Shared Classes Are Not Failures (ie SCH/SMN)

[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.

[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.

[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.

[MirronTulaxia]

It's not exactly something that FF especially delves into, so it's hardly surprising it flopped. FF doesn't do "build a job". At best you just generally get to take two different job skillsets and use them at the same time, that's... not at all like what you're talking about. It also would be appalling from a balance standpoint. That Elder Scrolls Online, when "build a job" is much more a key feature of that series, doesn't do that should say something about the viability of build a job in terms of an MMO.

In short, it's not really an FF thing or an MMO thing. It's hardly surprising that they went a different route.

[ty_taurus]

While I suppose this isn't as important to some as job functionality, I think there's also something to be said about how the dual job system affected Summoner specifically in terms of job fantasy. Summoners are not and have never been poison mages and while the job has significantly gotten better in terms of actually feeling like a summoner as the name implies, it took a long time for us to really feel like a true-to-its-name Final Fantasy Summoner. I won't say it being connected to Arcanist and Scholar is exclusively the issue, because PS3 support was also a thing back then and doing something like Summon Bahamut in 2.0 would've killed us poor PS3 players (it was a darker time). That said, if Summoner were introduced on its own, I think it would probably fulfill that fantasy far more than it does now even. I mean just look at how often egi-glamours are brought up and how much players want to still summon Ramuh, Leviathan, and Shiva at least, not even including Ravan, Bismarck, etc.

[HeulGDarian]

While I suppose this isn't as important to some as job functionality, I think there's also something to be said about how the dual job system affected Summoner specifically in terms of job fantasy. Summoners are not and have never been poison mages and while the job has significantly gotten better in terms of actually feeling like a summoner as the name implies, it took a long time for us to really feel like a true-to-its-name Final Fantasy Summoner. I won't say it being connected to Arcanist and Scholar is exclusively the issue, because PS3 support was also a thing back then and doing something like Summon Bahamut in 2.0 would've killed us poor PS3 players (it was a darker time). That said, if Summoner were introduced on its own, I think it would probably fulfill that fantasy far more than it does now even. I mean just look at how often egi-glamours are brought up and how much players want to still summon Ramuh, Leviathan, and Shiva at least, not even including Ravan, Bismarck, etc.

neither is this one a poison mage , you got 2 instead of one dot and a way to upkeep. That does not make a job poison mage, especially in the universe where there is no such thing as POISON MAGIC. People asking for egis to change appearance doesnt mean they hate the smn identity , not only that alot of people love the egis . The problems with the job are well known already, its not the egis, its not the dots, its not the ruin gameplay, nor its identity. Its the pet ai of both demis and egis and its the fact that trance is an awful clock, double awful in the case of pheonix trance no matter how fun it is. But thats not what you lot care about , you lot care about your favourite past iteration of summoner ignoring the series as a whole. Smn never was just summoning with the exception of ff5. A summoner having more spells is nothing new , what this game did is it created a magic system where a summoner can do more than just summon , instead of simply handing out the summons to the different mages. This is what development of a job looks like, it took the having alot of options aspect of summoner and build upon it. that is the main difference between a summoner and a blm who simply spams their most powerfull spell.

[ty_taurus]

neither is this one a poison mage , you got 2 instead of one dot and a way to upkeep. That does not make a job poison mage, especially in the universe where there is no such thing as POISON MAGIC. People asking for egis to change appearance doesnt mean they hate the smn identity , not only that alot of people love the egis . The problems with the job are well known already, its not the egis, its not the dots, its not the ruin gameplay, nor its identity. Its the pet ai of both demis and egis and its the fact that trance is an awful clock, double awful in the case of pheonix trance no matter how fun it is. But thats not what you lot care about , you lot care about your favourite past iteration of summoner ignoring the series as a whole. Smn never was just summoning with the exception of ff5. A summoner having more spells is nothing new , what this game did is it created a magic system where a summoner can do more than just summon , instead of simply handing out the summons to the different mages. This is what development of a job looks like, it took the having alot of options aspect of summoner and build upon it. that is the main difference between a summoner and a blm who simply spams their most powerfull spell.

I'm pretty confused. Where is this rant coming from? I think you didn't read what I wrote.