Quote Originally Posted by Karazaki View Post
The first of these concerns is the class/job mechanic. Currently classes and jobs are too similar to justify having both. Unless jobs become significantly more distinguishable from their class counterparts or there is a notable amount of jobs that can branch from each base class, then it might be better to meld both class and jobs together into a single class. However, if several new jobs are indeed created per base class (maybe not all at once) then there is the problem of players having those new jobs automatically leveled due to the shared EXP pool between classes and jobs.
Personally, I think they've done a pretty good job distinguishing classes from jobs. Yes, jobs do have every ability that their class counterpart has, but they have abilities that make them stand apart as well. Jobs are also restricted in what abilities they can pull from other classes, so you don't see the "Everyone must have Sentinel for Ifrit" anymore.

I don't think the shared xp thing is a problem either. As it sits right now, you're basically just adding 5 more abilities to your palette of everything you've already learned between 1-50 on the class, so it shouldn't be much of a learning curve to figure out the other abilities. This really doesn't warrant a need to level a job from scratch.

MY personal issue with the armory system is how classes are rendered nearly useless at max level. I mean I guess it makes sense since jobs were designed to replace classes for party play. THM is about the only one that has any situational use in the dungeons. Otherwise, classes are pretty much only useful for soloing purposes while leveling up.

The second of these concerns is the restriction of a single weapon type per class/job. While it may defy the core principles of the Armory System, allowing players 1+ different weapon type options per class/job would lead to more flavors of the same class/job instead of everyone having the exact same generic build. Different weapon options or perhaps a secondary weapon (not to be confused with dual-wielding) could allow players to adapt their classes/jobs to different enemies or battle situations as well as give players the option to use more intricate battle tactics.
I think if their plans are to have each class branch into multiple jobs, those JOBs should use a different weapon. I'm not really for each class/job using multiple weapons since the skills are class based and not weapon based. I used multiple weapons in FFXI because:

1) Each weapon skill level was something to advance
2) Each weapon had different skills associated with them

The issue I have with using multiple weapons within a class is that there is no variety in what skills you're using; you're just using the same WS with a different weapon. What I feel they should do is keep each weapon unique to its class/job.

Touching back on multiple job paths per class, let's say Gladiator becomes Paladin and Dark Knight. I believe there should be weapons developed that are DRK ONLY, just as there are weapons that are PLD ONLY. That way, they can create the Great Sword or Scythe weapon type and assign it only to DRK. I don't know if they want to go back and rework all the current jobs or not, but I think this would work pretty well, instead of making Great Sword or Scythe a class weapon that's shared with a job. One of the potential problems with this though is how much more itemization it'll add. (if that's considered a problem?)

In summary, I think things work pretty well now, but the system as a whole could use some tweaking. I'm sure this is under consideration for 2.0, but it remains to be seen what changes they'll actually implement. It seems right now their priority is to add another caster class, so we're probably only going to see one new class/job combo at 2.0 launch.