Being able to change class without leveling again.

[rellex]

This tbh, in the past if I wanted to get an alt, I needed to do 2 things: level and get gear. But since last ~3 expansions there are more and more "unlocks" you have to redo on every character, which feels boring, tedious, and ultimately making alts unfun to play.

Definitely. Any character you have that is 'behind' another in progress on the expansion feature should get a boost - not just the 'catchup' mechanic, but an actual boost / benefit. For example - if I start doing a new covenant on another toon, the quests should easily double the amount of renown per quest reward and drops of anima should start out at the higher levels that my main is getting. I've already spent weeks/months grinding just to complete the campaign. it makes not sense to do the same long grind 4 times. You don't get any leg up in this manner since you'd only benefit while you're 'behind' your main, but it would make a world of difference and make things much smoother/worthwhile to level alts.

[Loveliest]

FF14 has different systems and if you find yourself enjoying them more, perhaps then FF14 is the game for you instead of WoW.

A system is a system. We did not use to have double spec either at one point. When ppl asked "would you enjoy playing all specs and change them at a whim", were you in the "no this is not my game anymore, I identify with one spec only" camp? Things can change in a game without ppl leaving over it.

[shise]

You can not do that in FF. You always have to level up the new class (job). You can do all with the one same character tho.

And no, that should simply never exist. Then it is not an MMORPG anymore.

[Razion]

Raiders already optimize a lot of class stacking at the high end when checks like buffs and debuffs or CDs aren't keeping it in check. In an ideal world we'd always see equal rep of all classes in all content so no one gets benched for class choice.

I feel like with class swapping the reality is twofold: raiders will already use what's best and have multiple characters for class access even without class swapping. But if class swapping becomes a thing it kind of normalizes the status where people would request people to swap to other classes to kill what they're wiping on.

It would need certain checks - like being locked to a class or spec like you are in M+ in any kind of Mythic instanced content you do. Preventing swapping except between activities would be the only way to limit its impact on the lower level.

But, at that point, people might ask for freedom to swap for fun AND to optimize, like how people complain wanting to swap talents now.

It's nice when swapping isn't so easy so people force you to change your playstyle, but ideally people could only change when they want to and couldn't be bullied or pressured into swapping things like gear or talents or spec or class.

The only thing I have against this is potential social pressures. Not all groups are good environments, not everyone plays with nice guilds - some are in toxic groups, or will be subject to them if they pug.

It'd be lovely if forcing other people to change loadouts was actionable so that Blizzard could terminate these problems to prevent the situation from happening. But they can't even get a handle on bots, so that kind of route doesn't seem feasible.

I don't see how we get class swapping without people complaining about not having freedom to swap and ultimately giving it, without social pressuring of forcing people to swap making its way into the community on a larger scale. It's admittedly already there for top-end players having to level and gear other classes manually, but made accessible I fear it spreads the problem to everyone without proper system checks and rule enforcement.

[Qnubi]

Go back and re-read my post. I said systems as in plural so not just 1 part of FF14 but rather the whole of FF14.

In other words, if you like FF14 more because of multiple systems/reasons/art direction/story than WoW, maybe you should be playing FF14 rather than WoW.

You re-read my opening post. I never mentioned more than one system, only the job system. Your comprehension is severely lacking (first reply didn't understand my text, and then after pointing out your illogical reply you deep dive into it further). I would agree with you if I was talking about more than one system, though.

For you: This thread is specifically about the option to change class similar to FF14. No other system, no story, no art and henceforth your replies are non-sense and literally derailing the thread. If this is your goal then I guess what you said was correct. But I wish to talk about the very thing I made this topic about: Change class on the same character, thank you.

[Garretdejiko]

What works for FF works for FF. Characters swaping classes doens't really make much sense. There are, nonetheless, cases where certain lore figures have two (or maybe more) classes, Thrall is a Warrior Shaman for example. That i9mplementation would be cool. I don't know how the armor type will be sorted out tho.

[HateTrain]

No to the FF "Jobs" thing, but DUAL classing, yes. Each is class is completely separated. No Mage in plate, etc. Just hit your Dual Class button, all options switch over from Warrior to Mage. I could get behind that.

[Marrilaife]

You've just forgotten the attunements you had to do in the past. They were there, and often even worse.

Only for the first 4 years of WOW. And they were removed for a reason.

... and reputation, and professions (back when they were useful) ... and it took months not a week or two.

Professions you could level in a day if you had the money. People were even selling "profession levelling kits" before WOD made the obsolete with generous catch ups. Plus you did not need the profession. The benefit of profession was between a few BOP items you could replace with another piece of gear, to the "perk" system when it was worth around 2 gem slots. Current systems add much more power than "2 gems slots worth of stats". Reputations were also not mandatory after halfway wotlk, with small resurgence in MOP when people promptly complained about "too many dailies" so reputations fell again on the backburner. Also several reps in the past had either turn in items you could buy (aldor / scryer for example), or later you could grind passively by wearing a tabard.

I mostly miss how WOW was between wotlk and wod. I do not miss classic / tbc grind fiesta.

[LemonDemonGirl]

Sounds good to me, but how would this work with DKs or DHs? They went through a permanet change

[Ealyssa]

I really loved was the ability to change my class whenever I felt like it..

You still have to level every job in FF XIV, so I really doubt you did...

[Lucetia]

It is not the problem with leveling/changing the class itself.
It is the problem with introducing 325345342 pointless systems that are illusory and artificial 'content' and in later are fixed/nerfed as 'we heard feedback' patch features.

Sometimes I wish they'd make a lot of systems account wide and limit how much you can earn a day. Like you pick a toon and designate that as your "main" where you can do any activity you want and gain stuff.

Let's take Renown for instance. You designate Toon #1 as your "main". You go and earn 30 renown on it from catchup mechanics. All your alts will now have that 30 renown, but if you decide to play another toon that day you will receive zero renown for the day. You can change who your main is daily though a simple quest where you just go to an NPC and say "Hey I want this to be my main". They could even add a 10g starting fee and let it ramp up and decline over time if they wanted.

[Leinadh]

Omg so much this, yes, I'd buy class changes without giving it second thought

[Ragedaug]

You still have to level every job in FF XIV, so I really doubt you did...

No one is complaining about that. Everyone is fine with leveling all the "jobs" or "classes". The point we are making is that it would make more sense from a fantasy perspective, to do that with one character. I am the one playing the characters. I am the one "mastering" the jobs. Roll it all into one character so that character can represent me.

When I want to mage, I equip the gear I farmed and obtain that give my mage'ing more bonuses, using the casting skills I've mastered. When I want to heal, I equip the healing gear I've obtained using the heal spells I've mastered. When I want to tank or melee...etc, etc...

We aren't saying we shouldn't level different class abilities, or not farm different gear for different roles, we would just prefer it all be centered on one avatar. Again, I don't think this is possible to implement into WoW at this point. Just saying, it is were it would make the game a ton more enjoyable.

[Lane]

As much as I love the job changing system in FFXIV, I like alts. FFXIV is alt unfriendly in different ways, but I'd still have alts because I like playing different races and I like leveling.

As others have said, a lot in WoW is long overdue for being account wide. Blizzard seems to dislike anything that'd bring WoW into the current decade though, preferring to keep that archaic circa early 2000s MMO feel. I've increasingly disagreed with their design philosophy as I play other MMOs, which aren't perfect (ESO is damn close though) but still leagues better than WoW in terms of QoL and respecting player's time.

[Darththeo]

The original concept for Death Knight was that your would become a Death Knight via leveling, so it isn't beyond consideration, but I can't say it makes sense because there are so many things that don't cross between classes.

[Alroxas]

It would need certain checks - like being locked to a class or spec like you are in M+ in any kind of Mythic instanced content you do. Preventing swapping except between activities would be the only way to limit its impact on the lower level.

I don't see this working. We already have a system like that à la Covenants and soul binds. And there have been plenty of complaints about both that don't need to be rehashed here.

Also consider the other systems [of wow] that would need to be overhauled to accommodate a player with multiple classes. For instance, inventory management would be a nightmare. Here's your plate DPS armor set for raiding, another for PvP, another for M+, another for plate healing armor set but since you also play a priest as well, now add in a cloth DPS armor set for raiding, for pvp, for M+, for cloth healing.

[sam86]

This tbh, in the past if I wanted to get an alt, I needed to do 2 things: level and get gear. But since last ~3 expansions there are more and more "unlocks" you have to redo on every character, which feels boring, tedious, and ultimately making alts unfun to play.

exactly this
for better or worse, lvling now is way too easy and fast, the problem is after u max out
during wrath i was in one of top guilds at my server, my rogue alt even had a rank in top 100 server because all i needed was just to raid and get gear, no farm AP, anima, soul ash, or any shit
iin SL u need ur covenant ranking to get ur soulbound and some covenant bonus, u need to get soul ash to get ur lego, both aren't just 'go raid get gear'

[Daedius]

The #1 thing I like in FF14 is the job/class change system. You can literally do everything with the one character.

Had WoW introduced even a paid service to Class change I would've used it in a heart beat, retaining your progress in everything.

[Razion]

I don't see this working. We already have a system like that à la Covenants and soul binds. And there have been plenty of complaints about both that don't need to be rehashed here.

Also consider the other systems [of wow] that would need to be overhauled to accommodate a player with multiple classes. For instance, inventory management would be a nightmare. Here's your plate DPS armor set for raiding, another for PvP, another for M+, another for plate healing armor set but since you also play a priest as well, now add in a cloth DPS armor set for raiding, for pvp, for M+, for cloth healing.

Covenants and Soulbinds' complaints are within the same wheelhouse. Looking at M+ and how it handles locking in options for the content to prevent mad swapping, the lock-in style of this seems to work well enough that it could be applied as well to Class Swapping in that your choice is locked in for M+, as it were. I feel like with raiding it's less egregious to allow it to swap there, as people already just take out people and swap in alts. The main bushfire to avoid here is the bulk of complaints of people feeling unsatisfied in being unable to swap freely enough. Covenants and Soulbinds are regrettable that neither were free enough, nor did they appeal to the permanence of choice that other previous choices like race or class initially appealed with. If we're making Classes swappable, I think it follows that it can't be done like Covenants or Soulbinds as they weren't accepted good ways to do it so they wouldn't make sense to replicate. If Class Swapping is being done, it needs to replicate methods that have worked. M+ locking in for it, for example, is one situation where people have all the freedom to swap for lots of other content. For things like Arena and RBGs I think it's obviously locked out as well.

As far as the storage problems for inventory go, if I remember right FFXIV solves this with having an equip set of each class being stored separately for when you swap to it so that the armor doesn't just sit around in the inventory all the time when it isn't being used. The player being able to support an equip state for all the classes with the gear not being active unless you're in that class or spec would solve a lot of the inventory problems right there. There may need to be a way to compare gear from other equipped classes versus a piece of gear you're considering picking up, though. But these are feasible problems that can be solved, they aren't without reproach. They do seem like a big ask, though. Maybe collectively it is a big job - but it's a big feature, that could potentially bring in a lot of replay value and gameplay variety options. The work is worth it, I think.

[Qnubi]

You still have to level every job in FF XIV, so I really doubt you did...

Read before posting: Last edited by Qnubi; Today at 09:33 AM. Reason: Updated title, check post. Didn't meant to write "Without leveling".