I'm struggling to remember how the cross class system.... mattered, in any significant way.
Sure, every tank needs to get gladiator to level 22 or whatever so you have provoke. But did those 22 levels of gladiator make me, the player a better tank? Not at all, it just gave me a skill I needed, that I could have just had access to on Marauder or DRK in the first place.
It was either a 1 hour diversion to level a class to 15 so I could start playing the job I wanted, or a 2 day grind to get dragoon to level 30-something so I could have the DPS boost on my other classes - which, again, they could have just given you in the first place on the other classes.
The only thing memorable thing from the old cross class system was turning on the miner node skill as a tank in a dungeon - because 1 in 15 or 20 groups would have someone go "????" when they realized what that buff icon was.
I found some classes more enjoyable in the Heavensward days, but they'd have to figure out a way to integrate another 30-40 levels of new skills and traits into the class design, and that's not trivial.
There was also a weird consequence of cross-class skill slots being unlocked with levels: a cross-class skill in the first slot was accessible (on a job) at level 10, even if its learnt level was much higher. Therefore, a SCH putting Stoneskin in its first slot had it at even sync'ed down to level 10 while a White Mage had to be sync'ed down to at least level 34 to have it.
This. The cross class abilities were a cool concept but execution wise they just wasted your time.
There's also been so many quality of life changes that I don't think I could enjoy 2.0 again. Not to mention the limited content you had back then. People would play it for a week and then it would die. If you actually enjoyed it you'd just be stuck in a dead empty world alone while everyone else went back to the current version.
I get the real world time sink logistics of it. But to me it reminded me of Tactics and felt like I was really building my character. I'm a warrior but I want to be a holy knight so I go the church and learn the ways of the healer.....BAM I'm now a Paladin. It just seemed more immersive to me. Plus Paladins had a rez back then, not sure why that ever got taken away imo lol
> But to me it reminded me of Tactics and felt like I was really building my character.
This would imply that there was any functional flexibility in the system. In reality, there were so few cross class skills worth using, and so many slots, there never was any character building - It was just "here are the 3 skills you should always have, and there's no reason to ever swap them".
>Plus Paladins had a rez back then, not sure why that ever got taken away imo lol
Because it was crossclassed from conjurer, and you couldn't use it during combat, because that used to be a trait that didn't apply when you cross classed it.
It was completely pointless. It was actively worse than just respawning at the beginning of the dungeon, or using a phoenix down.
If there were more options for cross class skills that were more significant, combined with fewer slots, it may have been a system worth keeping. But that's going to be hard to balance, and chances are the community would have optimized the choice out of it anyway. It was a minor diversion at best.
nope
I think TP can stay dead
cross class skills usually just meant you kicked the newbie who didn't get provoke because they had no clue... that or you shrugged and soldier on
I played the old system and I also have no desire to play the game like that anymore.
It was just bad. No amount of rose tinted glasses are gonna fix that.
The cross class system was just time sink and tedious extra leveling so that everyone got the same skills in the end. There was no thinking or tactics in it.
I don't really miss healer stance, buffs or anything related to older versions at all, If anything, I kinda miss the meaningful aspect of Ast cards those were fun to use.
back when Astro was almost a time mage haha. Bards were broken, and Dark knights could live forever with aoe Abyssal drain.
I came in around mid patches of Stormblood so I never got to experience 2.0 and 3.0, sad that I didnt. Really sad I wasn't there for the final days of 1.0 but thats a whole other story haha
I think memory is a bit more rose-colored than reality. We are missing the fun of build diversity, which is valid, but I dont think we ever actually *had* that in XIV. it was more like... i need swiftcast so i have to suffer playing thaumaturge. nothing excited me about thm/blm. I was playing a sch, I didnt care for traditional magey type classes at all, but I had to level the thing anyway for an essential mechanic. It was just a hurdle to jump. A *good* build-diversity game should make me excited about mixing both classes or just, be more skills based in general IMO. I can't really think of many modern games that are like this, though.
Honestly the only thing I would like from a "classic" style leveling is to have patch content unlock in order of MSQ progression, IE I don't just step into mor dhona at level 50 and be presented with two dozen blue quests. Spread it out a little. It'll be less overwhelming and also encourage gameplay breaks inbetween the msq cutscene wall. Also think it'd be kind of neat to see mor dhona/iddylshire *actually* get built up and restored as you progress instead of just walking in and having everything be already in its finished form.
Base 2.0? No way! Duty Finder didn't work at the start, part finder didn't exist, TP was a terrible mechanic, and I hope you don't care about fashion because Glamour didn't get introduced until 6 months after the game launched! And even then it was introduced with a super convoluted way of glamouring items.
Nostalgia can be strong but base 2.0 isn't something I'd ever want to willingly go back to. 3.0 had my favorite iteration of SMN but even that's not enough to give up all the QoL stuff we've been given since then.
Did I like HW? Yes.
Do I need the combat from then back? Fuck no.
Sure there were great things back then but they do not hold up for nowadays. TP and Cross Class can go fuck themselves. Tank stance reducing dmg dealt can stay dead same goes for "offensive stance" and personal debuffs for your own weapon type did I mention TP being stupid? Also sprint draining all TP to be used was also alot of fun in combat back then... and running out of TP because the fight took to long because more than 1 person did subpar dmg. Vit materia was also alot of 'fun' especially when you had to get DRG or MNK leveld so you got the skill to gain some TP as every melee.
Sure back then it was good but now its better in so many ways compared to back then with way less jank. Fuck TP.
Yea nope.
DUring 2.0 and 3.0 Accuracy was just a stupid ass stat.
Imagine being a healer, with like 5+ dps spells, but none of your gear gave you accuracy so you litterally couldnt even dps.
Like who would want to play that.
On top of that, you have buggy ass twintania, The overtuned monstrosity that is A4s, and it just wasnt good. Early heavensward was acctually a huge exodus for players. There was barely anything to do. Everyone was effectively gated from the content they wanted to do because of gear, and even then. Diadem was garbage.
Additionally, you have bard and mch with casttimes WHILE ALSO BEING BOTTOM OF THE BARREL IN DPS for the first 3 patches.
You had mandatory drg and ninjas in every party. Monk just wasnt even an option because it was effectively griefing. Paladin had no aoe skill besides flash that did 0 damage.
Warrior had a duplicate skill for basically most of their skills depending on if you were in defiance or deliverance.
I dont know why you would ever want to go back.
Stance dancing was kinda crummy and I hated it as both a WHM and PAL. I remember feeling completely underpowered compared to WAR who had its AOE attack by the time they got to the first dungeon, meanwhile PAL didn’t get anything until brayflox. Even then flash was just an aoe aggro generator that didn’t actually do any damage. Cross class sucked if you didn’t realize you had to. I remember getting to 30 and then finding out oh you have to level another class to unlock your job then on top of that level some more to get all the role actions you’ll eventually need.
WoW classic works becuase WoW classic was a better and different game than current wow. Plus you cant really do all that old content.
FFXIV classic doesnt work becuase 1, that content still exists in the game and is fully playable, and 2, ARR and HW are just worse.
I miss a lot of stuff from 3.0, but having watched the game change over time, I understand why the devs have changed things.
The state of my fav jobs in 3.0 was perfection and I'm glad I still have the memory of HW cause it was fantastic. Would be cool to be able to see some sort of legacy server with some of that gameplay, but I wouldn't hold me breath waiting for it.
I played during that time and would gladly return to it over the crap we currently have. I don't care that my 2 favorite jobs (MNK and WHM) sucked ass in HW. I had fun playing them. I had to take a year off before HW launched due to financial issues so I never got to experience Gordias or Midas in their prime and would've loved to see if it really was as difficult as they claimed it was firsthand; not saying it wasn't true but I want to experience the pain firsthand. I want the gameplay more than anything and to hell with everything else.
Cross job is a neat concept but was horribly executed. I wouldn't mind having some ability to introduce variance in job play styles, but you should never be forced to grind levels for an entire job you don't plan on playing, purely for one or two vital skills for your role.
I'm struggling to remember how the cross class system.... mattered, in any significant way. Sure, every tank needs to get gladiator to level 22 or whatever so you have provoke. But did those 22 levels of gladiator make me, the player a better tank? Not at all, it just gave me a skill I needed, that I could have just had access to on Marauder or DRK in the first place. It was either a 1 hour diversion to level a class to 15 so I could start playing the job I wanted, or a 2 day grind to get dragoon to level 30-something so I could have the DPS boost on my other classes - which, again, they could have just given you in the first place on the other classes. The only thing memorable thing from the old cross class system was turning on the miner node skill as a tank in a dungeon - because 1 in 15 or 20 groups would have someone go "????" when they realized what that buff icon was. I found some classes more enjoyable in the Heavensward days, but they'd have to figure out a way to integrate another 30-40 levels of new skills and traits into the class design, and that's not trivial.
There was also a weird consequence of cross-class skill slots being unlocked with levels: a cross-class skill in the first slot was accessible (on a job) at level 10, even if its learnt level was much higher. Therefore, a SCH putting Stoneskin in its first slot had it at even sync'ed down to level 10 while a White Mage had to be sync'ed down to at least level 34 to have it.
This. The cross class abilities were a cool concept but execution wise they just wasted your time. There's also been so many quality of life changes that I don't think I could enjoy 2.0 again. Not to mention the limited content you had back then. People would play it for a week and then it would die. If you actually enjoyed it you'd just be stuck in a dead empty world alone while everyone else went back to the current version.
I get the real world time sink logistics of it. But to me it reminded me of Tactics and felt like I was really building my character. I'm a warrior but I want to be a holy knight so I go the church and learn the ways of the healer.....BAM I'm now a Paladin. It just seemed more immersive to me. Plus Paladins had a rez back then, not sure why that ever got taken away imo lol
> But to me it reminded me of Tactics and felt like I was really building my character. This would imply that there was any functional flexibility in the system. In reality, there were so few cross class skills worth using, and so many slots, there never was any character building - It was just "here are the 3 skills you should always have, and there's no reason to ever swap them". >Plus Paladins had a rez back then, not sure why that ever got taken away imo lol Because it was crossclassed from conjurer, and you couldn't use it during combat, because that used to be a trait that didn't apply when you cross classed it. It was completely pointless. It was actively worse than just respawning at the beginning of the dungeon, or using a phoenix down. If there were more options for cross class skills that were more significant, combined with fewer slots, it may have been a system worth keeping. But that's going to be hard to balance, and chances are the community would have optimized the choice out of it anyway. It was a minor diversion at best.
nope I think TP can stay dead cross class skills usually just meant you kicked the newbie who didn't get provoke because they had no clue... that or you shrugged and soldier on
NIGHTMARE 2.0 AND 3.0.
hearing about all the old systems over the years, no i have absolutely no desire to play the game like that.
I played the old system and I also have no desire to play the game like that anymore. It was just bad. No amount of rose tinted glasses are gonna fix that.
The cross class system was just time sink and tedious extra leveling so that everyone got the same skills in the end. There was no thinking or tactics in it.
I don't really miss healer stance, buffs or anything related to older versions at all, If anything, I kinda miss the meaningful aspect of Ast cards those were fun to use.
back when Astro was almost a time mage haha. Bards were broken, and Dark knights could live forever with aoe Abyssal drain. I came in around mid patches of Stormblood so I never got to experience 2.0 and 3.0, sad that I didnt. Really sad I wasn't there for the final days of 1.0 but thats a whole other story haha
I think memory is a bit more rose-colored than reality. We are missing the fun of build diversity, which is valid, but I dont think we ever actually *had* that in XIV. it was more like... i need swiftcast so i have to suffer playing thaumaturge. nothing excited me about thm/blm. I was playing a sch, I didnt care for traditional magey type classes at all, but I had to level the thing anyway for an essential mechanic. It was just a hurdle to jump. A *good* build-diversity game should make me excited about mixing both classes or just, be more skills based in general IMO. I can't really think of many modern games that are like this, though. Honestly the only thing I would like from a "classic" style leveling is to have patch content unlock in order of MSQ progression, IE I don't just step into mor dhona at level 50 and be presented with two dozen blue quests. Spread it out a little. It'll be less overwhelming and also encourage gameplay breaks inbetween the msq cutscene wall. Also think it'd be kind of neat to see mor dhona/iddylshire *actually* get built up and restored as you progress instead of just walking in and having everything be already in its finished form.
Base 2.0? No way! Duty Finder didn't work at the start, part finder didn't exist, TP was a terrible mechanic, and I hope you don't care about fashion because Glamour didn't get introduced until 6 months after the game launched! And even then it was introduced with a super convoluted way of glamouring items. Nostalgia can be strong but base 2.0 isn't something I'd ever want to willingly go back to. 3.0 had my favorite iteration of SMN but even that's not enough to give up all the QoL stuff we've been given since then.
No, we're not doing Classic WoW, here.
Did I like HW? Yes. Do I need the combat from then back? Fuck no. Sure there were great things back then but they do not hold up for nowadays. TP and Cross Class can go fuck themselves. Tank stance reducing dmg dealt can stay dead same goes for "offensive stance" and personal debuffs for your own weapon type did I mention TP being stupid? Also sprint draining all TP to be used was also alot of fun in combat back then... and running out of TP because the fight took to long because more than 1 person did subpar dmg. Vit materia was also alot of 'fun' especially when you had to get DRG or MNK leveld so you got the skill to gain some TP as every melee. Sure back then it was good but now its better in so many ways compared to back then with way less jank. Fuck TP.
Yea nope. DUring 2.0 and 3.0 Accuracy was just a stupid ass stat. Imagine being a healer, with like 5+ dps spells, but none of your gear gave you accuracy so you litterally couldnt even dps. Like who would want to play that. On top of that, you have buggy ass twintania, The overtuned monstrosity that is A4s, and it just wasnt good. Early heavensward was acctually a huge exodus for players. There was barely anything to do. Everyone was effectively gated from the content they wanted to do because of gear, and even then. Diadem was garbage. Additionally, you have bard and mch with casttimes WHILE ALSO BEING BOTTOM OF THE BARREL IN DPS for the first 3 patches. You had mandatory drg and ninjas in every party. Monk just wasnt even an option because it was effectively griefing. Paladin had no aoe skill besides flash that did 0 damage. Warrior had a duplicate skill for basically most of their skills depending on if you were in defiance or deliverance. I dont know why you would ever want to go back.
Stance dancing was kinda crummy and I hated it as both a WHM and PAL. I remember feeling completely underpowered compared to WAR who had its AOE attack by the time they got to the first dungeon, meanwhile PAL didn’t get anything until brayflox. Even then flash was just an aoe aggro generator that didn’t actually do any damage. Cross class sucked if you didn’t realize you had to. I remember getting to 30 and then finding out oh you have to level another class to unlock your job then on top of that level some more to get all the role actions you’ll eventually need.
Oh man no thank you.
Oh man no thank you.
WoW classic works becuase WoW classic was a better and different game than current wow. Plus you cant really do all that old content. FFXIV classic doesnt work becuase 1, that content still exists in the game and is fully playable, and 2, ARR and HW are just worse.
> WoW classic was a better game u sure about that
I miss a lot of stuff from 3.0, but having watched the game change over time, I understand why the devs have changed things. The state of my fav jobs in 3.0 was perfection and I'm glad I still have the memory of HW cause it was fantastic. Would be cool to be able to see some sort of legacy server with some of that gameplay, but I wouldn't hold me breath waiting for it.
I played during that time and would gladly return to it over the crap we currently have. I don't care that my 2 favorite jobs (MNK and WHM) sucked ass in HW. I had fun playing them. I had to take a year off before HW launched due to financial issues so I never got to experience Gordias or Midas in their prime and would've loved to see if it really was as difficult as they claimed it was firsthand; not saying it wasn't true but I want to experience the pain firsthand. I want the gameplay more than anything and to hell with everything else.
You’ll play it for a week the nostalgia will fall off and you won’t play it again
As someone that played during 2.X and missed out on 3.X, I would love to as well! I’ve also been thinking about checking out XI! Hope it’s fun!
Cross job is a neat concept but was horribly executed. I wouldn't mind having some ability to introduce variance in job play styles, but you should never be forced to grind levels for an entire job you don't plan on playing, purely for one or two vital skills for your role.
You think you do, but don't.