Why do Scholar's job quests still require a level 30 Arcanist to start?

[MellowMink]

I understand that it may be programmatically difficult to fully separate Summoner and Scholar in areas like experience points, so I'm only suggesting a partial change in one particular area: If Scholar has almost nothing exactly in common with Arcanist, in some cases even losing some skills that Arcanist had, can Scholar's job quests at least no longer require a level 30 Arcanist to kick off? One of my friends who only likes to play as healer jobs spent a while leveling Arcanist to unlock a job that really had almost nothing at all do with the prerequisite class, so couldn't Scholar just start via a level 30 job quest that can be commenced as any previous class or job, much like how say Red Mage's first quest can be initially started by anyone as long as they're at least level 50?

I'm not saying that Scholar and Summoner have to be completely isolated from a programmatic standpoint yet, since they could still be tweaked to level up together if that's needed depending on the current state of the game's massive code library, but at the very least, it seems like the job quest's class prerequisite shouldn't be needed anymore.

[RobynDaBank]

Wouldn't that require the entire disconnection of SCH from ACN and SMN anyway? Square Enix regrets keeping them chained together and never repeated the system. Right now if you would notice, you get "arcanist" experience points as SCH, just like how other jobs with base classes do not get job experience, they get class experience (WHM getting CNJ XP, BLM getting THM XP, etc). The hunting log would also need to be removed or changed (removing would be easier, it isn't even a thing for jobs found in Heavensward and after).

So after some revamping it could work out, but it is doubtful if SMN and SCH would be able to level up together anymore. Besides, if SCH has nothing in common with ACN (SMN being the better successor of it), why still keep them leveled up together?

(Also one final point, there seems to be some sort of limitation that keeps all ARR jobs tied to classes. Maybe if they disconnect SCH the logical step taken would be to change classes -> jobs as a whole).

[Rongway]

I understand that it may be programmatically difficult to fully separate Summoner and Scholar in areas like experience points,

(Nonsarcastic) What makes you think this would be difficult? It should be (still nonsarcastic) easy:

• Create new blank job.
• Copy current SCH attributes, actions, and traits to new job.
• Make SCH unlock quest set scholar exp and level to Lv30 values so that new scholars begin at Lv30.
• Grandfather all people who already have SCH unlocked:
• for each character
  • if character.scholar.unlocked
    • character.scholar.exp := character.arcanist.exp
    • character.scholar.level := character.arcanist.level
  • else
    • character.scholar.exp := 0
    • character.scholar.level := 0

so I'm only suggesting a partial change in one particular area: If Scholar has almost nothing exactly in common with Arcanist, in some cases even losing some skills that Arcanist had, can Scholar's job quests at least no longer require a level 30 Arcanist to kick off? One of my friends who only likes to play as healer jobs spent a while leveling Arcanist to unlock a job that really had almost nothing at all do with the prerequisite class, so couldn't Scholar just start via a level 30 job quest that can be commenced as any previous class or job, much like how say Red Mage's first quest can be initially started by anyone as long as they're at least level 50?

I'm not saying that Scholar and Summoner have to be completely isolated from a programmatic standpoint yet, since they could still be tweaked to level up together if that's needed depending on the current state of the game's massive code library, but at the very least, it seems like the job quest's class prerequisite shouldn't be needed anymore.

Scholar has some thematic and lorey reasons for requiring ACN. They can be changed, of course, but that would be more work than just the easy fix outlined above. It should be quite easy to make SCH its own job with its own experience and level without having to change any of the ACN and SCH lore at all. But if you want to go farther and disentwine them to the point that SCH doesn't require ACN at all, that's going to require bringing in the writing team and taking some dev hours from them.

But in terms of "more work", I think ultimately what they should do, besides the simple decoupling of SCH from ACN, is make the AST DRK MCH jobs unlockable at Lv30 outside of Ishgard because some people rush through the story to get to Ishgard just so they can unlock one of those jobs, only to be sent back down to Lv30 and unable to continue the story until they catch back up. Even if there are no additional quests between the Lv30 unlock quest and the Lv50/Lv52 quests, just being able to unlock them at Lv30 and continue the story uninterupted would be phenomenal. I think spending dev time on a single quest for each job to unlock at their starting level would be well spent and a much larger QoL change for healers than reloring SCH, and would give tank and healer players each three options from Lv30.

[FoxCh40s]

(Nonsarcastic) What makes you think this would be difficult? It should be (still nonsarcastic) easy:

• Create new blank job.
• Copy current SCH attributes, actions, and traits to new job.
• Make SCH unlock quest set scholar exp and level to Lv30 values so that new scholars begin at Lv30.
• Grandfather all people who already have SCH unlocked:
• for each character
  • if character.scholar.unlocked
    • character.scholar.exp := character.arcanist.exp
    • character.scholar.level := character.arcanist.level
  • else
    • character.scholar.exp := 0
    • character.scholar.level := 0

Scholar has some thematic and lorey reasons for requiring ACN. They can be changed, of course, but that would be more work than just the easy fix outlined above. It should be quite easy to make SCH its own job with its own experience and level without having to change any of the ACN and SCH lore at all. But if you want to go farther and disentwine them to the point that SCH doesn't require ACN at all, that's going to require bringing in the writing team and taking some dev hours from them.

But in terms of "more work", I think ultimately what they should do, besides the simple decoupling of SCH from ACN, is make the AST DRK MCH jobs unlockable at Lv30 outside of Ishgard because some people rush through the story to get to Ishgard just so they can unlock one of those jobs, only to be sent back down to Lv30 and unable to continue the story until they catch back up. Even if there are no additional quests between the Lv30 unlock quest and the Lv50/Lv52 quests, just being able to unlock them at Lv30 and continue the story uninterupted would be phenomenal. I think spending dev time on a single quest for each job to unlock at their starting level would be well spent and a much larger QoL change for healers than reloring SCH, and would give tank and healer players each three options from Lv30.

I don't understand why people think Arcanist flows into Summoner, because it absolutely does not. Arcanist is a tactician, who uses summons and slow damage to exert control over the battlefield. Scholar is an upgrade of this mentality, where they would balance and unbalance humors to relieve tactical effect.

Summoner is non of these things. It is channeling personal Aether from being in the presence of a Primal to gain power of those forces of elements and bind them to your will to create devastating effects.

Summoner has absolutely nothing to do with Arcanist, even remotely, and never has. If anyone needs to be detached from Arcanist, it's Summoner.

[Rongway]

Summoner has absolutely nothing to do with Arcanist, even remotely, and never has. If anyone needs to be detached from Arcanist, it's Summoner.

Whether or not we agree on this doesn't really matter; the technical ease of making either SMN or SCH its own job wouldn't change based on which one you choose to alter.

[FoxCh40s]

Whether or not we agree on this doesn't really matter; the technical ease of making either SMN or SCH its own job wouldn't change based on which one you choose to alter.

At this point, Summoner would be the most logical to detach from Arcanist.

[Calysto]

At this point, Summoner would be the most logical to detach from Arcanist.

Or they may rework the SMN changes into the ACN base class.

[FoxCh40s]

Or they may rework the SMN changes into the ACN base class.

Oh please God no, we don't need more reasons for Scholar to be gutted again because "reasons".

[Gemina]

I don't understand why people think Arcanist flows into Summoner

Summoner has absolutely nothing to do with Arcanist, even remotely, and never has. If anyone needs to be detached from Arcanist, it's Summoner.

Perhaps it's because ACN is a DPS class, and SMN get to [sort of] keep Carbuncle. Early day SMN also wasn't like how it is today, or going to be in EW. The old mech of casting Bio and Miasma and then spreading them to all targets via Bane, and also Shadow Flare and even Aetherflow were all ACN skills, so SCH and SMN retained all of them upon receiving their respective Soul Stones. It was actually SMN that expanded the tactical DoT mayhem with abilities like Fester and Tri Disaster, and their Egis bringing a steady DoT through their auto attacks, and also possessing DoT inflicting abilities of their own; so I wouldn't necessarily say, "Never has."

Despite all of that, I agree with you somewhat. But the way I see things is both SMN and SCH are ACNs. Lorewise iirc, both of them bring forth Egis and Lily respectively by channeling their own aether to retain their forms. A big difference being that SMN bring forth an essence of a primal and its an extension of themselves that they can command like an arm or leg; Lily however is the actual familiar, whom is sentient and has a will of her own. Who I don't agree with are the devs and their decision to try and rip this identity from SCH, especially at the cost of making ACN nearly unplayable levels 1-30; especially if you leveled it back in its prime.

[LaylaAlder]

I don't understand why people think Arcanist flows into Summoner, because it absolutely does not. Arcanist is a tactician, who uses summons and slow damage to exert control over the battlefield. Scholar is an upgrade of this mentality, where they would balance and unbalance humors to relieve tactical effect.

Summoner is non of these things. It is channeling personal Aether from being in the presence of a Primal to gain power of those forces of elements and bind them to your will to create devastating effects.

Summoner has absolutely nothing to do with Arcanist, even remotely, and never has. If anyone needs to be detached from Arcanist, it's Summoner.

So Lore-wise, Arcanist→Scholar, but Mechanics-wise, Arcanist→Summoner? Or at least, that's how it used to be?