I sort of wish players could only choose one job.

[KyahAlmasy]

We could swing this the other way though in terms of immersion.

In real life, I have many talents.
I'm a wizard in the kitchen, you name it I can bake it.
I can ride horses, play instruments and even a mean game of tennis.

Why does it ruin immersion to have many talents ingame too? o_o.
It would suck if my life was defined by one of the things I do well, hell I'd be stuck in the kitchen forever. (inb4 sexist 'well you shouldn't be out of it jokes' lol)

If anything I find it flattering to your character's prowess if they can master many things without being forced into one little pidgeonhole D:

As for changing hats or whatever and suddenly having a different skillset:

Do you ride horses with scuba gear on?

Do you bake cookies while wearing plate armor? D:

Dressing for the occasion never hurt !

I think I start to feel a little disconnected to FFXIV when my tank changes out of his plated armor and into a dress. And if we are going to split hairs let me point out that learning how to bake, play tennis, and ride horses aren't exactly difficult things to learn in comparison to what our characters endure to level a job. I can say this because I actually work in a Bakery, my mother owns horses, and I played tennis in high school.

I mean, how likely is it to meet someone who is an expert at everything? Because that's exactly what our characters in FFXIV are made out to be. If I were to try to make a correlation in real life, it would be like someone attending college and getting a masters degree in everything. Is it cool to play a character who excels in everything? Definitely! Realistic? I don't think so.


It's this that ruins my immersion, when I was playing FXIV I felt like I could actually feel reality warping to suit the needs, desires, and actions of my character when she began to quest for a new job. Is tjis job restricted only to the best, to a certain gender, or to a certain type of person? Regardless, my character was will be able to get in, on account of her incredible skills/communication, etc. My character is the only one who is able to fix things, because the things get fixed in response to her.

It is like challenges of taking on that job to the typical person in the game has a 'blurry' sense, as if it has been shunted aside, like experience, central themes, etc. in favor of the character. I mean, we often do we see NPCs change their job entirely with little to nothing suggesting that they had any experience with it. It's as if... oh, something doesn't really exist until we come in contact with it. It's gotten to the point that our character could go into a field and grab a cup and a box of cookies, yet you really had no idea they were there, til she makes them appear. Is it likely that these things may have occurred to a character in that world for one of these jobs, probably. All of them? I highly doubt it.

Essentially, our characters have been molded into "Mary-sues" who are always in the right place at the right time. I would rather play a character who took on a realistic amount of challenges, with reasonable difficulty so that when I finally achieved my goal I would really feel like I've earned it. Not like it was handed to me with little effort on my part to cater to convenience.

Even in FFXIV the NPC's are shocked at how our character seems to innately pick up a job with such ease, despite how their background would suggest that they spent their entire life training and working to get where our characters are in only a few days. And I want to remind you that I'm not going trying to say that you're wrong, or that my opinion is somehow better, I'm merely pointing out why I feel the way I do.

[Kallera]

I think I start to feel a little disconnected to FFXIV when my tank changes out of his plated armor and into a dress. And if we are going to split hairs let me point out that learning how to bake, play tennis, and ride horses aren't exactly difficult things to learn in comparison to what our characters endure to level a job. I can say this because I actually work in a Bakery, my mother owns horses, and I played tennis in high school.

I mean, how likely is it to meet someone who is an expert at everything? Because that's exactly what our characters in FFXIV are made out to be. If I were to try to make a correlation in real life, it would be like someone attending college and getting a masters degree in everything. Is it cool to play a character who excels in everything? Definitely! Realistic? I don't think so.


It's this that ruins my immersion, when I was playing FXIV I felt like I could actually feel reality warping to suit the needs, desires, and actions of my character. Is a certain job restricted only to the best, to a certain gender, or to a certain type of person? Regardless, my character was will be able to get in, on account of her incredible skills/communication, etc. My character is the only one who is able to fix things, because the things get fixed in response to her. It is like challenges of taking on that job to the typical person in the game has a 'blurry' sense, as if it has been shunted aside, like experience, central themes, etc. in favor of the character. It's as if... oh, something doesn't really exist until we come in contact with it. It's gotten to the point that our character could go into a field and grab a cup and a box of cookies, yet you really had no idea they were there, til she makes them appear. Is it likely that these things may have occurred to a character in that world for one of these jobs, probably. All of them? I highly doubt it.

Essentially, our characters have been molded into "Mary-sues" who are always in the right place at the right time. I would rather play a character who took on a realistic amount of challenges, with reasonable difficulty so that when I finally achieved my goal I would really feel like I've earned it. Not like it was handed to me with little effort on my part. For example: The Sue goes into the kitchen and grabs a cup and a box of cookies, yet you really had no idea that she was in a room, in a house, in a place with access to cookies til she makes them appear.

Even in FFXIV the NPC's are shocked at how our character seems to innately pick up a job with such ease, despite how their background would suggest that they spent their entire life training and working to get where our characters are in only a few days. And I want to remind you that I'm not going trying to say that you're wrong, or that my opinion is somehow better, I'm merely pointing out why I feel the way I do.

No one is forcing you to help others or be helpful in turn with the way things are now. But instead you want to force uselessness on everyone else. Unless you are going to pad out the exp bar to absurd levels, of course it won't resemble the skill progression of real life. But only time and effort keep you from getting better at a task. Or do you want aging to occur in game too?

[LlenCoram]

I think I start to feel a little disconnected to FFXIV when my tank changes out of his plated armor and into a dress. And if we are going to split hairs let me point out that learning how to bake, play tennis, and ride horses aren't exactly difficult things to learn in comparison to what our characters endure to level a job. I can say this because I actually work in a Bakery, my mother owns horses, and I played tennis in high school.

I mean, how likely is it to meet someone who is an expert at everything? Because that's exactly what our characters in FFXIV are made out to be. If I were to try to make a correlation in real life, it would be like someone attending college and getting a masters degree in everything. Is it cool to play a character who excels in everything? Definitely! Realistic? I don't think so.


It's this that ruins my immersion, when I was playing FXIV I felt like I could actually feel reality warping to suit the needs, desires, and actions of my character when she began to quest for a new job. Is tjis job restricted only to the best, to a certain gender, or to a certain type of person? Regardless, my character was will be able to get in, on account of her incredible skills/communication, etc. My character is the only one who is able to fix things, because the things get fixed in response to her.

It is like challenges of taking on that job to the typical person in the game has a 'blurry' sense, as if it has been shunted aside, like experience, central themes, etc. in favor of the character. I mean, we often do we see NPCs change their job entirely with little to nothing suggesting that they had any experience with it. It's as if... oh, something doesn't really exist until we come in contact with it. It's gotten to the point that our character could go into a field and grab a cup and a box of cookies, yet you really had no idea they were there, til she makes them appear. Is it likely that these things may have occurred to a character in that world for one of these jobs, probably. All of them? I highly doubt it.

Essentially, our characters have been molded into "Mary-sues" who are always in the right place at the right time. I would rather play a character who took on a realistic amount of challenges, with reasonable difficulty so that when I finally achieved my goal I would really feel like I've earned it. Not like it was handed to me with little effort on my part to cater to convenience.

Even in FFXIV the NPC's are shocked at how our character seems to innately pick up a job with such ease, despite how their background would suggest that they spent their entire life training and working to get where our characters are in only a few days. And I want to remind you that I'm not going trying to say that you're wrong, or that my opinion is somehow better, I'm merely pointing out why I feel the way I do.

What you want is easily achieved in the game now. Very simply, don't play other classes. Make your character, choose a class, and only play that one class. Done. That way you get your prefered way to play, and you don't gimp the rest of us into playing YOUR version of the game.

I'm sure you'll argue that it's impossible to only play one class, but it's really not. Some will ask you to play a certain class, others will require it, but who cares. Play the game your way. In return, let us play the game our way.

[KyahAlmasy]

What you want is easily achieved in the game now. Very simply, don't play other classes. Make your character, choose a class, and only play that one class. Done. That way you get your prefered way to play, and you don't gimp the rest of us into playing YOUR version of the game.

I'm sure you'll argue that it's impossible to only play one class, but it's really not. Some will ask you to play a certain class, others will require it, but who cares. Play the game your way. In return, let us play the game our way.

I don't want the game to change! I want others to enjoy the game too. This is just me explaining why some of the elements of multiple jobs is distasteful to me. I enjoy having conversations and hearing the opinions of others on this type of stuff! And it's not like we have much else to do while we wait for the beta! :3

And you're right, technically it's not impossible. But if I decided not to join a party every time they wanted me to change a job I wouldn't be doing much playing at all. It's delusional to simply do it for my own sake and ignore the reality of the game. I've swallowed that bitter pill a long time ago.

[Laume]

I mean, how likely is it to meet someone who is an expert at everything? Because that's exactly what our characters in FFXIV are made out to be. If I were to try to make a correlation in real life, it would be like someone attending college and getting a masters degree in everything. Is it cool to play a character who excels in everything? Definitely! Realistic? I don't think so.

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.

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.

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/her 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.

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.".

[lucytestarossa]

easy solution!! u don't like the game mechanic, then don't play. you hate eating greens then eat fruits. no one is point a gun to your head and say you must play ff14.

[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.

[Ruisu]

I could change my role at my own free will in FFIII and V. Not to mention dresspheres in FFX-2. There was no limit to how many job you can grind out.

Stop using that "IT DETRACTS FROM A FINAL FANTASY" argument, because it doesn't work.

[Jeronlmo]

Well, the idea is that when one player has one job that they main and wish to progress with, that their position in the party "feels" important and needed to the party. A sensation that is rather mild when the white mage next to you possesses better DD gear for your class than you do. I guess, in a sense I relate defining a character by their job directly to Final Fantasy. Which strikes those nostalgic cords along my heart.

I personally wouldn't think the idea of leveling a new character would prove too daunting for me to not consider it. Druids could actually be a good example of what I'm trying to say, actually. When I played WoW, I mained a Priest. I loved her, from her arsenal of diverse healing spells to the way her armor looked. But Druids were always so captivating as well, the idea of shifting form to whatever circumstance was such a different change of pace. And though I wasn't thrilled about having to go through that grueling leveling process, I knew the hard work would all be worth it in the end.

I like to believe the harder you work for something, the greater significance it has. I marveled at Druid players because of all the spells and hard work they went through to get to that point. The same applies to jobs in a sense, if we had to work harder for them they'd hold a heavier bearing and more respect as a job. On this game its so easy to level that I hardly ever bated an eye when someone told me they capped out another job.

Its to late to read more of this thread but your problem seems to be 100% with the leveling curve, not the job system in any way, in "old school" mmo's like ff11 hitting cap level used to take a month, even early wow uses to take awile, now wow take about 3days (I did it). Early FF14 if you played alot used to take about a month aswell until people cried to much, then chains and mass mrd burns (which yoshi/devs literally said it was okay to exploit).

People for some reason now see leveling as a chore in games instead of part of the experience. Just like FF11 has turned into a game where you can hit lvl99 in a single day of playing, so will FF14 sooner or later, just learn to live with it like the rest of us "minorities", sooner or later MMO's will revert to what they began as... level-less.