Topjobs

Final Fantasy XIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida speaks to Daniella Lucas about what goes into creating new job classes for the MMORPG – from revising old skills through updates to the difficulties of deciding what new ideas to bring to the table

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The Dawntrail expansion is getting close now, with only a few more weeks before launch in July. We’re excited for it to pull into port, but while we wait the dev team has given us a quick peek at the upcoming jobs and how all of our favourites will change with the new level cap after the recent benchmark test. It was only the tiniest of teases, though, so we asked the producer and director of Final Fantasy XIV, Naoki Yoshida, about everything that goes into making and continually polishing the MMORPG’s job roster.

Currently there are 19 different battle jobs to choose from, one special job, three gatherers and eight crafters, with Dawntrail adding two more combat jobs and promising another special one further down the line. That’s a lot of skills and mechanics to keep on top of, especially as each job needs to be adjusted every time the game’s level cap rises for a new expansion. Sometimes it’s just a case of adding new abilities, but other times a job will need a complete overhaul. For example, Summoners originally had a separate hotbar to control their pets, but this was changed in Endwalker to become more streamlined and easier to use. But how did the developers decide to make such a drastic change?