How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Armoury System

[Anonymoose]

I'm just going to bookmark this and link it every time I see someone say:

• Shouldn't we just get rid of classes and only have jobs?
• The class system in this game is too complicated.
• I'd like to join ARR, but this system turns me off.
• What's the freaking difference, anyway?
• I'm shortsighted and in need of guidance, Master Moose.

Okay, so maybe that last one is pretty rare, but I'm sick of seeing the rest.

In short, no we shouldn't, it's complicated but not overly so, the difference is enough that you should care, and I'd be delighted, so gather round the campfire, and listen to the tale of how I learned to stop worrying and love the Armoury System.

Take a deep breath, pretend you've never heard of how your roles are organized in FFXIV, and move ahead with an open, but analytical mind. As a fellow MMO player, I realize that this may be a challenge for you. Perhaps start with a cup of Celestial Seasonings and a beta blocker. Of course I'll update this if you come up with something better.

What's the difference, and why should I care?
Generally:

• Classes: Ability-based; loose, custom-built roles for general, low-intensity activities
  • What you use to get EXP, farm items, etc.
    
• Jobs: Activity-based; restrictive, cookie-cutter roles for specific, demanding activities
  • What you activate as needed (NO SEPARATE EXP GRIND)
    

What does this mean for you? On classes, you will have access to most of the abilities you've unlocked on every class. This means your EXP party doesn't have to conform to too-specific of a set-up just to blow through trash mobs, leves, and sidequests. It means that, while you're solo, you won't have to be subject to all of your job's biggest weaknesses for the benefit of having access to party-saving heavy-hitters you won't be using anyway. And unless you're soloing around an area that's your own level or higher, it won't make much difference anyway. Have fun.

If you've ever played FFXI, you know the pain of having to wait around for hours to get the "acceptable" cookie-cutter set-up to come together just to grind out some mass calibri genocide. You know the annoyance of trying to farm on white mage just because you don't want to go back to your mog house and rearrange all your inventory to make use of something you don't play very often. You know the liability of bringing your job's biggest weaknesses down to Kuftal Tunnel to grind out yet another thousand crabs in a row. Kiss those days goodbye.

But what about when you don't need a healer class to be able to deal a little damage or take a punch like a man for once in their father-disappointing lives!? What about when the tank is getting hit hard enough to bleed all that hate right to the floor? It's time to break those cookie cutters back out and dominate using your specialized jobs, which is what you'll be doing in most group-events anyway.

Potentially, this means double the storyline, double the content, more immersion, and a metric behemoth-load of customization (more in the later levels). Every mage is a red mage when you're using classes. Learn to enjoy your options. It's not like it's hard to manage once you know what you're doing - so what "simplicity" do you have to gain by limiting your behavior so harshly in exchange?

How do I plan my development if it's so complicated?

I can see you've yet to play the game, and I'm glad you're going to give it a shot. You will be, too. You don't need to plan much of anything. The game's not going to make you branch out into a tree and choose one ability over another - your only limits are your time and motivation. Max out that class/job you really love, and then head back to tackle just enough levels on other classes to achieve what singular abilities you want to add to your repertoire. Hell, get them all. EXP is meant to come faster in this game - sinking time into just the grind it takes to be able to play while SE prints and distributes new content disks to your local Electronics Boutique is so old school that it owes Rhalgr a dollar. There's going to be plenty to do once you're maxed out.

[Alaltus]

I agree but It'll be down to SE to make the system truely customizable and not 1 size fits all like it has been so far. Chocobo companions will also effect all of this since they are soloing/low man aides.

[Mjollnir]

*cough* Loremonger: Lominsan Story Arc *cough*

[Anonymoose]

I agree but It'll be down to SE to make the system truely customizable and not 1 size fits all like it has been so far. Chocobo companions will also effect all of this since they are soloing/low man aides.

Yeah; the ones kind of a double-sided issue. Levels 1 to 20ish should always be kind of a generic "hit mob, don't die" platform that shows you the basic feel of the "If X then Y" of the game - but I've also seen a lot of players like, "I've played 1 to 10 on all jobs and they feel exactly the same. This game is going to fail," which is just... The Twelve can't even create a face and palm of the necessary caliber.

I'm also looking forward to the chocobo buddies. The FFXI NPC Linkpearl was a neat system and I get the impression that the chocobos are going to be very similar, which is great news because my path companion in 1.X was basically the story arc equivalent of the Sassy Gay Friend stock character trope.

"This Echo has revealed that it was Flame Colonel Mustard in the Gladiator Guild with a giant donko!"
"OH, NO HE DI'INT."
"I do believe the jig is up, Colonel!"
"AND YOUR MOTHER'S A THREE-LEGGED DODO."

*cough* Loremonger: Lominsan Story Arc *cough*

Fernehalwes has confirmed that some overdue lore forum replies are in production and will surface after some insanely busy work at SEHQ allows them some wiggle room for such things. I've decided to hold off from main entries until that point - but I promise, I've been building up my army of raw transcripts. Ul'dah and Gridania are already about 75% done.

[Mjollnir]

Fernehalwes has confirmed that some overdue lore forum replies are in production and will surface after some insanely busy work at SEHQ allows them some wiggle room for such things. I've decided to hold off from main entries until that point - but I promise, I've been building up my army of raw transcripts. Ul'dah and Gridania are already about 75% done.

Looking forward to the read Mr. Moose!

[KiriA500]

The armory system is still super broken, but it gets the job done.

Ability-based; loose, custom-built roles for general, low-intensity activities

This is actually the reason I dislike it so much. In theory, this should be pretty rad, letting players pick 10 skills they want to customize their class to how they want to play it. However, with the way the system actually works, everyone just picks the same skill because of how restrictive it is. There are only a handful of useful skill useable from other classes, and everyone is going to just use those, thus making the classes cookie-cutter in the process.

I've learned to just accept that this is how the game is going to function, and that's fine...but I truly dislike the Armory system.

[Anonymoose]

In theory, this should be pretty rad, letting players pick 10 skills they want to customize their class to how they want to play it. However, with the way the system actually works, everyone just picks the same skill because of how restrictive it is. There are only a handful of useful skill useable from other classes, and everyone is going to just use those, thus making the classes cookie-cutter in the process.

I don't actually disagree with you at all as pertains to this day at this time. The main reason I oft use the term short-sighted in reply to anti-armoury sentiments is because I'm confident that once we see LV50+ content with more than 7 basic classes, we'll see a huge reduction in this issue, at the very least on an event basis whereby knowing the right set for that fight is part of the skill. To get rid of the system in these simple skeleton days would be to limit it beyond this forever in some ways, whereas Team Yoshida would have to mess up uncharacteristically bad to not have it leaf out into something great.

I'm not going to say I've agreed with every move they've made, but I will say that every time I've seen potential that wasn't being used, they've made a huge effort to realize it, if only by laying the foundations required to build it up right as time goes on.

"wait wha!? this topic... you are so going to my ignore..."
"oh... Professor Master Moose!?"
"...isn't... general discussion..."

Moose... -eli, com- ...Repeat Mo- t... y--- breaking up, over.

The main thing I wish they would have done differently is not tie down classes to only a single weapon.

I honestly have no idea where they're going with this, so I can barely comment. From the list of proposed classes I've seen in the past compared to the number of available jobs in the FF Catalog, I think they could pull off the 1:1 relationship if they wanted to, but sometimes it seems like they're leaving the door open for something. Who knows?

The big thing here is that, like Kiri's point about the current skills shows, some options really are pointless at times. The community will, 9 times out of 10, adopt the belief that the optimal option is the only legitimate option and everything else is gimp. You've seen this forum. "Go big or go home; you're the best of you're a failure. I need to win so bad that it sort of looks like I'm overcompensating for losing being my natural state." (Thank you, Cracked.)

Aside from the occasional Samurai whipping out a polearm for a bird party or a kiting Paladin swapping to a DEF staff, there really wasn't all that much reason to swap weapons around without getting yelled at in FFXI. Sure, you could be a Paladin with a great sword... but why? How much did we really take advantage of that freedom compared to how likely are we to take advantage of the cross-class skills sans sub-job system? Most other considerations can be filed away as semantics. "Oh, no no. Thieves use daggers. This Dancer is clearly wielding an anlace."

Still, like I said, who knows where they'll go. Not this guy.

[Xeia]

Aside from the occasional Samurai whipping out a polearm for a bird party or a kiting Paladin swapping to a DEF staff, there really wasn't all that much reason to swap weapons around without getting yelled at in FFXI. Sure, you could be a Paladin with a great sword... but why? How much did we really take advantage of that freedom compared to how likely are we to take advantage of the cross-class skills sans sub-job system?

This, exactly this. While I understand that people want to be able to choose between a scythe and a greatsword on their Dark Knight, there's still going to be a "best weapon" for the class/job -- and I don't just mean weapon type. I mean that if Ifrit drops a GS and Garuda drops a scythe and the relic is a GS, then you're more than likely going to be using a GS if you've only beat Ifrit, a scythe if you're strong enough to farm Garuda, and a GS again if you've put effort into the relic. The extra "freedom" you get is sort of irrelevant.

In fact, it's so irrelevant that we actually already have it and people continue to complain that we don't. Gladiator can wield longswords or daggers, both mages can go for what XI would have called a club or a staff, all depending on the preference of the player -- and the differences are reflected in the stats, like they are in other games. Daggers do less damage, but hit quicker. Clubs are less powerful but give you the advantage of being able to equip a shield, etc. So there's no reason to assume that when we see Dark Knight we won't see both weapon types implemented, though of course there's no guarantee we will either.

Most other considerations can be filed away as semantics. "Oh, no no. Thieves use daggers. This Dancer is clearly wielding an anlace."

Again, this is a concern I hear voiced a lot, but one we've already seen a solution to -- in precisely the way you described -- regarding the two mages. They both look like they wield staves and clubs to me, but nonono, you see only thaumaturges get staves and those clubs are actually scepters. The conjurers get radicals and wands instead.

Really, the only difference between this and XI's system as far as weapons are concerned is that I can't use the same individual weapon on multiple classes, and with the gear set system taking those extra weapons out of our inventories, I don't see this as a big issue at all.

---

Gear sets are also going to remedy what, for me, had been the only thing making classes less useful in 1.0 -- artifact gear. We all know that, after hitting level 50, AF gear is the easiest decent gear to obtain (since you basically get it incidentally on your way to your level 50 skill). So I'd toss my level 45 gear cuz it wasn't as good and I don't have that kind of inventory space, but since the AF was job only that meant my corresponding class was naked until I got around to farming better gear.

But if we're getting a gear set for each class in addition to each job then I'll be fully gearing my classes and using them often for sure. Might even invest in some of the class-specific gear that previously felt like a waste of inventory slots to me. :P

<3 Armory forever.

[Reynhart]

This is actually the reason I dislike it so much. In theory, this should be pretty rad, letting players pick 10 skills they want to customize their class to how they want to play it.

Technically, we shouldn't be able to pick "weapon skills" outside our main weapon (And sub weapon for shield).

As for the other skills, we can pick almost any skill we want providing it hasn't specifically designed "Exclusive", so you can customize all you want. It's not SE's fault is some skills are far more usefull than others (Healing, anyone ?)

[Deli]

"wait wha!? this topic... you are so going to my ignore..."
"oh... Professor Master Moose!?"
"...isn't... general discussion..."


come to think about it... soon we'll be merge to the Nono place :O>