NO. I think its a bad idea. Reason? Just dumb. Need to have the option to switch classes or jobs yes, But not with a weapon or a spell book etc. etc. Have it switch somethign like ffx1 to a point but bring it to a new way to bring in more people with change but not to much that it sucks the fun out of it.
The problem here is that SE seems to be doing a complete overhaul with their job/class system. Yeah, it's cool that I can instantly be a Swordsman if I equip a sword, but what if I want to sling spells? I want to be a Holy Knight, and Holy Knights DO NOT use staffs.
Who says they don't? You? I think you are stuck in your ways of thinking, perhaps a Holy Knight could use a staff if it suited his purpose, but at some form of penalty.
But what would make you a holy knight? In a classless system a player could wear a robe/staff, and be a caster, and then switch them for some plate and a Mace and be a Palaidn.
Its not a whole lot different than in EVE where we train up our skills to fly a particular ship, in this game, you might have to train u in plate, staff, sword, spell book or whatever to perform a certain role.
Not enough info available yet, but I'd like to see a game designed like this.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I would imagine if you equipped a sword and shield you would eventually be able to unlock holy knight and in doing so grant yourself spells.
They did say there was still a job system associated, and I would imagine jobs grant abilities and spells as well as weapons granting some form abilities/skills/spells.
I hope they don't let you macro swap gear setups in battle.... i hated that about xi, it seemed so lame.
in battle: "hey guys hang on lemme superman my "insert X here" real quick,...blah blah blah
The ONLY thing you should be able to change "on the fly" should be weapons, and if its weapon based roles, that will be so sweet, rather than having people macroing a hundred million cheezy gear combos for every minute situation... they just whip out the weapon of choice and carry on.
NO. I think its a bad idea. Reason? Just dumb. Need to have the option to switch classes or jobs yes, But not with a weapon or a spell book etc. etc. Have it switch somethign like ffx1 to a point but bring it to a new way to bring in more people with change but not to much that it sucks the fun out of it.
The problem here is that SE seems to be doing a complete overhaul with their job/class system. Yeah, it's cool that I can instantly be a Swordsman if I equip a sword, but what if I want to sling spells? I want to be a Holy Knight, and Holy Knights DO NOT use staffs.
Who says they don't? You? I think you are stuck in your ways of thinking, perhaps a Holy Knight could use a staff if it suited his purpose, but at some form of penalty.
But what would make you a holy knight? In a classless system a player could wear a robe/staff, and be a caster, and then switch them for some plate and a Mace and be a Palaidn.
Its not a whole lot different than in EVE where we train up our skills to fly a particular ship, in this game, you might have to train u in plate, staff, sword, spell book or whatever to perform a certain role.
Not enough info available yet, but I'd like to see a game designed like this.
Underlined Part: Well, that could be in a classless system. My idea of the Holy Knight goes back to FF Tactics (well, the PSP version that came out a few years ago). They're like normal knights, only slightly weaker in the tanker aspect, but with one major advantage. They can sling out holy-type spells to unleash the hurt on enemies, and my personal favorite was Northswain's Strike (it could occasionally one-hit targets). They wear heavy armor and a sword, yet they can sling out decently powerful spells.
Now, I'm very sure that FF Tactic's Holy Knight and whatever counted as the Holy Knight in FF XI are different. But, with the current class system I see in FF XIV, you may very get the point that I am excited about somehow creating a "holy knight" (though it's all speculation). Also, I wish to be able to use healing and support spells as a holy knight, this way I would function as a defensive support role.
Also, with the current way the weapon system looks like it's going to go inside FF XIV, it seems like the staff will probably be a mage only weapon, so I highly doubt I could tank with a staff rather than a shield and sword/mace/hammer.
Here's my theory on how it will work (this has been said in so many words already by others but anyways...) I think we'll have some basic classes to begin with and then in order to unlock advanced and hybrid jobs you'll need to level up one or more of the basic weapons to a certain proficiency. So take for instance Paladin (or whatever you want to call it..."holy knight"). In order to unlock Paladin you may need to get swordman proficiency to skill lvl 40 and white magic proficiency to lvl 20 shields to lvl 30 and heavy armor to lvl 40 (they may also include armor lvling requirements in order to unlock advanced jobs who knows). Some things I'm wondering though are can you change weapon/class in the middle of battle? Will there be a skill cap on how many weapons/classes you can master ?(this is especially important if you can change on the fly I think). We shall see. I know we all have a lot of questions and I'm excited to here them answered within the coming months (or weeks hopefully haha).
Underlined Part: That is an interesting thoughtt. On one hand, a skill cap would limit what you can do, and that would mean no more "switching your role to whatever you like." On the other hand, that does seem to allow customization and keep people from creating "jack of all trades" classes that I believe would wreck group aspects.
Yellow Shaded Part: That does sound like a good class system. The problem is that SE stated they want players to be able to switch roles. This idea with skill cap does sound like it would limit classes.
By the way, has anyone here found anything about details on how equipment functions inside FF XIV?
It sounds like an interesting system... I'm most concerned about being able to switch roles during combat though. So everyone starts the fight as a caster using focus fire, then switches mid-combat to whatever role they need (tank, healer, DPS) to finish it off. And are they going to allow macros for equipment swaps to maximize DPS... /equip Staff; /cast fireball; /equip sword+shield. Hopefully there will be some penalty for switching weapons in combat to prevent that sort of thing.
It sounds like an interesting system... I'm most concerned about being able to switch roles during combat though. So everyone starts the fight as a caster using focus fire, then switches mid-combat to whatever role they need (tank, healer, DPS) to finish it off. And are they going to allow macros for equipment swaps to maximize DPS... /equip Staff; /cast fireball; /equip sword+shield. Hopefully there will be some penalty for switching weapons in combat to prevent that sort of thing.
(Honestly dont rember) But wasent that the system in FFX2? and a few other FF games?
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude; greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. Samuel Adams
It sounds like an interesting system... I'm most concerned about being able to switch roles during combat though. So everyone starts the fight as a caster using focus fire, then switches mid-combat to whatever role they need (tank, healer, DPS) to finish it off. And are they going to allow macros for equipment swaps to maximize DPS... /equip Staff; /cast fireball; /equip sword+shield. Hopefully there will be some penalty for switching weapons in combat to prevent that sort of thing.
(Honestly dont rember) But wasent that the system in FFX2? and a few other FF games?
In X-2 you could change dress-spheres during battle and it took one turn. I think they got as close to that as they could for an MMORPG, but unlike X-2 I do hope for a pentalty.
Some restrictions / penalties I hope to see:
-not being able to change mid-combat - you can change your weapon only.
-not being able to change while in a party - you should be planning ahead.
-not being able to change after a fixed time limit from your previous change.
-not being able to use any abilities before a fixed time limit since changing.
-the experienced gained is only be attributed to your class at the mob's death.
It sounds like an interesting system... I'm most concerned about being able to switch roles during combat though. So everyone starts the fight as a caster using focus fire, then switches mid-combat to whatever role they need (tank, healer, DPS) to finish it off. And are they going to allow macros for equipment swaps to maximize DPS... /equip Staff; /cast fireball; /equip sword+shield. Hopefully there will be some penalty for switching weapons in combat to prevent that sort of thing.
(Honestly dont rember) But wasent that the system in FFX2? and a few other FF games?
In X-2 you could change dress-spheres during battle and it took one turn. I think they got as close to that as they could for an MMORPG, but unlike X-2 I do hope for a pentalty.
Some restrictions / penalties I hope to see:
-not being able to change mid-combat - you can change your weapon only.
-not being able to change while in a party - you should be planning ahead.
-not being able to change after a fixed time limit from your previous change.
-not being able to use any abilities before a fixed time limit since changing.
-the experienced gained is only be attributed to your class at the mob's death.
An interesting though Gameslave. I completely agree with the penalties for switching weapons.
One has to wonder, what will FF XIV do with the weapon system? Will I get to see my precious Holy Knight? Will the weapon system be effective and convenient, or simply be too casual friendly? I have my hopes up for a September beta testing...
Originally posted by GameslaveSome restrictions / penalties I hope to see:
-not being able to change mid-combat - you can change your weapon only.
-not being able to change while in a party - you should be planning ahead.
-not being able to change after a fixed time limit from your previous change.
-not being able to use any abilities before a fixed time limit since changing.
-the experienced gained is only be attributed to your class at the mob's death.
After reading the updated website on the armory system (as they're calling the weapon switching system) it only mentions switching weapons outside of combat.
That is NOT conclusive evidence you can only switch weapons outside of combat. But it at least leaves that possibility open. (If they'd mentioned switching weapons in combat then that would be ruled out.)
I'm torn on your ideas.
- I can see not being able to switch gear mid-combat but not being able to switch while in a party strikes me as annoying and ineffective.
1. Annoying - if someone has to leave your party and you need to switch roles.
2. Ineffective - simply leave and re-join the party if you want to switch roles.
- A long time limit on your switch would simply be annoying as well. For example: you're out harvesting and invited to a group. The group falls apart. Now you're stuck unable to resume harvesting for X minutes or hours. That's just annoying and I honestly don't see the benefit. (Feel free to enlighten me.)
- A lockout on abilities makes sense to me. I wouldn't make it a long lockout. Depending on the pace of combat 5-30s would be long enough to make in impossible to take advantage of frequent swapping during combat.
- Honestly I'm torn on this. IF it's possible to switch during combat then it's just as easy to switch shortly before a mob dies as it is to switch shortly after a mob is engaged. (Probably not as easy if someone is main tanking or main healing, but that goes both ways.)
Originally posted by GameslaveSome restrictions / penalties I hope to see:
-not being able to change mid-combat - you can change your weapon only.
-not being able to change while in a party - you should be planning ahead.
-not being able to change after a fixed time limit from your previous change.
-not being able to use any abilities before a fixed time limit since changing.
-the experienced gained is only be attributed to your class at the mob's death.
After reading the updated website on the armory system (as they're calling the weapon switching system) it only mentions switching weapons outside of combat.
That is NOT conclusive evidence you can only switch weapons outside of combat. But it at least leaves that possibility open. (If they'd mentioned switching weapons in combat then that would be ruled out.)
I'm torn on your ideas.
- I can see not being able to switch gear mid-combat but not being able to switch while in a party strikes me as annoying and ineffective.
1. Annoying - if someone has to leave your party and you need to switch roles.
2. Ineffective - simply leave and re-join the party if you want to switch roles.
- A long time limit on your switch would simply be annoying as well. For example: you're out harvesting and invited to a group. The group falls apart. Now you're stuck unable to resume harvesting for X minutes or hours. That's just annoying and I honestly don't see the benefit. (Feel free to enlighten me.)
- A lockout on abilities makes sense to me. I wouldn't make it a long lockout. Depending on the pace of combat 5-30s would be long enough to make in impossible to take advantage of frequent swapping during combat.
- Honestly I'm torn on this. IF it's possible to switch during combat then it's just as easy to switch shortly before a mob dies as it is to switch shortly after a mob is engaged. (Probably not as easy if someone is main tanking or main healing, but that goes both ways.)
While in a party: it might be annoying but it will encourage people to plan ahead more, that's all. At the very least I hope that only weapons are interchangeable on the fly while the rest of your equipment is only changeable outside of a party.
For time limits: I don't expect the time limit to be like a 2-hour or even a 5-minutes, just something small like 30 seconds, which is small enough to tolerate but long enough to be quite the penalty mid-battle. Usually if you join a party that breaks you're headed towards them some ways, so that time would only be long enough for you to get back to what you were doing. Same thing with finding a camp or waiting on other members. The time limit between changing weapons and using abilities should be longer while in a party than while soloing.
If there is that time-limit it might help. It seems too troublesome to switch roles with a time limit while another mob is already on the way. Along with that limit, maybe until the countdown is over, the experience goes to your previous job - or moreover you don't ACTUALLY change until that countdown reaches zero (rather than changing and not being able to do anything for a while).
I don't know, it would probably actually take dealing with this mechanic to decide whether it's acceptable.
Honestly, one you think about it, pretty much every class in FFXI only used one weapon, so I really don't see it as being too much of a difference. Just means we won't have to go to our mog to switch classes.
If it's anything like LOTRO's Legendary weapons most people will love it.
Basically you'll have a set of character skills, and then your swords augments them even more.
Let's say you have a Ranger. You have your regular skills then you equip either one of these two bows:
It's hard to make out, but one has a little more DPS and one has a higher skill level and different slotted stats. That could mean you could set up your ranger as a AOE type with bonuses to that, or set up as a single target DPSer. You'd really see a difference as a Redmage where you could pick a DPS sword or a healing staff or a nuker staff.
The Legendary weapons drop all over the place and you can store as many as you like, or Auction unrevealed ones for people to take a chance on a higher statted one. You can change out the stones as many times as you like too so you're not stuck.
So bascially you could have ten different staves all with a combo of different stones. I'm guessing it'll be something like that. A setup like this gives your healer more opportunity to solo (my Minstrel had a dps club and a healing club/staff) or could make traditional classes like RNG more AOE capable with a bow switch.
My guess would be they won't let you change weapons mid-battle and if they do there will definitely be some sort of penatly (probably some kind of timer on your skills and attacks). Also, someone brought up another possible exploit to the system in some other thread or this one. If you can change your weapon at any time, won't you be able to buff yourself with every spell from multiple classes in the game? (assuming you have them all leveled up). i.e. start as bard buff, change to rdm buff, change to whm buff, change to dnc buff, etc. then change to whatever class you intend to use and have at it. I'm assuming they'll have some deterent against this.
Perhaps any buffs that you casted (on yourself or others) will vanish as soon as you change jobs/weapons? This is all assuming the system will work a certain way and then assuming they haven't thought of a way to keep that from being exploited (which they obviously have thought of both haha) but it's semi-productive speculation I think.
I believe this will be a revolutionary step in the final fantasy online universe, this has never been tried before on any other mmo and sounds like a great idea in my perspective. I was just wondering about one thing though some other forum members described the process that you will buy a weapon and that certain equipment piece you purchased will have a ability attached to it. So lets say you learn that ability in X amount of time. Now it means you gotta go and buy a new piece of equipment so you can go ahead and learn the next available ability. This will make you tight on (GIL) if they still call it that in XIV. And i remember that in the old FF it was more challenging then the other mmo's. so i was wondering how long you might think it will take to learn a certain ability. I apologize if this was discussed already. ps. Sorry about the spelling and construction of the sentences, got off of work late and i'm wiped out.
Just brain storming
1) Frequency of use of that certain spell or ability
2) how many mobs killed with it
3) what lvl of the ability it is (Higher lvl means longer time to learn the spell or ability.)
I just wanted to say that I am surprised I have not seen more people mention Final Fantasy Tactics Advance yet.
The reason I say that is because although you do switch between jobs in that game, the game also uses a system where the weapon you use determines what skill you can use (and eventually learn while you remain in that job). Once you level up a particular weapon, you permanently learn the skill attached to the weapon and can then use a new weapon in order to learn a new skill. Another really cool aspect is that you are allowed to pick a few skills from other classes in order to customize your character (kind of, and I emphasize "kind of", like how you could pick a sub-job to help customize your character in FFXI.
I know this game will not be identical to FFTA because, for starters, you will not pick a job. However, you will pick a weapon
that pretty much determines your "job" it seems. If you pick a bow then you are now an Archer. If you pick a scythe, maybe you will be a Dark Knight. I feel there is a strong probability that the longer you use a two handed sword, the more "two handed sword skills" you will gain. You may use the two handed sword so long that you gain 10 "two handed sword abilities". I would bet that once you switch to a staff, you would lose all ten of those "two handed sword skills". But what I am hoping (and preying) for is some type of system similar to FFTA where you can keep a few additional abilities from other weapons/armor (or from other "jobs"). So eventually, I may use a two handed sword and have 20 two handed sword abilities but maybe I could also have two staff abilities, 1 robe ability and two bow abilities that I previously earned when using those items.
Of course this is just a lot of guesswork but ever since I played the FF Tacticsand FF Tactics Advance games, I dreamed of someday playing an MMO that utilized such a system. One last thing as long as I'm talking about FF Tactics Advance. If this game does use a similar system, I wonder if obtaining new weapons of the same type (example: iron bow, silver bow, mythril bow) would only increase stats or will we need to hunt down such weapons in order to gain new bow abilities that we would not be able to receive otherwise (just like FFTA). With no levels, I could see this game becoming very gear-centric.
Forgive all my speculation but with the news that this game would focus on weapons, I couldn't help but drawing comparisons to the Tactics Advance games...
The more freedom players have to play the way they want to play is brilliant.
The more freedom players have to switch roles in a group setting, the easier it is to get groups.
Because this is a MMO and some degree of Grind will be required (always is) players will tend to focus on a few different roles or gear sets and thus party play will still be diversified.
I'd wait until we see how it really works before you start singing the hallelujah chorus.
Even with the information they recently released on the official web-page I still think we don't know enough.
It sounds like it's basically making so instead of switching your class at a mog house you switch your class by switching your weapon. It's more convenient, sure, but it doesn't sound like it will provide the type of freedom people are hoping for. (Or is genre breaking innovation.)
Freedom to easily change class anywhere in the world: check.
Freedom to create the oft mentioned holy knight/paladin - doesn't sound like it.
Check out Gameplay -> Armory System at na.finalfantasyxiv.com/ to see what I'm talking about.
It sounds like weapon change = full class change. From page 4:
"... pulls out his beloved fishing rod. The gladiator and thaumaturge are gone now, and all that remains is Leeroy the fisherman." (emphasis mine.)
The language implies when you change weapons you lose any abilities associated with that weapon.
(As a side note: Leeroy? Really? How many thousands of WoW players were expecting an ill-planned zerg on a room full of dragon whelps as part of this story?)
Maybe 'sword-users' will be able to use magic they learned as a mage, but maybe just a weaker version of it, but then there are certain spells that only a mage can use, because of how powerful they are. I do like that they are completely doing something new though and not trying to follow what recent MMOs are doing. yay them?
Comments
The problem here is that SE seems to be doing a complete overhaul with their job/class system. Yeah, it's cool that I can instantly be a Swordsman if I equip a sword, but what if I want to sling spells? I want to be a Holy Knight, and Holy Knights DO NOT use staffs.
Who says they don't? You? I think you are stuck in your ways of thinking, perhaps a Holy Knight could use a staff if it suited his purpose, but at some form of penalty.
But what would make you a holy knight? In a classless system a player could wear a robe/staff, and be a caster, and then switch them for some plate and a Mace and be a Palaidn.
Its not a whole lot different than in EVE where we train up our skills to fly a particular ship, in this game, you might have to train u in plate, staff, sword, spell book or whatever to perform a certain role.
Not enough info available yet, but I'd like to see a game designed like this.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I would imagine if you equipped a sword and shield you would eventually be able to unlock holy knight and in doing so grant yourself spells.
They did say there was still a job system associated, and I would imagine jobs grant abilities and spells as well as weapons granting some form abilities/skills/spells.
I hope they don't let you macro swap gear setups in battle.... i hated that about xi, it seemed so lame.
in battle: "hey guys hang on lemme superman my "insert X here" real quick,...blah blah blah
The ONLY thing you should be able to change "on the fly" should be weapons, and if its weapon based roles, that will be so sweet, rather than having people macroing a hundred million cheezy gear combos for every minute situation... they just whip out the weapon of choice and carry on.
The problem here is that SE seems to be doing a complete overhaul with their job/class system. Yeah, it's cool that I can instantly be a Swordsman if I equip a sword, but what if I want to sling spells? I want to be a Holy Knight, and Holy Knights DO NOT use staffs.
Who says they don't? You? I think you are stuck in your ways of thinking, perhaps a Holy Knight could use a staff if it suited his purpose, but at some form of penalty.
But what would make you a holy knight? In a classless system a player could wear a robe/staff, and be a caster, and then switch them for some plate and a Mace and be a Palaidn.
Its not a whole lot different than in EVE where we train up our skills to fly a particular ship, in this game, you might have to train u in plate, staff, sword, spell book or whatever to perform a certain role.
Not enough info available yet, but I'd like to see a game designed like this.
Underlined Part: Well, that could be in a classless system. My idea of the Holy Knight goes back to FF Tactics (well, the PSP version that came out a few years ago). They're like normal knights, only slightly weaker in the tanker aspect, but with one major advantage. They can sling out holy-type spells to unleash the hurt on enemies, and my personal favorite was Northswain's Strike (it could occasionally one-hit targets). They wear heavy armor and a sword, yet they can sling out decently powerful spells.
Now, I'm very sure that FF Tactic's Holy Knight and whatever counted as the Holy Knight in FF XI are different. But, with the current class system I see in FF XIV, you may very get the point that I am excited about somehow creating a "holy knight" (though it's all speculation). Also, I wish to be able to use healing and support spells as a holy knight, this way I would function as a defensive support role.
Also, with the current way the weapon system looks like it's going to go inside FF XIV, it seems like the staff will probably be a mage only weapon, so I highly doubt I could tank with a staff rather than a shield and sword/mace/hammer.
Underlined Part: That is an interesting thoughtt. On one hand, a skill cap would limit what you can do, and that would mean no more "switching your role to whatever you like." On the other hand, that does seem to allow customization and keep people from creating "jack of all trades" classes that I believe would wreck group aspects.
Yellow Shaded Part: That does sound like a good class system. The problem is that SE stated they want players to be able to switch roles. This idea with skill cap does sound like it would limit classes.
By the way, has anyone here found anything about details on how equipment functions inside FF XIV?
It sounds like an interesting system... I'm most concerned about being able to switch roles during combat though. So everyone starts the fight as a caster using focus fire, then switches mid-combat to whatever role they need (tank, healer, DPS) to finish it off. And are they going to allow macros for equipment swaps to maximize DPS... /equip Staff; /cast fireball; /equip sword+shield. Hopefully there will be some penalty for switching weapons in combat to prevent that sort of thing.
(Honestly dont rember) But wasent that the system in FFX2? and a few other FF games?
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude; greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Samuel Adams
(Honestly dont rember) But wasent that the system in FFX2? and a few other FF games?
In X-2 you could change dress-spheres during battle and it took one turn. I think they got as close to that as they could for an MMORPG, but unlike X-2 I do hope for a pentalty.
Some restrictions / penalties I hope to see:
-not being able to change mid-combat - you can change your weapon only.
-not being able to change while in a party - you should be planning ahead.
-not being able to change after a fixed time limit from your previous change.
-not being able to use any abilities before a fixed time limit since changing.
-the experienced gained is only be attributed to your class at the mob's death.
Abraxas [365]
(Honestly dont rember) But wasent that the system in FFX2? and a few other FF games?
In X-2 you could change dress-spheres during battle and it took one turn. I think they got as close to that as they could for an MMORPG, but unlike X-2 I do hope for a pentalty.
Some restrictions / penalties I hope to see:
-not being able to change mid-combat - you can change your weapon only.
-not being able to change while in a party - you should be planning ahead.
-not being able to change after a fixed time limit from your previous change.
-not being able to use any abilities before a fixed time limit since changing.
-the experienced gained is only be attributed to your class at the mob's death.
An interesting though Gameslave. I completely agree with the penalties for switching weapons.
One has to wonder, what will FF XIV do with the weapon system? Will I get to see my precious Holy Knight? Will the weapon system be effective and convenient, or simply be too casual friendly? I have my hopes up for a September beta testing...
After reading the updated website on the armory system (as they're calling the weapon switching system) it only mentions switching weapons outside of combat.
That is NOT conclusive evidence you can only switch weapons outside of combat. But it at least leaves that possibility open. (If they'd mentioned switching weapons in combat then that would be ruled out.)
I'm torn on your ideas.
- I can see not being able to switch gear mid-combat but not being able to switch while in a party strikes me as annoying and ineffective.
1. Annoying - if someone has to leave your party and you need to switch roles.
2. Ineffective - simply leave and re-join the party if you want to switch roles.
- A long time limit on your switch would simply be annoying as well. For example: you're out harvesting and invited to a group. The group falls apart. Now you're stuck unable to resume harvesting for X minutes or hours. That's just annoying and I honestly don't see the benefit. (Feel free to enlighten me.)
- A lockout on abilities makes sense to me. I wouldn't make it a long lockout. Depending on the pace of combat 5-30s would be long enough to make in impossible to take advantage of frequent swapping during combat.
- Honestly I'm torn on this. IF it's possible to switch during combat then it's just as easy to switch shortly before a mob dies as it is to switch shortly after a mob is engaged. (Probably not as easy if someone is main tanking or main healing, but that goes both ways.)
After reading the updated website on the armory system (as they're calling the weapon switching system) it only mentions switching weapons outside of combat.
That is NOT conclusive evidence you can only switch weapons outside of combat. But it at least leaves that possibility open. (If they'd mentioned switching weapons in combat then that would be ruled out.)
I'm torn on your ideas.
- I can see not being able to switch gear mid-combat but not being able to switch while in a party strikes me as annoying and ineffective.
1. Annoying - if someone has to leave your party and you need to switch roles.
2. Ineffective - simply leave and re-join the party if you want to switch roles.
- A long time limit on your switch would simply be annoying as well. For example: you're out harvesting and invited to a group. The group falls apart. Now you're stuck unable to resume harvesting for X minutes or hours. That's just annoying and I honestly don't see the benefit. (Feel free to enlighten me.)
- A lockout on abilities makes sense to me. I wouldn't make it a long lockout. Depending on the pace of combat 5-30s would be long enough to make in impossible to take advantage of frequent swapping during combat.
- Honestly I'm torn on this. IF it's possible to switch during combat then it's just as easy to switch shortly before a mob dies as it is to switch shortly after a mob is engaged. (Probably not as easy if someone is main tanking or main healing, but that goes both ways.)
While in a party: it might be annoying but it will encourage people to plan ahead more, that's all. At the very least I hope that only weapons are interchangeable on the fly while the rest of your equipment is only changeable outside of a party.
For time limits: I don't expect the time limit to be like a 2-hour or even a 5-minutes, just something small like 30 seconds, which is small enough to tolerate but long enough to be quite the penalty mid-battle. Usually if you join a party that breaks you're headed towards them some ways, so that time would only be long enough for you to get back to what you were doing. Same thing with finding a camp or waiting on other members. The time limit between changing weapons and using abilities should be longer while in a party than while soloing.
If there is that time-limit it might help. It seems too troublesome to switch roles with a time limit while another mob is already on the way. Along with that limit, maybe until the countdown is over, the experience goes to your previous job - or moreover you don't ACTUALLY change until that countdown reaches zero (rather than changing and not being able to do anything for a while).
I don't know, it would probably actually take dealing with this mechanic to decide whether it's acceptable.
Abraxas [365]
Honestly, one you think about it, pretty much every class in FFXI only used one weapon, so I really don't see it as being too much of a difference. Just means we won't have to go to our mog to switch classes.
I did not even consider playing this until they announced how different it will be. Now I have to at least test it.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
If it's anything like LOTRO's Legendary weapons most people will love it.
Basically you'll have a set of character skills, and then your swords augments them even more.
Let's say you have a Ranger. You have your regular skills then you equip either one of these two bows:
It's hard to make out, but one has a little more DPS and one has a higher skill level and different slotted stats. That could mean you could set up your ranger as a AOE type with bonuses to that, or set up as a single target DPSer. You'd really see a difference as a Redmage where you could pick a DPS sword or a healing staff or a nuker staff.
The Legendary weapons drop all over the place and you can store as many as you like, or Auction unrevealed ones for people to take a chance on a higher statted one. You can change out the stones as many times as you like too so you're not stuck.
So bascially you could have ten different staves all with a combo of different stones. I'm guessing it'll be something like that. A setup like this gives your healer more opportunity to solo (my Minstrel had a dps club and a healing club/staff) or could make traditional classes like RNG more AOE capable with a bow switch.
"TO MICHAEL!"
My guess would be they won't let you change weapons mid-battle and if they do there will definitely be some sort of penatly (probably some kind of timer on your skills and attacks). Also, someone brought up another possible exploit to the system in some other thread or this one. If you can change your weapon at any time, won't you be able to buff yourself with every spell from multiple classes in the game? (assuming you have them all leveled up). i.e. start as bard buff, change to rdm buff, change to whm buff, change to dnc buff, etc. then change to whatever class you intend to use and have at it. I'm assuming they'll have some deterent against this.
Perhaps any buffs that you casted (on yourself or others) will vanish as soon as you change jobs/weapons? This is all assuming the system will work a certain way and then assuming they haven't thought of a way to keep that from being exploited (which they obviously have thought of both haha) but it's semi-productive speculation I think.
I believe this will be a revolutionary step in the final fantasy online universe, this has never been tried before on any other mmo and sounds like a great idea in my perspective. I was just wondering about one thing though some other forum members described the process that you will buy a weapon and that certain equipment piece you purchased will have a ability attached to it. So lets say you learn that ability in X amount of time. Now it means you gotta go and buy a new piece of equipment so you can go ahead and learn the next available ability. This will make you tight on (GIL) if they still call it that in XIV. And i remember that in the old FF it was more challenging then the other mmo's. so i was wondering how long you might think it will take to learn a certain ability. I apologize if this was discussed already. ps. Sorry about the spelling and construction of the sentences, got off of work late and i'm wiped out.
Just brain storming
1) Frequency of use of that certain spell or ability
2) how many mobs killed with it
3) what lvl of the ability it is (Higher lvl means longer time to learn the spell or ability.)
I just wanted to say that I am surprised I have not seen more people mention Final Fantasy Tactics Advance yet.
The reason I say that is because although you do switch between jobs in that game, the game also uses a system where the weapon you use determines what skill you can use (and eventually learn while you remain in that job). Once you level up a particular weapon, you permanently learn the skill attached to the weapon and can then use a new weapon in order to learn a new skill. Another really cool aspect is that you are allowed to pick a few skills from other classes in order to customize your character (kind of, and I emphasize "kind of", like how you could pick a sub-job to help customize your character in FFXI.
I know this game will not be identical to FFTA because, for starters, you will not pick a job. However, you will pick a weapon
that pretty much determines your "job" it seems. If you pick a bow then you are now an Archer. If you pick a scythe, maybe you will be a Dark Knight. I feel there is a strong probability that the longer you use a two handed sword, the more "two handed sword skills" you will gain. You may use the two handed sword so long that you gain 10 "two handed sword abilities". I would bet that once you switch to a staff, you would lose all ten of those "two handed sword skills". But what I am hoping (and preying) for is some type of system similar to FFTA where you can keep a few additional abilities from other weapons/armor (or from other "jobs"). So eventually, I may use a two handed sword and have 20 two handed sword abilities but maybe I could also have two staff abilities, 1 robe ability and two bow abilities that I previously earned when using those items.
Of course this is just a lot of guesswork but ever since I played the FF Tacticsand FF Tactics Advance games, I dreamed of someday playing an MMO that utilized such a system. One last thing as long as I'm talking about FF Tactics Advance. If this game does use a similar system, I wonder if obtaining new weapons of the same type (example: iron bow, silver bow, mythril bow) would only increase stats or will we need to hunt down such weapons in order to gain new bow abilities that we would not be able to receive otherwise (just like FFTA). With no levels, I could see this game becoming very gear-centric.
Forgive all my speculation but with the news that this game would focus on weapons, I couldn't help but drawing comparisons to the Tactics Advance games...
The more freedom players have to play the way they want to play is brilliant.
The more freedom players have to switch roles in a group setting, the easier it is to get groups.
Because this is a MMO and some degree of Grind will be required (always is) players will tend to focus on a few different roles or gear sets and thus party play will still be diversified.
Thank God for some innovation in the MMO genre.
Your opinion is immaterial.
I'd wait until we see how it really works before you start singing the hallelujah chorus.
Even with the information they recently released on the official web-page I still think we don't know enough.
It sounds like it's basically making so instead of switching your class at a mog house you switch your class by switching your weapon. It's more convenient, sure, but it doesn't sound like it will provide the type of freedom people are hoping for. (Or is genre breaking innovation.)
Freedom to easily change class anywhere in the world: check.
Freedom to create the oft mentioned holy knight/paladin - doesn't sound like it.
Check out Gameplay -> Armory System at na.finalfantasyxiv.com/ to see what I'm talking about.
It sounds like weapon change = full class change. From page 4:
"... pulls out his beloved fishing rod. The gladiator and thaumaturge are gone now, and all that remains is Leeroy the fisherman." (emphasis mine.)
The language implies when you change weapons you lose any abilities associated with that weapon.
(As a side note: Leeroy? Really? How many thousands of WoW players were expecting an ill-planned zerg on a room full of dragon whelps as part of this story?)
Maybe 'sword-users' will be able to use magic they learned as a mage, but maybe just a weaker version of it, but then there are certain spells that only a mage can use, because of how powerful they are. I do like that they are completely doing something new though and not trying to follow what recent MMOs are doing. yay them?