I sort of wish players could only choose one job.

[KyahAlmasy]

I do feel that I need to point out somethings. I have a friend who's mother has 7 master's degree. I have a friend who reads newspapers in 5 languages (english, chinese, japanese, korean and I think french was the last one.) every morning (he works in animation, not linguistics.). I, myself know 3 languages, taken 3 forms of martial arts, cooks traditional chinese cuisine well (yes, including the complicated stuff. I'd do hong-kong style bbq too if I had the oven.), do art, programming (c++, java, php, perl and shell scripting.) and run my own server (meaning, I do server administrations, write the software and handle the dns, designed and made the webpage, etc).

I think what you're forgetting is that it isn't realistic that someone can do everything perfect, it's that this is condensed, sped-up version of reality. Well, let me get my "things to note" written before I get into that.

It is unrealistic for anyone to do anything "perfectly" while always under perfect circumstances. No one is always in right place at the right time, no one is capable of picking up anything and everything and mastering it almost immediately. It takes time, practice, and experience in most cases, with great personal sacrifice.

1) Although npc is "surprised" at how fast we're picking things up, that's just the way RPG's dialogues are written. A hold back to the single player rpg days where you are the ONLY heroes of the land. Even if you started a quest 3 years ago and finished it just now so you can cast regen, they're still going to say how "fast" you're picking it up. I propse we don't blame the job system for that.
TLDR: NPC's are impressed by anything.

2) Our characters don't need to eat, sleep, use restroom, or even take a break from running across a continent for days on end. That and adding the compressed time our characters are in, that's a LOT more time than we, as regular humans, have. If you, let's say, lived 5~10x longer than you do now. Or, conversely, you lived the same life span as everyone else but you move and learn 5~10x faster. To the rest of humanity, it would seem like you've mastered everything as well, after a point.
TLDR: Our characters live in a compressed time AND don't need to stop for anything.

The only difference is that in FXIV the time isn't frozen like RGPs that take place on console games, the moon comes and goes, as does the sun. There was very little "Actual" canonical time that passed in 1.0. So the idea that our characters would master all these jobs in that time is very.. well unlikely.

And your other points where you mention that our characters don't need to sleep, or use the bathroom are merely mechanics of the game that really don't effect how well I immerse myself into the story. Which is the entire point of my post. I'm not nit-picking every unrealistic mechanic of the game, merely why is it more realistic in terms of the story in the game to have only one job. Not, why doesn't this blade of grass bend when I step on it???

3) Due to reason 1 (npc's are impressed at everything we do) the "feats" we have done isn't akin to getting a masters, more like surviving a war having done 10 valiant deeds and won. Why is this important? A masters or phd HAS to take years. But what our characters have their reputations risen due to won battles, which can literally happen within a span of 6 months or so (yes, you can get a job's quests done in a few days. But that's probably a few months in eozerea time). Plus, to the NPC's we did all this on our first try. But in reality, we've died a dozen times, sometimes, to beat a fight. If I saw an immortal (but didn't know [s]he was) slaughtered an entire army by him/herself, I'd praise his name too.
TLDR: The "mastery" and "feats" we do in game aren't as insurmountable as the npc's seem to think.


4)If you (you, in the general term. Not you, Kyah, specifically) play this game like a casual player (no power levels, no LS giving you items to hasten crafting skills. No getting ran through dungeons to complete quests by way more experienced and better geared people. Walkthroughs to tell you exactly what you need to do, but figuring it yourself instead, etc.), you wouldn't have had time to get all your jobs and crafts to 50 and complete all the quests. My wife and I only were able to play on and off and the most I've gotten done is drg,whm and blm to 50. (I did get ran through a lot of blm's quest). Cooking to 30+. Harvesting and mining to 45+ (and a few subjobs). She only got mnk to 50, all crafts except cooking and alchemy to 43. The people that got all their jobs and crafts and stuff to 50 either spend a lot of rl time or got a lot of help (or a mixture of the two). Again, I wouldn't blame the job system for this.
TLDR: Some players spent a lot of time or got a lot of help or both.

So none of the above points by themselves explain why all this seems "unrealistic". But when put together (some bars lowered and other rates of things increased), you can see how these things, although unrealistic to normal people, is still in the realm of possibility, even in the real world, if certain criteria are met. None of which, are the job system.

It's not only the "Time" it took our characters to learn these skills, (which is already unlikely) but the "perfect" circumstances that surrounded them and made learning and mastering these jobs possible. For an example, if our character just got finished hearing about how a fellow conjurer has spent the entire life in the wood looking for the sprites only to never find one, and then us as the player to walk out into a field and meet one on our first visit so they could offer us the opportunity to learn the job is way contrived. Is it possible? Yes. Probable? No.

And again you're mentioning game mechanics that have very little to nothing to do with the immersion of the game. I have realistic expectations when it comes to playing online MMOs, and I'm certainly not going to assume that they have created NPC's who are capable of anticipating every possible situation my character may have encounter while attempting to finish their quest.

TLDR: There are amazing people out there (I'm not saying I'm one of them). Just because you or I couldn't do it personally, doesn't make it unrealistic. The game is running under certain conditions that, even in real life, "mastering" everything would be possible is someone had the inclination. None of which is a fault of the job system.


P.S. I've seen people use "chi" to blow out candles behind a barrier. Shaolin monks bend and break spears in half by having them ran into their necks. There's also this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPM8OR6W6WE
Which, if you sent back 30 years in time, would be considered a) impossible. b) alien technology/witch craft. As the famous Shakespeare line goes "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, then are dreamt of in your philosophies.".

There are amazing people out there, but they are just as human as us. They have gone through hardships, have had bad luck and even failed at many things despite their many successes. As people we have to acknowledge our limits, and failures just as often as we must acknowledge our successes in life. A character who cannot fail, who always happens to be in the right place at the right time is a shallow and contrived concept in my opinion. But I respect your opinions.

[Laume]

It is unrealistic for anyone to do anything "perfectly" while always under perfect circumstances. No one is always in right place at the right time, no one is capable of picking up anything and everything and mastering it almost immediately. It takes time, practice, and experience in most cases, with great personal sacrifice.

But we don't do it perfectly. (We, the characters in game). If we did, all our skills would critical all the time. All our magic would do the same max damage. But we miss, we get lower damage than optimal, and some get resisted right out.

The only difference is that in FXIV the time isn't frozen like RGPs that take place on console games, the moon comes and goes, as does the sun. There was very little "Actual" canonical time that passed in 1.0. So the idea that our characters would master all these jobs in that time is very.. well unlikely.

But it's still time. That's the reason why skills like dragonfire dive has a 15 minute recast timer. It's suppose to be our limit break/desperation. 15 minutes in the real world is 5 hours eorzean time. The idea is that the skill is so powerful and so stressful to our players that we can only do it once every 5 hours. (which is better than in ffxi. Where our skilled were called 2 hours because 2 hours = vana diel day... or at least, it was.) Even if it's not story canonical, it's still time to the character and time it took for the characters to gain a skill in something. Unless you're saying that all time, unless it's story canonical time, in game doesn't matter, in which case, every character should be able to move, fight, learn skills, theoretically, at the speed of light. (or as fast as electrons can be passed between 2 machines on the internet)

And your other points where you mention that our characters don't need to sleep, or use the bathroom are merely mechanics of the game that really don't effect how well I immerse myself into the story. Which is the entire point of my post. I'm not nit-picking every unrealistic mechanic of the game, merely why is it more realistic in terms of the story in the game to have only one job. Not, why doesn't this blade of grass bend when I step on it???

Oh, I was pointing that out as something to show you how much more time in a day our character has compared to us in real life. I mean, can you imagine how much more we could do if we didn't spend a 1/3 of everyday sleeping? Or having to eat, rest, sit, etc, etc, etc. If all that was eliminated, we'd literally have and increased activity span of at least 2/5. The things we can work on/learn/master/etc. It has nothing to do with the immersion of the game. I understand that point and why you don't feel immersed due to it and that's fine. I'm just saying that the unrealistic-ness/lack of immersion on the point of "we can't master everything" can't be blamed on the job system.

It's not only the "Time" it took our characters to learn these skills, (which is already unlikely) but the "perfect" circumstances that surrounded them and made learning and mastering these jobs possible. For an example, if our character just got finished hearing about how a fellow conjurer has spent the entire life in the wood looking for the sprites only to never find one, and then us as the player to walk out into a field and meet one on our first visit so they could offer us the opportunity to learn the job is way contrived. Is it possible? Yes. Probable? No.

Yep, that part is unrealistic. I fully admit that. But it's also what makes it a game. Not only that, it's the premise of the game. Unless you feel that we shouldn't be playing the adventurers that saved the world in this game, but rather one of the random NPC's around town, this unrealistic, perfect storm of circumstances will have to remain. Again, I'm not saying you should feel immersed. I'm just saying given the conditions presented in the game, someone mastering tons of skills is not out of the realm of possibility. And, hence, has nothing to do with the job system. The conditions that allowed this to happen may be unrealistic and takes the immersion out for you, but the job system is the symptom, not the cause.

And again you're mentioning game mechanics that have very little to nothing to do with the immersion of the game. I have realistic expectations when it comes to playing online MMOs, and I'm certainly not going to assume that they have created NPC's who are capable of anticipating every possible situation my character may have encounter while attempting to finish their quest.

You're right. My point isn't to point out that you should feel immersed. Just that the job system and being able to master tons of skills, is not the cause of your lack of immersion. It's the symptom.

There are amazing people out there, but they are just as human as us. They have gone through hardships, have had bad luck and even failed at many things despite their many successes. As people we have to acknowledge our limits, and failures just as often as we must acknowledge our successes in life. A character who cannot fail, who always happens to be in the right place at the right time is a shallow and contrived concept in my opinion.

That, I can agree with. But
1) TLDR version: The truth is, we, even in game have had our failures and hardships. Even if it's not seen by other people/npc. Unless you follow them through the failures as well as successes, you'll never know just how "impressive" they are. And that's why other people/npc's can see us as having nearly no hardship.
Long version:
Example (in real life):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSbhYmFEMTA
I follow this guy from time to time. His job is a computer 3d modeler/animator. All this seems awesome and easy. But if you look at the out takes, just one of these tricks can take 5~20 tries before he gets that 1 good take for this video. But to us, via this video, it all seems like he did it in one day. I would hardly call him, from that video, shallow and contrived. I stopped counting how many times I failed "to kill a raven" after the 5th time. But, obviously, to the npc's (and to anyone else that sees me wearing a dalamund horn) it doesn't feel like it. Part of this game, part of any mmorpg, part of the story is what the npc's tell you and the cutscenes. The other part is your adventure with the people you're with. FFXIV was initial designed so you can make your own adventure stories. So we can't simply say "because other's can't see our failures, they don't exist."
2) If they don't allow us to be at the right place at the right time, the truth is we would never become a drg or whm or blm or any of the other jobs. The whole server would have 1 whm, 1 drg, 1 blm, etc. Which, while realistic, makes for a poor experience for the players that are not the whm, drg, blm, etc.
3) Above all. a person in right place at the right time and doesn't fail. That really almost describes every story (book, movie, song, etc) in the world. I highly doubt that you feel almost every story is shallow and contrived. And while I can see why this seems too convenient to be believable, the truth is, for most of these stories, if the right person didn't appear at the right place at the right time, there would have been no story to tell, no game to play.

But again, my point isn't that you should feel immersed. But that the job system, isn't the cause of it. It's just an imperfect system for an imperfect virtual world that we call Eorzea.

But I respect your opinions.

I appreciate it. But I would like to ask, if possible, that such common ideals like time be not dismissed so easily next time. It is a bit disheartening for someone to say that just because the time you personally spent doesn't make it into the written lore of the permanent world, that it doesn't exist. And hence, time didn't happen. I can understand how it can be perceived to be that way. But that would be the fault of the perceiver, not that world.

I will leave on this note. I believe the game you're looking for doesn't exist yet. Not the least because the technology doesn't exist. But also, as it stands very few people would play the game. A game of missed opportunities, singular focus, lack of perfection. There's only 2 games I know of that has that and can handle it. And neither of them are online. They are, unfortunately, japanese *ahem* "dating sims" *ahem* (if you know what I mean by "dating sims") and life itself. Lastly, It was not, nor was it ever my goal to say that immersion was bad or there's enough to be immersed. That's up to the individual. But it would be faulty logic to pin lack of realism on something that a) can be achieved in the real world, albeit at a different rate due to the time rate difference different physics. b) was created to place order in an unrealistic world.