Sharlayan Jobs

I love that we now have THREE Sharlayan theme jobs. I think its cool, because it echos that Sharlayan was planned originally to be a city state at the beginning. (not everyone knows this fact, but XIV originally had six starting states planned.)

My only gripe is that Sage barely has any presence in the overall world building, and I feel like Pictomancer isn't going to be any different. At least Astrologian has an HQ in Ishgard, along with its many quests, but Sage and Pictomancer don't have nearly as much of a presence in the overall world building narrative that we know of. (I say because we haven't seen much of Picto yet, and haven't even arrived in Tural.)

Even with that said I would of liked to see more Astrologian centered stuff in Sharlayan proper. All of where these jobs study, and their role on the state was missing. I'm not sure if that is because of the fact that the majority of the country, and the Isle of Haam is completely gated off from access, or what. I just don't like it. This is supposed to be the city of knowledge, and magic. I would of liked to see more of their impact on the world via jobs.

Anything like a small group of Sharlayan Astrologians, Sages, and eventually even Pictomancers would be a wonderful thing to add to the city and its zone proper, but we don't see that. I wish when new jobs would get patched in, that the devs would make an effort to add npcs in the background being those jobs, and and making them into the world, instead of just the players. Just a little bit a lore gripe, and how I feel the jobs could do better.

When Samurai came out, they gave Kugane A LOT of lore revolving around it that you can even see to this day. Even Doma has fair bit of those npcs. Red Mage though for reasons isn't AS common, but you can feel its presence if you do enough content, and you participate in the story. Still would like a few more out in the world, but they aren't completely absent!

Blue Mage, well they even have a presence In Uldah that can be felt, and we may just visit them in the New World. Time will tell.

White Mage, and Scholar have a lot of lore revolving around them, so much so its almost impossible to miss them. Even with Scholars being as rare and still being revived as they are in the story.

My point is, I want all the magic classes to have lot more impact in the world building. I want them to not just be strung in and about, only depending on player representation. I want them to feel real into the world itself, not just the community. And not just magic classes, but preferably many of the other classes that barely have a presence too. I just feel like the magic classes keep getting treated poorly by the devs in regard to the lore compared to physical ones.

If anything you'll get a special hut in Tural as the pictomancer job trainer sits on the street corner
Reaper job quest felt like a syndicate location in Uldah which surprised me.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

Anything like a small group of Sharlayan Astrologians, Sages, and eventually even Pictomancers would be a wonderful thing to add to the city and its zone proper, but we don't see that. I wish when new jobs would get patched in, that the devs would make an effort to add npcs in the background being those jobs, and and making them into the world, instead of just the players. Just a little bit a lore gripe, and how I feel the jobs could do better.

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I know this probably isn't exactly what you're referring to, but there are actually unnamed astrologian NPCs that wander around Old Sharlayan at varying intervals.

As for sages, I get the distinct impression that it's an exceptionally rare discipline simply by virtue of having a huge barrier to entry. Every named sage that we encounter has either had decades of experience (Fourchenault, Guildivain) or are natural prodigies (Alphinaud, Loifa, WoL). It's also stated to be a combination of magic and medicine, requiring a lot of knowledge of both to be able to use with any proficiency. Pictomancer remains to be seen, but I'd guess that the same basic principle applies. Spoilers for 6.55:

Krile states that she's been practicing pictomancy in secret for the entirety of the 6.x patches, so I'm assuming that it isn't exceptionally commonplace either.

I'll also note that astrologians or sages have never been stated to be exceptionally important to matters of state in Sharlayan. Astrologians are only represented so much in Ishgard because astrology was an important tool in monitoring the Dravanians, and even then every other aspect of the discipline beyond observing the Dragonstar was completely overlooked. In Sharlayan, there are so many areas of study and such a vast wealth of knowledge that I don't believe that they would have cause to elevate the study of astrology or somanoutics or what have you beyond a handful of specialists at the Studium. Sharlayan's founder was an astrologer, and their current leader is a sage of some talent, but beyond that I get the impression that they're both just small drops in a wide ocean.

That said, I agree with you in that a lot of the newer jobs since Shadowbringers have a startlingly minor presence in the overall game world, almost to the extent of most of the ARR jobs where the WoL is one of the only living practitioners. There's also just a big lack of detail in how Sage actually functions; with other magic jobs there's a wealth of information given about where the aether comes from and how it's transformed into practical applications, but Sage has very limited explanation aside from its vague descriptions of being at the intersection of applied aether and medicine. There are also not a lot of dancers in Thavnair, beyond some looping entertainers and some Radiant soldiers with chakrams.

I do agree that newer jobs have a harder time being integrated to the world retroactively since they're, well, newer. It's strange when you think about how sage and pictomancer are Sharlayan disciplines of magic yet we never encountered a Sharlayan or Archon that practice either of those before, or that there's no, if not guilds, then active practitioners in the world outside of quest NPCs. This was not truly an issue with ninja and samurai, for example, as there's a bunch of those shown in Hinganshi and Doma. Many other expansion jobs have built in explanations as to why they aren't that common (reaper being seen as outdated by Garlemald, gunbreakers being more common in Bozja, the order of red mage being wiped out, etc.), but there's no real indication one way or another if sage or pictomancer are uncommon. I mean, clearly they are since we know very few individuals who practice them, but it's not made clear if we know few individuals because its rare, rather than the other way around. I digress.

Hopefully the job quests for pictomancer will take us to Old Sharlayan and establish them there.

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Originally Posted by Zero-ELEC

Hopefully the job quests for pictomancer will take us to Old Sharlayan and establish them there.

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Pictomancer has an advantage that it can actually be set in the place it's from. The struggle with Sage was that because its job questline was 70-80 it never actually got to go to Old Sharlayan. Viper's going to have the same issue in Dawntrail.

The issue described is also partially the fault of the instanced design of the FFXIV game world. The single instance city hubs from Stormblood onwards seem like they're meant to be snapshots of only the most important sections of the places they represent, while the rest of the cities' expanses are left to your imagination. You don't have that same luxury in a seamless world, because you can't render a few buildings and roads and pretend that you have a metropolis. If you want lore-driven places of interest, you need the physical space to place those buildings. Otherwise, where do you put Sharlayan's art museum?

I'm hoping that the increased object count after the graphical update allows them to build cities with larger scale, although perhaps the solution is just to create cities with multiple districts, each with their own instance. In fact, I'd probably enjoy an expansion where most if not all of the new instances were based within and immediately around a massive, sprawling city complete with underground passageways and intrigue. You don't have to cover a large geographical area to deliver an interesting story.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I'm hoping that the increased object count after the graphical update allows them to build cities with larger scale, although perhaps the solution is just to create cities with multiple districts, each with their own instance. In fact, I'd probably enjoy an expansion where most if not all of the new instances were based within and immediately around a massive, sprawling city complete with underground passageways and intrigue. You don't have to cover a large geographical area to deliver an interesting story.

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If only Rabanastre wasn't a smoking crater....