[Speculation]Job Systems

[Alisha]

i think the game could end up similar to monster hunter. with some kind of different take on MH's weapon upgrade trees perhaps with abilities and traits bound to weapons. wich would mean you would to spend time as say a warrior until your great sword eventually became a katana then you would be a samurai.

[Maguspk]

With the new scans that have surfaced I'm fairly certain the job system will be a little more restrictive than people may have anticipated.

With crafter being included as a Class, I can't help but think classes are the dynamic changes and the subclasses within the class are going to develop and me, a majority of the time, static. For example, you can switch between Sorcerer class and Crafter class, but your sorcerer may have developed into a Black Mage whereas your crafter class developed into a Smither. This is the only way i can see it, otherwise you open the can of worms of one character leveling all the craft skills which they try to avoid obviously.

[LD]

I got the opposite out of it. Not only will the ability to change your job by changing your weapon make for a very flexible role-switching process, you can possibly bind different builds to different weapons. The Crafter & Gatherer jobs seem to simply be the money aspects of a character while the Fighter & Mage are the fighting aspects, not so much definite career choices. And if that's true, and we expect to have different weapons for fighting & magic, there's no reason we can't expect to have different weapons for Healing Magic and Damaging Magic.

The problem to me is what this might do to gameplay. Building healing in solo is a no-brainer, but will I be expected to do it in groups or end game as well? What will the weapon switching process be like? Will I have to change weapons every few seconds just to survive?

[Ratatapa]

The funny part is when they say change from Warrior to white mage to heal.

Light the Brady signal!!!! WAR/WHM IS BACK!

[Kurokikaze]

Omg thats so true. Right from the beginning theres gonna be a cookie cutter setup. Won't be able to experience the game and feel like you're fitting a certain role in in a group setting. But raises the question... Who the fuck is gonna do solo grind WHM first?

Edit: Rofl beaten to Brady quote.

[Eratosthenes]

This game probably won't do support jobs. It sounds more like you can take your character and put on cross-class gear whenever since the job system isn't as rigid as FFXI's. It seems like FFII or FFVII where jobs are not clearly defined and characters were flexible.

[Jotaru]

Then again, in one of their interview, they talked about having players have pretty defined roles... for each and every one. I'm not sure I doubt support classes... somehow the idea of 18 Warriors all zerging a boss just to have them swap to WHM when they're low to heal themselves before going back to the fray as Warrior again doesnt seem like what they'd do.

[100percentile]

One of the famitsu translations states the following:

- they're considering whether to let you master everything or not - there may be a see-saw like approach (like FFXI)

I'm wondering what they meant by "master everything". Abilities/skills from weapons? jobs? If it's the former I can imagine it being a system kind of like the FFTA games where you keep the abilities you master from other jobs. If it's like this I'd imagine they'll have some restrictions so there won't be people with every single ability in the game at all times.

[Spira]

from the new info released.. it would seem like FFXIV will be taking the general concept of FFIX's gameplay and tweaking it, not unlike how FFXI took mainly from FFV's Job system.

I think the main point of the freedom the game is giving is that there will be classes, but the game will only bother to break it down into like 4 types (like given in the recent magazine article), and they encompass all parts of the game, not just the battle system. It then becomes the players decision to fine tune the class into what they want it to be. I'm assuming a Fighter can wield swords to be a fencer, bows to be a Ranger and possibly a shield to be a Paladin.

Similarly, sorcerers can choose to specialize in different fields of magic. We'd most likely see white/black and summoning magic appear again for sure. But this would probably only be the base of the armory system.

I think that players will probably get to learn some basic abilities from weapons, and probably gain stats from them perhaps. This would allow for customization to build new hybrid classes. Someone who wants to go the PLD route might need to pick up White Magic from a rod for a while before switching over and wearing a Shield perhaps.

I think that stats will also be improved in this fashion since FFXIV is touted as having no exp or leveling system. I think it could all come in the form of AP, like every mob you kill gives AP... and some equipment pieces don't teach you abilities, but teach you stat bonuses, such as say INT+1. Similar to FFIX's style, you will recieve the bonuses if you wear the eq but won't learn it permanently until you have accumulated enough AP.

And this is where I get the feeling that equipment wearing down will come in. In order to keep the economy going and the gil circulating/draining, they'll probably introduce a limit to the amount of AP you can earn from a particular piece of EQ before it won't teach you abilities anymore - but you can still wear it if you want the abilities, though you're stuck with wearing it if u want whatever stat it has. It's still useful in the short term, but your character isn't growing because you can't learn.

here's an example of a piece of equipement I have in mind aligned to this idea:

Master Caster's Chapeau
INT +7
Learn: INT +1 (0/150AP)
Limit: 450AP

In the case above, the hat gives +7 int, but if you wear it and kill stuff for AP, you can build enough AP to gain a INT+1 permanent stat boost up to 3 times (450/150=3). However, the gear itself can only receive up to 450AP, regardless of who wears it, so if you reach the limit it can no longer teach stuff and you'll need to get a new one if you still want to learn from it.

Considering this, it would probably be possible to learn everything in the game on any class if you put the effort to do it, but that is probably why they are considering the see-saw balance system from FFXI that they're mentioning...
Either this or they will put caps somewhere somehow.

In any case, there are a whole lot of possibilities at this point...

[100percentile]

I'm curious about how they will handle stats. Will it be job based again or will they be a mix of custom/fixed kind of like in Ultima Online where doing things upped your stats. Fighting will up your strength and the skill of that weapon, taking hits will up your hp, etc. I really hope it's not the former. That will just bring us back down to the whole main/sub job dilemma where only a few combinations were viable.

Say I'm a Fighter and want to use some Illusionist spells that I mastered, if stats are heavily job based then my magic will be severely gimped to the point of uselessness (just an example here, I have no idea how it'll actually be in XIV). That will hinder all the "growth, freedom" they have been talking about.

[Jotaru]

Am I the only one that feels kinda bleh about half of the 'classes' being gathering type crafting things? As excited as I am for the game, the prospect of only 4 (perhaps 8 I guess? If they split again) actual fighting classes is kinda meh- especially considering they've discussed 'see-saw' mechanics, so having the crafting skills included with the fighting (assuming they would apply?) would mean you sacrifice fighting ability for crafting- or vice versa?

[Spira]

just fyi, the illusionist mentioned in the article, 幻術士　as traditionally known in Final Fantasy, is in fact a summoner by a different name. If you wanna follow the english translation of FF3's, it would be Evoker.

I'm actually quite for the idea that the new class system offers a holistic approach to playing the MMO other than battle, because a whole lot of people who play FFXI don't even level up much. If they're able to gain their 'satisfaction' from playing fishing or crafting or HELM, then I suppose it fulfils that much of a purpose in the game.. so this is catered to those who want to focus on that..

That said, i doubt they've actually fully announced all the class types.. or variations of each class. it probably will be a free approach..

My guess is all the crafting stuff will fall under Crafter and fishing and HELM activities will all be thrown under Gatherer.
Actually, that much is kinda obvious already.

[100percentile]

Ah, that's awesome. Can't wait to see summons in all new HD graphics goodness~

[Scythiroth]

As long as they don't tease us again by making summons into bosses, but never letting us use them...

[Eratosthenes]

I think the way they're doing crafting/gathering in this game is designed to make it harder on RMT.

[Gokulo]

Am I the only one that feels kinda bleh about half of the 'classes' being gathering type crafting things? As excited as I am for the game, the prospect of only 4 (perhaps 8 I guess? If they split again) actual fighting classes is kinda meh- especially considering they've discussed 'see-saw' mechanics, so having the crafting skills included with the fighting (assuming they would apply?) would mean you sacrifice fighting ability for crafting- or vice versa?

The one's we were give now were only examples. Expect at least a couple more of job variations.

[LD]

Just wanna say I'm actually glad they're building the crafting and gathering aspects into a whole job rather than simply a statistic. HELM technically had levels (invisible ones), but there was no real branching and you always went through a host of materials to get anywhere. FFXI's crafting system had it's specialization, but it was entirely tied to GP, which didn't really reflect growth, just production (or pure buying power -_-), and you could get every key item if you wanted. Potentially being able to improve and specialize your crafting ability and your gathering ability, while only having to use a single tool for that role, sounds like it'll make for a much more engaging farming and production process.

[Cutriss]

I haven't seen anyone say this, so...

Assuming you can make "custom" classes by mixing aspects of the four main classes, I would expect you can get support jobs by combining parts of Sorcerer with Crafter, and stuff like RNG or THF from Fighter/Gatherer.

I think the belief that Crafter/Gatherer is just an opening into crafting is possibly short-sighted.

[sephir]

Job tree allright

[Kurokikaze]

Just realized what all this inventory space and equipment = class actually means... situational gear. ><;