Letter from the producer LIVE III!

[Gokulo]

Here's the translated letter:



Paths companions getting removed, sniff!

Also, I love the sound of this:

Normally, a character’s combo comprises three weaponskills. Monks, however, can keep on going beyond that. The more they chain their attacks, the more damage they’ll deal. This will be further bolstered by the increased pace of battle in ARR.

[Churchill]

Oh fuck yea

[Elona]

First time I hear ranger mentioned, hopefully they will release it in the future.

[Kurokikaze]

Seeing this finally translated puts things into perspective a bit... For one Yoshida didn't like the fact that Wada was there hovering over him and asking these somewhat "hardball" questions. Idk, dude looked uncomfortable. lol

Also, I find it really hard to believe that Wada himself plays the game.. >.>;

[Raldo]

First time I hear ranger mentioned, hopefully they will release it in the future.

What do you want Ranger to do any differently that ARC doesn't already do? I mean, I'm thinking in the context of FFXI only here, but Rangers.... they shoot arrows. That's it. Barrage? Covered. Shadowbind? Covered.

[miokomioko]

What "Ranger" means to XIV isn't predetermined past the vague bow & arrow archetype.

Jobs are/should be a focus for a class.

Archer as it is has ranged attacking, a movement song, hate mitigation, damage avoidance. Thus, any job that stems off of it should make sense with those abilities plus building on one aspect of the class with some of their own.

Bard plays off the support aspect by adding 4 party-support actions and 1 stun AoE weaponskill... and restricts equipping actions to those from classes with mostly support and self-preservation abilities. Makes sense, I suppose.

Ranger could, instead, add something like 3 more attacks, and 2 more self-preservation abilities... and limit cross-class to something like PGL and THM.

There you go, something for Archers to switch to if a situation needs raw damage more than a single party buff.

[Fondue]

Paths companions getting removed, sniff!

Aww sad to say the cs with my Lala gladiator companion are the only ones I watched/read so far in the entire game

[Gokulo]

What "Ranger" means to XIV isn't predetermined past the vague bow & arrow archetype.

Jobs are/should be a focus for a class.

I think the problem is that in the context it was put it makes it sound as a separate class, not a job. Especially since there's another answer where they talk about not doing second jobs for now. Hence the question being raised by people.

[miokomioko]

In that case! I hope it's a precursor idea to Beastmaster. Have a more rogue-ish and wilderness-savy ranged class with debuff-focused crossbow weaponskills, let them charm the occasional Marmot... then step it up with a pet job that looks like this.

[millionsknives]

I guess if Ranger was introduced as an entirely separate class it'd have to use a crossbow, since bow and arrow are taken.

What exactly is the deal with ARC/BRD/RNG in XIV? I was a Ranger in XI and an Archer in XIV before I left the game. Does Archer ever get used or do people equip Bard 99% of the time? I love DDing with a bow and arrow, but singing songs, party support and equipping cross class skills from mages sounds really lame... All the other Class to Job combos (LNC -> DRG, PUG -> MNK etc) seem logical, but Archer to Bard seems so random.

I'm still confused at the whole Class Vs Jobs system because while I get Classes are meant for solo play, they still just seem useless when compared to Jobs. I can't see how Archer is a better solo player than Bard.

Edit:

In that case! I hope it's a precursor idea to Beastmaster. Have a more rogue-ish and wilderness-savy ranged class with debuff-focused crossbow weaponskills, let them charm the occasional Marmot... then step it up with a pet job that looks like this.

That would be awesome.

[Kurokikaze]

What do you want Ranger to do any differently that ARC doesn't already do? I mean, I'm thinking in the context of FFXI only here, but Rangers.... they shoot arrows. That's it. Barrage? Covered. Shadowbind? Covered.

I answer that question with a question of my own... What do you want Hunter to differently when playing Marksmanship vs Survival. A different playstyle but the overall objective is still the same - deal mass damage. Maybe one sacrifices some self-preservation skills for more raw/burst damage.

RNG should be what BRD isn't allowed to be cause of songs. All out DPS with some better maneuverability around the battle field. I'm really fond of giving RNGs Vault from Diablo III. They can also change the subclass abilities that RNG can get to PGL/LNC or something that would buff their damage. Think of all the BRDs that want Invigorate. lol

[Lonely]

They should just forget about Ranger and opt for Musketeer as the main ranged DPS class. Don't need much copy paste from XI here.

edit: hurr as long as it uses guns i'm cool with Musketeer -> Ranger class/job, bow and arrow sucks since bard already gets a sweet bow harp hybrid.

[Raldo]

Oh, while we're on the topic of Musketeer, I'm rather disappointed by this:

In the case of musketeer, a double-barreled gun is a weapon that requires both hands, so it takes up two slots.

since we've seen on several occasions that they're simply a one-handed puny little gun (maybe that'll change in 2.0), and Merlwyb actually uses two guns. On second thought, since the Lominsans get all pissy when you hold it in one hand (or are they just mad because you don't hold it straight?), maybe dual guns would be a job-only thing.

Maybe they'll let Musketeers use bigger guns so that makes more sense.

[Alkar]

They could always give Ranger more enmity manipulation abilities, like THF in XI. Archer already sort of gets them but the thing could be expanded even further.
And let's not forget other abilities from the past like when you could call birds in V to get different effects (obviously it'd change in XIV but it's a base idea).
For BST I hope they introduce a whip class and then branch from there. I think it'd be great to have a basic class that can call some pets and maybe use some of their abilities on its own and then get BST and BLU as job options that expand each part of the class (BST gets more powerful pets, BLU expands the idea of using their abilities and drops the pet part entirely). It's be a nice reference to Quistis too.
The idea is already there with Arcanist> Summoner considering SMN is focusing on pets and the other job will likely focus on DoT and enfeebling (possibly SCH? who knows..)

[xopher]

They could always give Ranger more enmity manipulation abilities, like THF in XI. Archer already sort of gets them but the thing could be expanded even further.

or they could just fucking give us THF.

[Niiro]

I guess if Ranger was introduced as an entirely separate class it'd have to use a crossbow, since bow and arrow are taken.

What exactly is the deal with ARC/BRD/RNG in XIV? I was a Ranger in XI and an Archer in XIV before I left the game. Does Archer ever get used or do people equip Bard 99% of the time? I love DDing with a bow and arrow, but singing songs, party support and equipping cross class skills from mages sounds really lame... All the other Class to Job combos (LNC -> DRG, PUG -> MNK etc) seem logical, but Archer to Bard seems so random.

I'm still confused at the whole Class Vs Jobs system because while I get Classes are meant for solo play, they still just seem useless when compared to Jobs. I can't see how Archer is a better solo player than Bard.

ARC->BRD may have seemed odd but it's a great example of doing a support job right.

BRD in XI sang songs, occasionally helped heal/-na, pulled maybe; boring shit.

BRD in XIV is a DD that stops to cast a 3 sec buff or two every few mins and has access to some useful (but not time consuming) support abilities (you wont be backup curing on BRD in XIV). They're also the only job aside from PLD (who won't have time to cast it) that has Raise which is very nice if you're running with only 1 WHM.

As far as being confused about the whole class-solo job-party dynamic it's because it failed miserably and jobs are still superior in the vast, vast majority of solo situations.

[Grey Jorildyn]

Meh. Raise is a non-issue with tonic. Just sayin'

[Niiro]

Can only carry one, and it's not always necessary anyway.

More people (see: everyone) need to carry them tho, I think a lot of people don't even know they exist.



edit: I wonder if anyone's wasted the time/seals to figure out the success rate on the crappy version

[Grey Jorildyn]

From eyeball it's like 20-25%.

[millionsknives]

ARC->BRD may have seemed odd but it's a great example of doing a support job right.

BRD in XI sang songs, occasionally helped heal/-na, pulled maybe; boring shit.

BRD in XIV is a DD that stops to cast a 3 sec buff or two every few mins and has access to some useful (but not time consuming) support abilities (you wont be backup curing on BRD in XIV). They're also the only job aside from PLD (who won't have time to cast it) that has Raise which is very nice if you're running with only 1 WHM.

As far as being confused about the whole class-solo job-party dynamic it's because it failed miserably and jobs are still superior in the vast, vast majority of solo situations.

Thanks for the info. I really want to try and get my head around this sort of stuff. I guess that sounds better than I had imagined. Since I saw they can only equip mage cross class skills I immediately thought of BRD/WHM from XI, and assumed I'd never get to DD.

If the class-solo/job-party system is a failure so far like I suspected, I'm really interested to see how they'll fix this in ARR. I was surprised when I found out they weren't just ditching the original classes in ARR. It would seem so much neater to start a fresh and just stick with Jobs.