I really don't understand the use of the word "Warrior" in this world

[Beytran70]

Hell, way back I used to play City of Heroes; they only had nine powers per moveset, no required mechanic gimmicks, and all of comic books to borrow from, and their Archery and Assault Rifle powersets still had to get wacky. (Specifically Archery had to pack some Green Arrow-style trick arrows, and Assault Rifle had to make its default model a 'Frankengun' with multiple barrels, a flamethrower, and a grenade launcher.)

Assault Rifle was good, too. Almost every big team would have at least one there, just blasting guys with bullets. Usually had a cigar in his mouth. I think every good fantasy team should have one person who is mundane but still awesome.

[SeverianLyonesse]

I get the complaint, because... well, some people's favorite Avenger is Hawkeye or Black Widow. There is genuine appeal to the guy that can keep up with crazy superpowers because he's Just That Good. I have a friend who actually hates the Shadowbringers Machinist rework not because of playstyle, but because it moved so much of Machinist away from 'good at guns' and into 'has Batman's utility belt'. I'm not even sure what I'd want to recommend to someone who wants to play a 'naturally good and that's it' character in this game. Monk, maybe, if you ignore the outright Hadokens? Samurai, but basically only if you love Kurosawa enough to accept the theatrics as theatrics instead of magic?

I think the main problem comes from the fact that, in games like this, it's actually really hard to stretch the concept of 'just that good' into the entire skillset. Samurai only barely gets there, Monk falls short, and those two actually have the easiest job since it's just a melee skillset, and there's been a lot of media that's found ways to stretch those. You go into something like a range toolkit? Every FFXIV job has to have thirty-something powers and animations over its lifetime, how many things can you give someone with just a gun before you run out of ideas? Hell, way back I used to play City of Heroes; they only had nine powers per moveset, no required mechanic gimmicks, and all of comic books to borrow from, and their Archery and Assault Rifle powersets still had to get wacky. (Specifically Archery had to pack some Green Arrow-style trick arrows, and Assault Rifle had to make its default model a 'Frankengun' with multiple barrels, a flamethrower, and a grenade launcher.)

I will grant your "just that good" argument as something that appeals to people with different personal preferences. But I slightly disagree that SAM/MNK/WAR hit that job fantasy...you're right that they come the closest as far as melee jobs go but I think they are just further evidence that "no supernatural assistance" jobs just don't exist in FFXIV. I would argue BRD, DNC, and MCH--one of which is already fulfilling the "bow" job archetype, and all of which still needed a little extra pseudo-magic on top of their kit (songs, dances, automatons) to fit in with the rest of the spread--come even closer. But thank you for supporting my observation that there are only so many ways to shoot a bow.

[SineNomine]

Interestingly there was little confusion in the original NES version of FFI between these terms as they were translated slightly differently - the WAR Job was actually known as Fighter in the original NES FFI, and the 'Warriors of Light' were written actually as the 'Light Warriors', so the confusion is more a modern thing, ironically.

In FF1 Warrior is still 戦士 (Well, ok, no, it was せんし but only because it was designed for kids) and Warrior of Light is still 光の戦士, just like they are in FF14. There is no confusion because...why would there be any confusion? I want to give the OP the benefit of the doubt, but I am finding this whole thing a bit weird as I never associated the two. Your bard example seems fine.

[Enkidoh]

In FF1 Warrior is still 戦士 (Well, ok, no, it was せんし but only because it was designed for kids) and Warrior of Light is still 光の戦士, just like they are in FF14. There is no confusion because...why would there be any confusion? I want to give the OP the benefit of the doubt, but I am finding this whole thing a bit weird as I never associated the two. Your bard example seems fine.

I wasn't talking about the original JP version of FFI but the US English language version released 3 years after, where 'Warrior' and 'Warriors of Light' were indeed translated into English as 'Fighter' and 'Light Warriors' respectively (this is why the infamous FFI sprite webcomic 8-Bit Theater used those terms as well, they lifted them straight from the game). And I should know, I had a copy of FFI NES US NTSC version myself in my collection (until it was stolen).

Much of FFI's English translation/localization was.... crude to say the least (besides the 'Fighter'/'Light Warriors' thing, crystals were also translated as 'orbs', and other spell and item names often had odd abbreviations like the infamous mispelling of 'Masamune'), but it was not so much lazy translations as more just a technical limitation with Square having very limited character space to work with when replacing text, so they had to be creative.

[Cleretic]

Yeah, they probably should've named the Warrior job after the classic job they're actually patterned on, Berserker. But perhaps they didn't because that would've been confusing to the people who started using the job and saw it has... like, buttons, and interactivity. Traditionally, not a Berserker quality.

[RyuDragnier]

Think of Warrior of Light as a title.

[Cleretic]

I suspect that Archer didn't become Ranger or Hunter for the same reason that we got Machinist instead of Musketeer: it's hard to make a whole moveset on this game's scale out of 'Good At Shooting'. Only so many ways to spin that over thirty-plus abilities before it gets stale, so you have to find a clever extra angle both to give new mechanics and to add variety to story and flavor. So, Archer becomes Bard to get both songs and musical-aesthetic animations, and the gunner gets a bunch of extra gadgets.

Also because when they were introducing jobs they wanted to include a 'support DPS' option for variety's sake, and all the other classes had pretty clearly not-that evolutions, so... well, let's graft bard songs onto Archer, why not?

[Tlamila]

It's just one of those things. Like many games have an Assassin class. But an assassin is also simply a murderer. But both meanings of the word exist at the same time.

A scholar is a student. But a Scholar is a shiled healer who uses fairy and a long lost art.

A monk is a religious figure who practices a certain lifestyle. But a Monk is a fighter from a precise Ala Mighan order.

There's countless example if we did in it, I'm sure.

[Beytran70]

It's just one of those things. Like many games have an Assassin class. But an assassin is also simply a murderer. But both meanings of the word exist at the same time.

A scholar is a student. But a Scholar is a shiled healer who uses fairy and a long lost art.

A monk is a religious figure who practices a certain lifestyle. But a Monk is a fighter from a precise Ala Mighan order.

There's countless example if we did in it, I'm sure.

This is basically it. Words can have different meanings in context, strangely enough. Language would be pretty limited if not.

Also, how often do we actually hear the straight up Job names mentioned outside of their quests?

[Seiori]

I think berserker would fit them better than just Warrior, but it is what it is.