Quote Originally Posted by Reika View Post
Yea, a handful of old final fantasy games, like one or two.
People are just going to continue pick and choose here with these 'this class should be able to this' stuff and always have their own opinion of which FF did it better. Like for say if SMN was the same as FFIV's summoner Rydia, you would have the ability to summon, and use both white and black magic to an extent, until you disapear into the underworld for a while and get better at black magic and summoning but become unable to use white magic.

FFIV's white mage Rosa also did not have elemental magic, but the bestest cures and some holy magic for attacking. Some people dont want that 'version' of the white mage tho, they want the version from [instert FF title here] that could use stone and aero...
You're not getting my point. The early games gave the base classes their capabilities. IV, VI, and IX gave us characters with jobs, but their own unique things as characters which shouldn't be confused with a typical job capability. As I said in the "ninjas should get dogs, omg!" thread, People need to learn that FF characters =/= their characters in games which introduced characters with varying personalities and personal abilities rather than guys which were certain jobs which you could name.

Your example's a little flawed too. Rydia's white and black magic was designed to give her a purpose before she got get her summons / Porom and Palom were introduced / Rosa could join the party. Furthermore, she came back to the party at a point where Rosa was in the group, but without her white magic. Why? Because she was designed to be healing support for when Rosa/Porom wasn't in the party. That's why.

SMN will never be the same as Rydia. Rydia is Rydia and she is the way she is, has the skills and magic she has for storyline reasons exclusive to her character. (Because after all, what are the odds of every single summoner ever, in any Final Fantasy having their hometown destroyed by a pesky dark knight and being dragged off to the Feymarch by Leviathan which becomes all of their surrogate fathers?)

It's not a case of everyone wanting a certain white mage from a certain game either. It's a matter that a class in a MMO requires a certain amount of resilience, no matter the class. Even white mage, which suffers from remarkably poor defence as penalization already. It needs some way to inflict damage on an enemy for solo. If white mage becomes nothing but the Rosa example of bestest cures ever (which was more of a personality trait, really. She was well known not for just being a white mage, but a really, really talented healer) it is completely impossible to play without a group. Groups are not always around in MMOs.