RP and multi-classing

[Curtis West]

As I was doing some browsing for a potential class to settle on with my character, I noticed a trend here. Maybe it's because of the traditional Final Fantasy job roles ("Hey I am the white mage!") but it seems people tend to pick one job to be their main to RP with, and level (or completely ignore) the other stuff OOC'ly. 

 

Coming from a non-FF background I must ask... why?

 

 

It seems to me that a talented warrior (or mage) would be pretty good at nearly any weapon. It doesn't add up to me that a character would be good at archery but not any good at any other type of fighting... and this goes double for close range combat. The mentality of the player seems to be of that old FF mindset where a character is the job they play. In this context, where one can switch jobs so easily though that mindset feels outdated.

 

My analogy is sports related. Many of the NFL players are gifted athletes. In fact, in High School over 50% of all NFL players were playing Quarterback. They were simply great athletes, the best in their high school. Once they get to college, they specialize more, and once in the league they play the best suited position based on team needs and their best skills.

 

A gifted warrior (or simply a hard working one) is very similar in my opinion. She can wield most weapons above average, but when in a group with similarly skilled warriors, she must take up her absolute best weapon that suits the party.

 

To double up on the sports analogy, athletes that go into Mixed Martial Arts seem to outperform other martial art athletes that train only in one particular style. This relates to the common thought of "If one trains with one weapon, they are likely more skilled than someone who trains with multiple weapons." In theory, it sounds right, but in reality cross-training seems to beat out stand alone training. 

 

What would make this sports analogy unbearable is this: Many NFL players train in MMA to gain an edge on the field. Meaning that combination of various sports (not just styles within a sport) seems to improve the performance of athletes.

 

Just like a great NFL player is really a talented athlete who went into NFL rather than being exclusively good at football, I see a kick ass pugilist as an awesome warrior who happens to be using their knuckles!

 

Given this information, I am curious what other people think on the matter. Will your character play an overall good warrior/mage who kills things with just about anything, or a more classic FF role?

 

I still have no main class picked out for Curtis, but I will likely do whatever fits the group I am in, for the reasons I outlined; there is no need to pick just one.

[Naunet]

I'm definitely a supporter of "multi-classing", as you called it, in roleplay. It's something I've done a couple times in RP in previous MMOs, and something my partner has done quite a bit. We do it when it makes sense for a character's story. It can definitely be extremely fun, especially when there's a dichotomy of skill in play (such as a warrior-type character learning magic).

 

I don't think anyone is unnecessarily limiting themselves by keeping a character to one "class", though. Sometimes it's appropriate for a character, and sometimes it isn't.

[Grott]

As I was doing some browsing for a potential class to settle on with my character, I noticed a trend here. Maybe it's because of the traditional Final Fantasy job roles ("Hey I am the white mage!") but it seems people tend to pick one job to be their main to RP with, and level (or completely ignore) the other stuff OOC'ly. 

 

Coming from a non-FF background I must ask... why?

 

 

It seems to me that a talented warrior (or mage) would be pretty good at nearly any weapon. It doesn't add up to me that a character would be good at archery but not any good at any other type of fighting... and this goes double for close range combat. The mentality of the player seems to be of that old FF mindset where a character is the job they play. In this context, where one can switch jobs so easily though that mindset feels outdated.

 

My analogy is sports related. Many of the NFL players are gifted athletes. In fact, in High School over 50% of all NFL players were playing Quarterback. They were simply great athletes, the best in their high school. Once they get to college, they specialize more, and once in the league they play the best suited position based on team needs and their best skills.

 

A gifted warrior (or simply a hard working one) is very similar in my opinion. She can wield most weapons above average, but when in a group with similarly skilled warriors, she must take up her absolute best weapon that suits the party.

 

To double up on the sports analogy, athletes that go into Mixed Martial Arts seem to outperform other martial art athletes that train only in one particular style. This relates to the common thought of "If one trains with one weapon, they are likely more skilled than someone who trains with multiple weapons." In theory, it sounds right, but in reality cross-training seems to beat out stand alone training. 

 

What would make this sports analogy unbearable is this: Many NFL players train in MMA to gain an edge on the field. Meaning that combination of various sports (not just styles within a sport) seems to improve the performance of athletes.

 

Given this information, I am curious what other people think on the matter. Will your character play an overall good warrior/mage who kills things with just about anything, or a more classic FF role?

 

I still have no main class picked out for Curtis, but I will likely do whatever fits the group I am in, for the reasons I outlined; there is no need to pick just one.

 

You're not wrong.

 

It's kind of shaky ground. If I RP a warrior who is outstanding in combat with an axe and has been doing it his whole life, then I switch to black mage because I'd like to try it IC, a lot of people would cry "God-moding!"

 

However, fuck that. People should be able to play what they want. I personally like to keep a sense of realism in my class choice, though. Here's my example.

 

Uther Skystrider was raised in Ishgard. That alone points its finger at dragoon, which is what I'm planning on. I plan on being the quintessential dragoon. I plan on RPers thinking "Uther" when someone says "dragoon". However, that's not because I only want to play one class. It makes the most sense to me that he starts off that way. If I start him lancer, he will begin the game in Gridania, which is the closest city-state to Ishgard geographically. So it all kind of fits together.

 

After a time of 'gooning it up (that's what I'm calling "playing a dragoon" now), I do plan to start experiencing more options with Uther ICly. I already have set up roads for him to go Warrior and Paladin. Possibly even Monk or Archer. I don't think Uther will be dabbling in magic, though. He doesn't know anything about that shiz.

 

Anyways, that's rambling and I apologize. I agree that characters shouldn't be their classes, but the game is highly based in combat so it's a little understandable to RP a specialist style character.

 

Not sure if that post made any sense. It's 1 a.m. where I am. Whatever, man.

[Eva]

I think I have remarked on this topic at least once before so I'm going to spare the longwinded rant and skip right to the...

 

TL;DR: RPing that you have expertise (not to be confused with varying levels of experience) at a large number of disciplines may be construed as Mary Sue behavior. Having multiple areas of interest and multiple skills at which to practice makes sense and makes for a multidimensional character as long as those talents are at varying and realistic levels of skill. That's my 2 gil.

[Curtis West]

Haha yeah I can see circumstance playing into what you start off doing, for sure. That said if Uther is a talented warrior (or just one who works super hard and doesn't spare himself) I don't see why he'd not be great with the axe, sword, or whatever else. In my mind at least, it's not the use of a particular type of weapon that decides the overall skill, it's the character's innate physical ability. 

 

 

 

*Edited something small in the OP that I missed.

[Grott]

Having multiple areas of interest and multiple skills at which to practice makes sense and makes for a multidimensional character as long as those talents are at varying and realistic levels of skill.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself, Eva.

 

And Curtis, my plan was that Uther would learn to use a sword and shield for paladin. The handling of the weapon itself would be awkward at first, since he's used to polearms, but he's already an experienced close quarters fighter so the change wouldn't be out of control for him. 

 

If I were a black mage and decided to be a warrior one day and didn't even put in effort to explain the change in combat style, weapon wielding, or even how he handles the weight of the armor, I could see that turning some heads. Really though, any change can be made as long as the person doing it at least gives it a reasonable explanation IMO.

 

Some people just like sticking to one class. I don't get it either, despite dragoon being far-and-away my main focus for my character.

 

EDIT: Don't know why I'm explaining all of Uther's plans to you, Curtis. We're in the same linkshell. You'll see it all eventually.

[Varus]

To double up on the sports analogy, athletes that go into Mixed Martial Arts seem to outperform other martial art athletes that train only in one particular style. This relates to the common thought of "If one trains with one weapon, they are likely more skilled than someone who trains with multiple weapons." In theory, it sounds right, but in reality cross-training seems to beat out stand alone training. 

 

---

 

It should be noted that combat is very situation make it extremely hard to generalize this. To expand, in Mixed Martial Arts, there are a key set of moves that are far more effective than others. Generally speaking these moves originate from boxing, judo, kickboxing, karate, and muay thai.

 

---

 

Back to the point: yes, cross training gives you the flexibility to adapt to the ever-changing situations in combat. However, in a "fair duel with the same weapons" in which one's skill set is limited to that weapon, the advantage of cross training becomes moot.

 

Using Tyonis as an example: he is more than capable of skillfully using a sword, axe, spear, bow, mace, shield, or his bare hands in combat. But he identifies best as a duel-wielding swordsman.

[PeriasGift]

I personally think that those that specialize and focus in one particular area are going to be more proficient in it on nearly all levels compared to someone that studied a bit of everything, or several things. You sacrifice focused talent for all-around versatility. In my opinion, one isn't better than the other. They're just different! I'd make sure that both the people that have their characters focus on one discipline and those that don't bear that in mind. No matter what each has strengths and weaknesses!

[LandStander]

I think I have remarked on this topic at least once before so I'm going to spare the longwinded rant and skip right to the...

 

TL;DR:  RPing that you have expertise (not to be confused with varying levels of experience) at a large number of disciplines may be construed as Mary Sue behavior.  Having multiple areas of interest and multiple skills at which to practice makes sense and makes for a multidimensional character as long as those talents are at varying and realistic levels of skill.  That's my 2 gil.

Exactly what I was going to say :thumbsup:. I don't mind a character who might have skill in a few other talents. Such as a monk who might dabble a bit in white magic or so (I guess it kind of makes sense if you want to consider skills such as second wind), but I don't really think it would be wise to have a character who has mastered 4 or 5 different classes because of what Eva said.

[Caysen]

I think you have to find a good middle ground when it comes to multi-classing. There at lots of classes that are very different but could easily work together if you put some effort into why the character knows the different skills.

 

Melee type characters could easily be skilled in several weapons, and mage types often study more than one school of magic. A Paladin type character could take up White Mage out of their desire to protect people in any way they can, because at their core both jobs are about keeping other people safe. A character could also be both a Monk and a Black Mage, both jobs are centered around the ability to control the aether within one's body. They could reasonably be skilled at different ways of doing it. You could come up with many more reasons than those. Maybe a character learns something out of necessity, or maybe they have some huge life event and decide to change their ways completely and leave behind their warrior ways to become a healer.

 

There's always a line though, and it's really easy to take it too far. If someone is the kind of player that levels everything to 50 just because they can, RPing that they're amazingly skilled at absolutely everything IC is rather godmody.

 

For my character Caysen, I'll be RPing him as skilled to some varying degree in all the classes I play on him. This will include all magic classes and ranged classes. I have IC reasons for him to know all that he does, and different levels of skill IC even though OOC the jobs will probably all be capped eventually. For example, he's a mage type first and foremost, so he studies all schools of magic and those jobs are the ones he's most skilled at. Being a Miqo'te he's got some skill in archery as well, specifically leading to Bard where he'll mix it with magic. If we get a gun/Musketeer class in the future he'll have some skill in that too, first because guns are somewhat similar to archery, and second because he's from Limsa and would have grown up around it, so it's reasonable that he would have a least learned to use one some. But he would by no means be as skilled with a bow or gun as he is in magic. If they add a sword using magic class like Red Mage, he'll take that up IC after learning some rudimentary sword techniques from his Paladin friend Ryuki.

 

Other classes, melee classes and such, I'll be playing on an alt. I'm interested in playing Monk, but it doesn't fit Caysen at all.

[Kyatai]

The closest thing I can relate to this is my Tour of Duty in SWG:

In the beginning, you could hybridize. You could literally become whatever you wanted your character to be. My fave (and what my character identified with) was as a Teras Kasi Master and Pikeman. (aka unarmed martial artist/knuckles & polearm)

 

Now, did that mean that in my 3+ years in SWG I didn't have her master just about every other profession? Nope. I did. And yes, I did it IC.

BUT...

I min/maxed the impact it had on her and her character development.

 

For example:

She can cook, but not spectacularly.

She can use stimpacks and had some Combat medic-like awareness of healing- but was no physician.

She can dance, but just enough to blend in formal occasions to get close to her mark. Her mastery in instruments became a strong appreciation for certain types of music.

She can image design- well because that is the single BEST way to blend in as an agent.

She had connections to Spynet as a contracted Bounty Hunter- but she wasn't Bothan and didn't have good connections there.

She could do a bit of splicing- to get computer info- but wasn't really a Slicer per se.

She had an understanding of gene splicing- but all her Bioengineered pets were purchased/given to her.

And so on.

 

So each thing she did in her overall development created an 'aspect' of her- but she was only a true master and skilled at Unarmed and the polearm (specifically the Zabrak traditional zhaboka- or 'crescent staff').  IC wise, she got crap from others because she was completely anti-blaster and hand-held weapons. In a world where THE thing was a blaster or a 'saber, she preferred the 'intimate kill'. Saying that, she COULD use them (IG mastery), but was really really not a fan and not such a great shot. But, had its uses to slow targets down so she could get her hands on 'em!

 

So... that's how I think of the ability to 'multi-master' things. Max and Min the impact and IC skill... but still keep it as a part of the character.

And avoid the Mary Sue.

Character growth (and interaction) is stymied when you're uber at everything!!

[Freyar]

AS far as my design goes, there will be experience with certain classes, especially as more reach cap, but expertise will be limited to the primary area that the character has been working with. This can even be represented with the way bonus points are distributed, and attribute points are allocated. A character could be considered a master in a lot of different professions, but that doesn't mean that the character has the expertise beyond that point.

 

I realize I just re-wrote (and poorly) what others have said, but that's the gist of it.

 

Rorohiju Momohiju, primarily a studious Lalafell will have his expertise with magical work (with most in destructive spells and research), but he will eventually have master's proficiency in many other physical jobs as well.

 

Expertise != Mastery

[Myal]

It seems to me that a talented warrior (or mage) would be pretty good at nearly any weapon.

Yar. My character is not a talented warrior, though. She's merely "somewhat competent". She's still fairly young. She became good at hand-to-hand combat mostly through brawling. She has a little experience using a spear that she could fight with it, but not really great at it, and she's hopeless in archery due to unsteady hands.

 

Most people don't need to be proficient with an assortments of weapons, so they don't practice with them, so they can't really use them, even if they potentially could if only they train. That's the reason I pick only one main class ICly for Myal: she's "most people".

[Havoc Snow]

Personally, if I took the time to level up Warrior and Black Mage as an example I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to claim my character has taken the time to train and become proficient with wielding black magic and an axe. FF games are all about pushing the envelop and doing things above and beyond what the normal person could do, so playing a character who has an affinity for all things combat wouldn't be unheard of, and the time it would take to level a new class from 1 to 50 you could easily explain the training in a new field of combat.

[Magellan]

I planned on having my character be good at two disciplines (Pug and Arc) and maybe some crafting skills too.

 

To be good at everything is god-moding (there I said it) and also makes for boring characters. If my char was good at every discipline the game offers, with no weaknesses and no flaws; where's the conflict? Where's the part where they struggle and overcome obstacles? Where's the realism? Every character should have limits, and things they simply cannot do, no matter how hard they try (unless you prefer Dragonball Z style RP)

 

...if people want to engage in RPing all-powerful beings, that is fine, that is their choice, and you won't harbor any grief from me, but its not an interesting way to develop a character, in my opinion.

[Havoc Snow]

The way I look at it is there is no longer any White Magic or Black Magic like there was in FFXI, it's all just elemental magic. Even Cure is considered Wind Elemental. So it doesn't seem like that big of a stretch if you have CNJ/WHM and THM/BLM to claim your character has mastered all the elemental forms of magic.

 

Likewise, a character who starts as a MRD/WAR and then trades his axe in for a spear to go LNC/DRG could also claim to be a master of both. I don't think we'll see a lot of people claiming just because they have every class at 50 they can RP as being a master of every class (but I could be wrong), but I don't think multiclassing should be considered taboo in general. Plenty of characters in game tend to bend or break the rules, such as Thancred supposedly being a Bard but he uses a weapon not even available in the game (throwing knives), or Y'shtola being a White Mage or Conjurer but having crazy psychic powers (or at least her spells in cutscenes appear like psychic powers).

[Xeon]

I might not have much knowledge of the lore in it self however i do have an opinion of multiclassing. And its quite easy. As long as there a valid reason for knowing something or alot of things. Go for it.

 

Its unlikely a 20 year old Hyur mastered every aspect of everyyhing, hell its unlikely for probably anyone. However. Its more likely that a older character would have been able to learn more things and work on them due to the time being alive and during that time being able to train.

 

So i believe it comes down to how you spend your time and how much you had to spend. If you only trained in weapon combat and devoted your whole life to it i think your social skills might be somewhat lacking making you shut in.

 

And thats all from me, Read it if you want. Or not (/waves goodbye)

 

Edit: My character for example will aim to be a paladin inrp as a longer term goal, this init self will make him need to learn both "Whitemagic" i think, yes? And Sword/shield techniques. So i guess any job can technically count as multiclassing?

 

-Xeon

[Magellan]

To the OP's point;

 

Even Gandalf had a sword. He didn't really use it much, but there were situations where magic wouldn't do I suppose. I see no problem in someone having varying degrees of success at 2-3 disciplines, if ICly the character put in enough practice to develop the appropriate talents.

 

So no, multi-classing in itself isn't a terrible thing (since my char has 2 class skills) but I would refrain from absorbing too many of them into your RP, or adopting the PvE storyline that we are 'The One' because... well, in the greater community RP setting, we can't all be 'The One'. Keanu Reeves would disapprove.

[Y'sehr]

Didn't samurai learn the sword, spear, and bow? Probably also hand to hand? It see proficiency in most weapons as not a big deal. Not everyone is going to be a master of their weapon, and claiming mastery of everything is silly, yes. Claiming to be able to fight competently with multiple weapons sounds fine.

 

I think Jobs, where the fighting schools blend less and you see master-level techniques, is where RP choices probably need to be made.

 

That's my 2 gil.

[FreelanceWizard]

I suspect I'm going to be on the opposite side of, well, just about everyone when I say this, but here goes:

 

Given the nature of the game's story, I think it's safe to say that one can RP that every PC is, after a fashion, a "Chosen One." (I'm not going to spoil the plot, but suffice it to say that SE considered the typical MMO plot problems. ) Now, of course you can ignore the plot, but the lore established by the plot is pretty clear about what's going on with the "average" player character adventurer; it's not, as I read it, establishing that you specifically are the Chosen One, but rather that you're part of a special group that is selective across the entire population of the world (and PCs, by definition, have to be less common than NPCs, or we'd have classes like "Chocobo Muck-Raker" and "Innkeeper" ). So, I don't feel it's especially problematic to have a character that, through multi-classing, is competent in multiple fields of endeavor.

 

More problematic is the marking parts of actions in game as OOC and other parts as IC, which can get into weird RP or outright lore breaking. For instance, the Paladin Job requires expertise in Conjury. If you RP a Paladin who doesn't know the first thing about magic, for instance, you're both stepping on the lore and you have to explain why you can heal people -- or why your use of Cure is OOC and should be ignored. Some Jobs are more problematic here than others, but it remains true that telling people what they see on their screen doesn't exist is at best complicated.

 

That said, "competent" doesn't mean "ungodly powerful" or "master," and one always has to keep power levels reasonable and sensible given the age of your character, how long they've been an adventurer, etc. The aforementioned Paladin may RP that they've only learned enough Conjury to use a few skills, for instance, even if they've got Conjurer at 50.

[Moonfire]

As I was doing some browsing for a potential class to settle on with my character, I noticed a trend here. Maybe it's because of the traditional Final Fantasy job roles ("Hey I am the white mage!") but it seems people tend to pick one job to be their main to RP with, and level (or completely ignore) the other stuff OOC'ly. 

 

Coming from a non-FF background I must ask... why?

 

The part that I don't get is, Why learn something OOCly if it doesn't fit into your character? Isn't that what alts are for?

 

 And is does it make sense lore wise to have multiple classes or multiple jobs? I one conversation the  Guild leader NPC talks about how dedication is so important but then at level 10 they tell you that you can join other guilds. Also to delve further into a "Job" you need at least two classes. Is it explained when you start training for the job why you need both? Or is it just a mechanic to keep people from leveling too fast and really has no lore baring?

After a time of 'gooning it up (that's what I'm calling "playing a dragoon" now), I do plan to start experiencing more options with Uther ICly. I already have set up roads for him to go Warrior and Paladin. Possibly even Monk or Archer. I don't think Uther will be dabbling in magic, though. He doesn't know anything about that shiz.

 

Hate to burst your bubble but you need to be a conjurer to be a paladin so he is gonna have some magic under his belt. Unless you chose to ignore it ICly. Which I don't get but to each his own I guess.

Personally, if I took the time to level up Warrior and Black Mage as an example I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to claim my character has taken the time to train and become proficient with wielding black magic and an axe. FF games are all about pushing the envelop and doing things above and beyond what the normal person could do, so playing a character who has an affinity for all things combat wouldn't be unheard of, and the time it would take to level a new class from 1 to 50 you could easily explain the training in a new field of combat.

I agree with this to some extent. Given that it is only two jobs I think that is reasonable.  I think our characters shouldn't fit into a "real life earth" model. However this needs to be used carefully. Knowing everything all at once seems to be a bit over the top. Dabbling is one thing but to use lvl 50 spells isn't really dabbling.

 

 If you really want to level all jobs ICly though I think there are ways to do it.  Maybe your character fails really bad at being a White Mage and even results in someone close to them dieing. Then he gives it up and moves on, etc. Basically don't have them all at once and have a good story/reason to go with the change.

 

To be good at everything is god-moding (there I said it) and also makes for boring characters. If my char was good at every discipline the game offers, with no weaknesses and no flaws; where's the conflict? Where's the part where they struggle and overcome obstacles? Where's the realism? Every character should have limits, and things they simply cannot do, no matter how hard they try (unless you prefer Dragonball Z style RP)

 

I get that. But then why bother to lvl other things OOCly on that character? It breaks immersion to others who are around you RPing. They know you are an RPer and start a conversation. Then you say "sorry I don't lvl ICly." kind of bursts their bubble and throws everything off. Granted you have to learn to deal with this because not everyone RPs. But it is kind of a shame to get the same thing from RPers.

 

Its unlikely a 20 year old Hyur mastered every aspect of everyyhing, hell its unlikely for probably anyone. However. Its more likely that a older character would have been able to learn more things and work on them due to the time being alive and during that time being able to train.

This made me think about some things...A day and night cycle in the game and therefore time in the game itself is short. Technically our characters would age faster. One quest might take days. Figuring all that in then by the time you train something all the way up to 50, it seems logical that the character has put in the time needed. However if you used this method to explain training then you should also use it as a matter of aging your character. Using this probably wouldn't work well though because they would age too quickly. I am not exactly sure why I brought this up but I guess I just wanted to throw it out there.

[Myal]

I get that. But then why bother to lvl other things OOCly on that character? It breaks immersion to others who are around you RPing. They know you are an RPer and start a conversation. Then you say "sorry I don't lvl ICly." kind of bursts their bubble and throws everything off. Granted you have to learn to deal with this because not everyone RPs. But it is kind of a shame to get the same thing from RPers.

I'm sorry, but could you explain this more? In what situation could this happen? How could somebody "lvl ICly", anyway, considering that "level" is a separate concept from narrative to begin with?

[Khaze'to Zhwan]

I guess I'm one of those people who chooses a few skills and sticks to them but puts a cap on them IC and won't really level up all the classes on one character.  For example with Khaze'to 

 

His main choice of weapon is his spear.  I will be taking him up the dragoon route as well which means that I need to at least have a little pugilist training.  What I'll do though is say that he learnt the requirements needed and no more.  IC that is,  I probably won't stop leveling it because its probably quite fun, doubt I'd pick up monk though because hes just not that good IC.  He would also get beaten IC if I started doing hand to hand combat with an IC better trained pugilist/monk.

 

Same with the bow.  A life of hunting with spear and bow means hes quite proficient at putting arrows in things.  There is no way he would go all the way to bard though as that doesn't fit his character.  He also can't sing and isn't very musically minded anyway.

 

He can cook, fish, make some basic potions and leather gear and hes not bad at carving wood for his masks.  However its hardly fine dining, his Alchemist knowledge is limited to basic healing salves and the like and his leather work whilst functional is very rough.  And with the carving all he can really do is make pretty things.  Don't ask him to make more substantial things with wood as he wouldn't know where to begin.

 

When it comes to being able to use different kinds of weapons as someone trained in close quarters fighting there are so many different styles.  Western to eastern sword fighting for instance or broad sword to rapier.  yeah sure a sword is a sword and to quote game of thrones "stick 'em with the point end".  I'm not saying your character couldn't be trained, far from it but picking up a new style takes a lot of work and thats just swords of a similar length.  Look at the medivil long sword against the roman gladius.  They can both stab and both cut but to try and use them in the same way would not work very well.  

 

Also an axe/mace is used very differently to a sword,  Swords are slashing and impaling weapons vs the hacking style of the others,  Axes and morning stars use the tip of the weapon to do the most damage and some people just really can't go from one style to the next, again you can train but it takes time and effort.

 

When it comes to the mixed training vs specialisation I have always seen it as if you are fighting with a sward and have say some hand to hand combat skills and you are fighting a pugilist you should have some insight on what moves they are going to try and use. That is on a basic level and if you both know the same technique, If they know a very different style to what you know they could catch you of guard quite easily. Especially as hand to hand often had a lot of disarms and training against people with weapons in their hands. It could go either way and tbh that's is part of what makes role play so rich for me.

 

Sorry for the long rant but I guess this is something that interests me a little bit and you always get worked up about things that interest you.  Just my two gil.

 

Tl;dr (never had to do one of these before )

Sure you can be relatively skilled with a variety of different weapons and styles but it takes much time and effort to get GOOD with them. And mixed martial arts might have some advantages over s specialisation but then it also works the other way.

[Magellan]

I get that. But then why bother to lvl other things OOCly on that character? It breaks immersion to others who are around you RPing. They know you are an RPer and start a conversation. Then you say "sorry I don't lvl ICly." kind of bursts their bubble and throws everything off. Granted you have to learn to deal with this because not everyone RPs. But it is kind of a shame to get the same thing from RPers.

I'm sorry, but could you explain this more? In what situation could this happen? How could somebody "lvl ICly", anyway, considering that "level" is a separate concept from narrative to begin with?

 

I never said I do not lvl ICly - going on hunting misiions or exploring dungeons with friends is a great RP adventure. But typically I do not follow the storyline or quest story in this case., because it does not make sense to do so for my char. For instance, on one of the beginner gathering quests, my Thaum was not gathering body parts for some random stranger that gave her a quest to do so... my char. Would have laughed at such a request and thought the guy a major weirdo. Instead, she NEEDED those ingedients for a potion she was trying to make. ICly I was satisfying the quest, while taking care of the quest OOCly too.

 

I do not think in an MMO you can expect 100% immersion, because the game is not built specifically for roleplayers. Its not like tabletop where the whole point is RP. So to expect the game mechanics to make sense RP wise, or to expect others to pay attention to it ICly is just going to be a wall of frustration and headache. Honestly its expecting too much of the game (which is not built with the sole purpose of roleplay) and the community.

 

Attempts can be made to incorporate the main story into RP, but that is an individual user decision. For me, the main story has little to do with my char, so I treat PvE as separate, as OOC

[Martiallais]

I have to say when I first started looking at FFXIV to RP, one of my big concerns was actually that I might be surrounded by people who were RP'ing as super powerful experts in every single class they touched. 

 

Thankfully, here at least, I've seen that by and large that isn't the case. 

 

As for myself, Zarek will be a hand to hand fighter first, everything else will be secondary. I plan to likely take a little lancer (staff fighting) and maybe a small bit of archer (which he'd have to learn). Even lower than that will be magic because the character is a melee combatant more than anything (though who knows, RP may change that!). It all boils down to finding a way to a) create the character you envision then b) figuring out how to reasonably explain (and if one wants to go the extra mile - align it with general roleplay standards). That's just my approach though.

 

After all, if a character is amazing at every single thing they touch, where's the fun in interacting with them? Where's the struggle and why would they need anyone else?