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Is it a strange design choice to have jobs locked until 50? Yeah.
Is it something I'm surprised about? Nope.
I think the only real game we can compare FFXIV to is it's sister game FFXI - which basically has the same design philosophy wrapped up in a grindier package. FFXI had a lot of classes gated behind 30, in fact most of them were except for the original 6. Before you say "But so does this game!" unlocking White Mage for CNJ was not the same as playing a RDM and then trying to unlock SMN once you get 30. "But it's 30, not cap level!" Well that's the rub... level 30 was a huge slog to get to, it was a slow process that, back in 2003, probably took as much time to hit as FFXIV's level 50. In fact this was probably true until Abyssea in 2010 - which a lot of players said ruined the game because it made everything easier. Not only did they unlock at 30, each one had a bullshit quest attached to it that varied in difficulty, but nearly all of them you needed high level friends to even help clear (Anyone remember trying to get NIN by yourself at 30? HAHAHAHAHA hahahaha... hahaha...). It's difficult and tedious, and they never stopped doing it.
Here's the thing: Like it or hate it. Square Enix LOVES GATES. It's their favorite thing in the world. In FFXI every 5 levels past 50 was locked behind a gate - a difficult quest from Maat to increase your level tier. Most of the Promathia expansion was locked behind the huge gate called Promyvions (Oh, Prom... I curse your name). Sky was gated. Sea was gated. Gates everywhere, all the gates. That carried over to FFXIV.
Did anyone find it weird that the last month before the expansion, instead of just... oh I dunno... dropping the gates of T5 and T9 to get into FCOB, they... uh... didn't do that at all. Just giving FCOB an echo bonus that... probably wasn't necessary. They wanted to make FCOB easier for people already in FCOB? It's a month till expansion, let the gates down! But they won't, to them gates mean prestige. It's how you show you accomplished something and it's pretty tangible beyond looking up achievements. You know anyone with a FCOB piece has cleared T5 and T9 (And Titan hard). You know anyone who has a Shiva pony also went through the BS of unlocking all the primals before her. You know simply from an item they have what they did to get said item. And SE LIKES that for better or for worse.
To them, DRK/AST/MCH are prestige classes. Something that you need to work toward and so other people know you worked toward it. Prestige classes aren't new to the RPG scene, Dungeons and Dragons has Prestige classes.
Do I think it's silly? Yeah sure. But I also know how SE is. SE is SE. Just like Blizzard is Blizzard and NCSoft is ass. Each company does things differently in order to show accomplishments. SE's way can be quite bullshit.
HOWEVER. I don't think that this game is newbie unfriendly at all. The game is still EXTREMELY newbie friendly. When you walk in as a new player you will know those three classes are Prestige classes. You'll know because it's telling you so. As a new player you'll probably just... sigh and roll a Warrior or something. New players did it in FFXI, they did it in WoW too (With Death Knight, level 55 was killer if you were new!), and it's something that a new player will... probably just accept if they want to play the game. It's not like most new players are whiny babies and will throw a tantrum and leave. They'll look at all the options and either play or not play.
And since the game is exceedingly popular, my guess is they will most likely play.
Will FFXIV lose some business over this? Yes. But they lose business over a lot of things. Any design decision they make is a subscription lose from Bob Joe who decides that the hill he's going to die on. SE doesn't make decisions based on how many subscriptions they may lose, if they did, they would make no decisions.
Is it something I'm surprised about? Nope.
I think the only real game we can compare FFXIV to is it's sister game FFXI - which basically has the same design philosophy wrapped up in a grindier package. FFXI had a lot of classes gated behind 30, in fact most of them were except for the original 6. Before you say "But so does this game!" unlocking White Mage for CNJ was not the same as playing a RDM and then trying to unlock SMN once you get 30. "But it's 30, not cap level!" Well that's the rub... level 30 was a huge slog to get to, it was a slow process that, back in 2003, probably took as much time to hit as FFXIV's level 50. In fact this was probably true until Abyssea in 2010 - which a lot of players said ruined the game because it made everything easier. Not only did they unlock at 30, each one had a bullshit quest attached to it that varied in difficulty, but nearly all of them you needed high level friends to even help clear (Anyone remember trying to get NIN by yourself at 30? HAHAHAHAHA hahahaha... hahaha...). It's difficult and tedious, and they never stopped doing it.
Here's the thing: Like it or hate it. Square Enix LOVES GATES. It's their favorite thing in the world. In FFXI every 5 levels past 50 was locked behind a gate - a difficult quest from Maat to increase your level tier. Most of the Promathia expansion was locked behind the huge gate called Promyvions (Oh, Prom... I curse your name). Sky was gated. Sea was gated. Gates everywhere, all the gates. That carried over to FFXIV.
Did anyone find it weird that the last month before the expansion, instead of just... oh I dunno... dropping the gates of T5 and T9 to get into FCOB, they... uh... didn't do that at all. Just giving FCOB an echo bonus that... probably wasn't necessary. They wanted to make FCOB easier for people already in FCOB? It's a month till expansion, let the gates down! But they won't, to them gates mean prestige. It's how you show you accomplished something and it's pretty tangible beyond looking up achievements. You know anyone with a FCOB piece has cleared T5 and T9 (And Titan hard). You know anyone who has a Shiva pony also went through the BS of unlocking all the primals before her. You know simply from an item they have what they did to get said item. And SE LIKES that for better or for worse.
To them, DRK/AST/MCH are prestige classes. Something that you need to work toward and so other people know you worked toward it. Prestige classes aren't new to the RPG scene, Dungeons and Dragons has Prestige classes.
Do I think it's silly? Yeah sure. But I also know how SE is. SE is SE. Just like Blizzard is Blizzard and NCSoft is ass. Each company does things differently in order to show accomplishments. SE's way can be quite bullshit.
HOWEVER. I don't think that this game is newbie unfriendly at all. The game is still EXTREMELY newbie friendly. When you walk in as a new player you will know those three classes are Prestige classes. You'll know because it's telling you so. As a new player you'll probably just... sigh and roll a Warrior or something. New players did it in FFXI, they did it in WoW too (With Death Knight, level 55 was killer if you were new!), and it's something that a new player will... probably just accept if they want to play the game. It's not like most new players are whiny babies and will throw a tantrum and leave. They'll look at all the options and either play or not play.
And since the game is exceedingly popular, my guess is they will most likely play.
Will FFXIV lose some business over this? Yes. But they lose business over a lot of things. Any design decision they make is a subscription lose from Bob Joe who decides that the hill he's going to die on. SE doesn't make decisions based on how many subscriptions they may lose, if they did, they would make no decisions.
![[Image: tumblr_n92fndN0EH1rujdn8o1_500.gif]](https://33.media.tumblr.com/449e130ac31106ec8aeda3d0f121d76b/tumblr_n92fndN0EH1rujdn8o1_500.gif)