I sort of wish players could only choose one job.

[ChiyoKatsui]

Simplest and easiest answer, money.

A lot of MMOs charge for extra characters. Some give you 3 free slots or so, but you have to purchase additional character creation rights and pay for it monthly. FFXI is a prime example of this, albeit you were not hindered on jobs, more on storage.. I believe Ragnarok Online as P2P only had 3 slots as well, but could purchase additional slots up to 6? It's been a long time, Thief->Assassin was most popular then. It was before they added a lot of other classes.

At any rate, if you're like me and play a majority of the jobs just so you have at least basic skills with the class, then you should be able to see how much extra money you would spend just to level an extra job or two, let alone another 15. ARR is kind of exempt from this in a way. Youll understand if you review ARR service fees posted a while back during the legacy campaign posts.

so let's calculate that.

12.95 basic service fee (includes 1 char)
1.00 Additional Char slots (max 32 slots, including the one with your basic service fee)

so, lets say we have 28 different jobs (not counting crafts).

that's $27 extra a month just for characters, if you play all jobs. Thats $324 dollars a year you're paying, just to use every job that is in the game to begin with.

With ARR almost exempt from this, we can still look at money sadly.

If they locked each character to 1 job (or class with underlying jobs as seen in FFXIV(Gladiator -> Paladin)), this would mean you'd be forced to purchase the more expensive option to have all 8 character slots per world, just to check out a job and decide if you like it. Not very rational. Now think about that. 8 slots per world. As crafting classes are considered to be main classes in FFXIV (atleast in 1.0 they were), this would mean you still wouldn't be able to play all the jobs available. And should they increase the number the of character slots we have, we'll be back to square one, paying for extra slots.

It reduces the consumers hemorrhaging of money on the game itself after monthly fees, making it a much more plausible to harness long time subscribers.

Of course, this is just my opinion but, facts are in there as well. It's just a matter of perception.

[Rahsch]

I kinda feel like that I wouldn't be attached to my character as much if I had to make multiple characters just because I couldn't be every class / job / crafter with 1 character.

It makes sense that 1 person can do everything. Just think what people can do in real life. They can do multiple jobs or have many hobbies they can do.

And I mean you can build yourself a good reputation with your online community if you stick with one character, if your a bad person and don't like to follow the rules or if you like to steal things from other people, people will know not to invite you. And if you do your best to make the best of yourself by being a hardworker with your crafts and are a great person to take along for travels then you'll be sure people will invite you or buy your wares.

I believe in one character all possibilities.

[Duelle]

I kinda feel like that I wouldn't be attached to my character as much if I had to make multiple characters just because I couldn't be every class / job / crafter with 1 character.

I have the opposite problem. A character that does everything is an impossibility in the role-playing sense. Well, that and I come up with character concepts for fun. From a roleplaying perspective, making alts as such makes much more sense to me than having one character that can do everything.

/inbeforelolRP

[Rahsch]

I have the opposite problem. A character that does everything is an impossibility in the role-playing sense. Well, that and I come up with character concepts for fun. From a roleplaying perspective, making alts as such makes much more sense to me than having one character that can do everything.

/inbeforelolRP

Well yeah I enjoy having a defined character. Out of the fanmade graphic novel I'm doing my main character is purely a Summoner and I like having characters that will stick to one job but in-game I like to try and get everything. XD

[Colino]

I have the opposite problem. A character that does everything is an impossibility in the role-playing sense.

How so? I'm not a fan of RP but surely if the world and the lore allow it than it's not an impossibility? You seem to be restricting your own RP experience by putting limits on yourself that don't actually exist in the game's world anyway.

Doesn't work like that when the game forces you to level almost every other job for cross class abilities, to even play your class optimally.

Have you even played with any jobs? You need barely any sub classes to do great with a class let alone a job (where you're severely limited as far as cross class skills go). At most you need your class at 50 and your sub at 36 or so (and don't tell me that's hard to do because we all know how easy it was to level).

[Duelle]

How so? I'm not a fan of RP but surely if the world and the lore allow it than it's not an impossibility? You seem to be restricting your own RP experience by putting limits on yourself that don't actually exist in the game's world anyway.

As I said, a character that can do everything is an impossibility because hat-switching is not exactly common in fantasy, much less roleplaying unless you're the DM. It's purely a game mechanic and nothing more.

Most of the characters I've created are built on whatever class I chose for them, with backstories tailored to those particular classes. This goes for my gnome warrior in WoW, my tarutaru RDM in FFXI, my jedi knight in TOR and so on. If you were to force a caster down my throat, to me that's a completely separate character and I would have to create a brand new character for that. Telling me "Duelle can turn into this with the push of a button" simply doesn't make sense to me.

[wdrekx]

I think being able to change jobs makes the biggest difference, I've played a lot of different MMOs but the thing that always made me go back to FFXI was that it was challenging and I only needed 1 character. I hate having multiple characters as it pretty much kills any attachment I might have for one and if I become attached to one then I'll never try any of the other jobs/classes. As to FF or other RPG games whose iconic characters are only one class; all I have to say is that it worked for them because they all had a few unique abilities that were theirs only.

[Kiote]

Honestly, there is no such thing as a Final Fantasy feeling when it comes to Classes. The actual trademark of the series is that the Class system/Ability list is always different. There is nothing Final Fantasy about being locked in to one Job. Most of the Fourteen numerical games do not give characters defined classes. Really only the first and IX do. Most of the games that appear to have defined roles actually only have starter roles. X for example you have Lulu the BLM and Kilmari the BLU, but from the moment you get them, you can jump them to any other Class Skill set and change what they are. VII and VIII let every single character use every Spell and skill. VI gives some class specific skills, but everyone can use summons and magic.

[Hycinthus]

Lastly I feel like allowing players to change their roles at will takes away from the traditional Final Fantasy experience, and overall makes it less gratifying to play a Job when you can potentially be replaced by anyone and everyone in your party at the flick of the wrist.

I played FFXI, so I was totally used to people having multiple jobs, but I totally and 100% understand where you're coming from. Even in FFXI it happened, but not as quickly since to switch jobs you need to go back to your moghouse. Here it is more apparent because you can change job anywhere. For example I liked being special, the only BLM of the party, and then suddenly when need arises, all 4 or 5 members of my party can become BLM too. And then suddenly they equip the BLM gear too, and better gear than mine, and suddenly we all look the same haha. That hits me hard because I don't feel like I'm useful anymore, and I feel like what am I doing here.

And even sometimes they say, do you have another lvl 50? Let me be the BLM this time and you be WAR since I don't have WAR. I agree it is useful and makes parties flexible. But in one way it's too flexible.

[Taltale]

...the characters were normally reined to one role and thus were indispensable for their unique abilities. (Well, for the most part that is.) It is this, I think that allows others to more readily respect and appreciate the significance of that specific role and player when it isn't so easily replaceable, or if at all. The player and their name sort of becomes renowned with that role.

I agree with this. Not that I like to be labeled, but I do miss having the feeling of identity that came with having a focus in one particular job. Being wanted or even needed because I had that job. Having options to switch it up once and a while is good, I think, though I don't like the idea of every player being able to take on the role of every job (unless they worked hard to be able to take them all on). Passion behind the job is key to a good fighting performance.