Please do not lock Jobs to the Weapon Class that unlocks them.

[Cairdeas]

With the battle blueprints that have been released they raised more questions about the future Job System then they answered. So far we only know a few facts based on this.

Jobs
The job system - that series-defining trademark - will be implemented in FINAL FANTASY XIV (details such as specific jobs TBA). Quests to unlock each job will become available once you have reached a certain rank in the corresponding class.
Rather than being advanced versions of classes, we would like players to think of jobs as specialized playing styles optimized for partying. While playing as a particular job will render you unable to equip certain actions of other classes, you will be compensated with access to exclusive actions, which can be acquired through quests.

In practice, players will find the existing classes effective when playing solo or in certain party setups. Jobs, however, will shine in party situations where specific skill sets are demanded. Now, you didn’t hear this from me, but there are also rumors circulating that quests for obtaining job-exclusive equipment are also in the pipes.
We at the development team are currently hard at work on the job system, and expect to have details to share with you soon.

• Quests will unlock each job and will become available once a corresponding class has achieved a certain rank.(Good)
• Jobs are not Advanced Classes. (Good)
• Jobs are Specialized Playstyles Optimized for Partying. (Great)
• Jobs will restrict which Cross Class Skills you can equip. (Great)
• Jobs will grant access to special skills only they have. (Awesome)
• DevRumor: Job Specific Gear will be introduced. (Even More Awesome.)

So based on this information its safe to say the obvious. Things like Lancer will unlock access to the Dragoon Job.

But this information doesn't explain that once that Job is unlocked what can you do with it specifically?

• Once a Job is unlocked can it be used with any Weapon class? (Hopefully)
• Or is the job specifically locked to the class that unlocked it. (Boring)

Some info from Sorel:

By having some Jobs that can have more allowed classes than other Jobs, you create a built-in mathematical imbalance that would have to be compensated for. Otherwise, you get Jobs that are more versatile than others, making them more valuable in a party (case in point RDM/WHM vs. WHM/BLM in FFXI). The Development Team would have to balance that out, since they imposed the arbitrary limit in the first place, and implied that any combination that they dictated should be effective at something.

But if there are no restrictions, the Development Team does not have to (though they may still want to) balance the various combinations out, because they never officially endorsed any particular one. If you decide to play a Lancer with a Paladin Job, it's completely OK for you to suck. SE probably won't do anything to make you comparable to a Gladiator with the same Paladin Job.

If however, SE says you are allowed to play Gladiator, Marauder, and Lancer with the Paladin Job, now they have to make sure that all three combinations are balanced because they dictated it.

That's why restrictions and dictates cause MORE balance issues than letting players decide what should and should not be combined.

Except that SE is not obligated to make every Job balanced with every Class if they don't dictate restrictions. SE does not have to maintain the illusion of balance between Archer-Paladin, Pugilist-Paladin, Lancer-Paladin, Marauder-Paladin, and Gladiator-Paladin. Archer-Paladin can totally suck compared to Gladiator-Paladin and SE wouldn't have to do anything about it.

That's because the player community would pretty much give a collective "Duh, of course! What else did you expect??". That would also hold true of Marauder-Paladin vs. Gladiator-Paladin. One may edge out the other in some aspect or another, but SE does not have to keep them balanced, because they let you have the entire gamut of possibilities for Paladin ... both great and not-so great.

Once SE states there can only be Marauder-Paladins & Gladiator-Paladins, they MUST keep the two balanced because their statement/restriction implies one should be as effective as the other. If one becomes more effective as a Paladin than the other, it invalidates the entire premise of having the restriction in the first place (i.e. to prevent not-so-great Class-Job combinations). So SE would have to constantly keep the two balanced.

Now multiply that constant balancing act across all the SE restricted Class-Jobs combinations ... versus ... having no restrictions and only nerfing two or three overpowered Class-Job combinations.

One may disagree with the policy of nerfing, but it is far easier and more efficient than re-balancing entire subsets of classes and jobs whenever a new Job or Class or Ability is introduced.

Here is the Dev Response we have gotten. Sadly it doesn't seem to alleviate or answer the specific question some of us are asking. Once the job is unlocked for usage, can it be equipped to any Weapon Class. The response seems to only confirm something we already knew which is that we unlock certain jobs with certain Weapon Classes. But unlock and being locked to, are two different things.

Spoke to the dev. team to try and wrangle some more details regarding the upcoming job system. The current thinking is to have one job for one class. So for example, if you are a gladiator, the job you could unlock would be paladin, etc. Right now, we can't give any further details about the possibility of having multiple jobs per class.

To try and stave off the coming flood of "So if gladiator becomes paladin, then what will xyz class unlock?" You'll have to stay tuned for more details in the future!