The Cancellation of the Time Mage Job in FFXIV: An Explanation from the Director

Naoki Yoshida, director of Final Fantasy XIV, disclosed that the game had initially intended to feature a Time Mage job, but it was ultimately abandoned.

The release of Dawntrail for Final Fantasy XIV brings even more jobs to its roster. The recent additions of Pictomancer, a magic DPS job, and Viper, a visually striking melee job, further demonstrate the game’s commitment to expanding its players’ options.

The developers strive to provide players with two new jobs for each expansion, devoting countless hours to generating fresh concepts and determining how they would function within an MMO setting.

However, director Naoki Yoshida revealed that the Time Mage class was never implemented on live servers due to concerns about balancing and technical difficulties.

Dawntrail will be releasing the newest magic DPS Pictomancer.

When interviewed by TheGamer, Yoshi-P disclosed that the team had intentions of introducing a mage that could manipulate or toy with the concept of time. This concept has been previously explored in the Final Fantasy franchise, making it a suitable inclusion to the MMO.

Despite the desire for a Time Mage class in FFXIV, it was ultimately deemed unfeasible to incorporate time-related spells into an MMORPG. Altering the passage of time for all players would create an imbalance and further complicate the already challenging task of balancing the game.

“According to the director, one of the key aspects of an MMORPG is the inability to control time. Additionally, this also means that certain job classes, such as Time Mages, would be rendered useless if they could not manipulate time.”

Yoshi-P stated that the number of identifiable jobs from the Final Fantasy IP has been gradually decreasing, mainly due to the challenge of creating new weapons. However, he assured that the team will focus on introducing more unique jobs for Final Fantasy XIV in the future.