Job Design Contest

[Shougun]

Name: Demiurge
Role: DD
Weapon: Living Garb, particularly Cloaks, Sashes, Scarfs, and similar concepts.
Gear: Scouting
Appearance: The living garb would move while in combat, think like Dr. Strange's cloak meets Vincent like visuals, and would be part of the transformation process. Picture Bayonetta with their hair makes their suit / attacks concept, or Spawn (comic hero) and his, or Voldemort's cloak when they use it in the last movie. When transforming the form and garb would determine some visual impact onto the transformation like if you imagine transforming into a Dullahan and your cape is present. An offhand could be cloak clasps, which might be statless and less common item to earn, but would also have an impact on visuals. Like if you had a Fenrir clasp when you transform into your transportation form you might look like Fenrir, meanwhile your Dullahan might have some more wolf warrior like appearance akin to Blaidd (Elden Ring). Relics potentially having SFX impacts as well.

Gameplay: Multiple forms with cycles that encourage changing, but may not be as forceful as say SMN. Where proper form shifting could be a skill that leads to skill ceiling, but unlike SMN if you ignored it you wouldn't be aggressively mopping the skill floor with your face (because there might be a reason you didn't shift). Bruiser form able to take a beating temporarily (perhaps due to skilled timing, and cooldowns, with decent damage IF you're taking a beating- and may be the form you take when big long spectacle boss attacks go), DD mage-like damage and support ('can' support, like RDM and SMN you use offense opportunity to do so), DD melee (aggressive), DD ranged. Each form wouldn't be a 'complete' job, would have unique gimmick and playstyle, but also would have some living garb skills that carry into each form as a layer between all the layers (so you don't only have 5 buttons tops).

Ideal play would be shuffling through at least three of the forms.

/* Limited (advanced job): Demiurge (to be in addition to the normal form, not an alternative) */

FFX monster collecting like mechanics, a bit of FFXI monster mechanics, may unlock glamours for your primary content forms, your cloak skills might get remixed for limited content. You can use these forms and skills in any space that is not within current expansion. Perhaps lore wise the more beast specific forms require you to consume their aether (so you cannibalize right there lol), and while powerful are less reliable (wont be represented in gameplay...) making it less safe for articulate activities with friendly fire, and so you use the aether soaked garbs and your own aether more to maintain a higher standard of safety.

Related thread:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-Bayonetta-etc

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Name: Geoknight
Role: DD (or tank)
Weapon: Two handed mace, clubs, and other bludgeons, weapons can ring (and so they may have a bell built into them, though the ideas on how that works can vary greatly)
Gear: Fending or Maiming
Appearance: Golbez, Ex-Death, Sauron (Lord of the Rings), big boi mage. Wields 'weighty' magic, so basically any element when it forces a nice crunch visual. That could be astral / gravity magic, earth, or meteors. Visually might be something like punching the ground with your fist, knee to ground, other hand holding mace handle (head on ground), then smashing that same spot so your target location erupts into a giant column of fire and rocks, clenching your hands together to lift enemies into into the air with a torrent of water and then crushing your hands together causing gravity magic to rupture and squish the bubble inwards (moving all enemies into a neat ball, that can be moved by CC at least).
Gameplay: Some area control represented by large crystals (akin to Fenrir's boss attacks) that can be infused by some of your crunchy magical aoe attacks (like you might slam the ground with fire, naturally hitting the enemy but also infusing your crystal), other abilities relate to manipulating them around the battlefield to use their elemental fountain effects and naturally to send them into your enemies lol. Had suggested this before with crystals floating behind his back as part of the unique weapon but that's kind of a sage thing now.

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Name: Eldritch / Blood Mage
Role: DD (or healer)
Weapon: Multiple phylacteries that fill through combat
Gear: Mage / Healer (although honestly I'd like to break the mold and say Aiming)
Appearance: Blood / essence magic, and eldritch themes (lovecraft / otherworldy). A dark mage that is less reliant on blacks and purples.
Gameplay: Large area effect inducing fields that other spells play part in, like you set down a red sea that grows and swells as you cast other attack spells and then can be exploding into an evaporating mist that deals further DoT damage (and may have it's own interactions with other spells). In the healer thread (link below) I discussed damaging enemies to heal allies, or even using damage enemy spells 'on' allies. Curses that would significantly increase damaged received up to X value. I picture it a little bit like mage Samurai in that you can move a lot except for some specific spells that give oomph. Like if you cast red sea you might get the ability freely dash within the sea. Abnormal good movement, like one idea was to infest the target enemy granting you a further zoomed out camera (more for bosses) and you could cast spells from within that target, using their life as your mana. Or to transform into an elder god like mass, moving and casting, while inflicting CC on lesser creatures (and debuffing greater ones).

Related thread:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ecromancer-Etc
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Name: Blue Mage
Role: DD
Weapon: Cane
Gear: Mage Mc Magey
Appearance: Blue da ba de...
Gameplay: Gold bordered spells in your book have an alternate 'in party' effect akin to PvP spells vs PvE. You can organize the book by gold borders to make it easier. Each spell has a level associated to it (and might even be organized that way in the book), such that you can only queue for the content in which you have consecutively earned those skills (no blue mage enters content without all their needed spells). The carnival and basic instinct will be big friends in ensuring all skills needed are available. Gold skills have 100% learn rate and can be solo'd or trust / squadron'd (blue mage now being normal can use these systems as well). Wild things like Bad Breath and Death could be present but will be tweaked, for example on greater beasts (things that normally 'normal' jobs couldn't CC to high heaven that limited blue could) they receive blue aether sickness instead of the debuff. Many of Blue's damage spells would capitalize on debuffs (in fact on the job guage it might just tell you the number of debuffs in the area). So like casting death on a trash monster when you have a lot of blue aether mist available will just outright kill it (this mist taking other spells to place, just an extremely high damage single target) but on bosses it's just a big hitter with a debuff instead.

/* Limited (now, advanced job): Blue Mage */

As it is now, though I would still wish to see some changes like making any skill as cool as it's source if not cooler (while maintaining gameplay fun). For example our Diamondback is worse than the boss, given that the boss can shoot it back, and gameplay fun wise.. it's not fun to be stunned and you can't even cancel it. Perhaps 3 second force stun and then you can cancel it? Something better than just watching like a dodo... lol. Fire Angon, etc. Though I would love to see some in general 'more' like FFXIV's version of FFXI spell alchemy. Certain spells created effects when together, here perhaps it's a separate system, so you're not forced to use a bad spell just for a good passive, but you have to go collect spells to use them in the alchemy... Maybe X total unused spells in alchemy adds up to max equip-able passives, and each passive used takes the corresponding spells out from the 'unused' pool meaning you have to have spares. Therefore you collect spells so they can make interesting interactions, now and into the future, and then also collect spells so when you use those interactions you have points to equip them.

Lore for chained / unchained (normal / advanced, limited / unlimited) was basically a variant of what was suggested for Demiurge where Demiurge doesn't go full beast because in end game content being fully present is important as the stakes are too high, here blue mage doesn't go full beast magic because their magic generates a mist (FFIX) of monster aether that can create issues for their allies (when the stakes are not high they can more carefully field the battlefield, or work with allies who wont be affected) but in dire situations the blue mage doesn't take a water hose to an electrical fire incase they cause their allies to be sick.

Related thread:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...imited-Jobs%29
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...d-Job-Focus%29
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ike-to-see-%29
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Here's two limited jobs that I think could be both interesting and also not step on the 'expected' or 'wish list' for almost anyone in a normal sense (unlike say Blue Mage, Puppetmaster, Beastmaster, etc).

/* Limited: Operator */
Name: Operator
Role: Its limited..
Weapon: The mech
Gear: You make the mech
Appearance: Armor Core / Xeno saga the job.
Gameplay: Key part is to get a few systems that are fun to balance, obviously heat could be one. HP might be shield and the mech itself, where the mech is very very tanky but limited health and slow to recover (ineffective to heal); however, the shield can be healed (by healing spells) and returns more easily. If you're equipped for offense you cant afford to have a lot of shielding as that would take away your ability to balance heat for attacks as well (so a tank build would have low heat weapons with high heat defensive abilities). Melee builds would be very mobile and have attacks that could leach back shield. While heavy artillery (mage) builds would rely more on a BLM style. But you could then throw wrenches into general concepts like tread legs would allow a (mage) artillery build to move while casting (albeit slower).

Related thread (vaguely, more generically related to magitek but I feel the garage idea could be a nice place for this limited job):
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...XV%29-Workshop

/* Limited: Onion Knight */
Name: Operator
Role: Its limited..
Weapon: ANY WEAPON
Gear: ANY GEAR
Appearance: Whatever the heck you want it to look like, it can wear and use anything.
Gameplay: There would be multiple self balancing systems, almost akin to multi-classing in DND, or FFXI, except you can triple and quadruple class here. As you level onion knight you can earn more points to spend into each job (making builds, which you can freely change), which unlocks spells and passives from those investments (perhaps in a two tier system, so you invest your onion points into a job to unlock basic skills and stat bonuses, which you get right away, and can continue to do so to gain tiers in that profession, but then you spend mastery points to get specific unique aspects of that profession like fast cast or sage's kardia mechanic).

These spells combo into each other based on the categories they are placed in. For example black mage sharpcast could also trigger the bloodletter from Bard (as the spells would be given descriptions with keywords that you can easily follow and connect). So there would be structure and not just a random selection of abilities. The deeper you invest the more core identity spells you can use from a job, but the system is specifically designed that sole investment is never a good idea (might as well just play that job, that's silly); however, you might find combos that make triple investment ideal as well. All stats would mean something, perhaps jointly with minor buffs. Like Strength increases damage, and also vitality, while dexterity increases damage but also skill / spell speed, etc. There would be soft caps on stats. Passive systems could also include things like ability stacks so you could earn Onion Stack at level 50 that allows you to add an additional cast to any instant cast ability with a cooldown less than X seconds (or if we want it to be more simple, just automatically does it, but it would be less 'build' related then).

Instead of more obvious leveling could also make it more like FFXIV 1.0 leveling with gear mastery.

Related thread:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...s-Onion-Knight

DoL job for funs:
/* DoL: Chocobo + Hot and Cold */
Name: Archeologist (or something)
Role: DoL / Mini-game (Fisher, but ideally has some purpose beyond novelty only)
Weapon: Chocobo's face and feety
Gear: Doesn't really matter, could be Chocobo Jockey equipment I guess (or perhaps the gear is for your chocobo).
Appearance: U ride da choco boco and u pecks the ground
Gameplay: A greater gamification in finding the 'node' than the other gatherers where nodes are quite obvious, there might be some mini-game in the gathering itself but ideally no fail state like Fisher (because you're digging, .. if you failed to dig deep enough just dig deeper lol). Like hot and cold there could be chocographs that are one offs, but there should also be a repeatable structure as well. The items rewarded are less consistent than the other gathers but given that could allow for a wide range of novelty and usefulness.

Related thread:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...t-Tribe-etc%29


As an aside on limited, I would really hope to not see SE take an idea that could have been just a very interesting normal job to make it shallow limited. IF THEY MUST make it limited then go all the way to town, and then even farther into town, aaaaaalllll the way into fun town- don't skimp. Like BLU at release was barely in the hamlet near the town, it royally, in a first world sense (its a video game), made me upset lol.

If the hall of fame for a limited beastmaster is that it can collect animals with some very generic attacks, then I am going to point at WoW and insert an indestructible meme about how they did it as a normal job.


So I would really hope that IF they feel they need to do that, then it's more than 100% justified and not "we can't seem to figure it out, or don't want to give substantial flavor to any MSQ based job, so we took the easy route". I can see it being cool, but I can also see it just feeling like "......".