Final Fantasy 14, as we've often observed on this very site, has a bit of a design problem when it comes to its jobs—they're pretty stale. Tanks mostly play the same, healers get like two damage buttons, DPS all try to shove their buttons into the same two-minute window: It's a little droll.
For a while, game director Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi-P) has promised that this'll be changing in 8.0, FF14's next expansion. Back in 2024, he stated: "By strongly differentiating the jobs, we will be able to reach the goal we have set ourselves." It is now 2025, however, and a recent PCGamesN interview from Gamescom is casting doubt.
As always with these interviews, Yoshi-P often speaks in Japanese with a live interpreter, so specific word choice might be skewed based on the hard work of a poor translator having to suffer the Gamescom hall's terrible cafeteria prices and the stifling heat of a German summer. Still:
"When it comes to using the jobs in battle content and bringing out more of that uniqueness of each job, we are working on a big update." So far, so good, Yoshi-P. But then:
"People might think of it as an expansion of the system that we have in the game. So the players who already like the way things are can feel at ease that nothing is going to change for their experience. But we are trying to do something new on top of what we already have."
That… doesn't quite sound like the revolutionary overhaul we were hoping for. Which is something that's been stirring up (and I mean this with love) FF14's most sceptical community, the r/ffxivdiscussion subreddit. "Things will both change and stay the same. Please do or do not look forward to it," one player jokes, quoting Yoshi-P's usual sign-off.
Meanwhile, user EnkindleBahamut beat my gut-feeling response to the punch: "These types of interviews get absolutely misinterpreted to hell and back, and I feel like it'd just be better for everyone if there was direct communication from Yoshi-P about the subject, even if he only feels comfortable speaking in vagaries."
The only really concrete detail in this statement is that this "big update" will be additive—layered on top of already-present design, which might or might not be changing the maligned 'two-minute meta' that's had the game in an increasingly tight deathgrip. Are we talking subclasses? Are cross-class skills making a comeback? Who knows, we're in Schrodinger's 'look forward to it'.
Personally, I hope to see more of the Yoshi-P we saw when that mod drama boiled over late last month: Refreshingly earnest and to-the-point. Well, as much as one can be in a several-hundred-word blog post. I also hope to see a real shake-up, but that's another thing entirely.
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