Why not abolish the Class system entirely in favor of Jobs? [@ Devs]

[Tsukino]

I think they just don't want to have to rewrite any of the stuff that's in the game already.

Paladins are holy warriors that wouldn't be caught dead at a coliseum. Monks are spiritual ones that are more the "eschew earthly possessions" types than the kind that would run a gambling hall. Elemental magic (Fire, Burn, Flare) belongs to black mages, but you can't take it away from conjurers because they worship the elementals in the Twelveswood.

Basically, to replace them they'd have to redesign sections of every city, rework every reference any NPC has to those guilds and classes, and alter the storylines related to the ones that don't fit at all. It's a lot easier to just throw some NPCs in each that starts a quest to unlock a job. They're also scared they'll hurt our feelings or something by changing things too much when they're so set on keeping the servers running and our progress in-tact.

[Rhomagus]

I think they just don't want to have to rewrite any of the stuff that's in the game already.

Paladins are holy warriors that wouldn't be caught dead at a coliseum. Monks are spiritual ones that are more the "eschew earthly possessions" types than the kind that would run a gambling hall. Elemental magic (Fire, Burn, Flare) belongs to black mages, but you can't take it away from conjurers because they worship the elementals in the Twelveswood.

Basically, to replace them they'd have to redesign sections of every city, rework every reference any NPC has to those guilds and classes, and alter the storylines related to the ones that don't fit at all. It's a lot easier to just throw some NPCs in each that starts a quest to unlock a job. They're also scared they'll hurt our feelings or something by changing things too much when they're so set on keeping the servers running and our progress in-tact.

Cecil ruthlessly murdered Mysidians in the first 10 minutes of Final Fantasy IV.
Amarant Coral was a vagabond and hired assassin in Final Fantasy IX.

Does anyone else want to give their shot at correlating jobs with character traits and completely negate the possibility that there are individuals behind each playable character?

[AlphaDragoon]

Cecil ruthlessly murdered Mysidians in the first 10 minutes of Final Fantasy IV.
Amarant Coral was a vagabond and hired assassin in Final Fantasy IX.

Cecil was a Dark Knight when he did that, but I see the point you're trying to make.

However, I do agree that changing everything to fit the old job names at this point would be way too much work. They should just add the new jobs with the traditional FF names as extensions of the original classes, like they're doing presently.

[Rhomagus]

Cecil was a Dark Knight when he did that, but I see the point you're trying to make.

Yes but he was still the same character. Even as a Dark Knight he had his regrets for doing so. The point I was making was that the character is not defined by the role or the job. I am a human being, not a delivery guy. Delivering things is what I do, not who I am. Some people relish their jobs as their only form of identity when it's not the case. People and worthwhile characters are much more diverse and complicated than that.

[Davorok]

*Warning! The following post contains much Speculation and Assumption:

I think it is important to understand why they are implementing the Job System to better understand how it's (possibly) going to work.

A lot of peeps wanted more defining roles in a party and Class Specific Abilities (restricted) are the only way to achieve this.
They could have just made several of the existing abilities Class Specific Restricted but that would have hurt the solo/casual player tremendously so the only logical choice is to add abilities that are class specific restricted and also make these new abilities party-centric (these abilities are only useful in a party).

For example, Paladin uses abilities that enhance defense and hate control at the cost of damage dealing. Unless you like long drawn out fights (low sp per hr) you would not want to solo as a Paladin. Gladiator is a much better choice.

If the new Jobs come with Party-centric abilities at the cost of Damage Dealing abilities, few people would opt to use them for soloing. The "vanilla" jobs will always be superior for open-world content like timed leves, behest and solo-grinding.

As for Parties, we all seem to be forgetting that Full PT's have 8 players, yet there are only 7 classes/jobs so every pt will have repeat classes in them however, you normally only require 1 tank (paladin), 1 healer (Whm), 1 nuker (Blm), 1 enfeebler (Rdm), 1 buffer (Brd) and 1 DD (Mnk/DRk/Drg). That leaves 2 slots for either repeat jobs or for 2 additional DD Classes or 2 additional Vanilla Classes.

How it's all implemented we will soon find out but my gut feelings and observations are that the Dev Team is trying very hard to expand our choices rather than limit them. Always remember though, It is not SE's responsibility to create classes/jobs that fit our playstyle, it is our choice to play a class/job that fits our playstyle and/or the needs of a PT.

[Tsukino]

Cecil ruthlessly murdered Mysidians in the first 10 minutes of Final Fantasy IV.
Amarant Coral was a vagabond and hired assassin in Final Fantasy IX.

Does anyone else want to give their shot at correlating jobs with character traits and completely negate the possibility that there are individuals behind each playable character?

Cecil was a dark knight at that point and had to atone for it, becoming a paladin. It's beside the point anyway.

The point wasn't that people can't do their own thing, but that a congregation of those jobs would be focused on something different. A single monk may become a gambler, but as an order they would be focused on spirituality, not running a gambling hall. See the difference?

[Rhomagus]

Cecil was a dark knight at that point and had to atone for it, becoming a paladin. It's beside the point anyway.

The point wasn't that people can't do their own thing, but that a congregation of those jobs would be focused on something different. A single monk may become a gambler, but as an order they would be focused on spirituality, not running a gambling hall. See the difference?

.. and Amarant? By the logic proposed, Amarant as a character shouldn't/can't exist. Final Fantasy V introduced the job system and any character could be anything. The point still stands.

There's also nothing keeping them from separating them in that sense from a lore perspective. Pugilists wanting to atone. Gladiators putting aside their coliseum training. If I remember correctly you'll still need to unlock the jobs, you'll just be of the same level as your class when you do. Nothing needs to be rewritten.

[Tsukino]

There's also nothing keeping them from separating them in that sense from a lore perspective. Pugilists wanting to atone. Gladiators putting aside their coliseum training. If I remember correctly you'll still need to unlock the jobs, you'll just be of the same level as your class when you do. Nothing needs to be rewritten.

/facepalm

Re-read my original post, which is about exactly what you're saying. They can't replace the classes with jobs like the OP is suggesting because they'd also need to replace some of the guilds with ones that match jobs. They can add jobs to the existing system (and are) just fine because they don't require that.

.. and Amarant? By the logic proposed, Amarant as a character shouldn't/can't exist. Final Fantasy V introduced the job system and any character could be anything. The point still stands.

He's included in the rest of the explanation. There is no large group of people working as assassins-for-hire but calling themselves "monks" in the world of FFIX. He's a single guy, and you're right, he can do whatever he wants with his monk training.

Your "point" is both correct and utterly irrelevant to what I said, which is about the OP's suggestion to replace classes with jobs and how the guilds (not individuals in those guilds) would not fit.