Today at the The Final Fantasy XI Fan Festival, the game's followers were given a chance to hear some firsthand information from Square Enix's development staff, who went over planned changes under consideration for the future.

Listed by class below are the changes under consideration:

Warrior
• Benefits from using different weapons
• Adding different incentives to using other subjobs
• New ability: Axe throwing

Monk
• Change from being a straight melee fighter
• New ability: HP boost to another party member

White Mage
• Bring advantage back to white mage for healing parties
• Give HP/MP to other members of the party
• Benediction: Remove all negative status

Black Mage
• Deterring manaburning, advantages to single BLM in party
• New spells for BLM

Red Mage
• New spells for RDM

Thief
• Give abilities to other party members
• Changes to Stealing, other than items possible?
• Change to Perfect Dodge: In battle, extra damage to monster

Paladin
• Changes to PLD to return them to main tank in party
• New ability: Auto-refresh
• Higher shield percentage
• TP gain for shield hit

Dark Knight
• Preference to DRK using Sycthes
• More reason to use the absorb spells

Beastmaster
• Complaints about the anti-MPK patch
• Changes to assist with this

Bard
• Changes to occasionally used songs to increase them
• New song: low level hastega

Ranger
• Changes to ranger in regards to damage/distance ratio
• Fix to sharpshot: Accuracy will not be affected by distance
• Number of types of arrows into quivers increased

Samurai
• Different uses of TP during battle
• New ability: Decrease the enemy TP when hit

Ninja
• While Ninja is strong, no changes to Ninja yet

Dragoon
• Due to recent changes, no changes are planned for Dragoon

Summoner
• Would like avatars out longer, so more MP
• Other benefits for avatars being out
• Changes to duration and power determined purely by summoning skill
• Increase the number of blood pacts
• New avatars: no plans for bahamut, but others are being looked into

Blue Mage
• Blue Mage can only learn when it’s the main job
• To acquire a new spell, you have to defeat the monster with that spell
• The timing you learn a spell depends on your level
• Adding more spells with future patches after initial burst
• Spells must be set before they can be used
• Spells will have a set point, and more setup points per level
• Limit of spells set increases with level
• Using melee Blue magic spells in skillchains
• Using magic Blue magic spells in magic bursts

Corsair
• Main ability: Cards drawn to control different effects
• When you use the same ability, the card count is added to the past call
• Maximum effect at XI; at XII, the spell busts and loses effect
• Types of effects depend on your party makeup.
• Card Shot: use one of eight types of cards with your hexagon, it will change your attack into a magic attack
• Strengthen negative status on monsters
• Ability to lower party recast times

The development staff did not guarantee the above changes, and would not commit to a timetable on their appearance in Final Fantasy XI; however, its members did take questions from the crowd, which appear below.

Q: Can you tell us how Treasure Hunter works?
A: Nothing to do with the final kill, as long as the thief is in the party.

Q: Is Utsusumi: San or other ninjitsu spells going to be added?
A: It’s on the table, but no decision yet.

A: Will there be weapon skills for throwing?
Q: We’ll take that idea back to Japan.

Q: Will there be changes to paladin to use other subjobs than WAR?
A: We would like to change it so there will be more subjob options for every class.

Q: Wyvern armor?
A: We never thought of that, and I’m writing it down right now.

Q: will the new jobs have aoe abilities, and will aoe abilites be added to SAM, DRG, and NIN?
A: There are a lot of blue magic spells that are AoE. No plans for Corsair to have AoE abilities - We’re going to take the AoE ability ideas back with us.

Q: Are there plans to keep your outpost teleporting if you change nation allegiance and return?
A: We will consider changing that if enough people are upset about it.

Q: What kind of Enmity effect would the HP/MP ability have on the WHM?
A: Because it is a battle action, some hate will be transferred to the WHM, but not enough to deter the ability’s usage.

Q: Does CHR affect Provoke?
A: No.

Q: Can there be an ability for refreshga for Summoner?
A: We will consider it.

Q: Will it be considered to allow to join Jeuno as a nation?
A: There are no plans currently to allow you to join Jeuno as a nation, but we have some surprises planned in the expansion.

Q: Why is Invincible not really invincible (magic still hurts)?
A: We have no plans to change it, because invincible was always against melee attacks.

Q: Can the PLD have HP/MP draining abilities?
A: Because the DRK has drain/asipr, the PLD can’t have it.

RPGamer will continue to cover the FFXI Fan Festival, through to its conclusion tomorrow. For more news and impressions, check our FFXI Fan Festival Home Page.