Will the expansion be geared towards end-game players?Follow

SCH works because many of the extra healing abilities come from the faerie, which you get instantly when you unlock the job and stays with you while level capped. That wouldn't be the case for any other job. A pre-30 level capped job is no different than the base class of the same level. SMN and SCH being exceptions because of the pets.

It's a lot easier to make a class/job from scratch than it is to try and tack on another job to an existing class. Could they add DRK to GLA and make it a g.sword wielding DPS? Probably. They'd need to massively change around the base GLA class to accommodate a DPS job at later levels, but I bet it's possible. On the other hand, why would they bother when it would be a lot easier to just make a brand new class based around it in the first place?

When I wrote what I did above, I had not done Qarn or AV yet. I did last night, however.

The first boss of Qarn is much harder than it needs to be; I feel that the bees' Final Sting spam is really overkill for everything else going on in the boss fight TBH. When you compare the first boss to the second and even last bosses of Qarn, there's just no question that the first boss is overtuned and very unforgiving. No dungeon should have a First Boss be harder than the Last Boss.

As for Aurum Vale... that's mostly a healer check. And somewhat a DPS test too; see if they can follow directions to not waste fruits on the last boss. As long as you pull the trash slow, and be careful, and if your healer is halfway decent (cmon, I managed to do it on my first try and I'm hardly a "pro" player), you should pass it, though the 2nd boss.... depends on melee. I had 2 ranged in my group, so....

Edited, Sep 15th 2014 10:26pm by Lyrailis

Again, it's not a matter of "is it possible?" It's a matter of, "is it practical and does it fit the game's design philosophy?" The devs could rearrange the entire game if they wanted to and had the time and resources, but why would they bother?

Could it happen? Sure. Will it happen? Probably not. Not any time soon anyway.

Dark Knight doesn't have to use a great sword. It can use a sword and shield just fine.

That's what I tried to do above, only to be shot down by naysayers who appear to think nothing in the game can be changed whatsoever. *shrugs* oh well.

Yes so I would prefer drafting it to another class. I would like to see squire with a two way growth of Dark Knight and Sword Saint.

So in your view, changing/removing/adjusting a couple of shield skills while leaving 80% of skills (plus class stories, among other things) pretty much as-is with a few modifications is more work than coming up with a 100% new skillset (plus class stories) for a new class?

Shield Lob? GS player is made to throw something else. Or not, they can throw a small shield too. It's not like Marauder has Tomahawks on them.

Shield Bash? Weapon Bash.

Shield Swipe? Weapon Swipe. Can only be used immediately after parrying an attack.

Bulwark? Increases parry rate by 60%.

This is what I came up with in 5 seconds without even being the professional on the dev team who is much more qualified to make up this stuff than I am. So, we can put this non-issue behind us anytime. Or we can keep repeating the mantra of what a huge, massive rework it takes to get GS work on gladiator.

We're nixing side content at this point. Storyline quests for a new class can be rolled into the concept of new content already aimed for development. We already know effort spent on new class and job stories is content that's desired. Creating those is not a distraction of development time/cost. In fact, I would say creating that content, as it's dubbed enjoyable by the players is actually an argument FOR separating Great Sword into its own class, instead of just rolling it into Gladiator.


But let's get back to the origonal preface here:

Let's break down your skill changes a moment here and I'll show you why they're questionable:



Ignoring the concept of "Thrown object for ranged damage." There's no difference in this skill than say, piercing Talon, except for the hate bonus it generates. However, it is representative of a core flaw in virtually everything done in Gladiator: the majority of its attack skills are just for hate generators. No matter what weapon you apply to it, unless you revamp the entire skill list - you're stuck with a tank.



Say hello to Brutal Swing before it was changed. It's interesting to paralleled the two skills, but it illustrates something of a point. Weapon/Shield Bash is an isolated skill with no conjoining purpose other than to stun. Rather than re-write it into something that would add depth to the mechanics of a Greatsword combat, you just simply altered the name and graphic thinking it would be sufficient. I heavily disagree with that design philosophy.



Keen Fury would have a word with you.



Though you have argued at the letter, you've completely ignored the premise. What you have crafted here is a poorly utilized Tank with a Greatsword, and are left with five skills to completely redefine the class, where the base skills of gladiator themselves are fairly simplistic for any other role but tanking.

Everything you have argued here: Transposing skills to just swap out the use of one weapon for another, mechanically, could have been better applied to give Maurader a greatsword. At least then, the two-handed weapon use, the multiple branching attack skills and the passive-dependent mechanics for job, would already apply. In fact, it could readily be applied without requirement of having it job specific away from Warrior - which is also to say that a Dark Knight could just as easily bear an axe and derive from Maurader.

There are of course lore entanglements that mess all this up and make it better to simply start from scratch with a new class but we're dealing primarily mechanical work and theme here.

The problem with Gladiator kit is that it's shield dependent, not just in item function, but in role. You didn't get rid of the shield, you just made your greatsword act as one, and to give it a 2 handed weapon for what? Artistic flair? Does not add interesting mechanics - it just distracts from the Class preface. In this case you're better off adding 1 handed axe.

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Now that we've argued that point mechanically, let's talk lore for a moment:


Great Sword is a large departure from other weapons we have in the game when you look at it as a single entity. It is a long bladed weapon that is held at one end, rather in a shafted weapon with a point or blade attached as with the other 2 handed melee weapons. Lore wise, Maurader would find no use for it because their chosen use for an axe was to cut down masts and prepare wood on land - it was derived from a tool that ended up being purposed into a weapon and became its own combat form.

Gladiator also derives from its history of sword and board. Gladiator is based off of the Eorzean Gladiatorial combat which is sword and board style. It's literally founded by its shield because it's a blood sport - to the point where you can see the scantily clad Gladiators mocking at each other, muscles gleaning. They do that in leaue of armor for the special of it, and leave the defense, to their shields. (Granted the more functional portion of the Gladiator's Guild wears full armor outside of the Arena.)

Adding a Greatsword to either of these, Lore Wise, simply doesn't make sense. So while Mechanically you say it would be less work than to add more class stories involving them: The truth is, the work would have to be done anyways to justify its existence within already pre-existing lore, as is being done now gradually with Rogue/Ninja.


I would still love to see ideas as for diversifying weapons and skills of classes - but there's a large tangled weapon of problems, especially surrounding Gladiator, that make this a challenge on multiple levels. And, I'd honestly like to see Great Sword be given the credit its due and given its own class from which we can diversify two jobs from.

Right now, the Classes are bound by the weapons that define them. If you change that, its going to be a massive undertaking, and it dead stops at lore-breaking, as they've pretty clearly indicated that lore is the primary drive of this game - everything has to make sense for the story. That's why Thief is called Rogue.

Shield Oath is an ability that might work as a better comparison since it's an option of a Gladiator job (i.e. Paladin). I guess one of the challenges to overcome is how to make it retroactive so a level synched DRK would be a DPS pre-30.

Of course, the biggest challenge from SE's perspective is having all of the Great Sword animations for all the models.

I would admit to preferring that Amalj'aa didn't break out with Dark Knights defending Zahar'ak, but that's me.

A lot of the mechanics you're citing, looking at it brief, could be functional, to a degree. Trading Emnity for some sort of damage component was an idea I pitched months ago. But it does not detract from other problems or again, my premise that such efforts in the specific section I listed about transferring a the weapon?

Can it be done? Yes, anything can be done with the game if the development team makes the effort to do so. However, whether or not they choose to do so or agree with you, is a question neither of us has the answer to, and honestly, I no longer have the desire to continue to speculate with you personally on. My discussion was originally targeted at Lyrailis, which you seemed fit to interject yourself into, and with a rude tone that I've ignored up until this point.

We can return to the subject at hand when you learn not to lace insults into your speech. Frankly, it's a waste of my time to try to glean your argument out of underhanded attacks.

If you can't learn to separate the two and discard the unneeded portions, than I'm not going to bother spending what time I have on these forums discussing matters with someone who can't be respectful. By contrast, it's far more pleasent to do so with individuals such as Catwho, who, by example can phrase her statments in a way that wants me to continue to discuss the topic, rather than be angered by the response.



I've mulled over that for quite a while. And I get the desire between the dichotomy between Dark Knight and Paladin. If the developers chose that path, I'll applaud the efforts. But I don't think it will be done easily while maintaining the same atmosphere and professionalism they've done for each class thus far.

At this point, addressing the innate hate mechanics in order to Gladiator into anything other than another tank is base required at this point. Though if we were to go the Dark Knight route, I don't believe hate/reduction mechanics would be necessary. In fact, it may be a whole risk/reward to see if Dark Knight could ride the hate line as close as possible, by perhaps gaining damage bonuses based on enmity level. However, that has nothing to do with Greatsword, that can be done with Sword and Shield.

I simply feel that trying to diversify the weapons aspect of the Classes in a game that defines said classes by their weapons is contradictory. Again, the effort you put into redefining the class in order to encompass an additional weapon within that class definition could be used to to better diversify the world itself, when you think of all the mechanical changes and lore changes it would involve. Why cut corners to put a greatsword on a Gladiator when a Soldier class could offer a new storyline to entice players, get players back involved into the leveling stream to help newer players again, and allow for not one additional, but potentially two additional jobs to be stemmed for it, on top of a unique playstyle that could draw or hold more players to the game.

For every additional weapon you give to a class, the more you limit the possibility of that weapon being used as its own foundation to another job set, unless you essentially wipe the slate clean of the entire Armory system - In which case I'd have to completely reassess my desire to play this game, as I would feel the system would not benefit from this so called 'depth' so much as become convoluted by it. (Unless heavily limited.)

Right now we have the distinct advantage of having a clear gear progression path for each class with little room for debate and question. Instead the focus is on execution for the majority of difficult encounters. If you begin to muddy the possibilities by flooding classes with sub par builds, and already potentially hostile community will further implode into elitism debates of X weapon vs Y (vs Z and so on). And on the development standpoint, a single build from each class is much easier to balance.

Instead, I feel that the better choice in this matter is to continue to expand on the breath of what is available, and follow the formula established by Arcanist: One Class defined by the weapon used, Two jobs of differing roles stemming from that weapon. Given the way the story, the lore, the locales are all formatted from, this will add greater depth to the wider world of Eorzea, while keeping the entire system still user friendly for would-be beginners. (I know, an unpopular mantra among hardcore gamers, but it's working.)

I'm for expanding what we have. But so many times I see people who've firmly decided that we must break what we have to improve upon it. And I only subscribe to that philosophy in extreme cases, such as 1.0's debacle. Right now, in spite of all the tropes of late, the game is in a good place and has a good foundation going for it. I'm both looking forward to new classes and new Jobs for the current class. I am deeply excited about the idea that my Lance can be potentially be used for tanking. If that has to be a Lance and Shield I can give it a shot, on paper. However, for much of the same reasons I have issues with open world content, I'm hesitant on the concept of disbanding the format of classes being defined by the weapons they use when it comes to practicalities.

Can it be done? Sure, but as evidenced by the Hunts, there's a lot of open ended problems in both how it could be implemented by the developers, and how it could be received by the players. And I don't see the point of ruining a good thing over it.

Edited, Sep 17th 2014 5:51pm by Hyrist

Not really. There's lots of grammatical errors there that I could clean up. I'm just trying to be honest and respectful with my opinion on things like this.

There are plenty of interesting ideas that are great as just ideas, but just don't really seem to fit within this game. I'm just waiting for the day when someone makes billions creating an RPG Maker: MMO Edition and lets everyone make their own favorite system.

I remember that interview, and I'm both curious and concerned as to what the results of that statement will be.

Then again, it may be nothing. Given how we all hung up on a 800k Price figure that was nothing but a mistranslated mess, and the horrid communication breakdown in the housing debacle, we may be hanging on to vapor.

I see the desire between the dichotomy between paladin and dark knight in similar fashion to say Jedi and Sith. But in that longing, is borrowing skills from one another or altering what the same skill does.Does the route that feels unique and play differently from one another? In my opinion, no it does not. If the effects only changed but not the weapon or animation it would still feel particularly similar on either job.

Since jobs are limited in the pool of skills from what classes they are derived from. Any job born from an existing class are bound to the foundation, game play wise of that specific class. If this was altered in any way. It would call job definition into question, especially if the moves crossed over. We would probably get situations of balance and such.

In essence if SE wanted to. They could create jobs to offer the option of playing one of three roles tied to the same weapon/class. Paladin to tank, Dark Knight to dps, and mystic knight to heal. But it would still run into the issue of being limited by the specific cross class,skill/trait limit-ability.

I feel the weapon tied to gladiator should have been great shield which signifies tank. Then they could input a multitude of various weapons and tanks jobs who are confined to one handed weapons all which play differently with the right ideas. The lance tank would work in this situation most definitely. Of course the animations between sword and lance would differentiate tanking across scenarios. But here it still wouldn't be as good to me because even if they introduced 30 jobs. The class play would be one and done and all would still play pretty similar control wise. Your opinions may differ.

There are many forms of weapon in the real world. That's a bunch of different possibilities for new classes and jobs. Especially if your mind expands past the obvious weapons.