Quote Originally Posted by Duelle View Post
certain concepts are malleable while others are not.
Practically every Bard in the Final Fantasy series has been about playing songs, not shooting with a bow and doing damage.

The concept of Bard in the Final Fantasy universe was as malleable as any other class. Dragoons have historical background too, but would you have defended the change if Dragoons had instead become Chocobo-back infantry with guns and not jumping at all or wielding spears?

There is as much set in stone that says Dragoons MUST be spear-wielding jumpy guys as there is to say that Bards must be heavy on support, low on attack, with songs that are their entire identity and generally the extent of their usefulness.

The only reason you think Dragoons are "hard-coded" as concepts is because you're literally only thinking of past iterations in the Final Fantasy series. Which is the exact reason why people expect bards to be harp-players, not bow-shooters.

Oh, and this "classes are malleable" thing? How many people excited about summoners do you think were expecting to summon multiple different massive monsters to do huge and heavy attacks, but got pets that are a very minor portion of their damage while they just make people sick for the bulk of it?