Simple Solution to BLU

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Originally Posted by Rex

Well, let's see how NIN turns out...since NIN is supposed to "Not play like any of the other classes", "Not your typical job" and " NIN DOTs aren't like other DOTs."

And with mudra....We can come to the conclusion that Ninja may possibly have more abilities than the other jobs have right now. So, let's see how that plays out...maybe that'll give a clearer image of how BLU could be.

But, I don't think 3 soul crystals would ever be the route, nor do I think it should be. That would mean you can't switch between them during battle, so if you needed to cover for someone as a Healer coming from DD or Tank mode, you wouldn't be able to...which would defeat the purpose of a "hybrid class."

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I don't understand. .. you can change jobs in combat?

What you can do, is in fact, switch ur job by changing weapon and or soulstone... what's the difference here?

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Originally Posted by Lord_Zlatan

I don't understand. .. you can change jobs in combat?

What you can do, is in fact, switch ur job by changing weapon and or soulstone... what's the difference here?

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....I'm saying you can not change jobs in combat. Which would make the use of a "Hybrid job with 3 soul crystals" pointless. Because you would want the Blue Mage to be able to switch on the fly. If the method were 3 different soul crystals for one job, you wouldn't be able to switch on the fly. Which, again, would make the idea of a hybrid job pointless. Hopefuly that makes what I said a little clearer.

I reference Ninja because of the mudra....it can be something where Blue Mage has certain ability combos that switches it between "modes"...if Blue Mage were to actually follow the idea of filling each role.

But again...because of how the game matches players in Duty Finder content...Blue Mage would have to fall under a certain category. They'd have to completely rework the system or add a category. Because for the time being it's based only on "Healer / DD / Tank" divisions...so technically a "Hybrid Job" can't even work in the game right now.

Hate to burst bubbles, but SE won't implement BLU like many want it in this game.

They want rigid balance, they don't want hybrid classes, nor do they want ability-bloat.

As well, I highly doubt they're going to code a complicated system that'll only ever be used by one job.

This suggestion is honestly the most realistic solution.

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Originally Posted by Toodles

It's far more simple than all these elaborate spell-slot & augment ability suggestions.

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I agree - but it's still far more complicated than the framework of this game allows. People are so fixated on the idea of BLU as a hybrid class that can fulfill several roles. I'm really not sure why... even in FFXI, where it was arguably more flexible than in any othe Final Fantasy game, it still got firmly relegated to a DD role whenever participating in party activities. Certainly there were experiments, and you'll find plenty of BLUs that will tell you, "Yeah, for this fight, you totally want BLU as a nuker/debuffer, so equip a mage staff instead of sword!" or "BLU makes the best tank for this fight!" but as a general case? BLU might have had a bunch of healing and buffing spells, but they were solidly DD in practice. If you want a healer, you don't bring a BLU with healing and buff spells equipped - you bring a healer. If you want a tank, you don't bring a BLU with tanky spells equipped (not that there really were any) - you bring a tank.

In Final Fantasies prior to FFXI, BLU was even LESS of a hybrid class. It was always, ALWAYS a generic mage, made special only by the fact that its heals, buffs, debuffs, and nukes were flavored by the fact that they were obtained from enemies and sometimes have special mechanics (mechanics, unfortunately, that are difficult or impossible to balance in an MMO, such as White Wind's restoration of HP equal to current HP, any of the Level ? spells, or 1000 Needles). Just like SMN, BLU was simply a mage job that happened to have a mix of supportive and offensive spells.

So, it confuses me why folks are so fixated on making BLU a hybrid class, particularly in a game like this one that is ferociously hostile to hybridization (not that ANY MMO is particularly kind to hybrid classes - they ALWAYS get shoehorned into a particular role, and if that role doesn't measure up to non-hybrid jobs in that role they don't get invited to events) so providing suggestions to promote a hybrid class are unlikely to be taken seriously. Pick a role: Healer, Tank, DPS. They are what we have to work with. Find a way to make BLU work in that class. It's not completely unreasonable to add a buff or something to a DPS class (MNK has Mantra, after all, and BRD has all kinds of support while both are solidly DPS), but focus on a single role. As long as BLU learns at least some of its abilities from monsters, it has fulfilled everything that is core to the idea of Blue Mage.

better get some form of rdm before blu. i swear.

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Originally Posted by Rex

sorry

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We were kind of on different pages there, so sorry for the snarky answer.

But... why not a compromise? Currently, there is nothing in the framework of the game that would allow us to switch roles in combat, which is OK. We ca however, switch to whatever we want out of combat, so in a way BLU would still be able to do that, just not as on the fly and seamless as we are accustomed to. I'd rather have some form of it than no form of it (BLU/DRK, BLU/PLD/NIN, BLU/WHM player in FFXI).

In addition, how about this for an idea. Blue Mage can be the class and the 3 jobs that stem from it would be 1 for each role (IDK... Azure Protector [tank] Azure Reaver [DPS] Azure Cleric [healz] or something).

The class would learn various spells from enemies, while the jobs would enhance the abilities we learn and allow for combos of abilities that would benefit the role, while leaving out others. just a thought.

The problem with trying to make BLU hybrid is the gear. All the gear in the game is tailored for specific roles; you'll never have a tank use gear that boosts magic related stats, even if they can use Cure. You wouldn't have a DPS use gear that boosts physical strength when it's not their main focus. To have BLU be able to do all 3 roles at will means the developers would have to spend quite a while making gear tailored for each BLU "stance". You don't want someone playing as a BLU tank to be using gear that doesn't enhance their tanking abilities. There's simply no piece of gear that would allow a player to hybrid their class because of how the stats for each job works.


There's also the problem of balancing, especially in PvP, with all the spells for each "role" the BLU has.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

The problem with trying to make BLU hybrid is the gear. All the gear in the game is tailored for specific roles; you'll never have a tank use gear that boosts magic related stats, even if they can use Cure. You wouldn't have a DPS use gear that boosts physical strength when it's not their main focus. To have BLU be able to do all 3 roles at will means the developers would have to spend quite a while making gear tailored for each BLU "stance". You don't want someone playing as a BLU tank to be using gear that doesn't enhance their tanking abilities. There's simply no piece of gear that would allow a player to hybrid their class because of how the stats for each job works.


There's also the problem of balancing, especially in PvP, with all the spells for each "role" the BLU has.

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you can fix this by having them use a one handed weapon and then an offhand weapon with stats appropriate to the role.

I don't think it would be as simple as that. You'd still run into the problem of trying to make tons of gear over 3 different roles for the same job and this is ignoring accessories and the main body slots.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

I don't think it would be as simple as that. You'd still run into the problem of trying to make tons of gear over 3 different roles for the same job and this is ignoring accessories and the main body slots.

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yeah it could be a pain. Thinking more in depth about it now, all this stems from the simple/easymode itemization on gear. if there was disciple of war gear that had -/+ enmity on it, this could work. If there was disciple of magic gear that had +/- status effect enhancement, this would work. Sadly this is not the boat we are in at the present time.

Indeed. I am sure every piece of gear has a hard limit on how many stats can be applied, so having hybrid gear is either impossible or you'd have too many variations of "tank stats + X" and the like. It seems the simple solution just got more complicated.

Why not give BLU mage it's own spot in a group. Meaning that the BLU mage story quest is relating to acquiring technique from opponents. The class themselves though would fit into a group like this.

PLD
PLD
SCHOLAR
BLU
BARD
BARD
BARD
BARD

However he can also fit into a group as
PLD
PLD
WHM
WHM
BLU
BRD
BRD
BRD

WHat i mean here is that the BLU mage has taken the position of dps, but he can still continue to heal or do damage.

So if he needs to do damage some of his abilities are locked out for the fight.

So as dps

His heals are blacked out and Vice Versa as a healer.

Edit: so he joins group as Healer or DPS. However he is not 2 classes. his abilities are simply limited as healer or vice versa.

That'd be pretty nightmarish in the UI and the design behind it. Why have a bunch of abilities available to you if they are going to get locked out anyway? And having BLU as its own class spot? You'd just made the queue times even longer by requiring parties to have a 4th role.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

That'd be pretty nightmarish in the UI and the design behind it. Why have a bunch of abilities available to you if they are going to get locked out anyway? And having BLU as its own class spot? You'd just made the queue times even longer by requiring parties to have a 4th role.

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Not quite his own spot. As in that each group needs a BLU mage. What i was saying was that if he could be both a healer and a DPS. He should already be able to be both healer and DPS at the same time. However in the end he could also just be a Healer class that has the ability to DPS. Really anything that varies. The thing i see with BLU mage is that his ability to collect an enemies ability should simply be a part of the story, not the gameplay.
Really though i think he should be a healer that can do DPS.

If BLU can DPS and heal at once, wouldn't that cause people to demand every BLU be a DPS/Healer? How would this affect the regular healing classes? How will the BLU job handle two roles at once? How will the abilities compliment each other? Will the gear for BLU be able to fulfill hybrid roles? These are things that have to be addressed before anything can get a head start.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

If BLU can DPS and heal at once, wouldn't that cause people to demand every BLU be a DPS/Healer?

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The way i see your comment is that sometimes when things like this happen in an MMORPG is that when a new class is strong it's true that everyone wants to play. However at the same time for the blue mage to make sense logically he has to be progressive. So things like doing damage to the boss to heal the raid. Or attacking the boss to cast a continuous heal is what i think makes sense. Much like Death Knight from WoW.

However i think there are ways of letting a BLU mage do DPS or heal without adding a talent tree or giving him more than one Job stone. The blu mage could be trained as a healer. But if he chooses to go the dark route he can begin to move towards that. Good blu mage might be suppressing his ability to absorb magic by being a healer. Or a darker character may embrace his ability to absorb magic so he can become more powerful.

I'm also not sure why people seem to insist that BLU needs to be a hybrid capable of all roles. There seems to be this notion that Blue Mage was always this way......it has always been able to cast multiple kinds of spells, but it has never been able to excel at a multitude of roles. It is a DPS at it's core with backup support and off-heals. The structure of FFXIV would need it to be more focused. Make it a DPS, have its learned abilities primarily a mix of melee physical abilities and ranged spells. Then give it a few heal/support skills. That is hybrid enough without conflicting with FFXIV's structure. It doesn't need to be able to tank and heal just because it is a Blue Mage.

I think that multiple Soul Crystals to allow for varying versions of Blue Mage is excessive and un-necessary. I would rather have a single Blue Mage with unique abilities that allow it to stand on its own without needing to try and fill every role "just because" it's a BLU.

The only way I see Blue mage to be implemented into a system like we currently have is have a set amount of abilities like any other job class currently. These are let's call it a Rage skill in a natural state when you first unlock the job were if you are hit/seen a spell enough times or whatever is deemed learnable by SE you earn that spell and is place inside Rage skill book. Once learned you unlock that natural state ability to be able to attach spells/abilities from the Rage skill book, if you want to learn any new spells though you will have to put the spell/ability back into its Rage/Neutral state by unattaching the spell/ability selected and repeat the process since well it is blue mage after all.

Certain abilities obviously will be locked to increase blue mage spells abilities etc., but the others would use the Rage system to attach spells learned from your foes or what deemed learnable. What the actual blue job entails is up for debate for me personally though would like hybrid dps/support role not so much in healing role, but maybe help increase the output of healer % of healing spells for example. Well this my personal opinion on how maybe the job could be introduced into the game and I understand this is a simplified version and more depth would be involved into a system like this thought it would be interesting at least in concept lol.

Gear/stats would easily be solved with traits.

Let's say you wear MNK gear...

BLU (dps) - normal
BLU (heal) - str convert to mind
BLU (tank) - no conversion necessary, give them a tanking stance.

Heck even healer could use a stance to make the conversion.

See? Simple.

Side note: as before, they're not gonna make it a 3-in-1 hybrid! It'd either be all powerful (a "practical requirement" in groups) or required to be too watered down in each role... SE won't do it, I assure you. As least, not under the current class/job system.

I really don't like the idea of more than one soul crystal per job.

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Originally Posted by Amused

I really don't like the idea of more than one soul crystal per job.

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Why... it's essentially identical to SCH/SMN just without the name change. Also it's the only plausible/realistic idea I've heard among all of them except perhaps just making it a single job/single role (not as fun).

Basically, the resistance you're seeing to the idea is because your thread claims to solve a problem that no one but a small handful of FFXI BLU fans ever thought was a problem in the first place: Keeping BLU as a job that can fulfill multiple roles. Your solution is novel in that it forces a BLU to be only one role at a time, but it is still a solution provided for a problem that doesn't even really exist.

BLU as multi-role is not core to the job, and never has been. FFXI came closest, but even there it was shoehorned into DPS role for party events. Prior to FFXI, while BLU had both offensive and defensive abilities, so did ALL mage jobs; WHM, BLM, GEO, TIM, SMN - all of them had both offensive and defensive abilities. BLU was not special in that regard, and just as those jobs have been forced into single roles in this game (well, not TIM or GEO - yet), so too should BLU. There is no need for a special exception.

The only problem that needs solving are the things that are preventing Yoshi P from adding it to the game. How do we prevent BLU's from being rejected from parties for not having all the right spells learned, for example. Read the developer's blurb where they talk about why adding BLU is problematic, and solve THOSE problems. Don't throw new problems into the mix, solve those, and then call it a day!

^this does solve THOSE problems... his responses regarding BLU are why I suggested this.

Sorry, you're telling me my solution is for a non-existent problem then point out an existent problem this suggestion applies to.

Designing BLU in such a way:

a) relegates it to separated roles

b) giving it access to a multitude of BLU spells

c) & causing it to fit into the ARR framework as necessary


Q: I love the blue mage job that appears in the FINAL FANTASY series. Will the blue mage job ever be implemented in FFXIV?

A: I think that blue mage is an interesting job because you can learn spells enemies, but honestly I don't think that it really fits MMORPG party settings. If anything, I think it would work solo and it would be really fun to implement it as a job where you go around and learn abilities from every monster, so I'd definitely like to try and do this, but I'm concerned when it comes to playing in a party players would put up barriers if you haven't learned certain abilities. Additionally, in the event you are able to use abilities forever once you learn them, the difficulty of learning abilities would be high, and we wouldn't be able to balance the system so it wouldn't revolve around procuring your abilities instead of equipment. This wouldn't be practical enough to fit in an MMORPG party setting and conversely if you are swapping in only certain abilities you've learned, the true image of a blue mage would diminish, so this is something that I am concerned with.

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

It is a DPS at it's core with backup support and off-heals. The structure of FFXIV would need it to be more focused. Make it a DPS, have its learned abilities primarily a mix of melee physical abilities and ranged spells. Then give it a few heal/support skills. That is hybrid enough without conflicting with FFXIV's structure. It doesn't need to be able to tank and heal just because it is a Blue Mage.

I think that multiple Soul Crystals to allow for varying versions of Blue Mage is excessive and un-necessary. I would rather have a single Blue Mage with unique abilities that allow it to stand on its own without needing to try and fill every role "just because" it's a BLU.

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This is true. Paladin can heal, but he is not quite a healer. Perhaps this is possible with BLU.

I mean BLU could be just a dps but SE is definitely unwilling to give many more abilities than other classes or a new monster-spell learning system (groups won't take you unless you have all of them or will be inclined to parse you).

Instead of more soul crystals, why not add stances to the job?

They could fix the class skills like this, if you use (BS skill) Heartbreaker as a BLU dps, the skill does %dmg, if you do it in a BLU tank stance, the skill gives instead of dps a defensive buff and enemity, for healers it could instead of dmg you get more healing etc.

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Originally Posted by Toodles

I mean BLU could be just a dps but SE is definitely unwilling to give many more abilities than other classes or a new monster-spell learning system (groups won't take you unless you have all of them or will be inclined to parse you).

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What if their ability to use enemy abilities was simply like a glamour? So they are casing an enemy skill. However the skill is simply a glamour over a skill. So the ability is something like [Attack 1] - [Attack 2], but they can use spellsteal to make [attack 2] look like an enemies ability. However it is still the same attack.

edit: I think stealing spells could also cause a spirit to come out and attack with the form of the spirit.

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Originally Posted by Toodles

Sorry, you're telling me my solution is for a non-existent problem then point out an existent problem this suggestion applies to.

Designing BLU in such a way:

a) relegates it to separated roles

b) giving it access to a multitude of BLU spells

c) & causing it to fit into the ARR framework as necessary

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You've put his quote right there in your response. I've read it over several times now, and nowhere do I see the dev concerned about ANY of those three issues.

a) Nowhere does the dev mention any concern about whether a BLU is DPS, healer, tank, or any combination of those. Splitting the job into three job roles does not address any of the dev's concerns here - and really, splitting a BLU into multiple roles is the major thrust of this thread. It is PLAYERS that have their undies in a twist about what role BLU will fill, not the dev.

b) The dev is comfortable with giving BLU a multitude of spells.

c) The dev does not seem concerned with the ARR framework, or, at least, does not address it here.

THESE are the problems the dev has, as I see it:

1) Players will ostracize players who have not obtained certain spells. I see this as a non-issue, no different than parties ostracizing a WAR who hasn't leveled GLD for Provoke. A responsible BLU will learn their spells. Doing so may even be required to advance through class and job quests.

2) Since spells are learned forever, they will be hard to learn, and that will take significant time away from acquiring gear. This is only an issue if they MAKE it an issue; there's no reason BLU spells need to be hard to learn. FFXI was the first game to add a "chance to learn" mechanic to BLU, and it sucked big time. I will not be sad to see it go.

3) Swapping in spells and only being able to use some of the abilities you've learned at any given time isn't true to the spirit of BLU. Again, only an issue if they make it an issue. Keep the BLU spell list small, and make all the spells accessible at all times. There's no reason a BLU needs to learn a spell from every mob in the game - again, that's FFXI talking. While it is true that BLU has classically had a large list of spells, so too has SMN classically had a large list of Summons. Now SMN has three. THREE. Possibly eventually as many as six, but likely never more than that. By comparison, reducing BLU's list of spells to a dozen or less is hardly an issue. (Note, too, that this thread not only fails to address this issue, but provides a POWERFUL example of it - by switching to Tank BLU, you're becoming unable to use any of your Healer or DPS spells!)

To sum up, the dev here seems as obsessed with the FFXI version of BLU as many of the people posting here are. The dev needs to understand that BLU doesn't need to have a huge spell list or awkward mechanics for learning spells to still be a viable Blue Mage. Neither does it need to be a solo powerhouse; it can be as dependent on party structure as any other job. Players posting in these threads need to understand that BLU doesn't need to be a versatile jack-of-all-trades to be a viable Blue Mage.

There are so many preconcieved notions about what makes a REAL BLU, notions held both by the dev and by posters. The one and ONLY trait that all BLUs share across all Final Fantasies is that they learn their abilities from enemies. Once that trait is covered, you can build your BLU however you want to - everything else is fluff.

^I don't think we're reading the same dev reply :)

a) it doesn't explicitly mention this, it does allude to concern over ability-bloat & speak to impracticality in a party setting

b) they don't seem comfortable with it to me, they like the *idea* of it, but the implementation they're worried about, which my post handles the implementation

c) concern regarding its place in an MMO party I would say qualifies as needing the fit the ARR framework (trinity-centric)

With the London fan festival came a new "job" development. 3.0 is giving a JOB with no CLASS. This to me, gives hope of them trying to fix the class/issues without breaking what is currently made.

Blue Mage is Blue Mage (or any of its other titles across the franchise) the fundamentals of the game is what matters. as to the Q&A pertaining BLU, it does state he wants to do it. Meaning there is a good chance it will be implemented eventually...Its the how to be figure out.
As to everyone going "FFXI" made it be as many are referring to it; there is a reason for that Its an MMO utilizing the Abilities with a manageable way to handle the Ability Bloat they would naturally have.

In FFXI (according to here) has 175 spells for 99 levels and expansions (idk if that includes the most recent, that was just the page I still had that would load) ok, so lets cut that back 75 spells to cover the xpacs after its release; thats still 100 spells at level 75 (the cap it had on its start). By that, we could easily have 50-75 learnable abilities before 3.0, 75-100 before 4.0.

When I stopped playing before the last xpac launched, I could set a maximum number of 20 spells and that was only if I minimized spell costs for the 55 points I had to set spells. I think I only had 16/17 spells because I had several higher costing ones set! so including weapon skills (non grind) and the Blu specials (I'll say 5 to be safe!) I had 12 weapon skills.
So, at 99 a total of 34-38 abilities available to use at a time, and several Weapon Skills you stopped using after getting better ones.
With THAT in mind base with no cross class skills used FFXIV has 33-36 abilities and that includes their traits with a cap of 50!
still think our current system couldn't make it work?