Class Reforms (11/11/2011)

[Kurokikaze]

Changes sound fantastic. Liking the whole streamlining and limiting of cross-class action use. Some are gonna cry and call it a nerf but this has been a loooooong time coming.

[Hyan]

Well so far there is little crying. Mostly people are concerned what's gonna happen to visual effects (scale with potency or not?).

Of course the baww'ing might set in only after 1.20.

[Woozer]

Well, so far it seems everyone is ok with the changes, or can at least talk about them reasonably. The only people I've seen that are against the changes are like reeeeeeeally against the changes. I'm concerned about what they plan to do with the visuals and other aspects as well, but everyone is just making wild assumptions right now. I was expecting an action/ability equip overhaul since forever, and I trust Yoshida to do a good job with it all. I'm more interested in seeing the class specific changes already, dammit! >..<

[Elcura]

Changes sound fantastic. Liking the whole streamlining and limiting of cross-class action use. Some are gonna cry and call it a nerf but this has been a loooooong time coming.

Change is harder for some than others. I'm looking forward to it, but no doubt the official forums will be full of bitching.

[Jamison]

I like this a lot.

First, as so many abilities are being redesigned and reassigned, it's really impossible to say (yet) how things are going to play out. We can only speculate with limited accuracy based on how things are now.

I'd been hoping for a long time that they'd do a system where you get access to everything from your current class, and a have a more limited pool to pick from cross-class, and this seems just about perfect. 15 native actions and 10 from cross-class seems pretty good, I may actually be a little surprised that they are going to allow 10. It will be interesting to see how potent those will turn out to be. And, keeping in mind, a lot of that may be turned moot (in terms of endgame stuffs) after the job system.

Also, I'm glad tiers are going away. With the exception of cures, they are quite unnecessary. Depending on how current traits translate in to the new system, I see a lot of people feeling butthurt about not having things they are used to from other classes.

[blindSharingan]

Combo system sounds pretty cool. I'm just hoping that with the ability teaks that some of the less stellar abilities/weaponskills are made more appealing/useful if we're going to be forced to have them equipped.

[Lucavi]

A little adopted from WoW and a little adopted from AoC. Very good all around. Look forward to seeing the changes in action.

[TacoTaru]

The abolishment of tiers has me worried the most, especially in concerns to cures. I hope it's like someone suggested where they just add more ways to cure (Cure/a/aga) or else riding one cure timer for 8 people is going to be incredibly frustrating. Also considering how much cures cost MP wise, there's a big difference between Cure II and III costs and I hope that's scaled back a bit if it comes down to being limited to only one cure.

It sounds great though other than worrying about cure. Fifteen abilities seems kind of low though, are there really only 15 per class when you take out tiers or are we looking at losing a few abilities on each class in favor of future classes/jobs?

[Croy]

I like the changes all around, but the one thing I'm a bit worried about is how this new system will stunt growth. If actions and traits for you class/job are automatically added to the bar and you are already essentially filling it up when at lvl 50 by the time jobs come into play, what room do you have to implement new skills and level caps? Also although we are seem to be losing a lot of abilities/spells with these changes (Condensing the mage spells/abilities down to 30 since there is only 2 mage classes is going to be tough...) they are also adding what looks like a shit load more traits. Going to be interesting to see what those traits are going to add to the scheme of balance.

[Grey Jorildyn]

Oh OK, so they're removing the pseudo-openendedness of the game that was a mirage all along because they finally realized they can't balance it and it was bullshit anyway. Gee, I've been saying they should do that all along... way to go SE.

[TacoTaru]

Going back over the ability lists for CNJ, you learn 15 unique abilities by the time you hit level 10. Looks like in total there are 45 unique abilities (including each elemental spell, ancient magic spell and each elemental DoT). If they cut ele-DoT and just make the nuke itself give a DoT, they could get it down to 33. That being said there are a lot of traits and stuff in th ere I wouldn't even notice if it was gone like a Nature's Fury and Elemental Shroud as well as a couple abilities, but I'll be interested to see what they cut out entirely. I hope they give us a comprehensive list of what's getting scrapped and what isn't.

Actually just checked it on each class. If you take out tiers it looks like CNJ will lose 30 abilities, THM will lose 20, ARC will lose 10, GLA and LNC lose 6, MRD and PGL lose 4.

[Spider-Dan]

For DoW abilities, the removal of tiers isn't a big deal, as there's no reason to use anything but your best tier at all times (since all tiers share a recast).

For cures, this is pretty significant. It looks like it will be impossible for a 50THM to cast the equivalent of Sac2, which seems like a huge nerf; you don't always want to cast your biggest cure. And what are healers supposed to do in situations where enmity control is important?

I am disappointed that they appear to be throwing out the baby with the bathwater on cross-classing. I thought the whole point of introducing jobs was to placate all the people who were complaining about everybody being able to do everything? If you are going to introduce jobs and effectively obsolete classes for party play anyway, why cripple classes right before you do it?

I just don't see the need for removing the ability point system AND heavy "adjustment" of cross-class abilities at the same time. It feels like piling on.

edit: Although, on the bright side, no more leveling a subclass to 40ish for higher-tier [x], as the ability scales on your current level, not the level of the class you got it from.

[Jamison]

I really don't think this is an elimination of the cross-class concept... 10 out of 25 abilities from other classes may still be fairly significant. And, if you don't have to necessarily take the cross-class to 50, it may not be too hard to get some good and useful skills going there. I *like* that there's a limit on how much can be cross-classed, and IMO it isn't too excessive of a limitation.

As said by many people, cure spells need to be accounted for. I highly doubt they'll let that one slip through the cracks, so hopefully we'll see how they intend to address that soon. Otherwise, the elimination of tiers is a positive concept. (Actually, I wouldn't mind it if abilities were automatically upgraded at a specific learned level instead of constantly scaling, but ultimately it doesn't matter all that much).

I think we're all going to be surprised at the overhaul to traits. With 11 of them, my prediction is that many things that were previously part of an ability or WS will become part of a trait instead.

At a very quick glance, LNC seems to have about 20 unique abilities. Moving some things to traits and streamlining others to 15 doesn't seem too much a stretch. This gets a good deal harder with the mage classes, though.

[Spider-Dan]

I guess it goes without saying that if all traits are now class-exclusive, the traits for STR<->INT (etc) will either need to be moved around or be completely eliminated.

It was always stupid that you needed to level up a mage and get mage marks to buy a anti-mage trait that helps melee jobs. But whatever.

[Takiwaki]

These changes makes me happy, finally something interesting about the actual game play mechanics and job changes. I might actually play after this update to see if its any fun.

[Lucavi]

For DoW abilities, the removal of tiers isn't a big deal, as there's no reason to use anything but your best tier at all times (since all tiers share a recast).

For cures, this is pretty significant. It looks like it will be impossible for a 50THM to cast the equivalent of Sac2, which seems like a huge nerf; you don't always want to cast your biggest cure. And what are healers supposed to do in situations where enmity control is important?

Its a pretty easy fix if they get around to making more cures. Standard cure that heals a standard amount with a standard cast time and a standard amount of hate. Fast cure that heals a little bit but casts quickly and barely builds hate. Big cure that has a long cast, cures a lot and builds moderate hate. Big cure that heals a ton with a near-instant cast time and a metric ton of hate.

If they're going to pull from other game's models, like WoW, they should go all out and pull from how they actually handle curing and damage dealing. Yes, having a single, solitary cure for a healing class that always works the same and simply grows stronger and costs more as you level is a bad idea, but having 3-4 cures with varying degrees is an easy fix and still won't clutter up your UI.

[Fallyn]

Maybe the cures will cost MP/hate dependant on how much it heals, as well as the class level?

For example;
if you use the non-teir'd "cure" and cure for 1000, get X much hate, make it cost X mana (let's say 100 for simple sake)
if you cure for 80, get proportionate hate cut, and mp cost to 25 (or some low base number)

[Spider-Dan]

Its a pretty easy fix if they get around to making more cures. Standard cure that heals a standard amount with a standard cast time and a standard amount of hate. Fast cure that heals a little bit but casts quickly and barely builds hate. Big cure that has a long cast, cures a lot and builds moderate hate. Big cure that heals a ton with a near-instant cast time and a metric ton of hate.

Right, but this system already existed: you basically described standard FF tiered cures.

Maybe the cures will cost MP/hate dependant on how much it heals, as well as the class level?

For example;
if you use the non-teir'd "cure" and cure for 1000, get X much hate, make it cost X mana (let's say 100 for simple sake)
if you cure for 80, get proportionate hate cut, and mp cost to 25 (or some low base number)

If bigger heals consume proportionate MP, that pretty much kills most of the point of +Healing Potency gear (other than raw heal speed).

[Lucavi]

Not really, SD. I don't remember any FF having a cure with a half-second cast time that cured decidedly less than a standard, scaling cure. I don't remember an instant cure that cures a ton (not on a 2-hour timer), but provides a large spike of hate. You're making it sound like there aren't any differences between XI's method of healing and WoW's method of healing, and there are massive differences. Lets not even factor in being able to move while healing, being able to "throw" heals at a target instantly, being able to stack heals to only go off when a target is attacked, ect.

If you break it down to "well, they both heal", then yes, they're similar, but the similarities end there.

[miokomioko]

I am looking forward to this even though it's probably going to feel like playing a different game... for the third time. I welcome all nerfs intended to bring balance.