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I've been playing the older FF titles as of late for the pure nostalga of it. The job system features heavily in the 1st 5 FF & quite frankly I hate it!. I much prefer being able to customise my characters like in FF7,8,&12. The way you could combine some jobs in FF5 was pretty ok. But anyway I'm not mad on the job system so let the witch hunt begin.
I prefer the job system generally. I find it forces you to be more strategic. It's part of why I kept my characters in FFXII to very specific classes. Everyone's got their preferences, and if you don't like it then that's fine.
Job systems are the best.
Meh, I liked the way that IV and IX did it best. Each character had their quirky job, and that was it. Customization is nice and all, but I like having the character more defined.
I prefer the job system. I hate it when characters become too much the same which a few of the later ones is possible. Job's make the game a bit more strategic, especially at a certain point you have to use certain charactes but in later titles you probably wouldn't bother about it that much since they are basically all the same, especially FFXII.
I need my white mages or there is no calming me down.
LOL, well a lot depends on the player.
The only games that are undebatably restrictive on classes/abilities are IV and IX, and arguably VI (if you don't count the magic spells and stat-boosting gained from Espers)--though this has advantages in that the story can be tailored around the characters' abilities that much better.
As far as VII and VIII go, well, VIII I found that, FOR ME, the advantages of junctioning outweighed the use of magic, and there were very few enemies in the game where magic provided a vastly more effecive strategy than just hacking them to pieces with a good weapon...so all of my characters were identical, except for their limit breaks--they all used "Attack" and "GF" and that's it. Furthermore, the differentiation in each character's abilities was not enough to warrant one clearly a better healer, another a clearly better "black mage," another a better "meatshield," and so on.
VII was fine though, except that the first half of the game for me was spent leveling up materia. Still, there were enough interesting materia combinations/tactics that each of my characters was generally different from the next, and I'm sure different from yours as well.
I haven't played XII yet--so this is all speculation/concern--but what scares me is that the stat blocks/progression I've seen are very reminiscent to VIII, and since everybody has access to basically any ability, if the combat and level systems were not thought out well, it could result in a single type of build being vastly greater than any others, rendering the freedom in character creation granted by the "license system" irrelevant (well, you don't have to create the most 'powerful' characters, but I would argue that a truly good game is designed so that you pay the price for a lack of diversity--the most powerful party should not clearly consist of characters using identical powers/tactics).
Of all the systems I prefer the "job system" of FFV, though I have come to believe that the system is only as strong as the design of the other combat elements of the game. Different tactics have to be of comparable effectiveness, or must be needed on hand to deal with diverse battle situations in order for players not to gravitate to a single "superior" setup. The fact that if you ask five different people what ability setup they prefer you would likely get five different answers speaks to the success of the system in FFV IMO.
FFX is an interesting case, because initially it gives the illusion of player control over character ability development. But unless you're nutty, Yuna is white magic based, Lulu black magic based, Auron is a strength and HP-based melee character, etc. etc. After you get the opportunity to unlock the grid and move your characters to other areas, it becomes a lot more interesting, though by that point so much of a character's development is already set that it's unlikely that most players totally revamp their use of those charactes. I would put it up there near the FFV job system as my favorite, and given that it allows more character-directed storytelling, it has significant advantages IMO.
Anyway, that post was entirely too long. :D
i enjoy both systems, each system suits each game.
Job system is good, however the weaker characters (i.e. mages) are always a nuisance to have to heal more often. Being able to customize is great in that regard, because it always leads to me having 3 uber powerful killing machines, which are usually also as tough as nails. Which is fun, but it makes it less interesting.
I guess they each have their pros and cons.
That was the great thing about FFX's sphere system. It allowed you to have job classes (as they each had their specific paths in the beginning), but if you wanted, you could have 3 carbon copies of each other.
I look at the Job system of old as guidelines and suggestions for building your characters in other games.
I much prefer the customizability though, which is huge in VII, bigger in VIII, and still present even in IX - how you can customize your character within their job, rather than among jobs.
So I don't really have complaints about it. In FF, you're better off having each character do their own specific thing best rather than clones, and that's what some of the earlier games (I, III, IV) are all about.
I prefer having it like IX and IV, as I feel a characters abilities and class can be a key factor in story telling.
Though what I would like is a system where even when you change jobs, the same job will still be different between Characters. Such a system seems to exist within Blue Dragon.
I hate it when the characters are fully customizable because then you always wind up with the same generic numbness. I like characters set to a specific path. The only thing I hate more is item creation in the game. I hate it hate it when they give you tons of items and say here, make stuff with this.
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Originally Posted by LunarWeaver
FFX did it well for those of both mindsets I found. Initially it was evident that each character was swayed towards a certain job by the dialogue, the look of each character and their back-story. However later in the game due to the hugely customizable paths of the sphere grid and character could become any "class" except summoner; which was specific to Yuna.