Why we have to rethink the way we allow Limited jobs

I have given every iteration of Blue Mage a try and really all of them are fun (Bravely Default series included). The point I am trying to drive in though is that if we continue to let Limited Jobs system go on, even for Beastmaster and Puppetmaster. It will become the standard solution for classes that cannot fit in the game. This is what I am scared of, we are setting a very low standard bar and really this can and could apply to all future jobs which I hope not and I pray I am wrong.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

SE basically shot themselves in the foot by releasing it at all. With the way this game functions they were never able to satisfy everyone with this job in the first place, they should've just kept BLU out of the game entirely.



I like to think that is intentional. People kept pestering SE for Blue Mage without ever thinking about what a nightmare it is to make that thing work in the first place without completely breaking the game. So SE just went "You want it? Here you go, it's terrible, you're welcome...now shut up and never ask again."

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my nitpick with that is that "what a nightmare it is to make that thing work in the first place without completely breaking the game" is entirely on the devs/design team to decide. they could just as easily have taken the class in a different direction regarding available skills, skill balancing, playstyle, etc without breaking from the blue mage brand (because every final fantasy and FF-adjacent changes up how BLU worked in some way or another), and could just as easily have been pared down to something actually fitting and functional within the system and lore (an eorzean blue mage, rather than the OG blue mage reference/callback design they went with).

it was (and is) a nightmare to balance specifically because they chose a direction of blue mage from all the possibilities available that "required" hard-to-balance skills like death/missile/etc, rather than... literally anything else.

and so we get nine flavors of 200 potency cone with an element that doesnt actually matter, debuffs that largely don't work (and those that do just make outsiders hate the class for ruining "their" fates/overworld content) or work for a short duration and then are a wasted slot on your hotbar, and vestigial non-dps options (you're better off aoe overhealing with white wind to generate aggro while in tank stance than the actual aggro spells if you can spare the mana, the healer 'kit' is the barest bones possible with 1 conditional shield, 1 heal, 1 aoe heal+esuna that is admittedly good, an expensive conditional aoe heal, and a revive on an intense cooldown)

BLU and the treatment of healers (a whole separate discussion) have almost single-handedly embittered me to the game as a whole, despite how much I like the setting and lore.

The idea that blue was meant to played solo is only sort of true, i feel like the REAL problem they have is. They show it off as this class that can do everything and needs noone ... and then you have to get dungeon only spells or even worse trials.

They should've sticked to specific solo only playstyle and honestly all the death, doom and hp manip moves ... what where they thinking would happen to balance? I believe that blue is beyond fixing unless it gets an entire overhaul that atleast lets it use duty finder (it has to register as a certain class with a minimum required spells lists, locking out skills that are not fit for your current class) I dont think it should be allowed in savage or extremes however as it has way to many loop holes SE is bound to forget.

If you want blue to not be assimilated into parties, enhance it and let them run the duties solo this can be done in 2 ways.

Reduce the hp and attack of mobs when a blue is solo
or give blue a passive that procs when their alone in party that enables them to power up to do the duty solo. (it would need to be a duty only spell or they would destroy fates and outside areas ... even harder)

Either way get rid of the cheap spells, i know their fun but they break everything that remains of the balance we have.

the problem is is that the devs have said at every opportunity that BLU is designed for solo overworld/field content (up to and including the info cards when announcing the class at fanfest), which isn't true at all in practise.

i should note that i'm cool with BLU being limited/side-content-only, but they really need to buckle down and decide--if it's going to be solo/open world only, it's skills need to come from solo or easily-matched overworld content such as hunts/fates/etc and really double down on allowing the class' supposed "OP" skills to really shine (such as allowing some debuffs to ignore resistance buildup, or make more enemies vulnerable to some of their more niche debuffs, or actually making elements mean something again since that entire mechanic has been completely scrapped outside of eureka and the carnivale), or if they want it party play in specific-side-content-only it needs the infrastructure necessary to allow that, such as a proper roulette/duty finder and other matchmaking options, and properly thinking about skill and party balance rather than just throwing their hands up and saying it's impossible due to skills or design that they chose in the first place (and then asking themselves why it's even limited at all if they're putting so much work into balancing it for party play)

BLU proves that limited jobs were a big mistake.
It pissed off fans, made them create unnecessary content to the game, isn't actually a solo job at all mostly because that notion doesn't fit in this game especially with things where interaction with people *will* happen, like with what we saw with FATEs.

BLU should have just been a normal job and it could have easily been one, the only thing it needed to have is learning skills from enemies.
Maybe make it so that a certain *basic* skillset to have the job work in roulette is learned during quests or just lock certain dungeons until you have a particular skill like what happens with BLU story quests.
Learning spells from enemies in this game is actually very easy and noone would have had a problem with it, SE just unnecessarily dragged their feet for no reason and gave a big slap in the face to FF fans who just wanted to play with everyone else as their historically favourite job.

Every other job was redesigned to fit in the FFXIV mindset, from dark knight, to monk, to summoner, to red mage, to black mage, to scholar... and all of them really, as long as the job would have learned spells from monsters in any capacity then that would have been a Blue Mage, a job that FF fans have been wanting in FFXIV since forever like the fanfest cheering crowd proved when its presentation trailer was shown for the first time (and before the Limited Job slap in the face).

I want to say an elegant solution would be that certain abilities can be gained from soloable content such as Eureka or just open world, but perhaps from dungeons is also possible, even at a lower level.

Eg. Coincounter..but could also just be Eureka cyclops.

Basically, come 6.0 whatever abilities that have thus far been only possible in Dungeons/Raids should absolutely just be available in solo able content...assuming the cap goes up to 70?

The duty finder restriction is the only real irritation for me. We really need a toggle for "join limited group" next to undersized/etc, since it's unlikely that at any given time you're going to find one in PF doing what you need to do, and putting up one yourself hoping it fills is a crapshoot. The reality of MMOs these days is that people expect automation for this kind of arrangement; leaving it out puts a wall in front of the content that a sizeable portion of players won't be bothered to climb.

My issue with BLU is that neither solo play nor group play seems to suit it. If they wanted it to be a solo "op" class where one can try old content out as a sort of challenge, then why are a lot of things gated behind forced 8 man parties? If they wanted it to be a group experience, then why is there no actual duty finder for BLU (instead of a glorified PF)? I really actually enjoyed the feel of BLU when it was first out, something I could fool around with on my own. But then they added all the party stuff without any real balance FOR that and I honestly lost a lot of the want for doing it.

Oh boy, another one of these threads.

BLU is cool. The point of limited jobs is to add side content for people to partake in when they are bored of main content or other side content. You have 17 other full jobs to experience current content with. The "unfairness" of l5death, missile, launcher, doom, etc, is the point and working as intended. It's part of the draw of the job. Sometimes it's fun to just press a button and watch things die when you don't actually outgear or outlevel them by 20-30 levels and hundreds of ilvls worth of gear.

It is tough to do blu group content mostly because people do nothing complain about blu rather than try to play it and form pfs. But there do exist BLU communities that run Morbol raids, spell learning groups, etc.

I treat BLU like big fishing, pvp, triple triad, etc. It's something to work on between weekly lockouts and capping tomes and I'm glad to have something else to do between raid days.

The biggest issue with BLU (IMHO) is the whole "They are unbalanced" has been totally thrown out the window.

Most major bosses are immune to their most unbalanced spells resulting in the job being nothing more that 20 separate copies of the same 220 potency spell with varying effects of cone, line, aoe, etc.