Pipe Dreams: Thief

[MyakotApelsia]

The cringe here is that you didn't realize I was talking about the classic thief job in the FF series when I said steal was all about getting extra items and that I don't think the classic Thief's identety based around stealing translates well. I was talking about the classic steal not the fan version in the OP.

To address that specifically, while it's a novel attempt to try and fit steal into FFXIV's combat system would it not be rather goofy to always be stealing those same couple things from every enemy no matter how much sense it makes for them to have potions or grenades on them? And if you're not actually stealing stuff from them and just 'stealing strength/attack power' or something vague like that, that's also stepping away from what a classic thief really is.

I dont consider "stepping away" as a bad thing. As i said, ffxiv already has jobs that are not what you would expect from canon counterpart. For example - dark knights not having skills that use hp, like, well, dark knight cecil. Astrologian moving away more and more from time mage setting (now being anything but time mages).
Point is, you dont need job to be 1:1 replica of what it was in classic games. I do think that steal needs more stuff to work with, but its not gonna get thief any farther away from what it was before even if it stays the same.

[Saefinn]

Rogue was meant to be their implementation of Thief...but it becomes Ninja, I can understand why, but I am of the same mind preferring the Rogue/Thief appeal to a Naruto running, back flipping Ninja (which feels lame to me on a job I otherwise enjoy). Whilst I can glamour a Rogue look, the animations kill any kind of feel to it and taking off your Ninja stone is counterproductive.

To me the simple option would be to have the ability to turn off Ninja animations and if they retained more of the skills they had from Rogue. Poisons were a neat idea that could be applicable to both Rogue and Ninja. "Mug" is still a thing. Trick Attack/Sneak Attack were a thief thing in XI and we retained in XIV, though we are now reduced to a Trick Attack that no long requires directionals. And assassinate fits both Rogue and Ninja.

[VenKitsune]

ROG/NIN already has a skill literally call "Mug" That increases items dropped of killed enemies. I'm pretty sure SE saying they renamed the job to Rogue for moral reasons was simply just PR speak. We have Theif, or atleast the essence of it, already.

[Duelle]

ROG/NIN already has a skill literally call "Mug" That increases items dropped of killed enemies.

On its own the skill is borderline useful, which is why they had to make it generate Ninki.

I'm pretty sure SE saying they renamed the job to Rogue for moral reasons was simply just PR speak.

While I can sort of see this, I don't understand why they would even do something like that. I mean, was their thought process "we'll make up an excuse to not piss off Thief fans"? Even that comes off as strange.

Since SE's excuses were brought up, let's talk story for a bit:

As mentioned by some individuals, Thief is supposedly so immoral that tying the WoL to that job would be a very bad thing. I'd argue we've already crossed that line with DRK being what it is, largely thanks to the lv52-60 questline.

You know, the questline where you kill an inquisitor and the only reason there were no repercussions was because you killed any possible witnesses that could report it. Then again, this might explain why DRK goes back to dealing with imaginary friends in the 62-70 questline.

The reason I mention this is because vigilantism is several steps above petty thievery and pickpocketing, and since the WoL has already done the latter, the former shouldn't be much of a problem.

There's also the matter of context (i.e. who are the carriers of the THF job crystal in this world? How was the WoL convinced to work with them?). This is very important because you don't need to make the WoL a conventional criminal to unlock this job. A THF questline would be an actual robin hood story (instead of being told the Rogues of Limsa are robin hood analogues but their questline is about protecting a treasure and making the Yellowjackets look like idiots), or slide from thievery to treasure hunting. At least in my mind, THF could work as a mix of Robin Hood and Indiana Jones story-wise. This would in theory satisfy the people that think of Zidane and those that think of Locke.

[Brannagh]

I never got the impression that the Rogues of Limsa were being sold to me as Robin Hood types. The guild master is pretty upfront that they're knives in the dark set to enforce the Pirate's Code. They aren't there to rob pirates to benefit the poor of Limsa, they're there to assassinate fellow pirates for breaking the code. Keeping order through the fear of a knife in your back.

On the other hand, they decided to make the reference to thief upgrading into ninja in the original FF game, so that story progression was probly just fated to seem awkward and detached from actual thievery.

[Duelle]

I never got the impression that the Rogues of Limsa were being sold to me as Robin Hood types.

The class description for Rogue paints them as such ("Lurking in the shadows, adhering to no laws but their own, they punish the wicked, pilfering their ill-gotten gains and delivering them to the downtrodden masses."). Which is indeed weird because they act more like a secret police of sorts than heroes of the smallfolk. The whole thing rubs me the wrong way, but that's because if you want to make a Robin Hood analogue, Ul'dah is the no brainer for such a story (rich despots, a bunch of poor people in the back alleys and living in shacks outside the city walls; this story writes itself!).