Re-envisioning the concept of a "Thief" job...

[Allegor]

The Voidsent Avatar is actually our shard from the 13th and we're best friends just like Ardbert.

I was genuinely thinking exactly this to be the case, it'd be fun if that's the actual canon lol

[Shougun]

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.

I'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.

[Wyssahtyn]

Is 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.

Someone posited it as a theory on reddit I think and given this game's community, people have inevitably started spouting it off as fact.

[MikkoAkure]

I'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.

From 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:

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.

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.

[Shougun]

From 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:



That said, it makes sense in context of other decisions he's made for the game, like DRK as I mentioned, 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.

I 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.

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.

[iVolke]

Is 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.

It's the annoying headcanon.

[Xia_Thas]

Insinuating a Theives Guild is too dark/evil for Limsa to handle. The place founded and currently occupied by Pirates

[ItMe]

Insinuating a Theives Guild is too dark/evil for Limsa to handle. The place founded and currently occupied by Pirates

Where people are mugged / kidnapped in broad daylight no less.

[Seraphor]

Someone posited it as a theory on reddit I think and given this game's community, people have inevitably started spouting it off as fact.

Never said it was fact. I replied to someone speculating and added to it.
It's obviously not fact because the lore for Reaper hasn't been revealed yet.

[CKNovel]

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.