Augury's spin on the Job System

[Augury]

So, looking through alot of the threads involved with this subject I came up with an idea which I've smoothed out quite a bit more than I originally thought I would... The concept is both simplistic and careful of the game's structure and dynamic.

My thought is that the Armory system should belong to the job known as "Freelancer", which the player occupies until completion of the quest "Fade to White", after which the player unlocks a job sephiroth (much like the one seen in Final Fantasy tactics, but a little more... open from the beginning).

For those of you unfamiliar to the sephiroth (and not the villain of one of the worst FF games)...
http://www.brad.ac.uk/webofhiram/img/30sephiroth.jpg

For those of you unfamiliar with the Final Fantasy Tactics sephiroth of jobs...
http://squarehaven.com/games/PS-Port.../flowchart.png

The point? Using a very simplistic flow-chart of jobs to show how they all develop from the Squire/Chemist/Freelancer (a hallmark of FF3). The Freelancer job's trademark is the armory system- the ability to change it's play based on the weapon/tool held, and capable of combining several disciplines in fantastic ways. If the player becomes an exceptional disciple of both War and Magic, the player unlocks the hidden job: Onion Knight, which performs like a Freelancer- save that they get bonuses for both Disciplines of War and Magic. Other than Onion Knight,however, the game should not have jobs which must be unlocked by anything other than quest.

Other jobs however- are not reliant on their weapon choice to define their behavior...

The initial jobs:
-Monk: Disciplines of War and skills which are themed around a complex understanding of anatomy, physiology and spiritual energies
-Berserker: Disciplines of War and skills which are themed around making their user an absolute bulkwark or a devastating physical force
-Templar: Disciplines of War and skills which revolve around survival and indirectly punishing opposition
-Dragoon: Disciplines of War and skills such as elemental breaths, screams, jumps etc. the key elemental abuse melee job
-Thief: Disciplines of War and skills which revolve around the theme of "chaos". disorienting opponents, creating abnormal status conditions, lowering their accuracy and attack etc
-Hunter: Disciplines of War and traps and skills which buff the effects of battling with knives or bows, rewarding clever play

-Devout: Disciplines of Magic and powerful "over time" spells
-Magus: Disciplines of Magic and spells which require casting times, but hit instantly
-Summoner: The "pet" job. Disciplines of Magic and several ways of "blessing" the pet, and allied players
-Dark Knight: Disciplines of Magic and skills which revolve around increasing both physical and magical damage at the cost of HP/Defense etc

And that's a basic look at it, I think the Armory system is the perfect substitute of the "sub-job system", and should remain a major part of the game, and contribute to all players. But I also think it should be optional to master or only use Armory classes. I found that FF3's job system looks best if you remove the tiered jobs from it. I also think this concept leaves a great deal more room for expansion. Though, I would like the single limitation to be that job development happens separately from story development, so that there aren't "LvX" jobs, just simply that everything is available to begin undertaking after "Fade to White" with no limitations before undertaking a later story quest

[BelgianRofl]

When do u unlock the Wakka class?

[Augury]

When you spam Ul'Dah, make a video of you being in jail and then spend 3 months trolling the forum, ofcourse!

[Sojiro]

When you spam Ul'Dah, make a video of you being in jail and then spend 3 months trolling the forum, ofcourse!

You forgot setting a date when a slew of single player games come out that you state will make you quit this game over, and leave it's forums, but then come back a couple weeks later.

[Cairdeas]

You forgot setting a date when a slew of single player games come out that you state will make you quit this game over, and leave it's forums, but then come back a couple weeks later.

*coughdayscough*

[Captaindownsyndrome]

You forgot setting a date when a slew of single player games come out that you state will make you quit this game over, and leave it's forums, but then come back a couple weeks later.

and you forgot add that he thought we were all going with him

p.s augury that was good read ty

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

Going a tactics direction I think is not far off from what would actually happen.

You have to count the lore that is already in place, but as far as the classes go, that story for them stops midway through their ranks. I think the best way to go about this is edit what is already in place (their abilities, spells, weapon skills, ect) and include these advanced "jobs" in with that lore in some way.

Red Mage for instance could be mages who were excommunicated from the Thaumaturge's guild. Thieves could be a bandits from the Pugilist's guild who turned to daggers and dropped their hand-to-hand weapons.

Cutting out all of the lore around the guilds changes so much of what already exists. Not only with those specific roles, but the overall story too. Having the classes as base classes then cutting them off and having them grow into an advanced job sounds like a good way to go about this and includes your suggestion.

[Augury]

Well, whether there is a leveling system or not, post-Fade to White is a good place to start exploring outside of the armory system, and it could be quite flavorful without disrupting the armory guilds already in place. Let's say that the non-Freelancer jobs can still learn Armory skills within their discipline, so as a Monk I seek to upgrade my Haymaker- and I've completed several tasks for the Pugilist's guild- why shouldn't I be able to learn Haymaker? Actually- I was thinking that the job-system could be something which links the player to the game's syndications (The Path etc), to change the player from a simple adventurer into a powerful soldier, capable of challenging Garlean units.

[Augury]

Now now, enough of that :P On with the discussion! (Plus we all know BelgianRofl would make a better Wakka than any of us )

[Eldaena]

It sounds wonderful, but so does any expansion of the armory system. >.< I think something with FFT style classes/jobs makes a lot of sense. I would think it would work kind of like: rank up set amount of classes to pre determined rank > unlock quest to become a new job > complete quest and gain access to said job.

An loose example would be like: Requirement to unlock Arcanist Quest would be rank 30 Conjurer and rank 30 Thaumaturge. Then you complete that quest in order to unlock the Arcanist class for you to use. (Or maybe a series of quests. ^-^)