Quote Originally Posted by dinnertime View Post
I don't know what you guys are looking at, but FFXIV is not unique with job themes at all. Final Fantasy in general uses DnD job archetypes... Lol. Not that this is an issue. It's the standard.

In the case of FFXIV Bard, people are upset because it's not like the standard Final Fantasy Bard they loved and remembered. Understandable because Bards and Archers are two extremely different concepts. Honestly FFXIV's Bard does a terrible job merging both concepts because it's imbalanced. Like I said, it's more of an Archer than it is a Bard.
You say they aren't unique, and in the same message you acknowledge that it's not the standard "Final Fantasy Bard" (based on DnD job archetypes) because it is melded with archer.

That is a unique take on both jobs. The concept of a harp-bow is a unique take on both jobs.

And also, yet again, I will reiterate that both jobs in isolation are boring AF, and that is why they were combined. Archer has very little variety, and Bard has very little agency. The two flavors work together and save each other from mediocrity. And if not Archer/Bard, they would have had to be combined with *some* other concept to have any interesting/dynamic identity in a high-fantasy action-ish RPG. This isn't Skyrim. This isn't Dark Souls. If you want a "pure" archer, go play your boring, cream-of-wheat low-fantasy jobs in those games. It just isn't happening in XIV, and if you're looking at the past ten years of design and thinking otherwise, your powers of self-delusion are exceptional.