New Game+ - Legacy Job Skills & Systems

[HipsterDoofus]

I think it would be really cool if New Game+ had the option to use the skills, abilities, & maybe trait systems of that era. (Excluding old gear and stats like belts and resistances.)

For example, I was not around during A Realm Reborn or Heavensward and would love to play through the MSQs with the job rotations of the time. I also remember Stormblood Summoner being quite the challenge, it'd be a blast to revisit!

What do you think? Would you try this out if you had the option?

[Jeeqbit]

I think it would be good, but I think it's also worth noting that the "essence" of the rotations from that time are mostly intact at those levels.

What was mostly removed at those levels was "bloat" or "difficulty", which admittedly made those jobs busier or distracting at those levels, whereas now you have to get to max level for that.

For example, many of the "off global" abilities were removed at those levels. Often these were enhancement effects such as damage increases, things that buff the potency of specific attacks, "pointless" abilities like physical mitigation, or abilities that did make it busier but made it too busy at higher levels. In other cases, these abilities were merged into others or became "upgrades" for an earlier attack, so that you're pressing less overall, to reduce bloat at higher levels.

A number of unique actions and abilities were made "Role Actions" that are shared by all jobs of that role, so that they no longer have unique stuns, esunas, 20% mits, etc.

Three very key changes that happened to most jobs was a significant reduction in positionals and their potency (so that they matter less), job gauges were added to replace monitoring tiny status effects (effectively making them easier), buffs that you have to "keep up" were made into traits, including: Enochian, Blood of the Dragon, Huton, Greased Lightning and Darkside. Since Endwalker, they have tried to make it "impossible" to do your rotation wrong by glowing things more and making it harder to overcap by pressing gauge increase buffs and harder to run out of MP.

The ones which had major reworks include PLD, BRD, AST, DRK, MCH and SMN. But again, they have tried to make it so there are similar abilities being pressed at those levels. PLD's Goring Blade used to be a separate combo but is now pressed once every 60s. BRD used to cast its songs but that got reworked multiple times since. AST's card effects changed just about every expansion. DRK used to be extremely challenging to play with multiple combos and numerous situational abilities that you genuinely used in a different way depending on what you were doing while now it's extremely simple. MCH used to be a simple gun job with cartridges you'd reload to buff the potency and RNG on if the combo was 3 buttons or not (which felt really bad btw) and it wasn't as exciting as BRD so it got reworked. SMN was long attacked for being a DoT-mage instead of an actual summoner so it got reworked to the simple summon-rotation job it is now.

But what all these reworked jobs have in common is they tried to keep the ability names and tried to make the essence of them as similar as they could, whilst achieving their new goals - PLD still spams stacks of Holy Spirit every 60s at lower levels and has Spirits Within and Circle of Scorn. BRD still spams 1 button a lot, maintains the two DoTs and presses the procs off cooldown like it did back then. AST still uses its cards a lot despite the different effects. MCH is still as ultra boring at lower levels as it was back then, but less so, especially when doing heat blast and doesn't suffer the RNG. SMN at low levels still involves pressing some form of Ruin and summoning a carbuncle that becomes egis. DRK's Delirium combo was removed but Delirium still exists in a different form that ends up being a combo again at max level, DRK's Souleater was the combo we used most anyway back then and Unleash, Abyssal Drain and Salted Earth were part of our AoE back then. We used to empower attacks with Dark Arts constantly but now we just spam Edge of Darkness in its place, but it's rather similar in that we're dumping our MP on an ability.

Overall, they are way easier to play than they used to be due to these things but the actual essence of them is still there - the most-used 1, 2, 3 combos they had at that time and a few things for their identity, such as jumps on Dragoon, core abilities like Holy Spirit, BRD dots/procs, cards, Carbuncle, Souleater, Salted Earth and Abyssal Drain, even if they're simpler to use, less complicated or less annoying than they were.

[Alyko]

I too would like ARR jank like Mercy Stroke, Manawall, Protect, and Fluid Aura to make a comeback.

[LilimoLimomo]

Would it be neat? Sure.

But it would be an incredible amount of work to maintain multiple versions of numerous game systems, rather than just the current version. It simply isn't worth bandwidth it would take away from other aspects of the game.

[Uncle_Jafar]

If I could play SCH like it was in ARR and HW I wouldn't play the base game anymore, honestly. I miss that job so much and it's sad to see that has been toned down for double digit IQ players.

[Tunda]

content like bozja with this kind of system would be fun to play around

[DPZ2]

If I could play SCH like it was in ARR and HW I wouldn't play the base game anymore, honestly. I miss that job so much and it's sad to see that has been toned down for double digit IQ players.

Your meaning is garbled. If you really meant "I wouldn't play the base game anymore", your next bit about missing the [old] SCH job makes absolutely no sense.

[gllt]

They meant base game to refer to the idea that this would be a feature inside the game that they would spend more time in than the actual game itself.

It's not clear but it's hardly nonsensical or garbled.

Edit: also as someone who loves version select in games or having access to old copies.. it's a lot of work for the devs.

Like I'd love it but lol.