Do you think SE looks at class concepts?

[Shougun]

Be careful what you wish for unless you want another Blue Mage fiasco on our hands.

Lol, certainly although specifically on Blue Mage Yoshida/Team had this idea of them since the very very early days (like entering ARR time). Talked about it being a sort of side content "book of spells" that you could go around collecting monster skills and competing in an arena, and it wouldn't be a normal job.

At that time, many years ago, there weren't as many Blue Mage fans wanting it a full job (posting), but I did say "plz no" back then lol. Well more specifically I said I'd love for a book of spells and gathering skills, but would really like to play it in normal content. At this point QoL + more OP would be fine.. although I'll still wistfully think about DF lol.

[Amnmaat]

They probably look at "hype" around specific jobs, not at job concepts like how some people list skills and how the job should work. It's probably better to make "what job do you want next" threads than "This is how Alchemist can work as a tank" threads.

[Jandor]

Be careful what you wish for unless you want another Blue Mage fiasco on our hands.

Nobody wished for our current Blue Mage though

[DPZ2]

If we propose class concepts (with or without art, with or without stats), do you think SE would actually see them and/or consider them or is proposing new class concepts a waste of time?

In a word, "no".

Put up what you'd like to see on Tumblr or Twitter, or even here, but be aware that your ideas cannot be legally used by SE.

Not because they don't care, but because, as a business, they have to be extremely careful about where and from whom they get their ideas. Art and stats would definitely be a non-starter. You aren't on their payroll, and, once posted, they cannot use any of it because of future copyright liability.

Requesting consideration for a class that is already part of the Final Fantasy game-scape would probably be fine.

[Noitems]

Lol, certainly although specifically on Blue Mage Yoshida/Team had this idea of them since the very very early days (like entering ARR time). Talked about it being a sort of side content "book of spells" that you could go around collecting monster skills and competing in an arena, and it wouldn't be a normal job.

At that time, many years ago, there weren't as many Blue Mage fans wanting it a full job (posting), but I did say "plz no" back then lol. Well more specifically I said I'd love for a book of spells and gathering skills, but would really like to play it in normal content. At this point QoL + more OP would be fine.. although I'll still wistfully think about DF lol.

Yeah the reality of the spells doesn't make me think that in any type of normal content it would be too much. Just making the bosses immune to death and resist stunning would be completely fine and I can see the job be very interesting with more new spells to add. It'll be fun to see what they do with the HW primals now that the cap will rise to 60.

DF would be nice even if they just restrict certain spells that break the dungeons at their current levels.

[PatronasCharm]

I enjoy doing class concepts but I consider them a “fan fiction” sort of thing. It’s like when I write fan fiction for Destiny or even Star Wars; however for FFXIV it’s fun to think up jobs regardless of how outrageous or completely ridiculous it is lol. I still want a Chemist Healer though... or GEO Healer... but as someone stated above it’s a JP company I doubt someone would completely translate a job concept.

[Jaywalker]

I don't know how high up chain of command would look at English forum ideas specifically. I am willing to bet that there are employees of SE at varying levels of influence who read things either to keep track of fandom tone or just for fun. Even if there are legal requirements not to look when it comes to job concepts to avoid potential overlap/have plausible deniability if accused of idea theft... at least a few people are likely to peek over on the sly.

I think there is some tracking in the sense that they know in terms of healers there has been interest in a Chemist/non-caster variant and some kind of dark healer, possibly in the vein of necromancer. They are also probably aware that they are currently under scrutiny specifically for healer, particularly since it has been a subject in multiple interviews too. I don't think they pay much attention to designs or mechanics if they do read them, because they want freedom to develop that independently.

[Nedkel]

Nobody wished for our current Blue Mage though

Making it a healer would actually make a better use of a concept than what we have now.

[MariaArvana]

More than likely they have people that read reddit/forums/etc to help gauge interest on certain jobs for analytics, but that's about it.

A LOT of player designed job concepts are wildly imbalanced, unfeasible or rooted more in fantasy than in practicality to FF14's gameplay, so even if you were to garnish a concept with a ton of gameplay mechanics and descriptions, none of it would even be 0.1% considered as they have their own battleclass design people that would design the job themselves.

So if you're hoping Square would consider them? The answer is no, it'd be a waste of time. If you want to write them to simply have fun? By all means, have fun!

[LineageRazor]

I'm guessing SE keeps their finger on the players' pulse as far as reading what jobs the playerbase would like to see added to the game. But actually delving into the abilities and descriptions someone posts? Definitely not. Not only are those generally not well-balanced, but if it became clear that a job they added to the game had abilities and concepts suspiciously similar to some drabble a player threw together on the forums, it would likely open them up to litigation. It's similar to the reason that authors will often avoid reading fanfiction based on their works, as they would need to carefully avoid copying any of the stuff they found there.

So, no, not only does SE not draw inspiration from fan-created classes, there's even a chance that creating those fan-created classes REDUCES the chance that SE will ever add anything similar. Something to chew on, the next time the creative urge strikes! XD

(On the other hand, we DID get Flying Salmon...)