Job Leveling / Separate Idenity

[Shurrikhan]

• Abilities and advances in jobs (as in Tactics system) based on personal story, kept in one's memory with reference to Echo.
  
• Advanced jobs are not necessarily stronger than less advanced, they just build from basics and pursue things more derivative or complex. A samurai of equal level will still likely beat an Ark Knight in a duel, unless dependent on his gear without a way to avoid an Arc Knight specialized in breaking such. But a Ark Knight will likely much more quickly and effectively turn the tide of a larger fight according to his ability set, and will make more (in terms of ability and gear effects) out of his own quests than a samurai would of his (save for perhaps duels with key personalities or characters, or certain conditions of large fights) due to his more abstract job parameters.
  
• There is a total amount of memory that a person can keep. But one can start replacing things and may even go back in his memory to attempt new pursuits.
  
• A class is not the end-all of one's potential abilities. It simply shapes how one will deal with an encounter and therefore what one will learn from it. This learning can eventually be shaped into one's own style or niche of a class, or job, or even an advanced job. (Though it is likely that these unique features will be carried over, at least in general trait, from your time prior to reaching the advanced job, rather than being learned after reaching it.)

Something like that. If possible I'd rather avoid a universal skill-tree in favor of something more individual. People may complain, but as long as they use the tools they've made for themselves well, they should be balanced. The things they don't... can fade beyond memory and be replaced.

If I'm an Arc Knight, it should say something about me as a player. If someone's going to face me and they hear that I've served with the Immortal's Merchant Guard and have been through wars against both beastman and imperials, that should also tell them something about what tricks I'm likely to have up my sleeves. If I'm a gladiator who soloed a level 40 group quest at level 30, it should say something about my persistence and precision. This of course requires increases to skill-gap and story and progression depth, but I don't think there's ever been a time where that's every been without benefit.

[Radacci]

i'm quite ok with the armory system really.
classes are a bit more generic, and offers wider options, while jobs are more specific, and powerful in certain area.
my only problem is that lv 50LNC=lv50 DRG; and DRG being quite limited in the skills it gets (all jobs for that matter; they only get 5 each)
So i would want to see the jobs as separate, and you lv them separate; and they have 16+ skills of their own. From looking at the old 1.0 system, i thought there was so many interesting skills back then, it's sad they are gone.
It would be nice if for example CNJ had some basic elemental skills like then, and you unlock Elementalist, that can use the more powerful element spells. Dark/Umbral BLM was interesting too.
But in general i think it's good that lancer is more generic, and can use cross class skills to greater extent than DRG. Otherwise DRG would make LNC Obsolete.

Crystarium system might be nice, if it had more *branches* Or Grid Sphere; you develop in different directions, choosing if you wanna start out defensively or offensively; which skills you wanna learn first. Maybe going for Fire build early on, for AOE party grind.

[Mychael]

I'd be fine with leveling the normal way (as opposed to a crystarium/grid/board), but I do wish you had to level them.

Right now, each class only has one job. But in theory, that will change.

So by unlocking WHM and taking your CNJ's level to 50 as a WHM, you have CNJ50. Later in the game, SE introduces Elementalist, and after doing 5 quests, you're 50 ELE as well. Then, SE throws Green Mage into the mix. 5 more quests and you're at max level.

I feel like these are distinct jobs that we should have to level somehow.

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

I'd be fine with leveling the normal way (as opposed to a crystarium/grid/board), but I do wish you had to level them.

Right now, each class only has one job. But in theory, that will change.

So by unlocking WHM and taking your CNJ's level to 50 as a WHM, you have CNJ50. Later in the game, SE introduces Elementalist, and after doing 5 quests, you're 50 ELE as well. Then, SE throws Green Mage into the mix. 5 more quests and you're at max level.

I feel like these are distinct jobs that we should have to level somehow.

Yep. this is the problem with current class system imo.

There's really no room to branch out from the classes without making the jobs seem shallow. Currently jobs are just the same as classes but with a few extra abilities added on. Implementing anything other than an entirely new class/job combination will just seem like a slight variation of the same old class.

Bard is the perfect example of this flaw. The bard we currently have is just an archer with some bard "songs" attached to it. It hardly resembles a bard class that I think most people were expecting.

[Dzian]

Yep. this is the problem with current class system imo.

There's really no room to branch out from the classes without making the jobs seem shallow. Currently jobs are just the same as classes but with a few extra abilities added on. Implementing anything other than an entirely new class/job combination will just seem like a slight variation of the same old class.

Amen to that

[AdorraEloom]

Interesting idea but I don't think it would work in ARR. Jack of all traits master of non.

[Shougun]

Interesting idea but I don't think it would work in ARR. Jack of all traits master of non.

So confused how would this be a jack of all traits? Please elaborate

But you guys are hitting on the head why I suggested this - to not destroy the armory system but to allow jobs to separate and better define themselves.

You guys can suggest other ideas here too, thats what I tried to say in the first sentence of my OP lol - all I want is to see jobs be themselves. Sure there are some thematic similarities between say GLD PLD, MRD WAR but in 5 years and duo jobs later I can imagine nothing but a cluster fck (the level crossing over, multiple jobs instant leveling, too many unrelated abilities coming in, forever stuck to the same weapon, no style and play style choices, the job has suffered an identity loss to blend into its class, and so forth).

The simplest, most desirable answer I keep returning to is - make jobs their own identity. And with a grid or something like it you could make a visual understanding of how the jobs start from a class but quickly stray away with all their new ability unlocks and abilities they cant get from classes - at level 50 they'd have their own special set of passives abilities and weapons.

And you can do things like choice (but dont have to, thats not my purpose of suggesting this system - though I think choice is important)... like talent trees but those have to be very carefully structured so you don't end up with "the best one" (and only one). I'd call a talent tree a success if you had at least 3 "the best ones" that can be used interchangeably.

[Jynx]

I just often wonder why the developers even decided to keep the Class system when they introduced Jobs, and why the still cling to it this day.

It's nigh impossible that the system will be killed even in Beta because it looks like by the time we even touch the Beta the game is going to be pretty thoroughly built. I can only pray that people are quick in pointing out the issues of the Class/Job system during Beta though.

[Shurrikhan]

I just often wonder why the developers even decided to keep the Class system when they introduced Jobs, and why the still cling to it this day.

It's nigh impossible that the system will be killed even in Beta because it looks like by the time we even touch the Beta the game is going to be pretty thoroughly built. I can only pray that people are quick in pointing out the issues of the Class/Job system during Beta though.

I could see why classes possibly ought to be replaced with primary level jobs, but then what does that solve in terms of identity? A soldier job isn't going to get much more advanced or distinct than a well-made gladiator class. And on the other hand, I'd rather not step out of my starter town's gates for the first time as a full-fledged Dragoon. Sure, I could be level 1, virtually useless (which again solves no identity issues) but that already means I have the spirit of a dragon, to some extent, within me. Why would that be the case when I've done nothing? You could say I came here already trained, but how would it make sense for me to be identified in title as a "Dragoon" when I can barely hold a spear straight, and get one-shotted by a level 10 marmot? And how would that work for any future job?

Classes are basically the same primary level classes that the Tactics system has already employed, but without completely limiting the uses of one's experience elsewhere. Anyone can pick up a sword and figure out how to swing it. One does not necessarily pick up a club and suddenly know how to steal monster abilities or a rapier and know how to use nastily precise flame magic. Any game that starts at an actual beginning, with a cumulative sense of experience, will in some way found itself on classes. From the weapons used, one infers an advantageous mindset, and therein style. You could argue that eventually that style can exist even in the use of other weapons, or that styles may be merged, and I'd agree completely. But it's not the classes that need to go. It's the poor execution of learning and crossing skills, mechanics of range and strategy that would produce different results under these different styles, and jobs being treated mostly as just another class rather than a point of one's own experience.

[Jynx]

I could see why classes possibly ought to be replaced with primary level jobs, but then what does that solve in terms of identity?

The crux of your argument is that you seem to think that just because someone calls me a Dragoon that I'm some Dragon Eating machine.

Let's take XI for a example, having a job title pretty much means that is your characters aspiring to be the pinacle of ____ Job. In the case of "Advanced" jobs that came before you unlocked the abillities and connections related to that class through quests, but let's keep it simple at first.

I am a level 1 warrior, that means my goal is to become the biggest badass with a variaty of weapons, I focus on demolishing my targets with sheer power and have high health to back myself up. At level one I am just that compared to my companions of other jobs, yet I still can be killed by a mandragora because this is the beginning of my journey, through the trials and hardships I experience as I (level up) become stronger and more skilled as a Warrior, learning many things of my classes history and abillities from my seniors (AF quests)

Just because I was called a Warrior when I left the gates of my home town, doesn't mean I was the biggest badass this side of the Sarutabaruta. It however did mean what my characters goals and aspirations were as I grew.