Job Leveling / Separate Idenity

[Radacci]

Jobs were created to give classes identities.


not quite but near as damn it. save for 1 or 2 abilities they both play pretty much identically.

which ultimately was the original problem with classes. there was a set of skills and that set of skills you would use whether you were pugilist lancer marauder gladiator or archer. all classes were basically identical.

Jobs exist to create diversity and variety where classes failed.

Such a shame that jobs have no identity then except bard maybe.
Jobs are highly circumstantial, and you don't use their skills a lot anyways, except a few, in party.
Jobs don't give diversity, it's the other way around. Jobs are limited in nr of cross-skills they can use, for (mostly) little benefit.
While classes can use many cross-skills from many other classes.

However, they fixed [aka limited] classes to differentiate them, then threw jobs on top as overkill.

Also, I'd like to disagree with your use of "diversity" and "variety." Pre-reform classes allowed each player to pick their own set of abilities, i.e. every player was diverse. Post-reform, everyone has one of the predefined skillsets.

It's hardly overkill, when you don't even use Job skills most of the time. How often do you use any BLM skills outside party for example? and even then you probably use mostly sleep and Flare.
WHM mostly just regain
DRG, Jump?
You're limiting yourself, for basically no gains.
That's why Jobs need many more skills, to feel unique.

[Sakasa]

On the subject as a whole I don't have an opinion leaning to either side but I still think we are set in limited thinking because of the stipulations and requirements of 1.0. The Job system doesn't necessarily require the majority of the class that it came from. We also are locked into the combo strings from 1.0 in that same concept. Now this isn't foolish it is all we have to work with and we have no evidence of new expansions of the possibilities.

But if you think out of the normal confines that we had prior the options of the armoury system are still there. Such as abilities that are not given to jobs or even a job that uses the sets of different classes in different ways.

This is an old example I used back way before alpha but if RDM was tied to gladiator but the adoption list of skills came from con and thm instead of other melee classes and only gladiators fast blade and savage blade were taken for instance you can change the dynamic the job plays from its precursor. So if this changes are done a combo system involving the weapon skill > spell could be used instead of the normal DD ws > ws or spell > spell.

A new example albeit one that takes more work on the job side would be dancer if it came from pugilist then you would string together WS > "song/dance" > WS.

The bonuses of the combos and the job skills that relate to them of course would have to reflect that but the impending doom of the armoury system only exists with in the confines of how limiting they will make it and if each job has to have an individual corresponding class. Expanding beyond that and developing roles that a character can fill outside of the trinity (or even with in it but that always have balance problems when it works) can change this "dead end" people consider the Armoury system to be. As well as the inter-workings of the system can be expanded on even more with a little creative thinking along the lines of Divine Veil where class interaction gives a benefit. So I wouldn't go predicting a forced rework on the devs part just yet.

[Dzian]

Also, I'd like to disagree with your use of "diversity" and "variety." Pre-reform classes allowed each player to pick their own set of abilities, i.e. every player was diverse.

Pre-reform every class used the same skill set. admittedly you maybe didnt have to but ultimately everyone did because those were the strongest skills to have.

that was the whole reason for the reform in the first place.

monk is kung fu asian, pug boxer western

gladiator fighter, paladin holy knight

archer bow shooting guy, bard plays music.

whats the difference between a monk punching something and a pugilist? none
whats the difference between how a gladiator uses its shield and a paladin? none
whats the difference between how a brd shoots there bow and an archer? none.
classes and jobs ultimately feel the same to play or near as dam it

You're limiting yourself, for basically no gains.
That's why Jobs need many more skills, to feel unique.

The thing is you weren't. both in party and out Jobs were vastly superior. (with maybe a couple of exceptions) A warrior could tear havoc through natalan or any thing he wanted to do solo and was almost unstoppable in doing so. A marauder simply couldn't compete. thus ultimately its as a class that you were limiting yourself.

Bards could paeon themselves and run around shooting arrows all day long. without needing to wait for invigorate or keen flurries. Blackmages could nuke a lot longer with simple convert and even survive aggro better with sleepga. perhaps they lost a couple of survival skills but a good offence is often an amazing defence. it was pretty much the same for all jobs.

[Mychael]

Pre-reform every class used the same skill set. admittedly you maybe didnt have to but ultimately everyone did because those were the strongest skills to have.

that was the whole reason for the reform in the first place.

So, because most of the players used the same set of skills, they reformed so that all characters had to use the same skills?

I see.

whats the difference between a monk punching something and a pugilist? none
whats the difference between how a gladiator uses its shield and a paladin? none
whats the difference between how a brd shoots there bow and an archer? none.
classes and jobs ultimately feel the same to play or near as dam it

The thing is you weren't. both in party and out Jobs were vastly superior. (with maybe a couple of exceptions) A warrior could tear havoc through natalan or any thing he wanted to do solo and was almost unstoppable in doing so. A marauder simply couldn't compete. thus ultimately its as a class that you were limiting yourself.

Bards could paeon themselves and run around shooting arrows all day long. without needing to wait for invigorate or keen flurries. Blackmages could nuke a lot longer with simple convert and even survive aggro better with sleepga. perhaps they lost a couple of survival skills but a good offence is often an amazing defence. it was pretty much the same for all jobs.

The first step to recovery is identifying the problem. On FFXIV forums, so are the second, third, fourth, and fifth steps.

[Reika]

Jobs dont need more skills than the class, they need different skills all together. For one, Gladiator is NOT a paladin, Lancer is NOT a dragoon, Etc etc. They should never have been made into weaker versions of the jobs, ever.

[Dzian]

Jobs dont need more skills than the class, they need different skills all together. For one, Gladiator is NOT a paladin, Lancer is NOT a dragoon, Etc etc. They should never have been made into weaker versions of the jobs, ever.

I kind of think though that if the jobs had a totally different skill set to the class then they would basically lose all association that connected them to that class in the first place. and that being the case there is really no need to have jobs stemming from classes at all they should just be entireley seperate entities.

given an example. if you develop your thaumatage to max level as a thaumatage then you become a thaumatage master. but if you then unlock blackmage youve instantly become a black mage master there was no levelling / learning process involved in that mastery. you could say it tooks you hundreds of thousands of exp and a lot of practice to become a thm but to be blm in a few simple quests.

not to mention the nightmare of new job implementation. where for every job you release you would need a new class to go with it. thus you end up with 20 jobs and 20 classes or. you end up with a scenario where if they are going to tie second jobs to the existing classes then they need to release 8 jobs at once (or how ever many classes there are). if they didnt then you have a huge unbalance where one class has 2 job options but another class only has 1.

some people have said have them the same till level 20 then totally seperate them. there was a recent thread where thm becomes an enfeebling specialist blm becomes elemental. it would be just as easy if not easier to just seperate them entirely and make that enfeebling specialist a redmage or whatever build them both on a unique frame rather than trying to twist one frame into several different things.

another thing i dont like the idea of is that lets say a year from now february 2014 every class gets a second job. then bam i have 8 more jobs at max level and i didnt even have to kill anything. burn a few quests and i'm a master at them all. which kind of sits badly for new players if the older players never have to level anything again. (save for a cap raise)

[Shougun]

Jobs dont need more skills than the class, they need different skills all together. For one, Gladiator is NOT a paladin, Lancer is NOT a dragoon, Etc etc. They should never have been made into weaker versions of the jobs, ever.

Sorry if you already answered but what is your suggested idea for that?

How about "some" cross class skills like THM thunder to BLM thunder? Or do you just mean most of them different. Obviously as per my OP I'd also like to see the difference become distinct.

[ZakarnRosewood]

Sorry, I really hated the all of those systems you mentioned. I found them really pointless and annoying. Just my personal opinion. I would much prefer if they did it the FF:tactics WotL style. I have not liked the leveling up systems in the FF games from 10 and up (excluding FFXI, I liked the subjob).

They did a sphere grid thing with Path of Exile (a diablo ripoff) I really liked the gameplay and how it felt over Diablo III but once I realized they used the sphere grid I dropped the game like a bad habit. Honestly, and I know it doesn't matter in the long run, I would drop ARR if they did the sphere grid.

I like what they have and the concepts they had in 1.0 as long as they carry over the basic system where you borrow skills from other classes then are restricted once you have a job, I think it works great. Then have the merit system to purchase high level skills. Why does it need to be more than that?

[Shougun]

Sorry, I really hated the all of those systems you mentioned. I found them really pointless and annoying. Just my personal opinion. I would much prefer if they did it the FF:tactics WotL style. I have not liked the leveling up systems in the FF games from 10 and up (excluding FFXI, I liked the subjob).

They did a sphere grid thing with Path of Exile (a diablo ripoff) I really liked the gameplay and how it felt over Diablo III but once I realized they used the sphere grid I dropped the game like a bad habit. Honestly, and I know it doesn't matter in the long run, I would drop ARR if they did the sphere grid.

I like what they have and the concepts they had in 1.0 as long as they carry over the basic system where you borrow skills from other classes then are restricted once you have a job, I think it works great. Then have the merit system to purchase high level skills. Why does it need to be more than that?

You can not like a particular gameplay element thats cool - but the reason these systems are suggested are more then just "oh I loved the grids" (which I did).

Its because there needs to be a logical way to say what skills do and more importantly DO NOT cross over. They can just start listing on each ability THM only, THM and BLM only, DoM only. And that can help seperate skills out to create a more distinct job.

You may also do that to passives though thats less of a logical leap, I think people can still get that.

Also weapons being added to jobs would take benifit through this system as it would explain oh you have level 15 CNJ well you can use a staff as a BLM now and you get that it was because you had a level 15 CNJ because it was a requirement for the sphere / grid unlock.

You can do this through merits too but I think you would have to allow merits earlier in the jobs life time then, else you'd only get to become distinct once you hit max level.


(My suggest is not the only solution I just felt that it solved many things at once, but as you are saying some people just dont like that leveling system - so thats fine)

I'm not a fan of merit systems just because I like pretty picture element of grids and trees (but I would think they could do that to a merit system).

[ZakarnRosewood]

It sounds like what you want is just a more visual system. That I would be ok with. I wouldnt want them to do the talent trees like in WoW, or the sphere grid. Maybe I would be more accepting of the sphere grid if they removed all the pointless parts (health +5, Str+2, Luck +1) and just had the skills. The problem i had with the license board was near the end everyone had the same skills except for the summons.

I think what i would like more for this FF is to have a combination of the way you learned skills and such from FFIX and the materia/magicite systems in FFVII and FFVI. You learn the skill or spell through "bonding" then it gains levels according to usage. Sure you might have to use a crappy weapon or materia to get a particular skill, but once you learn it, you have it for good. Once this system is in, just do with the skill what they did with the weapons, Fire - THM, BLM, RDM / Cure - DoW, DoM / Jump - DRG

Display it all in a tree of avaliable skill slots. jump is a level 30 skill and costs 4 points. Work within the restrictions of the level 30 tier and how many allotment points are avaliable. But I'm getting off on a tangent.

TL;DR: If all you are looking for is better visual representation, I hope it will be at least streamlined so its not so messy and overwhelming. Build on better foundations than FFX and up, or create a new way that would integrate better with the armory system. I still think they have so much opportunity with the materia that is not being fully utilized.