Look; the Ninja is cool, but doesn't quite capture the fantasy of being a "Thief". Which, Theives aren't necessarily great combat-classes, so I put some thought into how one might re-imagine the Thief...
My thinking is, you're introduced to an entirely new culture. Over hundreds, maybe even thousands of years, the art of thievery has been elevated to an art form itself; to the point that simply stealing coins or trinkets is no longer considered valuable.
Instead, this culture gives reverence to those who can "steal" things are not or should not be possible. The more abstract, the more they are revered. The greatest of these Thieves are able to steal one's *voice*, or even *memories* and secrets.
In gameplay terms, this new Thief would be able to "steal" buffs from enemies, perhaps even steal certain spells outright (albeit temporarily). Perhaps they could "steal" their opponents' weaponry, temporarily lowering their Phys. damage while raising their own (and of course, using the visual of the "stolen" weapon).
Just to shake things up, they could learn abilities to "reveal" weapons and supplies left by others in their trade. So you might temporarily see a Thief walking around, looking for a chest that wasn't there a moment ago, and upon opening it, suddenly getting several charges of different skills, like a high-mobility grappling hook, throwing knives, or even small bombs!
I would round them out by making their weapon either a "Jeweled Dagger", or perhaps even a Scimitar. I honestly like the idea of a Job that has an overtly Middle Eastern flair anyways! But most importantly; I would have their weapon use only ONE hand; the other being open and used for all their different tactical abilities.
Again, just a thought!
Re-envisioning the concept of a "Thief" job...
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05-20-2021, 03:41 AMTerinRe-envisioning the concept of a "Thief" job...
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05-20-2021, 03:47 AMPsyticSounds like Guild Wars 2 Thief they have a spell stealing mechanic. Wonder if they could get away with it considering its pretty similar. Ive also wanted monk to have something like a channeled fists of fury attack like WoW. Not sure if outright taking similar mechanics is fair game or not though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Terin
Edit: I guess Sabin Had a Pummel Blitz in FF6 way before WoW so thats probably fair game. -
05-20-2021, 03:47 AMGrizzlyTank
I just want my running animation back.
Not fond of running around looking like a airplane, it can't be good for my back. -
05-20-2021, 03:53 AMXia_Thas
The concept of stealing a buff / debuff from an enemy is a developer balancing nightmare. You can see it with examples from a lot of games that tried it, the most solid example being WoW and it's history with the mechanic. (Mages just soloing content ect) One could argue most of what you are describing is just BLU with a different coat of paint on it.
I agree with the fantasy of the Rogue class getting messed up for some players. I myself was loving the Rogue, the robinhood style story, and the flashy dual dagger gameplay only to become the Hokage seemingly out of nowhere. The idea of becoming this Arsene Lupin style thief would have been cool but we got what we got. You can see the expecations of a classes' job advancement being remedied by SE by having future jobs just come out as the job with no base / starter job. -
05-20-2021, 03:55 AMMikkoAkure
The devs purposefully didn't have rogue be the classic "thief" job because they didn't want the Warrior of Light to be associated with thievery or other dark connotations. That's also why the Rogues' Guild isn't a Thieves' Guild. Also why it turns out that dark knights are actually powered by love. I wouldn't be surprised if the new reaper class ends up having some other type of similar nonsense.
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05-20-2021, 04:06 AMSeraphor
It's called Rogue.
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05-20-2021, 04:07 AMSeraphorThe Voidsent Avatar is actually our shard from the 13th and we're best friends just like Ardbert.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
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05-20-2021, 04:13 AMEnkidohIs this actually true though or just someone's headcanon that players have run with? As I seen players stating with such comments "I think", making it seem it's just theorizing. Basically, citation please.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
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05-20-2021, 04:15 AMTheodricI'm inclined to think that things have changed since those days as the game itself has come to revolve more around shades of grey than black or white morality. There's already a lot of examples of the player character and his allies engaging in acts of theft and sabotage. The quote in question is taken from an interview from almost a decade ago, anyway - right around the same time we were told that we wouldn't get male Viera 'but some other playable race' and that didn't work out well.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
There's clearly demand for more controversial jobs (not that I'd consider a thief job to be controversial when it's a JRPG staple and present in...many FF titles in some form...) -
05-20-2021, 04:18 AMKizuyaKatogamiI’m inclined to believe this as well, since they classified the avatar as drawing upon power from voidsent which has always been classified as a not exactly right thing to do, so clearly they’re changing their stance on things like this. In the end i don’t think it really goes against much because, we’re the warrior of light. who’s going to tell us what we’re doing is wrong? LolQuote:
Originally Posted by Theodric
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05-20-2021, 04:19 AMAllegorI was genuinely thinking exactly this to be the case, it'd be fun if that's the actual canon lolQuote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
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05-20-2021, 04:22 AMShougunI've still yet to see anyone provide an actual quote on this, seems more like hearsay. There IS a quote that they didn't want the CITY to have a thieves guild because that didn't make lore sense (which I found when searching for this rumor without source), but I've seen no quote that the WoL can't be one because it's evil or what have you. Which I maintain is a silly statement, given A. many WoL in other FF games have been thieves and B. the other jobs related to this game, like assassin type job themes - so if it was said it wasn't a good thought.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
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05-20-2021, 04:29 AMWyssahtynSomeone posited it as a theory on reddit I think and given this game's community, people have inevitably started spouting it off as fact.Quote:
Originally Posted by Enkidoh
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05-20-2021, 04:36 AMMikkoAkureFrom what I remember it was something that Yoshi-P had posted in Japanese on his "social media", for whatever that's worth. I am almost certain I saw it somewhere, and I tried to search for it myself but only found an entry on TV Tropes which basically says what I said and is probably where I got that from. But TV Tropes is also an unsourced wiki. The only other thing I could find was an interview from patch 2.2:Quote:
Originally Posted by Shougun
That said, it makes sense in context of other decisions he's made for the game, like DRK as I mentioned, and changing the Marauders' Guild completely from working for the "bad guys" and being a legit pirate in 1.0, to being a full-fledged guild under the Admiralty in ARR.Quote:
Naoki Yoshida : It was a really, really tough decision for us as well because we are long time Final Fantasy fans. There was a heated debate internally as well to make this decision. But Final Fantasy is full of classic fans like myself, but we need to think about those new to the series as well, so it needs to make sense. In Final Fantasy XIV, every class has a guild, and just because we want to have that traditional role, we want it to make sense with the in-game lore. Especially when we want the game to run for ten years or longer, we need to make sure the relationship between the classes and jobs make sense.
We didn’t want to break the lore by naming classes based on our personal feelings, we wanted it to make sense with the story. So if you see Rogue in game, just in your mind, replace it with Thief. The class and the job and the way it works is really close to Thief, so just think of it as that. Thief won’t be coming as a name. In the story, it will be explained that these Rogues were at one time called Thieves. So it is definitely clear that Rogue equals Thief in the game.
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05-20-2021, 04:48 AMShougunI found that quote along with one saying the reason why they named it rogue instead of thief was because it didn't make sense for a city to have a 'thieves' guild (especially as that city was turning new leaf). Also Thief -> Ninja in tactic games. They were following the script that each job needed a guild hall in the beginning, something they abandoned later.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
There is, as far as I've looked many many pages of google, no quote that says we can't have Thief because it's too dark or evil. And that seems spectacularly more true, that it doesn't exist, given we've a VOID job lol. Of course they are probably going to give the void job some back story so it's not literally "sacrifice the children to get stronger" dark type concept, because.. that'd be weird, but such a thing could have easily been done to thief as well (robin hood). Clearly, to me, it seems the only issue that can be found on why it is the way it is is because they had to use a class structure before and rogue fit better in a city and also allowed them a more smooth -> Ninja orientation because Thief if labeled Thief would be consumed by ninja and that'd be sad (because no class at the time maintained itself once the 'job' happened).
I know I'm being strict but having spent like two hours looking this up, and no one who says this can provide proof, I've a strong feeling it's purely hearsay that people like to use to close the conversations, but can't back it up (I'm sure not intended evil but if you are going to close something, especially when trying to use from a position of authority, I expect a lot more than what could easily be hearsay - it needs more effort and tangible info). Also it just sounds like a silly statement to make, so I doubt it on a level that it would even be said. Given our jobs that we had then, given what the job becomes, given the history of FF games, just a silly statement overall. -
05-20-2021, 04:54 AMiVolkeIt's the annoying headcanon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Enkidoh
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05-20-2021, 05:19 AMXia_Thas
Insinuating a Theives Guild is too dark/evil for Limsa to handle. The place founded and currently occupied by Pirates
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05-20-2021, 05:28 AMItMeWhere people are mugged / kidnapped in broad daylight no less.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xia_Thas
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05-20-2021, 05:29 AMSeraphorNever said it was fact. I replied to someone speculating and added to it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wyssahtyn
It's obviously not fact because the lore for Reaper hasn't been revealed yet. -
05-20-2021, 05:29 AMCKNovel
I'd like to see an actual Rogue job.
Ninja is a good job but the fact it deviate from the Rogue to go Ninja, it just makes it... A Ninja job.
Core mechanics are Ninja, and the Rogue skills are just "fast and agile daggers attacks."
There's another problem, wether we like it or not, Rogue/Thief/Assasin and Ninja are different faces of the same coin.
Both are about stealth, speed, infiltration and assassination, using light and small weapons such as daggers that can be easily hidden.
The only difference is that one is based on western culture, the other on Japanese culture.
I'd like one, but it would be the same job based on a different culture, so not a good job. -
05-20-2021, 05:30 AMAllegorThat's the thing though, the Rogues Guild is basically the black ops of Limsa, their class quest is literally about how the Marauders, the "proper authorities", don't trust them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xia_Thas
That said, it felt....misleading, how the "stealth class" of XIV works, specially when comparing it to other thief classes like WoW or GW II where stealth and cunning attacks are literally the class identity and core gameplay mechanics - you could remove Hide entirely and nothing about the job would change, because you don't use it at all aside from sneaking past mobs you're too lazy to kill. -
05-20-2021, 05:31 AMSeraphorYou're thinking like a DnD player, and not accounting for the fact that this is a Final Fantasy game.Quote:
Originally Posted by CKNovel
Rogue/Thief in FF has two signatures:
1. Daggers
2. Steal/Mug
That's it, that's all there is to it. Oh and a green bandana.
Ninja still has 1, and 2 can't work properly in this game, but it still has Mug. -
05-20-2021, 05:35 AMXia_ThasAn entire stealth mechanic borrowed from DoL just for Trick Attack. Feelsbadman.jpgQuote:
Originally Posted by Allegor
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05-20-2021, 05:46 AMShougunOnly quote on Thief being evil (well more accurately, 'not good'), that can be found readily, says basically that though-Quote:
Originally Posted by Xia_Thas
That it's too evil for WoL is the quote that no one can produce but keeps repeating, which given there is one that says essentially that for the city already, bears to question the reliability of the statement people make and if it's just pure hearsay and rumor people keep spreading.Quote:
Can you give us some more information on the Rogue Class and Ninja Job?
The Rogues were once thieves but through time they’ve evolved into their own respected guild. Why would a city allow a thieves guild? This is the reason they are not called thieves.
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05-20-2021, 05:48 AMXia_ThasBest answer provided so far with actual backing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shougun