Job Individuality/Pride/Dedication

[Onisake]

I really think the armory system is silly, especially being able to switch classes anywhere. Your class becomes a meaningless choice. Anyone can be anything anytime, so who or what you've grown yourself to be ends up being irrelevant. There's so many times where this comes into play.

1. People want you to swap to the job that is most effective for the situation, all the time; too bad if you want to play X, you're forced to play Y or be kicked. In FFXI I'm sure this happened too, but mid dungeon they're like "we're against coincounter? you can't play melee, swap to ranged now or we're kicking." This happened for many encounters. In other games such as FFXI it was like "I know that job you're playing isn't THE BEST for the situation, but I'm sure we'll get by." People also don't seem to understand that just because you have the class/job doesn't mean you want to play it and doesn't mean you are experienced/geared/skilled with it. I played WHM a lot and sometimes I was asked to go BLM and I said I probably wasn't going to be comfortable with it (lack of gear, didn't play it enough to feel safe on enmity, didn't want to take the risk) and people just didn't seem to understand why I wouldn't go BLM for them (and I was seen as rude).

I've never encountered this. If you ONLY do pick up groups, i can see this happening. but that's part of what makes playing an MMO fun. finding a good dedicated group of friends to play with.

I personally had every job at 50 except PLD and DRG. The two jobs I liked the most were BRD and WHM. everytime my LS did an event I was on one of these two jobs. We would occasionally ask people to switch jobs. but we asked. If they said no, we found another person with that job.

so in a nut shell: your mileage may vary. While this is a videogame, we're all still real people. so real-world lessons still apply. you get the experience out of the game that you put into it. if you're not taking the time to find a group that's right for you that's your problem. SE can't do anything about that. changing the armory system won't fix that problem, because that just means people will level 5 different characters to have 5 different jobs, rather than having one character with all 5.

2. It's not fun when you're like "oh check out my cool dragoon armor and lance" and the other guy goes "oh yeah" and just swaps to it too immediately. It ruins individuality, and gets rid of the ability to say "I AM A DRAGOON" (because technically you can be anything anytime). The class/job choice you make is meaningless, and you just don't have that good feeling about it. I understand people can swap jobs in FFXI too, but anyone can be anything anytime... I want to feel good about having Carbuncle walk around with me, and yet anyone can have him out with them with a push of a button.

Never had this experience. everyone i know has never had this experience. I understand you want to be a unique snowflake. but if you take a step back all snow flakes start to look the same.

if you dont' feel accomplished with having carbuncle just because other people have carbuncle you have a case of the e-peenitis. get over it >.>

3. A large portion of the reason everyone levels up every class/job is because it's so easy. Swap your weapon, gg good to go. It's difficult to feel accomplished saying like "I am a level 50 WHM" in your party. Not only does most of the party have that too, they'll be like "oh I can just switch to that." Sure, you can switch at your house or whatever in FFXI, but that was a LOT more effort to take for a lot of reasons (gotta have the gear which was harder to fully get, had to have the high level job which was harder, and had to spend a long time going back to who knows where to switch and come back). You were appreciated for playing that class, you had individuality, you felt good; in this game, who cares. If a party is 7/8 and just needs a WHM, instead of looking for that dedicated soul who actually is skilled and geared and loves the class, it's just "I'll just switch to WHM" *equip staff*. In worse situations, someone who loves their job (that dedicated dragoon guy) is forced to play WHM because the party is pressuring him to (they know he has WHM).

This is the same as point 1. find a good group. WHM was the second job I had at 50. after mnk. while I was leveling my other jobs I never had to switch to whm. If anything, I would say (In an SB pt) "Let me get my War/Brd/whatever to 50 and then i'll switch to whm and help out" but that's courteous. i don't HAVE to do that.

In FFXIV 2.0, I'm gonna want to main Summoner. But, what bums me out, is that EVERYONE is going to be leveling it at launch, even though a lot of people have zero interest in it. They're just doing it "because they can." Yeah I know a lot of people want to see the lower level content and don't have any other classes to experience it, but still... what's going to set me apart from the people that are just "summonerlols" and me, a serious dedicated person to the job? It should feel like a strong dedication and others should be like "wow, you got that far with summoner/you have that much gear/SOMETHING" rather than just *swap weapon* "yup I'm as good as you now."

same as point 2.

I'm finding it difficult to articulate my point, but I hope you understand.

And I know I posted this in another thread, but I felt it was a slightly different topic and the content of the post deserved its own thread.

No, I think most of us get it. you want to be a unique snow flake in the game and be the only summoner left in the world. sorry. not going to happen. a lot of people will level summoner when it comes out. but then they'll get over it and switch back to their main.

not everyone wants to be a summoner. so just relax.

EDIT: Here's a good post by IronSoup that also explain some of what I'm trying to say:

it's not easy to be good at any job. but some people have a different definition of 'good' if all your doing is leveling, than yeah. I'll agree with that. but once you start trying to do Garuda, Darnus, etc. you can really see weaknesses. I cannot agree with this.

in FFXI it took me 4 years of playing off and on to get my first 75. it took FOREVER. but that's mainly because i didn't know what i was doing, and i spent the majority of my time questing and helping my LS mates.

my second job to 75 took a week. Almost everyone I knew with multiple jobs at 75 had those jobs and swapped to those jobs because they WANTED to. if they didn't want to they didn't. end of story. that's been my experience in FFXIV as well.

Here's more from me:

As someone who understands how stats worked int he game, simply getting a Garuda bow did not make you a good archer. the rest of your gear kit and skill level made a BIG difference.

As an example. after the servers shut down my LS did a garuda run for giggles. we had an AF only BLM rocking a relic staff. I had my storm LT bow and I out-damaged the blm. on BRD >.> so having some epic gear doesn't automatically make you top tier.