Job Individuality/Pride/Dedication

[Soukyuu]

What you are implying here is that you want to join parties, have them let you waste their time by learning a new strategy, and then you don't even have the courtesy to at least take the initiative yourself? Do you not see how ridiculously selfish that is?

No, I wasn't, you're interpreting too much into it.

t's one thing to look for like-minded people yourself to do content in ways you want to. Find other people that want to make fun memories or wiping! Join a linkshell that does stuff like that. But to join a PUG group shouting for a win on something, then demand they let you use a job not suited for their strategy then deride them for wanting the win, and kicking you? that is just, wow.

I'm not saying they have to use my strategy, all I'm saying is, there is more than one strategy for a certain encounter but people are usually not willing to deviate from the one deemed standard. This not only applies to PUGs but also many LS.

And then comes the whole "selfish" thing. It's easy to say, someone is being selfish, but ultimately, if you don't enjoy playing the game, why are you playing (and paying)? And if you are enjoying the game, why is me wanting to enjoy it being selfish?

[Aenarion]

And then comes the whole "selfish" thing. It's easy to say, someone is being selfish, but ultimately, if you don't enjoy playing the game, why are you playing (and paying)? And if you are enjoying the game, why is me wanting to enjoy it being selfish?

There's nothing wrong with you wanting to enjoy the game. However, it becomes "selfish" when you decide that other people must enjoy the game your way. This isn't directly at you personally, as it applies far more to the OP anyway.

[Soukyuu]

There's nothing wrong with you wanting to enjoy the game. However, it becomes "selfish" when you decide that other people must enjoy the game your way. This isn't directly at you personally, as it applies far more to the OP anyway.

I understand that, Cailae misunderstood what I meant, that's all.

[Talshara_Blade]

I think it's a wonderful thing that people can change their "fighting stance" so to speak by simply switching weapons. Makes a lot more sense than running home to a magic moogle. The armory system is fine and fantastic. Flexibility? yes, please.

[Warlock]

I think they got down the individuality well ..what jobs are missing to some extent is pride and dedication like early FFXI BLM only ppl were respected and they had the best gear at the time a none would question you why not lvl something else..14 is missing that kind of...

[Shurrikhan]

*Please don't take my responses as directly argumentative to the quoted section. They merely follow them.*

The lesson here is not "Change the game to suit me" the lesson here is "Find people with my goals/desires" to play with.

Your entire post is completely sensible, but I would like to point out a couple things. For starters, not all goals/desires are going to be playable in a game. Sometimes, it's not a viable option, period. This, however, has little to do with the mechanics already in the game. Sure, you can't tank with a Dragoon, but rarely does anyone ask for that. It's precisely because what they're looking for isn't already in the game that it's often hard to describe, and the points they suggest seem arbitrary or often unreasonable.

That's not to say that this inability is always the case, or that a set portion will be locked off -- a good game design can make more of those possible, even without reducing the enjoyment of what's in place already. But as such the changes needed to reach that greater accessibility probably won't come from adjustments within the existent game mechanics -- such as the restrictions given in example by the OP.

Showing off your Dragoon with it's gear and then having someone immediately change to the same gear, what is the problem? Are you upset someone else that has other jobs put in the same effort for their dragoon, while also juggling other things? Should they not take pride in their stuff the same as you. If your Dragoons are identical, the situation goes one of two ways. Either your gear is easy to obtain, in which case you have a misplaced sense of pride. Or, You both worked hard on your Dragoon, and both should show pride. Dedication in one thing does not me dedication from other things.

Totally true. But for many people, comparative advantage or comparative equity isn't the problem. The problem is more likely that the entire grand scale of the job can be had in approximately two hours with enough anima and a good party. Or, regardless of the time, the fact that the player never once made a unique decision in keeping with a "dragoon" or pursuing that role. You merely took a little extra time while leveling a strand that levels almost identically to every other strand.

It leaves a raid team basically estimated by how many good knives they can bring to a gun fight. They all cap out at about the same places, which should be fine in the name of balance, but to many none of those caps feel satisfyingly deep.

I don't think it's unreasonable to feel like jobs should be more than just a collection of tools. I'd personally rather have the collection of tools be turned into a more unique job or few jobs that both better define the player, and the player more choice-fully defines for himself.

And again, if changes were to be made to aid this, it probably wouldn't come from any 'adjustments' to the armory or job systems. It'd have to start further back.

[Duelle]

I feel the class stacking thing is a community issue. People look at whatever strat BG employs (my LS is guilty of this too) and adopt it. This isn't BG's fault or anything; they're employing the strategy that works best for them. It just seems many LS's take their strategy as law and that's what you have to do. To my dismay, this usually excludes people from being able to participate because they are in the same position as me in that they only have specific roles with the proper gear and knowledge to be played.

Here's the thing: player trends, much like doody, roll down hill. WoW had the exact same problem until they started changing raid and class design to allow all classes and specs an equal chance. Before that, if Nihilum or Paragon were doing it, the lv10's running deadmines most likely were too. And if they said your spec was non-optimal, you were screwed.

[Cailae]

No, I wasn't, you're interpreting too much into it.

I'm not saying they have to use my strategy, all I'm saying is, there is more than one strategy for a certain encounter but people are usually not willing to deviate from the one deemed standard. This not only applies to PUGs but also many LS.

And then comes the whole "selfish" thing. It's easy to say, someone is being selfish, but ultimately, if you don't enjoy playing the game, why are you playing (and paying)? And if you are enjoying the game, why is me wanting to enjoy it being selfish?

You are stating that a group removing you for not wanting to spend their limited play time in doing things your way, and then stating that you don't want to spend your limited play time gathering people to do things the way you want to do them. If this was not your intent I would go back and re-read your post, this is what you directly implied. This is unreasonable. There are many players in this game on many servers. If Linkshells you tried did not offer to you the play style you were interested in I really am sorry. But you should keep trying. Everyone should have fun in the game that they play.

But it seemed to me you were demonizing players for not following your play style. If your goals and the partys goals do not intersect, neither of you should be forced to cater to the other. Keep looking, you will find people to play with, and that's when you will have the most fun.

Your entire post is completely sensible, but I would like to point out a couple things. For starters, not all goals/desires are going to be playable in a game. Sometimes, it's not a viable option, period. This, however, has little to do with the mechanics already in the game. Sure, you can't tank with a Dragoon, but rarely does anyone ask for that. It's precisely because what they're looking for isn't already in the game that it's often hard to describe, and the points they suggest seem arbitrary or often unreasonable.

That's not to say that this inability is always the case, or that a set portion will be locked off -- a good game design can make more of those possible, even without reducing the enjoyment of what's in place already. But as such the changes needed to reach that greater accessibility probably won't come from adjustments within the existent game mechanics -- such as the restrictions given in example by the OP.

Exactly. For that level of adjustment, making a job in a situation more viable. Or making a job more desirable in more situations is a Design change, not a Player change. Expecting the player base to move away from optimum efficiency for no benefit to themselves or their goals is... well it's not going to work out in the player asking for the changes favor.

Totally true. But for many people, comparative advantage or comparative equity isn't the problem. The problem is more likely that the entire grand scale of the job can be had in approximately two hours with enough anima and a good party. Or, regardless of the time, the fact that the player never once made a unique decision in keeping with a "dragoon" or pursuing that role. You merely took a little extra time while leveling a strand that levels almost identically to every other strand.

It leaves a raid team basically estimated by how many good knives they can bring to a gun fight. They all cap out at about the same places, which should be fine in the name of balance, but to many none of those caps feel satisfyingly deep.

I don't think it's unreasonable to feel like jobs should be more than just a collection of tools. I'd personally rather have the collection of tools be turned into a more unique job or few jobs that both better define the player, and the player more choice-fully defines for himself.

And again, if changes were to be made to aid this, it probably wouldn't come from any 'adjustments' to the armory or job systems. It'd have to start further back.

I agree entirely. It would be nice to have that feel back that job is something unique. This was something FFXI had by having such a difficult leveling system. Back in the old days you knew someone with a 75 Job was an accomplished player and one look at their gear you could tell how dedicated they were. It's a depth of system we do not (did not) have in FFXIV. The ease of leveling is just, it's way too easy. But you can still take pride in your job. Proper melds in good gear can show a level of dedication. You can tell those that just leveled a job to level and and those that care about it generally through this. I generally agree, most of the time it feels like a job is just something you have done for whatever reason. Very little "meat" to them. This really becomes apparent to anyone that DOES do things that require switching. It's get gear, figure out rotation, do rotation. Eventually it becomes mechanical. The difference usually between a good Player on a job and a bad one is which one knows what to do when watching for a Mobs TP move.

I would really like 2.0 to add more to jobs to make them feel more unique and have some meaning. But again, that's absolutely a design issue.

[Soukyuu]

But it seemed to me you were demonizing players for not following your play style.

Like I said, this was not what I meant. I guess my post can be read this way, that's why I tried to explain what I meant. Sometimes my posts are not as clear to other people as they appear to me, mainly because they're kind of just a "stream of thought" if you know what I mean.

Anyway, my point seems to be a bit different from the OP's, since for me it's more of my issue with the community, while the OP concentrates on the armory system, so I'll be excusing myself o/

[Shurrikhan]

I agree entirely. It would be nice to have that feel back that job is something unique. This was something FFXI had by having such a difficult leveling system. Back in the old days you knew someone with a 75 Job was an accomplished player and one look at their gear you could tell how dedicated they were. It's a depth of system we do not (did not) have in FFXIV. The ease of leveling is just, it's way too easy. But you can still take pride in your job. Proper melds in good gear can show a level of dedication. You can tell those that just leveled a job to level and and those that care about it generally through this. I generally agree, most of the time it feels like a job is just something you have done for whatever reason. Very little "meat" to them. This really becomes apparent to anyone that DOES do things that require switching. It's get gear, figure out rotation, do rotation. Eventually it becomes mechanical. The difference usually between a good Player on a job and a bad one is which one knows what to do when watching for a Mobs TP move.

I would really like 2.0 to add more to jobs to make them feel more unique and have some meaning. But again, that's absolutely a design issue.

This is exactly why I think it's important that a job be what a character makes, rather than each their own little manual of "learn, do, optimize stats". But, as we agree, this is a fundamental design problem. At the moment there's not enough difference between damage types, derivatives, etc, to really base much strategy on. If people were figuring out how to develop their abilities to better take on a problem, role, or style of combat (actively melding their composition of classes into what would eventually become their own job) it'd be hard not for them to eventually understand just what's needed in strategy, inside-and-out, rather than just following job-preset rotations.

But again, that's a lot of design work away. It'd be something like starting as a swordsman, then developing as a fencer, gaining spells, focusing on fire and light-type magic (stemming from fire), develop that into pain-type effects, develop added precision, develop enfire such that magic becomes my slightly more prominent offensive stat, swap from leather to cloth for added magic stat, and some 6 steps later finally reach a Red Mage, almost coincidentally (though likely with some very nifty NPC role models...).

The steps you went through can still be used for other things. I could gone sword-and-buckler instead using defensive charging through thaumaturge traits to strengthen fire magic while tanking, etc. There should simply be a limit to how many sources you can delve into, in such a way that with enough time you're always pushing out that maximum, but very slowly.

When materia was still merely mentioned in future plans, I actually thought it would take after the idea of Echo, in that it would have to do with memory and be a bit archetypally connecting. This was merely me being overly idealistic, but in that one line of thought it had taken all my favorite ideas (namely, the above stuff), and mechanics not in the game (deleveling being the main one) and fit it all together smoothly, in an original overall world concept too!

That it turned into dull stat points that further rendered AF relatively useless... was a pretty big disappointment.