Why do we have classes AND jobs again?

[Rhomagus]

Can someone remind me why we are still going over GLD as the basis for DRK instead of MRD? It still seems far more likely that it would come from there. The only reason PLD and DRK are even associated is because of the implied antithesis.

Yoshi-P also alluded to it in an interview. He didn't make any strong commitments to the statement but he did say that "they were possibly maybe thinking about one day basing it sort of off of GLA and not another class that some people were thinking of maybe..."

I paraphrased but regardless, given the evidence, GLA seems to be the most likely.

[Colvin]

I paraphrased but regardless, given the evidence, GLA seems to be the most likely.

I guess that is pretty speculative though. I mean, I would like to think that as a more likely choice he would default to MRD at some point.

I should add that by "likely" I mean "It makes more sense to me"

[Valmonte]

Whoop. I guess I was wrong. My bad.

We can agree to disagree, at least.

[Imoen]

not that I am advocating that here but there are games that do that.

Additionally, I think the leveling process is fairly antequated in general, at least in MMOs. The point of the leveling process in RPGs has always been so your character has the sense of growing with the story. In MMOs you dont grow WITH anything. It is just you mindlessly banging away at regenerating monsters. Having a class-specific storyline that you can go through to grow as an individual is far more interesting IMO reguardless of length.

It has been years since I liked grinding, but I really felt it when I was playing BLU mage. I loved the story to unlock the job, and the going out and learning new abilities was fun (for the most part) because it didnt take nearly as long to do, but still had an investment. Either way it wasnt just another set of me going out there and hacking away at things. The actual physical leveling of the BLU really seemed to weigh me down at that point like "oh.. I better go out there and grind the next 10 levels so I can learn abilities" I didnt care less about the grinding, it was the ability gaining I liked.

Right which is the content problem, if levels are just gained through mindless killing, and boring drag on quests then its going to feel like a boring grind. There is no reason you couldn't have job related quests as you are leveling to break up monotone, also sprinkling in this Idea of active time events in areas for exp plus low level dungeons makes it more fun.

The thing I like about leveling is, it prevents you from participating in end game right away, you have this "level up process" which promotes learning of the job/class (You gain the one ability and then that you can play with for a while before obtaining the next) and you have the excitement of obtaining new abilities soon and gear (Which yes the quest thing does this... but that's easy if you're already 50 and you just steam roll w/e quest it is and smack them all down right in a row in the portion of a few hours.) If the content was laid out as I said above it could be a lot more interesting and fun, and maintain a sense of something to work at and look forward to as you see other high levels of your chosen class/job around you.

[Ingolf]

I personally (and it may be just me) would want to level up a new job if it got added to the game.

I wouldn't want to think "Oh look, here's 6 quests to unlock the job, some abilities and AF".

Part of the fun for me is thinking "Ooh I'm gonna level up soon, I wonder what my new ability will be like!" I remember feeling that way with MNK in XI for things like footwork (then I was horribly disappointed obv).

For me, I didn't level up a class on this character until jobs were around and it was really fun unlocking the job at 30 and once I hit the level to unlock a new ability, doing a quest for it. I guess some people didn't experience that because they already had a bunch of 50 classes, but that to me was really fun.

Sorry I can't explain what I mean very well today.

[Rhomagus]

not that I am advocating that here but there are games that do that.

Additionally, I think the leveling process is fairly antequated in general, at least in MMOs. The point of the leveling process in RPGs has always been so your character has the sense of growing with the story. In MMOs you dont grow WITH anything. It is just you mindlessly banging away at regenerating monsters. Having a class-specific storyline that you can go through to grow as an individual is far more interesting IMO reguardless of length.

It has been years since I liked grinding, but I really felt it when I was playing BLU mage. I loved the story to unlock the job, and the going out and learning new abilities was fun (for the most part) because it didnt take nearly as long to do, but still had an investment. Either way it wasnt just another set of me going out there and hacking away at things. The actual physical leveling of the BLU really seemed to weigh me down at that point like "oh.. I better go out there and grind the next 10 levels so I can learn abilities" I didnt care less about the grinding, it was the ability gaining I liked.

While it's sort of six one way half a dozen the other that does seem to be the main draw to leveling. I personally prefer gaining abilities over stats a lot more. I prefer things that actually change the way I play rather than the effectiveness in which I play the same as I did ten hours ago.

I also agree with how in traditional rpg's the experience system was made to show how your character grew with the story and how applying that same mechanic to an MMO doesn't quite fit. Judging by what Yoshida said about the progression in 2.0 it actually looks to be moving in that direction. I wonder how that's going to work.

[whoopeeragon]

that there was no variation when classes were around, and that jobs actually allowed far more freedom to experiment than classes ever did.

No variations and less freedom to experiment...sir, I don't know if you are being sarcastic anymore or truly trying to justify your apparent dislike for the armoury system. Case in point being vanilla FFXIV with the old armoury system - you can't say there was no variation or freedom in that system. Current system is yes, flawed, but even then it gives larger variation of abilities for classes to choose from then jobs (is your maths wrong? Freedom of choosing abilities on class - 10, freedom of choosing abilities on jobs - 5.) And you say no variation - sir, I see no variation between all the DRGs, WHMs, BLMs or all the jobs here. None at all.

You also seem to be basing this of specialised end-game content, which in case, yes, jobs are vastly better than classes. But what if you get content where maximum number is 4? And you are against an opponent that switches between magic immunity and physical immunity and regens if not enough damage is done? That's just one example, but what's to say that classes perform much better than jobs in some fights, just as how jobs perform better than classes in others?

Classes are hands down much more versatile and more varied than jobs, but the extent of how potent their skills are is less than jobs. So why can't we have both to cover both roles in content that may have both?

[whoopeeragon]

We can agree to disagree, at least.

Yes, I think we're gonna have to. You see adamant in your opinion of the armoury system, and me in mine.

[NoloeTazier]

Also adding new jobs that I won't have to level if I have the base class at 50 is just weird to me.

I wouldn't expect my character to be a master RNG just because he has BRD at 50. They're also missing out on valuable content, that most people enjoy.

That's actually a really good point and I haven't seen anyone else bring it up.

[Rhomagus]

I personally (and it may be just me) would want to level up a new job if it got added to the game.

I wouldn't want to think "Oh look, here's 6 quests to unlock the job, some abilities and AF".

Part of the fun for me is thinking "Ooh I'm gonna level up soon, I wonder what my new ability will be like!" I remember feeling that way with MNK in XI for things like footwork (then I was horribly disappointed obv).

For me, I didn't level up a class on this character until jobs were around and it was really fun unlocking the job at 30 and once I hit the level to unlock a new ability, doing a quest for it. I guess some people didn't experience that because they already had a bunch of 50 classes, but that to me was really fun.

Sorry I can't explain what I mean very well today.

I wouldn't mind having a separate experience system for abilities. This way you can still apply experience to abilities but you aren't forced to level away from your peers. That was the main downside to XI and why they implemented the system they way they did in XIV. They got a lot of complaints about people basically not having access to the job they wanted from the beginning and potentially negating all progress because they had to start over back from level 1.

I would feel more empowered if I had experience go towards abilities rather than a blanket leveling system personally.