Part 2 of their interview is up on the
We Are Vanadiel website. It's a good read for those interested but this most intriguing portion, I think.
Matsui: It’s honestly quite a struggle to give names to things in long-standing titles like FFXI and FFXIV.
Yoshida: Job names are especially tough. (laughs wryly) After all, there’s no point if a job is similar to its namesake in name only; its gameplay experience needs to match their pre-established design too. At this point,
I’m thinking we have no choice but to come up with brand new jobs that haven’t appeared in the FF series before.
- I certainly see why, considering there’s already 22 jobs in FFXI and 20 jobs in FFXIV.
Matsui: As long as new game elements aren’t being introduced, new jobs are designed to fulfill a battle role that can already be filled by an existing job. That said, we can’t release a superior version of a certain job, and a new job that offers the same experience as an existing one would defeat the purpose of adding a new job. In that sense, it’s very difficult to come up with a new job.
Yoshida: From a system perspective, if the number of jobs is fixed and well-balanced, there’s no need to add more, and adding new jobs would obviously cause a stir. But nevertheless, we always need to add more jobs to keep providing new gameplay experiences.
Matsui: Back in Chains of Promathia, we were heavily criticized by foreign media for releasing a new expansion without any new jobs. Considering that, we might say it’s a “rule of design” to provide either a new job or playable race as the main feature of a new expansion.
