more standard or optimal builds), with each piece of gear that is just a reskin of another collapsed into a single immediately-dyable piece of gear. If I've played healers thus far and take up Monk, I'd have the option of running a sort of Monk capable of providing support, with a higher Mind cap to boot by which to better make use of my previous gear.

That's just me, and despite what it'd mean for inventory bloat, and ease of leveling in every way but shared experience, it'd likely be a very niche want for the game. But it has nothing to do with laziness, only a want for cohesion and more efficient systems.

Before going on an impassioned speech defending this subject it would probably help to know TC rather specifically said he wants this for no real reason beyond making it easier to level up all of the jobs.

He isn't the first or last to mention the idea, however, and certainly doesn't represent the entire group of people who like the concept (albeit for other reasons). When I first visited this thread, there were two more suggesting the concept right on the first page under New Posts.

That one person wants X for Y reason does not mean everyone who everyone else who wants X does so for reason Y. My own are much like the last dozen or so threads on the subject since early ARR: interest in character-building, world-building, and the cohesion possible within either or both.

As you've already pointed out, I've defended the subject, not the TC. My views are obviously quite distinct from his despite my likewise liking the idea of (a particular version of) shared classes.

[MirronTulaxia]

Before going on an impassioned speech defending this subject it would probably help to know TC rather specifically said he wants this for no real reason beyond making it easier to level up all of the jobs. They didn’t even meaningfully pair up jobs except for that purpose.

As for the rest, not happening. It throws off balance too much. They aren’t going to let you remove part of your core moveset, or in general be variable from another of your job. If you want that Blue Mage exists in part for that, and due to not fitting the game properly.

[Shurrikhan]

Was it the original intention?
I only started playing in 4.4, but I thought back in 1.0 and 2.0 the purpose was so to use skills from the other classes you levelled a la FF5.

Yes and no.

Honestly, a large part of the confusion comes simply from the fact that 1.x intended one thing but did it so poorly that it trended in a different direction.

The original idea was to build up skills. Your character had one level, rather than one for each job/class. Your weapon proficiency ranks (quite purposely not called levels) which were secondary to character level, merely offering you additional skills.

You could thereby take various traits and skills from different weapon proficiencies (classes) in order to build your own job. Want to be an elemental gladiator? Go for it. The problem was that the intersections between the weapon styles were poorly thought out. Each class had its own themes, but they were neither impactful or modular enough to source a build-your-own job system in a meaningful way. The vision was there, but the implementation -- along with any depth via undermechanics to create space for that vision -- fell painfully short.

Had ARR gone the other way -- fixing what failed rather than abandoning it for only the barest parts of a WoW or XI experience -- you'd likely see a far more RPG-ish take on the game today, with a longer but more cohesive leveling experience, rather than what often feels like a way just to extend time played metrics. 'This shade of pre-packaged playstyle might be more to your liking than the others' becomes a carrot for which you repeat the same leveling experience over and over and over, just with slightly different combat spins of which none may particularly fit what you want, rather than having one that is distinctly your own.