Final Fantasy XI Origins project

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

I've been thinking submitting job profiles on each forum as I've noticed while we have a lot of FFXI players, there are quite a few that haven't played any of the other games in the series or just a few of them. Some people pick up roles out of trial and error, others pick up roles similar to those they played in another MMO and then there's the players who picked their favorite jobs from the main series.

I thought it might be nice to profile each job in such a way it that it gives insight to how FFXI jobs were inspired and also might spark some interest in trying out those other games these jobs hailed from.

So, just from a formatting perspective, it would flow like this

Job
First appearance in Final Fantasy series
FFXI character(s) representative of the job, a spoiler-free description
Other FF Characters that job is inspired by, with a spoiler-free history, citing which games they appeared in and the availability of said games.

When I say "spoiler-free" that doesn't mean we can't give them some back story or their involvement in the game, just don't give away any important details, twists or surprises (Yes, even THAT ONE from FFVII)

Additionally, I'd like to see some illustrations.

Example:

Final Fantasy Origins: Dancer

Dancer
First Appearance: Final Fantasy V
Other appearances, Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy X-2, FFXII
FFXI Character: ???
Lenne (FFX-2) - a spirit of a songstress lost during Zanarkand's war with Bevelle and influences Yuna during her journey to find a lost friend in FFX-2.
Penelo (FFXII) - Etc, blah, blah, blah

A bit more fleshed out than that, but you get the idea.

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So, consider this a sign-up thread, since Dancer was announced this week, we'll toss that in on the job list and postpone yet-to-be confirmed jobs at a later date. But let's go ahead and set a date for this project to begin, which I would like to begin on October 5th.

For now, there are three orders of business before we can really get started.

(1) I'm of two minds of how we can assign a thread to each member. We can do this by member nominations or "first come, first serve." I think the community should also just have a say in who does what so someone doesn't start their own "Origins" thread, giving moderators a headache.

(2)The other matter, and why I set Oct. 5th as a date, is to reach an agreement on some rather ambiguous characters and jobs in the post-FFVI era. Before we can start profiling, we need to decide - as a community - what do define those jobs as from an FFXI perspective.

Cloud Strife is a good example. He's been described as a WAR in some places, but I'm inclined to say he's a SAM based on how Square has written him and how he plays out. Vincent isn't really a RNG, he's a Morph and Berserker, so he really can't be applied to FFXI by any definition. These are just examples, there are a quite a few other characters that need to be sorted out.

So we need to reach an agreement on some of these roles. I don't want the discussion to get heated in this regard, we're just going to go with what character most closely resembles an FFXI job and what most people agree on.

(3) Finally, I'd like to avoid any "job flavoring" of characters from the other games where you could be any job. While FFX-2 and FFXII are also full of roles you can conform to, but at least the main characters from those games at least had a job to identify from the start. Yuna was a RNG in FFX-2, Rikku and Vaan are THF and Penelo is a Dancer, not other real way to define them.

In other words, what I mean is just because Lulu cast spells with a doll doesn't mean she was a Puppetmaster, she's a Black Mage. And just because Faris was a pirate captain and Balthier and Fran are sky pirates does not mean they are Corsairs. Let's keep job flavoring out of it.

There are jobs that do lack a character, though. Red Mage doesn't really have a character to symbolize them outside of FFXI, so that needs to be discussed. Additionally, Dark Knight didn't have much character basis outside of FFIV, though its original appearance was in FFIII. Cecil and Zeid are all DRK has, so to give it more space, let's include Gafgarrion from Final Fantasy Tactics games as one to reference as well. At the same time, lets not go too far with job association outside of those FF games.

And a magical (4) I'm just gonna pull out of nowhere. At no time should this thread fall into a "FFVII is the best FF ever" thread. I don't care which FF you like the best, this is to cover the majority of the series from a FFXI perspective. I'd like contributors to have at leave five Final Fantasy games under their belt, preferably more. No profiling of a job should be done from once single game of the series, with the exception of PUP and any original job SE decides to cook up.

Anyway, that's it for now.

BTW, I'd be ok with covering COR's profile, but I'll let you guys decide that. Plus we need define Wakka anyway.

---------------------------------------------
Jobs and users covering them:

Starter:

Warrior
Thief
Monk
White Mage
Black Mage
Red Mage

Advanced T1:

Paladin
Dark Knight
Bard
Ranger
Beastmaster
Summoner

Advanced T2:

Dragoon
Ninja
Samurai

Advanced T3:

Blue Mage
Corsair
Puppetmaster

Advanced T4:

Dancer
???
???

To be updated later as users get signed up.

[Tyros]

I wouldn't mind working on Dark Knight.

[Ziero]

Sounds very official-y, as such it would be interesting if it turns out well. I'm not gonna outright sign up myself as I have a nasty habit of getting sorta flakey with research stuff but I'll certainly offer any assistance I can.

One thing I would like to mention, I agree that Cloud us more of a Sam, similar to Cyan from VI. Going by his special sword attacks and choice of weaponry, many of which are named and modeled after Katana, he seemed far more Samurai-ish then Fighter/Warrior/Knight.

And Vincent is more or less a Morpher/Berserker as stated, leaning more towards the Morpher side. Similar to Gau he would assume the form and powers of a monster, but Vincent's monsters weren't other enemies in the game. As such neither of them would really fit into an FFXI job class. Barret was more of the Ranger in VII, as all his special attacks were ranged attacks. And Red was Warrior/Fighter/Berserker as far as I could tell, despite his few buffs he was mainly a direct attacker and made use of Berserk (enhanced attack/no control).

When I think of more info I'll be glad to share

[Feba]

If you want to have a shred of dignity, don't talk about the characters. That just gets people upset because they took their differently-- and it puts you as being wrong.

[Murphie]

It's an interesting idea, but I don't know how necessary or really, viable it is. It seems to be the sort of thing more suited to the Wiki (or a Wiki, depending on where you stand on that whole issue) as opposed to FFXIO, but that's obviously your call to make.

Personally, I don't care about the minutia of the jobs, and how they came to be. It's just not interesting to me. But then again, neither is all the math that gets some people all hot and bothered. So you know, different strokes.

Anyway, best of luck.

edit: This came out sounding mean, when that wasn't my intent. Basically, it's not my thing, but it's totally other people's, so I hope it goes well.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

edit: This came out sounding mean, when that wasn't my intent. Basically, it's not my thing, but it's totally other people's, so I hope it goes well.

Your response didn't surprise me in the slightest. It came off sounding very Murphie. :P

As far as Wikis go, I understand making new ones is the cool new thing to do, but you know, rather than contribute to wikis by communities I couldn't respect before certain incidents, I think I'd just like to add to the forums I do like.

Anyway, if you're not interested in the discussion, move along. If no one is interested in talking this up, we'll know it won't work well before the deadline anyway :P

[LilithAngel]

I'd like to toss my name in the hat for Dragoon and/or Blue Mage (big surprise there, eh?). I find those jobs to be rather interesting from a design standpoint.

On the one hand, you have the concept of a heavily armed/armored knight who's stylistic leanings evoked the dragons of old, yet their power and ferocity was tempered with agility and grace, something that one wouldn't think to be possible from one wielding such a large weapon.

On the other, the concept of a mage, someone traditionally known to be on the back lines, lightly armored and unskilled in physical arts, instead on the front lines, constantly putting themselves in the line of fire, in order to study and aquire an enemy's combat technique and make it their own, growing into a force to reckon with over time. Both interesting takes on traditional concepts.

[Skoal]

http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/jobs.shtml

I guess you could just use this as a reference.

[Mhurron]

http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/jobs.shtml
I guess you could just use this as a reference.
Actually why not just copy that whole site, since that's the exact information being asked for. Only formatting is different.

[Malacite]

Pretty cool idea.

We're only covering the FFXI jobs though? Does that extend to jobs that existed before FFXI that were used as inspiration? Such as RDM (putting my own personal grudge against SE aside for a moment here) borrowing from Mystic Knight's Spellblade ability with their new Enspells, or how Time Magic was split among WHM and RDM?

I'd like to get in on this, but idk what job to do ^^;

Also to correct an above statement, Yuna starts off as a Gun Mage in X-2, which is essentially a BLU/RNG hybrid. You can't really classify her as one or the other since she uses blue magic, but it's through her guns so... yeah >_>

[Murphie]

Actually why not just copy that whole site, since that's the exact information being asked for. Only formatting is different.Because...actually, I don't know why because.

[Skoal]

Yuna starts as a gunner. Later you can be a gun mage.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Also to correct an above statement, Yuna starts off as a Gun Mage in X-2, which is essentially a BLU/RNG hybrid. You can't really classify her as one or the other since she uses blue magic, but it's through her guns so... yeah >_>

Gun Mage was unlocked later in the game, She was "Gunner" from the beginning, I restarted a game recently just to look over the Dances for Songstress. " Yuna changes from Gunner to Songstress over the course of the initial tutorial, but defaults back to gunner later.

[Sevv]

id be willing to help on Nin, about to start a guide for Ninja. Maybe as well as Warrior . I maybe posting the Drg guides I wrote as well.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Well here's the sticky part, Sev, we kinda have guides established on every forum as it is. However if you wanted to detail out job abilities existing within the role, where they began and such, that would be fine.

The FF Compendium thing: that's kinda the idea, but what's there is rather bare-bones, a cut and paste from the instruction manual. I'd like see something a little more in-depth, to give the jobs some lore.

DRG could be a really interesting one to write. When you break it all down Kain and Cid Highwind were DRG/WAR. Freya Crescent was DRG/WHM and Khimari was DRG/BLU. DRGs have also been rather isolated and stoic characters, each loners in their own way.

BLU is pretty cut and dry overall, but to save a lot of debate, I think we could just say both Strago Magus and Gau are BLU. Gau was Berzerker, too, but since we have no Berzerker job and Gau could only use enemy skills to fight, his pretty much a full-on BLU. He's also somewhat of a catalyst for FFXI's BLU taking on enemy traits. For example, if Gau used "Bomb" he'd gain "Float" status because bombs hovered and this granted him immunity to earth based attacks such as Quake.

[Sevv]

Well here's the sticky part, Sev, we kinda have guides established on every forum as it is. However if you wanted to detail out job abilities existing within the role, where they began and such, that would be fine.
The FF Compendium thing: that's kinda the idea, but what's there is rather bare-bones, a cut and paste from the instruction manual. I'd like see something a little more in-depth, to give the jobs some lore.



Oh I am working on a guide for BG Wiki as well as here, Omni is going to help me out. I tend to put the job history in the few guides I have written, so I can copy and paste from my guide to here if you want. The drg history is very nice, if you add in the various history and back story of where the drg characters come from.

If you haven't read the lore from ffxi, check out this:
http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=47

Elmer's work.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Oh I am working on a guide for BG Wiki as well as here, Omni is going to help me out. I tend to put the job history in the few guides I have written, so I can copy and paste from my guide to here if you want. The drg history is very nice, if you add in the various history and back story of where the drg characters come from.

If you haven't read the lore from ffxi, check out this:
http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=47

Elmer's work.

From the FFXI side, yeah, that's what I've been thinking, I had seen Elmer's History forum on BG before, but hadn't really looked at it.

But taking it a step further, for example, you could include a character such as Ulmia for BRD lore or Priche for MNK since those jobs do come to light through the characters, along with the characters in AF storylines and characters in prior and subsequent FF games.

[Sevv]

But do we really want people thinking mnk/whm is that uber >.>;

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

But do we really want people thinking mnk/whm is that uber >.>;

Well, she was really WHM and MNK at the same time. But that'd just the BC fight she was in.

Ambiguious characters and their roles are was follows:

Wakka (FFX) - attacked from a range with blitzball, which sometimes inflicted status ailments on enemies. His overdrive attack consisted of Gambler reels. I'd say he was gambler, but there are some RDM elements there.

Yuffie (FFVII) - claims she's a Ninja, but bears more resemblance to a THF than the NINs that Edge and Shadow clearly are. She has more in common with Locke, Vaan and Rikku.

Dagger and Eiko (FFIX) - They're portrayed as Summoners, though they also deal heavily in White Magic. Kinda enimagtic like Rydia in FFIV, who as a BLM and SMN at the same time. I say just call all three SMNs.

Cloud Strife (FFVII) - SAM or WAR?

Barret (FFVII) - WAR or RNG?

Steiner (FFIX) - WAR or PLD? I'm inclined to say WAR since "Cover" was something anyone could learn in that one. He was also partially a Mystic Knight when he teamed up with Vivi.

Relm (FFVI) - Described as "Pictomancer" but I'd really just say she was a BST in the long run. I realize Shadow was part-Trainer, too. But Relm and Rinoa Heartily seem to be more in-line with BST.

Mog (FFVI) - this really rides on whether or not Geomancer is confirmed, otherwise, he's a Dancer. Put this one on hold

Gogo (FFVI) - I'm actually somewhat inclined to make an argument that Gogo could be our dark horse reference for PUP. He was a Mime, mimicking the previous action of another job. Puppetmasters use thier automations to mimic other jobs directly.

Rosa (FFIV) - she was a WHM and a RNG. I'm more inclined to say she was just WHM.

Edgar (FFVI) - Dubbed "Engineer" but dealt mostly in ranged status effects.

Sage characters (FuSoYa and Tellah) - They're kinda like RDMs, only really specialized in both kinds of magic and not at all in melee.

I suppose "dual job" characters could earn a footnote for each of thier jobs when it comes down to it. Rosa could be talked about a little in a RNG guide, I suppose Maria (FFII) could as well due to lack of characterization in the series.

Those are really the only characters I can think of with amalgamated roles.

[Malacite]

Gau was a morpher. it's where that class originated, and while Vincent's limit breaks were quite similar, I still don't think it's really fair to give the FF7 (or 8 for that matter) cast members classes, since they only vaguely resembled them vs the characters who were clearly established like Cecil (DRK/PLD) and Rosa (WHM/RNG)

[LilithAngel]

I still don't think it's really fair to give the FF7 (or 8 for that matter) cast members classes, since they only vaguely resembled them

Actually, they still fall under the possibility of being classified, because the thing about it is, within the FF series, "jobs", "Professions", or methods of doing things, are still categorized by what a person does more than who they are. Every character in the main series had a job, or emulated enough aspects of a job, to be classifed into one. Laguna Loire used ranged attacks for every attack he ever made, and nothing but ranged attacks; by those actions, he fell under the catch-all job of Ranger, as that is the job that is the closest to what he did in function (Gunner is just a spinoff of Ranger, as is Archer; the argument could be made that both Gunner and Archer are really just Rangers that specialized in guns or bows).

The same argument could be made for every job-ambiguous character in the series (especially for VII and VIII). Vincent Valentine had been given Morpher-like abilities, but his main (original) job was Ranger through-and-through. He even continues to use Ranger-like abilites as his main form of attack and function in Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus, so calling him a Morpher first is a bit misleading.

The main problem is narrowing down a character's M.O. to the traits they exhibit in combat and theme; that's where a large point of contension can occur between observers. A significant number of characters can have two or more jobs as a main, and mix the two together to form something unique (and thus, cannot be classified), so the debate over some of them could be endless. That's why I say if we can't come to a consensus over some characters, just leave them out of the discussion alltogether. Saves time, headaches, and egos.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

How about this, then.

Any secondary non-FFXI job the character may have we'll just discard. So Morpher or no, Gau is a BLU and Vincent is RNG. Makes it a bit easier. We'll toss Barret in since both he and Vincent could attack from the front or back row with no damage penalty (which is the way RNG used to be, but we're going to ignore that fact).

Meanwhile Yuffie is just NIN. SE still depicits Red XIII as learning enemy skills, even in the movie, so BLU. Not much question that Cid is DRG, even if he takes a page from Setzer on one limit break (who wouldn't?).

FFVIII's characters can be cut and dry.

I'd say Squall was WAR. Zell MNK. Quistis BLU, Selphie is COR, Rinoa BST, Irvine and Laguna RNG, Kiros NIN and Ward is WAR (He didn't Jump, harpoon or not).

[Skoal]

As long as Khimari and that rat thing from ffix aren't drgs, we will be ok.

[LilithAngel]

Unfortunately (for you, Skoal), they are. ;)

BTW, Freya owns. Hard. Any "rat" that can kick that much ass has to. It's law. :love:

Khimari... ...well, he actually is a full member of both of my jobs, Dragoon and Blue Mage, much like how Prishe is a full member of both the White Mage and Monk jobs at the same time (if she ever went to TA Ivalice, she'd be the only non-Bangaa White Monk).

Everything else BBQ posted is more or less accurate. Everyone in the main series can be put somewhere, and it'd make sense.

[Malacite]

That doesn't really work for Gau though... better to just exclude him, because Strago was the BLU of FF6.

Gau is similar only in that he uses monster attacks, and it stops there. It's not accurate at all to call him a BLU and as such should simply be left out IMO.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

That doesn't really work for Gau though... better to just exclude him, because Strago was the BLU of FF6.

Gau is similar only in that he uses monster attacks, and it stops there. It's not accurate at all to call him a BLU and as such should simply be left out IMO.

Gau learns enemy skiils and spells.
Strago only learns enemy spells, many exclusive.
Strago can also learn enemy spells through Gau.

Its easier to just say Gau and Strago both BLU and not get into semantics since there are BLUs in the series that fall in-line with the both o them.

[Malacite]

Strago doesn't become berserk though, and use a select set of abilities from a single monster. He also uses MP, while Gau does not. There are enough differences that I firmly believe you should not lump them together.

[LilithAngel]

The methods are different, but the end result is the same: use of enemy skills/abilities. BLU in XI is different from how it used to be in the past; are you not gonna call it Blue Mage just because you don't have to get hit with the ability to learn it and can't use every spell all the time?

Use of enemy abilities has been a Blue Mage staple from the beginning. If the majority of what a character does revolves around that, then regardless of method, they are a Blue Mage of some caliber.

[Malacite]

How is it different? You learn spells from an enemy then cast them with MP. There's always been subtle variations in spell acquisition but with the exception of Quistis (who needed her limit break) every BLU in the series has always cast them with MP while retaining full control.


Just let it go already, Gau is not a blue. That's like saying RDM is a WHM because it can cast cure.

[Yellow Mage]

Just let it go already, Gau is not a blue. That's like saying RDM is a WHM because it can cast cure.

Tell that to everybody asking us to Main Heal.

. . . Please.

[BurningPanther]

That's like saying RDM is a WHM because it can cast cure. What, you mean we're NOT?

Imagine that...

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Well this thread died off pretty quick.

To those who are/were interested, if we were to divvy up bios for multiple jobs, would you be interested in that? I can take on a few different jobs. Some histories are easier to write than others since some jobs have a lesser tenure in the series, like BRD, who really only has Edward and Lenne to draw from in terms of any references.

I can see myself going to COR, BRD, RNG and BST since those are jobs I focus on.

[Wise Donkey]

I just noticed this thread, so if it is not too late, I would love to do Thief. I might even pick up some extra unclaimed jobs if you need me too.

[LilithAngel]

If nobody has claimed them, I'll take Dragoon and Blue Mage. Since you've got Corsair already, I'll leave that to you BBQ.

Malacite: Think of it this way: Gau is a Blue Mage, but he goes into a berserker rage when he attempts to use his blue magic, much like what happens to a BLU in XI when he/she lets the Beast within take over (and subsequently turns into a Soul Flayer). However, Gau's managed to somehow remain what and who he is, thus becoming some sort of wild Blue Mage, but a Blue Mage nonetheless. Strago is just a Blue Mage that's a master of the class, and has spent his whole life training in it, where as Gau just picked it up in the wild.

Strago and Gau use the same style of combat: Enemy Skills. Blue Magic. They just use different methods of control. Just because you don't use MP to use the enemy's skill, doesn't nessesarily mean it's not blue magic.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

OK, so thus far we have

DRK - Tyros
DRG - Lilith Angel
BLU - Lilith Angel
NIN - Possibly Sev on that
THF - Wise Donkey
COR - BBQ
BST - BBQ
PLD - ???
BRD - ???
RNG - ???
WHM - ???
BLM - ???
RDM - ???
WAR - ???
MNK - ???
SMN - ???
SAM - ???
PUP - ???
Dancer - ???

I'll leave RNG and BRD open in case someone wants to cover them, if not, i'll move on to those myself and others are free to move on to the other jobs if they want, just mention it here so there's no confusion.

[Malacite]

To say Gau is a BLU is to say Morpher isn't a class.


Hell, load up FF6 (any platform) and guess what? Blue mage is clearly listed under Strago's name only. Strago is the classic (and first) BLU character to ever show up. For the sake of simplicity, just use him and not Gau.

I am still interested in this BBQ ^^; I just don't ppl getting the wrong idea here. Gau is not a BLU, even though there are similarities. BST can technically use mob attacks too, but they're not a BLU now are they?

So let's just drop it and forget about Gau.


I want to know what to classify Zidane as. Yah, he's obviously THF, but he can also dual-wield and has some rather stupidly high (warrior level really) attack power and over all stats... and there's the villains too. Are covering them as well, or just the heroes?

[Wise Donkey]

I want to know what to classify Zidane as. Yah, he's obviously THF, but he can also dual-wield and has some rather stupidly high (warrior level really) attack power and over all stats... and there's the villains too. Are covering them as well, or just the heroes?

We could nit-pick characters all day, I would rather not get into that. Classify them by what they resemble the most and be done with it. I definitely think we should classify villains, but the difficulty there is we can only judge by what we have seen them do, as we do not get behind the controls of most villains, and thus can't look at all of their abilities. Again, I say classify them by what they most obviously resemble.

BBQ - If no one else shows up that wants WAR or PLD, I will take them also.:thumbsup:
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Also to note - not every character in the FF series HAS to fall into a category. Some of them have been unique and can be labeled just as that.
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Let's see if the Forum will auto-merge a triple post!

Question - These threads will be posted into the particular Job's Forum, or all gathered into one thread?

And if Geomancer pops up in WotG, I call dibs.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Since some jobs classes are more sparse than others in terms of character, I say villains are fair game. DRK and PLD are pretty lonely if we just leave them with their series characters, so the Tactics/Tactics Advanced characters could be tapped along with villains.

As for Gau, from what I've read on various sites, most people consider him a BLU variant. Learning and using enemy skills is what defines the class. Its not a matter of those skills requiring MP nor is it how they learn the enemy skills. Quistis learned them from items, Khimari learned them from Lancet, Quina learned it by eating its enemies, Gau was left alone on the Veldt to learn it and Strago had to e present in parties to learn it.

At the end of the day, they all learn enemy skills and spells. Thus, they are BLU.

[Skoal]

We could nit-pick characters all day

This is what happens when threads like this are made. There is already a website that gives the jobs and what game they were in. I guess what is trying to be accomplished here is the story behind each character.