BLU for Duty Finder and Raids! Show your support!

[BubblyBoar]

"Because BLUs might not have the abilities they need and will get kicked from parties, we have kicked them from all your parties for you!"


Patch 5.15 Update: Seems we are getting a DF just for BLU. Why not just let us in a normal DF at this point. It is getting ridiculous. Let's see how it goes =X Like, they make it all fancy and try to hide it like it's an actual DF, but it's totally just PF with a DF wrapper.











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Please don't let this stand. There are a number of ways to balance the job and we as a community don't want a HIGHLY requested job like BLU to be demoted to a half of a job for solo content. Even with all the actions and things we can take, it is perfectly fine for how to only have a set few for party content to be more in line with other ranged DPS jobs. Please don't do this to us SE. Don't be afraid to let that job be a real job.


We can only use 24 of the abilities at once anyway, so a set for "party content" will be determined and asked for no matter what. Every other job needs their abilities for endgame and BLU is no different. I rather be able to use BLU normally than have to focus on solo content by myself in an MMO to "feel like a true BLU."


Obviously, it's too late to have anything changed for 5.0. But with enough feedback, an overhaul is possible one day.




Brand New Poll!
It's been a week and there has been a lot of discussion, so here's a new and better poll

http://www.strawpoll.me/17279778/r here's a new poll.

There's a Poll off reddit, not with the exact options I want, but a poll nonetheless
https://www.strawpoll.me/16866229
If someone could make a poll with less extreme options, that would be great.

I'll try to explain the disappointment using an example.

Viera has been a highly requested race for quite some time now and has been officially teased. Now let's imagine that, at the next Fanfest, we get a full trailer dedicated to Viera with the words "New Race" plastered across the screen. Everybody cheers, then SE tells us that Viera is a new beastmen race that isn't available for character creation. Oh, but this time, when participating in beastmen daily quests, you get to temporarily play as a Viera. Will this news please fans who have been wanting Viera for years? I can't definitely say yes or no, but I'm willing to bet that the majority would not be pleased.

Now let's take this above example and tell those upset fans, "let's wait and see." The beastmen quests could be fun with plenty of lore to enjoy, after all. And players do get to play as a Viera which is what they've wanted, despite being limited to side content. Yes, some players will be perfectly content with this implantation of Viera. And maybe those who are initially upset will grow to like it too.

But now to practice empathy skills. It is clear that there are fans who are upset about this implantation of Viera. Why are they upset? It is because they can't play as a Viera in other content, such as endgame or the main story? "But you can just play that content as a different race," some might say. For those who have wanted Viera for years, is that really the answer they want to hear?

I really hope that my point is coming across. At the end of the day, for a lot of fans, it really doesn't matter if Blue Mage or Masked Carnival are fun additions to the game. People are upset because Blue Mage hasn't been given equal treatment. No amount of "wait and see" will dispute that fact.

Nothing they said on the stream convinced me that Blue Mage is not fit for the Duty Finder. I've had the unfortunate luck to be paired with Tanks and Healers who had access to all their skills, but simply couldn't play the Job at all. And I've known Players who lacked certain skills, yet played the job better than most randoms I encountered.

And if certain skills are simply broken, make the bosses immune to them.

"Designed for solo play" - If I wanted to play a solo game, I would be playing a game that is designed for solo play. I don't want a half-baked version inside an MMORPG.

Oh they are scared that Death is going to kill most of the raid bosses? It's not like Repose/Sleep/Fluid Aura work on them either. Or it's not like Gravity halves the enemy HP. No excuses SE, make it work for duty and relevant content.

So then what is the point? What is the end-game for BLU? What's my motivation to keep playing BLU once I've gotten everything?
With raiding, part of that motivation is playing with my friends and we have a good time. Can't exactly have that in a solo setting.

Couldn't they have solved the balance issues entirely by making it so that only a certain set of iconic BLU abilities are allowed in endgame content, and in order to participate in any level-cap DF content, the BLU has to have all of those set abilities? Then BLU could learn all the enemy skills they want for solo play, but still be balanced like a normal class for DF. Especially if job quests specifically send the BLUs out to farm certain enemies for their skills, the feeling of "acquiring all skills from enemies" would still be present, even if there are limits on what skills can be used in endgame content.

This... isn't that hard to figure out, SE...

Yeah I cant imagine people who were waiting up to five years to make Blue Mage their main class just to find out this is what we are getting.

I agree it's like here's a job that everyone wanted and was looking forward to and then it's treated like a time share where the lvl cap increases when you get new abilities and is regulated to solo content unless premaded, good job SE that's what was needed a class to level in the open world through FATEs and mobs alone! Totally not out of touch.

The fact that this thread has to exist makes me laugh. It feels as ridiculous as saying "Show your support for guns in this FPS!" Petitioning a developer running an MMORPG to allow a class/job into group content, what a world.

BLU is like the kid at an amusement park that doesn’t quite meet the height requirements. While all the other jobs are off doing anything the game has to offer. BLU is stuck on the kiddie rides.

Prediction time:

1. BLU will be released to widespread adoption. It'll be new content in a period where people are content starved.

2. The class might see an initial downward tick in population, but it will be relatively minor. There are all manner of safeguards built into the experience to ensure retention. Eureka the job will have Eureka the grind built into it, I imagine the chance to learn monster spells will be lower than anticipated, and the bonus exp from world mobs will be relatively minor.

3. Then people reach the Carnival and here's where it gets interesting: this will be the height of Blue Mage talk and engagement. It's designed to be the height of the experience - and here is where it will fail. In short order, a number of days if not less, a full and complete guide to the Masked Carnival is released. I cannot see Square designing a niche solo experience with the complexity of 25 Savage Mode raids. Most fights will be primarily about finding and grinding for that perfect spell to counter it. Furthermore, we'll have guides which boil the entire experience down to a recipe-list. Sure, one could opt not to spoil the experience, but people as a whole will.

4. We will see the class numbers and engagement start to take a nosedive shortly after this. As the endgame BLU experience is turned into a checklist on Reddit and Square cannot keep up an endgame for everyone else and then the odd-kid out BLU's "custom content" quickly goes from Masked Carnival to Hidden Sideshow. There will be a trickle of content for it, but not enough to recover enthusiasm for the class nor enough to keep up with what everyone else is getting.

5. There be a tiny community of Blue Mages, just as there's a small community that enjoys Verminion or Chocobo Racing. To those people, from me, hats off. No, seriously - I enjoy the PvP in this game which as I understand it makes me a bit of an oddity. Tragically, though, for most Blue Mage will be a quaint and curious sidetrack, something to be entirely ignored or at best endured when the occasional bone gets tossed its way.

Let me sidetrack into another point. Let's say I'm wrong. BLU is popular and acclaimed. So, reasonably Square continues the experiment. In short order we have Defanged Beastmaster alongside Hamstrung Puppeteer added in future patches. Of course, they'll need their own sandboxes as well. Square goes from designing one endgame experience to two with Blue Mage . . . then 3 . . . then 4? Where does one draw the line? Even if they roll everyone into the Masked Carnival "setting" they all cannot fight the same battles - they need to be tailored and crafted to each Limited Job. Without designing two separate, parallel, and yet equal content pipelines how does one fulfill both communities? One side or the other will be left anemic in comparison.

Courtesy of reddit:


Dangolian [score hidden] 2 hours ago

"We put BLM in as a limited job because they usually exploit elemental weaknesses, but we don't have elemental weaknesses in the main game and we decided it would be better suited for solo content; no one wants a BLM that can't exploit weaknesses! Also, BLM use all their MP up so quickly in other final fantasy games casting their big spells, and we want to stay true to that fantasy, so they couldn't work unless we gave them infinite MP in some way, but that's not what people want when they play BLM."

"We have decided to make BRD a limited job. How is Bard ever going to gain levels when it does such low damage and healing ?!? We don't want to compromise the fantasy of being a BRD, but we feel it would be too weak to level solo or in a party; look at Edward in Final Fantasy IV! No one would choose him for their party at the end of the game unless they were forced to. We have decided BRD is best implemented as a Role-play job that let's you play different instruments in the city areas, and you gain experience from reactions to your performs. We will also add solo instance where you can perform for NPC crowds for greater rewards."

"Summons in final fantasy games kill enemies very quickly, so we think Summoner is too imbalanced to fit in with the other jobs in the game. Can you imagine being able to summon Odin in a raid and one shot a boss?!? It might be fun, but it will ruin the game for everyone else. There's also going to be a strongest summon, so people won't be able to choose their favourite, and might get kicked from parties if they are don't have the best summons yet. On the other side, can you imagine letting summoners into a roulette party when they can only summon carbuncle to cast Ruby Light?!? After careful consideration we have decided that Summoner won't fit group content well, and that it would be best to make it a limited job."

"After meditating long and hard, we concluded that Monk would be too imbalanced if we were implement it into the game a normal job. The job has strong Self healing skills like Chakra that don't use MP, and it also has naturally high HP and physical defence, and the ability to counter attack all incoming physical damage. We feel that Monk has to be the target of many attacks in order to deploy their counter attacks effectively, which would mean they need to be the tank role, but their usefulness against a magic caster will be much lower than an enemy who uses physical attacks. Monk would drastically limit the combat design if we made it a normal tank, so we are going to make Monk into a limited job where it can counterattack and heal through it's own solo content."

"Dragoon is going to be introduced as a limited job. We thought about implementing it a 'normal' job at one meeting, but decided against this because there is no good way to implement jump moves into standard battles. Jump attacks are meant to make the Dragoon evade all incoming damage, and deal high damage in return. This is a crucial part of the Job's fantasy, but being able to use jumps to be invincible for extended periods of time poses too much of a challenge to encounter design, so we are giving Dragoon it's own encounters where they can deploy their jump techniques to the fullest."

"Astrologian's most unique skill in it's previous final fantasy appearances was an unavoidable cast of Stop and Slow on all enemies within a large area of effect. This was obviously way too strong to allow into current content, but it's also the only skill that really defines Astrologian. As such, we will not allow the Job into any content from the past 4 years, and have set up some Astrologian-only instances so you can still use Galaxy Stop/Celestial Stasis on some enemies to feel like you aren't missing out on content at the expense of preserving the fantasy of a job that appeared for a single battle in Final Fantasy Tactics"

[Enla]

I don't know why they don't just require people to get a certain number or certain rotation of abilities first before unlocking duties for them. Yes it's going to be a grind but there are ways to balance it if you take out some of the OP spells that BLU is bound to have when entering group content.

[BillyKaplan]

They don't even need to change the system they presented, they simply need to create a parallel one, sort of like PVP. You're in PVP, boom, you have all these other actions and things you can add. You're a BLU going into DF? Congratulations, your skills are now this predetermined set which you've gained through level up and job quests and can therefore be balanced.
The BLU solo experience actually sounds fascinating and like it'd make for good time filler in the luls between patches. But I'm a lot less motivated if I can't even play it in regular content. More than anything, it's more of the same worriesome state of mind they have where they think they know better than us what we want. On one hand I appreciate being this loyal to the job, on the other hand, I find it misplaced and in bad taste.

[AlphaSonic]

When you thought Eureka wouldn't bother you anymore in the next expansion. Now you can experience Eureka everywhere thanks to BLU.

[Voltyblast]

I knew BLU was bad news on arrival...now they better do something with the next jobs and that phantomatic new race they might have.

What's next, new race cannot fight?

[Lambdafish]

BLU doesn't work for party content, don't pretend that it does. What we would get is this, or a watered-down imitation of BLU, which would generate backlash regardless. This is BLU exactly as BLU should be, and putting it in a party scenario wouldn't work because it can't be balanced against other jobs. This is how the backlash looks:

Community: "We are bored of the predictable formula, give us something we have never seen before"

Devs: "Here is a brand new concept for how jobs are played, and here is BLU exactly as it is in other games"

Community: "Nooo, we never asked for that"

[Aramina]

BLU doesn't work for party content, don't pretend that it does. What we would get is this, or a watered-down imitation of BLU, which would generate backlash regardless. This is BLU exactly as BLU should be, and putting it in a party scenario wouldn't work because it can't be balanced against other jobs.

Pretty much. The outrage would be just as bad (if not worse) if it was just another caster with a BLU skin.

[BubblyBoar]

I absolutely can. We've been accepting watered down versions of classes since the start of 2.0 with SMN and even with RDM. And yet, people still love and play those classes often. BLU would have been the same if they bothered to try.

[Valdegarde]

Red Mage doesn't work exactly how it does regarding its party role in the other games, is it an unusable fan hated mess of a job, or was it generally well received?
Who gets to decide exactly how a job "should" be? We got non tanking Ninjas, non damaging, HP cutting Dark Knights, Red Mages who barely heal, a Time Mage that heals and uses cards, but there's no way to implement Blue Mage unless it works as an exact square-peg-in-round-hole version of FFXI's design?

[Lambdafish]

I absolutely can. We've been accepting watered down versions of classes since the start of 2.0 with SMN and even with RDM. And yet, people still love and play those classes often. BLU would have been the same if they bothered to try.

BLU is a bit different, and always has been. Collecting abilities has been a major side activity in games in a way that no other job has had, which is exactly what XIV has emulated. And by the sounds of it, they did try to put BLU into the traditional job formula and it didn't work as a BLU (which is understandable, it has no identifiable theme other than collecting enemy abilities), so the main gameplay that they took is the side activity that makes up the identity of BLU