Famitsu's Alpha Report

[Andromeda]

Well there are only 8 combat jobs currently, though I believe you can fight as a crafter though it is probably not as useful. So at least at the start of the game, there is probably going to be less of the multiple jobs for one task sort of thing. There is going to be probably one job for each task.

Though if you look at FFXI there were a lot of damage dealers, but after that everyone have a specific role or two and you have to pick which advantages you wanted. Bard actually do more pulling than thieves if you have both in the party. Thieves probably stayed back fighting. But there was a fair amount of variety that is brought depending on how you swing things. Dancers are buffers and debuffers and healers, which makes for a really hectic job, but the best Dancers could replace the White Mage's task and make the entire party run twice as fast.

I can agree there was a fair amount of overlap in jobs doing the same thing, but think that there were a lot of jobs that were specialized in an area that you had to pick and choose what you wanted to gain or lose by taking one job over another. Sadly the Black Mage ended up becoming like the Dragoon with the release Treasures of Aht Urhgan because it was the prime exp place and the prime monsters to kill had reflect or high magic resistance making Black Mage unneeded, number one reason why my BLM is still 55. >.>

The games dynamics changed quite a bit though with the new jobs and system updates.

[darknesse]

As long as they dont (and i doubt they will) do what wow is doing and fold most classes together (party buffs, combining class buffs into a set that override each other ect). But when you look overall, SE look a lot smarter than blizzard on the scripting side of things.

I should also note that i have no played ffxi, though i plan to for a moth or two in between now and 14.

May i ask will it be worth it, for the short time?

However, back to the topic.
Thanks for the info, i was looking for some feedback on alpha, and couldnt find any. I hope i get into beta, even just so i can create my own unique look beforehand, rather than spending several hours tweaking my charactors look (and i really will) before the game actually starts.