New Jobs Gated Behind Completion of 2.0 Story?

[Niwashi]

So it took 2 weeks and 69 pages to find out it was a mistranslation?

No. It wasn't a mis-translation. It was two different statements. After the first one was published, SE contacted them to provide a new statement that differed from the original, so they added that clarification statement (along with the original one). That's SE reversing their position between the two statements.

[Viridiana]

What she meant is that no one of the job has, so far, a lore that demands them to be strictly inside the city, making the option to put them outside of Ishgard (Coerthas, other explorable zones that HOPEFULLY won't be gated by flying or such) reasonable.

But, they kinda do.

Again, Sharlayan is on the other side of Dravania. If that's where we're getting AST training, well, that's gonna require going through Ishgard. Even if they've made the trek through Dravania to Ishgard, we know that proper astrology uses telescopes and such. They could use the Observatorium, but we've already been told that the astrologians there aren't the combat type. You also want your astrologians to be defended, and Ishgard's as defended as you're going to get.

I've already touched on DRK. Their entire thing is hunting down Ishgardian elites who would otherwise be above the law. Even if their operations sometimes range outside of the city proper (which I'm sure they will), the only place that makes sense for their headquarters is within the city. Sure, maybe not on the palace steps, but it's going to be within the city.

MCH as a job is directly growing out of how the Ishgardians are using machinery in the Dragonsong War. Everyone who has gotten any experience as a MCH lives in Ishgard. It's the youngest of the jobs we have, and I'd argue that there hasn't been much time for people familiar with it to set up shop outside the city.

[Niwashi]

Looking through tons of the pages, it seems almost every one of us commenting has a 50 or multiple 50s, and almost surely have finished 2.55.

I for one will be starting at level 1 once Heavensward comes, because I want an Au Ra character. Sure, I'd be able to get the new jobs for Y'kayah with only a little more preparation (to finish through 2.55), but my focus is going to be on my new Au Ra character. I'd rather have him main the new jobs than play one character to see the new jobs and a different character to see the new race.

[SQBoard]

They could use the Observatorium, but we've already been told that the astrologians there aren't the combat type. You also want your astrologians to be defended, and Ishgard's as defended as you're going to get.

I've already touched on DRK. Their entire thing is hunting down Ishgardian elites who would otherwise be above the law. Even if their operations sometimes range outside of the city proper (which I'm sure they will), the only place that makes sense for their headquarters is within the city.

MCH as a job is directly growing out of how the Ishgardians are using machinery in the Dragonsong War.

I've mentioned this before but just to reiterate, lore is a reason but not a good reason to alter game design. It's usually the other way around. You have an idea for content and you make up lore to conform it to the existing game. Just as the devs have done with their newly updated lore description of those jobs.

However, lore could be made to conform that content the other way. Here's what i can come up with as i reply to your post:

Astrologians: The coerthas ones are observers and fortune tellers but seeing the imminent threat, they have joined forces with the combat-centric branch of astrology to help in the fight. And found it prudent to not have all of the mentors of the new art be concentrated in the very place that will
be under siege so some sought refuge in outposts such as Coerthas to recruit more students for the fight.

Machinists: Cid Garlond demonstrated the utility of magitek weaponry so the Ishgardians sought his help to train and develop specialists to aid in arming Ishgard. Due to the Ul'dahn forces searching to incarcerate the Scion compatriots, Alphinaud has managed to procure a secluded workshop in the Isle Of Umbra for Cid to help with this training.

Dark Knight: (partly borrowed from the actual SE lore) These sentinels bear no shields declaring their allegiance they scoured all the lands of Eorzea for kindred spirits willing to help defend their homeland. Being pariahs in their own lands, they spread out in various regions to seek these adventurous souls.


As i said, they can conform lore into however shows a semblance of logic to justify their design decisions...lore don't often dictate how they design content, just how it's introduced.

They could've just as easily altered lore to make it not locked behind Ishgard.

EDIT: Personal belief (no real evidence whatsoever)...something probably happened that made them change their job design so it HAS to require an iLvl 90+ character so they redesigned the jobs and then shoehorned the lore.

People like to say that these new jobs are not tied to classes but technically, they are. They're just not tied to a specific class, but only way to have an i90 character is to already have an existing combat class when you unlock these. And maybe for whatever reason, they didn't just need an existing base class but an ilvl 90 one.

If that's the case, whatever that requirement was, may be too late to change at this point. But feedback is still good in that maybe they shouldn't do this again for the next jobs...just in case they're thinking of locking say, red mage behind the full 3.0 story.

[SlyTribal]

I for one will be starting at level 1 once Heavensward comes, because I want an Au Ra character. Sure, I'd be able to get the new jobs for Y'kayah with only a little more preparation (to finish through 2.55), but my focus is going to be on my new Au Ra character. I'd rather have him main the new jobs than play one character to see the new jobs and a different character to see the new race.

You can always start a new char now and use Fantasia later on. Or just use the story to level up classes that would be needed for cross class

[Mugiawara]

You can always start a new char now and use Fantasia later on. Or just use the story to level up classes that would be needed for cross class

My question is, if you have alts and stuff....do you have to restart the whole MSQ again? I think you may.
So if your planning to make an alt Au Ra then have fun running the gauntlet again lol.
Edit: Sorry I meant to add, to access Ishgard and stuff.

[Rgbg]

I for one will be starting at level 1 once Heavensward comes, because I want an Au Ra character. Sure, I'd be able to get the new jobs for Y'kayah with only a little more preparation (to finish through 2.55), but my focus is going to be on my new Au Ra character. I'd rather have him main the new jobs than play one character to see the new jobs and a different character to see the new race.

But you could use a Fantasia to transform your current character (with all its accomplishments and achievements) into an Aura. The Heavensward Collectors Edition comes with another Fantasia in case you don't have yours anymore or if you planned on buying the CE. I don't think I could start a new character >_> Leveling every DoW, DoM, DoL and DoH job to 50 (and then 60) again, getting my pvp rank up, doing all the zodiac quests again (I'm on my 4th), all the supras (these 20 HQ sovereigns *shudder)... I couldn't do that again, even though I've turned out to be quite the grinder it seems. So I guess when HW hits my character will undergo all kinds of surgery XD

[Viridiana]

I've mentioned this before but just to reiterate, lore is a reason but not a good reason to alter game design. It's usually the other way around. You have an idea for content and you make up lore to conform it to the existing game. Just as the devs have done with their newly updated lore description of those jobs.

I'm not trying to say that I think it should be gated behind 2.55. I'm just saying that all the information we have says that it is, and the lore they've written is reasonable and consistent with that.

For the record, my stance on it is that I don't mind it so much for now (since it's the first xpac), but think it's something they should eventually change.

[Niwashi]

Personal belief (no real evidence whatsoever)...something probably happened that made them change their job design so it HAS to require an iLvl 90+ character so they redesigned the jobs and then shoehorned the lore.

Judging from the original answer in that article, I don't think it was the jobs that got the re-design. It sounds like they originally intended that anyone with the expansion could enter Ishgard and only the Main Scenario continuation would be locked behind the current Main Scenario. With that plan (if that really was their original plan) they could have had the quests to unlock the jobs be in Ishgard and anyone with the expansion could go there to do them so long as they met the level 30 or so requirement.

But then at some point SE decided or realized that they could do something better, probably with the Heavensward MSQ, if they knew for certain we'd done the full 2.55 story before even entering Ishgard proper. So they added that introductory quest that leads you there and locked the city until it's done. Well, since they'd already decided the jobs were going to be headquartered in Ishgard and now the city was locked behind the 2.55 story, the jobs sort of ended up locked behind it as well.

[SQBoard]

Judging from the original answer in that article, I don't think it was the jobs that got the re-design. It sounds like they originally intended that anyone with the expansion could enter Ishgard and only the Main Scenario continuation would be locked behind the current Main Scenario. With that plan (if that really was their original plan) they could have had the quests to unlock the jobs be in Ishgard and anyone with the expansion could go there to do them so long as they met the level 30 or so requirement.

But then at some point SE decided or realized that they could do something better, probably with the Heavensward MSQ, if they knew for certain we'd done the full 2.55 story before even entering Ishgard proper. So they added that introductory quest that leads you there and locked the city until it's done. Well, since they'd already decided the jobs were going to be headquartered in Ishgard and now the city was locked behind the 2.55 story, the jobs sort of ended up locked behind it as well.

Since we're unlikely to know the real reason, your theory is possible.

For me, i just can't see any change in the heavensward story so drastic that it has to specifically lock those jobs. Yes, it seemingly looks like they originally planted those job contacts in the 3.0 zones that they originally made accessible with just the expac license and a lvl 30 combat class requirement.

But even if they felt the need to lock down all 3.0 zones behind the story, i don't see why those npc job locations can't be moved outside of Ishgard at the same time with their current phasing tech (only expac users can see the contacts). So they can still lock Ishgard but keep the jobs available as originally planned.

As my hastily constructed examples from my last post demonstrates, it's possible to explain why those contacts are lingering in the 2.0 zones instead of the 3.0 zones.

EDIT:

Thinking about it...i suppose it's possible that something made them lock the all of the 3.0 zones, not just some of it but their production schedule was so tight (or backlogged) that moving the job contacts and all necessary related changes outside of those zones would take more time than they had so it was easier to just leave them there. (/shrug)

That would fit my impression of how they do things.

I mean, they couldn't make personal housing completely separate from fc housing so they just modified their existing housing tech to remove the fc requirement. When the persistent zones where getting overcrowded, it was way too late to change them to the same way other mmo games have done and just generate a new instance (new gridania[7]) when it reaches capacity so they instead put character creation restrictions so the newbie zones won't get flooded.

(Again, just my impression...no real evidence to support that last bit.)

I'm not trying to say that I think it should be gated behind 2.55. I'm just saying that all the information we have says that it is, and the lore they've written is reasonable and consistent with that.

I wasn't addressing your preference to gate or not to gate. As that part of my post you quoted, i acknowledged that the devs made the updated job lore to fit their gated design.

But as the rest of my post continues, i put forward the notion that they could've just as easily written that lore to fit a non-story gated design.