1.19 Roadmap, 1.20 and beyond: What happened to Jobs?

[Chiz]

Haven't seen it mentioned in another thread but has anyone else noticed the advanced Job system that was previously detailed and outlined in various official communiqués has conspicuously fallen off of Yoshi-P's roadmap? If you Ctrl-F his Producer's Letter you'll see there is only 1 instance of "Job" in a passing reference to the Battle Regimen system being taken offline.

More disturbing is it seems the changes planned to the Armoury System for existing DoW/DoM classes as groundwork for the advanced Job system has also been delayed until 1.20. At a glance, one might think the Producer's Letter was referring to the introduction of Jobs in 1.20, but he's actually referring to the tweaks to existing class abilities that have been talked about for some time with the deconstruction of the Armoury System.

Alongside the overhaul to the algorithms, work is also proceeding on redefining and redistributing abilities for Disciples of War and Magic. This is a hefty amount of work, and not all classes will be ready by patch 1.19. But rather than a partial release, we’ve decided to save the implementation of all classes for 1.20. We’ll make the details of the planned changes available when 1.19 goes live, and monitor player feedback as a way to help define our direction. In the meantime, we’ll keep on performing balance tweaks to the current class system in coming sub-patches based on ongoing feedback from the community.

Given 1.19 is ETA end of September (mid-Oct in SE time), that means 1.20 is looking like it won't hit until maybe November at the earliest? Doesn't leave a lot of time for them to get another patch out in 2011. I'm not trying to be alarmist here, just trying to make sense of it to see if anyone else is concerned about the lack of any mention of Jobs? I think most people here would've thought we might have seen some of those Jobs introduced by maybe 1.19 or 1.20 at the latest sometime in 2011, but it seems as if that reality is slipping away according to this latest roadmap/letter.

[SilvertearRen]

Yeah, I was hoping to test out Dragon Knight in 1.19...

[Betelgeuzah]

Already confirmed to come post-1.20 like two months ago.

Damage & stat algorithms > class structural changes > job system.

[Speeral]

We won't have many details u til the next letter and once we get closer to the patch time anyways. Its better to wait and see then speculate on this.

[Seif]

I'd rather have real FF jobs rather than just a mode that limits the skills I can use. BLMS are the best thing for me about the entire FF series.

Having a text flash on screen that "you're in BLM-mode" and seeing few of my skills change in the bar just doesn't sound very BLM-y to me.

I hope it's more substantial than that and not just limited to partying because otherwise I'll never be able to use jobs.

I know all we can do is wait but the information they've given us is already pretty substantial and it seems like they're missing the entire point of the job system in FF games.

[Tsukino]

Moving on, it’s time again for me to update the list of changes. I’ve reformatted the list and given it a new name to better reflect the content: “Patch 1.19 Update Schedule.” So as to keep this letter a reasonable length, items scheduled for after 1.19 will reappear in my next letter, where they’ll have a list all to themselves. Now, without further ado, feast your eyes on the list! Further commentary below!

They're not in 1.19, so they're not in the list.

[Sephrick]

I'd rather have real FF jobs rather than just a mode that limits the skills I can use. BLMS are the best thing for me about the entire FF series.

Having a text flash on screen that "you're in BLM-mode" and seeing few of my skills change in the bar just doesn't sound very BLM-y to me.

I hope it's more substantial than that and not just limited to partying because otherwise I'll never be able to use jobs.

I know all we can do is wait but the information they've given us is already pretty substantial and it seems like they're missing the entire point of the job system in FF games.

We haven't been told how we switch from a class to a job, but they did say that classes will be for solo, jobs will be for party. Basically jobs will inhibit certain aspects of a class to enhance others to make it a better party-based member.

[viion]

what happened to all this stuff happening for summer?, end of summer in 2 weeks. SE summer last until new years?

[Sigmakan]

Well, technically summer is until September 22nd (or is it 21st?)

They'll have most of the promised changes done by then if they can get patch 1.19 done in september.

Still, I am a bit concerned about the pace of patches. I realize they are doing a ton of things in each of these patches, but 2months in between patches is harsh.

[Ptolemy]

2 months in between content patches is alot faster then normal MMOs, be glad that they are pushing out patches quickly like this, only reason you think that is long is because of the bad start 14 has had