Blue Mage is a masterpiece of game design.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ServerCollaps

i really hate blue, that grind for skills is just mindnumbing and theres literally no fun thing about. the class feels underwhelmingly weak

---

hows that any different from leveling any job from 1-50?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ServerCollaps

grinding tt npcs with roulette/chaos/plus rule is more fun :rolleyes:

---

now i understand, lol.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fyce

Breaking news, MMORPGs are grindy games. Shocking.

---

I'm not who you replied to, but it's not necessarily the grind that's a problem, it's that it's also a really bad grind, and it's designed poorly, because the learn chance feels so bad that it was specifically designed to go against the idea of this so called solo job. You have two options basically: try to make a "real" group where you level sync down to 50 and do 7+ minute clears, or spam 1 minute clears with a level 70 carrying a bunch of BLU. My friends and I did a good 50-60 Ramuh EX/HM runs last night for his skill, sometimes with 6 BLU in the party and we didn't learn it, meaning they made it very low on purpose expecting this to happen, which means they failed from the start giving BLU meaningful participation in it's own progression. I pity anyone who tries to learn primal spells in a level sync group. The amount of grind if you have bad luck would be borderline criminal.

Ironically the best way to learn spells on BLU is to not play BLU and just be half afk. That's not good design.

On top of all of that for the record, none of the supposed "OP" skills do much of anything to Primal outright resisting their effects at worst, or neutering the skill to near useless levels at best. And your filler spells are potency 130. Good luck having the DPS to clear these fights at 50 with more than one or two BLU in the party, drastically reducing the number of chances you have to learn.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fyce

Breaking news, MMORPGs are grindy games. Shocking.

---

Yea they are grindy, but a brand new "solo" class is released who has most of their kit locked behind level 50 content which requires a party to run and a really low chance to get. Glad all the way at the end of SB we are getting carried in lvl 50 ex primals for a slight chance at learning a skill that is hopefully more interesting than the rest.

Also we have a multitude of skills that are simply 120 potency with a different status tagged on. 49 "unique" skills is a bit misleading. then we have the joke skills that are probably the only fun part about the class.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Reveria

Ironically the best way to learn spells on BLU is to not play BLU and just be half afk. That's not good design.

---

The most effective way isn't always the one that brings the most fun.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fyce

The most effective way isn't always the one that brings the most fun.

---

In a well designed piece of content that people should want to spend time doing, they should be. That absolutely isn't the case here, and the gulf between the "fun" way and the "effective" way is so large it points to a massive shortcoming in the design. Also, if you had the same luck we had but did 7 minute level 50 Ramuh clears, that's a good 6 hours of grind on 4 year old content. You'd probably want to quit after a good hour of that, and that doesn't include potential wipes, afking people. I think the fun would wear off after a solid 10 kills with no learn proc.

What was fun about blue mage was the 30 minutes of learning overworld spells and a bit of leveling; the Carnivale seems to have promise. All of these 50 locked duty locked skills that require my friends to carry me because the solo job can't solo it is a failure where I even feel bad for asking them to give up their valuable time for me, especially those friends who don't care for BLU - I can't return the favor for them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fyce

The most effective way isn't always the one that brings the most fun.

---

Where's that slide from post 1.0 where they said fun had to be the focus and if it's not fun they're doing it wrong?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fyce

Breaking news, MMORPGs are grindy games. Shocking.

---

Breaking news, MMORPGs industry is collapsing on itself for lack of innovation and dependancy on antiquated game mechanics and fake time investing activities that don't translate well into a rewarding experience aka: Grinding.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alexandre_Noireau

Breaking news, MMORPGs industry is collapsing on itself for lack of innovation and dependancy on antiquated game mechanics and fake time investing activities that don't translate well into a rewarding experience aka: Grinding.

---

And yet people complain other games don't innovate at all yet still buy millions of the next year rehash.

It's a masterpiece yet Stone 2 has a higher potency than most of the BLU skills. I was doing more DPS in Garuda by spamming Water Cannon than actually setting up combos like Aqua Breath/High Voltage.

Masterpiece.

I'm enjoying it, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a masterpiece of game design.

I wouldn't call it a "masterpiece" but I do feel that BLU is "Eureka done right". It makes overworld content and old dungeons relevant in an organic way while introducing the Party Finder to a lot of people who were previously unaware of it (a few people in my FC were surprised to discover it in their menus). All that without cramming masses of people into a time-limited self-contained instance that doesn't allow for multitasking (crafting/gathering or waiting in queue for PvP, roulettes etc.)

People are TALKING to each other in almost every AAR area! That actually feels kinda weird, but in a good way! Ironically, despite being mostly soloable side-content, BLU brought out the MMO part of the game more than anything else I've seen added since I started playing.

I have no doubt that the craze will die down eventually, but unlike Eureka, at least BLU doesn't rely on a hundred+ other people doing the same thing as you. A year from now, it will still be possible to solo-learn most of the spells and find PFs willing to run a BLU through dungeons and trials that have the exclusives.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bonbori

I wouldn't call it a "masterpiece" but I do feel that BLU is "Eureka done right". It makes overworld content and old dungeons relevant in an organic way while introducing the Party Finder to a lot of people who were previously unaware of it (a few people in my FC were surprised to discover it in their menus). All that without cramming masses of people into a time-limited self-contained instance that doesn't allow for multitasking (crafting/gathering or waiting in queue for PvP, roulettes etc.)

People are TALKING to each other in almost every AAR area! That actually feels kinda weird, but in a good way! Ironically, despite being mostly soloable side-content, BLU brought out the MMO part of the game more than anything else I've seen added since I started playing.

---

A shining beacon of irony. People complained about stuff like FATE grinds for relics, so they made Eureka into it's own little instance. Now that the open world is dead, BLU brings back life to the open world, and garners comments like this "Eureka done right". So BLU is basically what relics used to be. Fascinating isn't it?

I found BLU to be a lot of fun! One thing I didn't see people mention is that it seems to be better to party with a group of other BLU rather than solo, as the 'ability learn' is party-wide. Each person seems to have individual rng for the learning, and in a group as long as one person's rng triggers, everyone gets the ability. I went out with a party of FC friends, and we had a blast together while learning abilities super fast.

I do like the design in that respect. Totally possible to solo, but more effective in a group. It seems reasonably well balanced so far (granted, I'm only level 26 with 24 abilities). I will definitely be creating/joining four member blu parties for the other dungeons I need to run and eight member groups for the primals. And I'm looking forward to seeing what the Masked Carnivale offers when I get there.

Once the blu people realize they can't get good gear or run content that matters the charm will quickly wear off, trust me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adventica6

Once the blu people realize they can't get good gear or run content that matters the charm will quickly wear off, trust me.

---

They could design a whole new type of end game with this kind of content. Reuse older assets in a fresh way is ingenious. Who's up for a new take on coil?!? blue mages and whatever other job they make unite!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adventica6

Once the blu people realize they can't get good gear or run content that matters the charm will quickly wear off, trust me.

---

Or they simply have more memory than goldfish and are fairly aware of the restrictions...and they already realized that content doesn't matter at all when you're running it for the twentieh time and when it's completely irrelevant few months later.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adventica6

Once the blu people realize they can't get good gear or run content that matters the charm will quickly wear off, trust me.

---

Or maybe they have the good gear on their other classes and they're playing BLU for the fun and novelty. Not everything has to be materially beneficial for people to enjoy it.

"materially beneficial"

Do you even know what you mean when you use these words? BLU is a complete joke, honestly - and every single one of you defending this sad excuse for 'content' are part of the problem.

I'm personally having fun, and I love seeing other players in the map. Blue is like fresh air.
If I want to do other content, I have tons of other classes. Meanwhile, I can enjoy Blue for what it is: its own kind of game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ToriiMiyuki

"materially beneficial"

Do you even know what you mean when you use these words? BLU is a complete joke, honestly - and every single one of you defending this sad excuse for 'content' are part of the problem.

---

That people mainly play for fun instead of chasing a carrot on a stick, and the ones that prioritize the carrot are the problem with MMOs in general?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Atlas-04

Yea they are grindy, but a brand new "solo" class is released who has most of their kit locked behind level 50 content which requires a party to run and a really low chance to get. Glad all the way at the end of SB we are getting carried in lvl 50 ex primals for a slight chance at learning a skill that is hopefully more interesting than the rest.

Also we have a multitude of skills that are simply 120 potency with a different status tagged on. 49 "unique" skills is a bit misleading. then we have the joke skills that are probably the only fun part about the class.

---

Yes, joke skills and more, such as all the memes tied to Self Destruct; and I am waiting for someone to go with my idea and get some BLUs together dressed as Creepers. Let the hilarity ensue. >:D

Also, I did enjoy having an excuse to have my leading alt character's bird out and leveling it a couple ranks as I got Lyra to 31 on BLU. Then competing with people for good grind spots, even at the wee hours of the early morning, because the job is so new and shiny (for FFXIV). I got my main character's BLU to 50 in about four hours because of people moving in on my spots I tried picking out for myself, or because of one friend being all like "Hey, I found a better way" only for it to not work. Neither character learned any additional skills thus far. That's something to be saved for after I get back to the game and have nothing better to do, as opposed to making sure I'm all prepared for ShB to come out. People, especially on Greg server, are as active as they are salty in the high level areas; I'll tell you what. When I get back to the game and have the time to spare for BLU I'll likely have better pickings for those monsters to learn their skills.

Totally underwhelming and completely demoralizing, grinding out spells only for them to be totally useless. The leveling process was hell itself. Nothing but 1k needles over and over because the class literally had no other viable means of damage.

Once you get to 50 it's still a disappointment. Mediocre damage abounds. It's depressing.

Is this the class fantasy? Just useless skill after useless skill? I'm not familiar with blue mage history but it really doesn't sound enjoyable.

It's a nice change if pace, although level 1 - 50 is basically 1000 Needles/Acorn Bomb spam. Nothing really competes with the 1000 Needles & Mighty Guard combo. Given the array of abilities, it would have been nice to see a better of variety of playstyle. That's not to say you *can't* play without 1000 Needles, but it's very clearly the most efficient way to level, and remains that way throughout nearly the whole process.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Darkstride

It's a nice change if pace, although level 1 - 50 is basically 1000 Needles/Acorn Bomb spam.

---

Or using a higher level job + server ticks (possibly not recommended in the event of gaining the devs' ire); or having a Level 70 Sch put Protect on you before breaking party, putting Adlo on you, and letting you grab enemies in a high-level, dense area, occasionally putting adlo back on to grab aggro from the monsters, and then said Sch would use Miasma II to kill everything. When you're over level 43 and doing a spot with nine mobs around level 49, that's 140k exp a pull.

Leveling is stupid easy for this job. Gaining abilities is rng-based progression, which I loathe but know some folks are fine with. The abilities themselves weren't even attempted as far as balancing goes. Yet, the job remains kind of fun for unintended reasons, unless Yoshi wanted people to blow up and die in the middle of various cities or residential areas. lol

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Reveria

In a well designed piece of content that people should want to spend time doing, they should be. That absolutely isn't the case here, and the gulf between the "fun" way and the "effective" way is so large it points to a massive shortcoming in the design. Also, if you had the same luck we had but did 7 minute level 50 Ramuh clears, that's a good 6 hours of grind on 4 year old content. You'd probably want to quit after a good hour of that, and that doesn't include potential wipes, afking people. I think the fun would wear off after a solid 10 kills with no learn proc.

---

Sorry, but the vast majority of the time, the most effective method is very rarely the one where you'll get the most fun. This is not exclusive to FFXIV. Not even to video games. These situations are the exception, not the rule... and for one very good reason: this is extremely hard to produce.

You are basically asking them to find the perfect balance when it comes to fun and reward satisfaction, while also managing to keep it within the context of MMORPGs (thousands of live players to satisfy, high number of hours to sink in the feature, technical constraints).

You also have to realize that your anecdotal experience and your own statement regarding the maximum number of kills you consider "fun" (which you stated is 10, no more) is entirely subjective. If you would take a look at the history of MMORPGs, there are a lot of people who are much, much more patient than you and appreciate grinding way more as well. So, when what you consider to be bad design might be good in the eyes of someone else, you have to ask yourself if you are not simply giving your very own opinion instead of speaking objectively about game design.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Reveria

What was fun about blue mage was the 30 minutes of learning overworld spells and a bit of leveling; the Carnivale seems to have promise. All of these 50 locked duty locked skills that require my friends to carry me because the solo job can't solo it is a failure where I even feel bad for asking them to give up their valuable time for me, especially those friends who don't care for BLU - I can't return the favor for them.

---

I had a blast trying to either solo some dungeons, or do them in a Blue Duet with a friend. I don't "require" them to carry me. It's not a requirement. It's a choice you made. Which echoes what I just said above about subjectivity.
Also, a lot of people are doing PF groups to get skills together. Would it be synced BLU only, synced mix party, or unsynced. Your argument regarding you having to ask for some "valuable time" from your friends "who don't care for BLU" is pretty moot when you already have an accessible pool of players that a willing to do the same thing as you.
In short, absolutly nothing forced you to do what you did but your own subjective appreciation, tolerance and choices regarding that grind. Nothing forced you to only have fun during the 10 first kills. It's your own tastes. Nothing forced you to ask friends who don't care about BLU to carry you when there are alternatives. It was your own choice.

Finally, it's not a solo job exclusively. It never was, it never will be. Group play was presented as a way for Blue Mage to progress since the reveal at the fanfest.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Anatha

Totally underwhelming and completely demoralizing, grinding out spells only for them to be totally useless. The leveling process was hell itself. Nothing but 1k needles over and over because the class literally had no other viable means of damage.

Once you get to 50 it's still a disappointment. Mediocre damage abounds. It's depressing.

Is this the class fantasy? Just useless skill after useless skill? I'm not familiar with blue mage history but it really doesn't sound enjoyable.

---

Actually it is. Save for Quina actually (actually actually, Quina was just "abusable"), most of the "blue mages" in the main series have been, subpar characters in terms of performance and the class itself is an oddball, is like a druid, but not a druid. Like a mage but not a mage. Monster Magic is something too alien for a game with such a strict trinity role system.

Blue Mage needs a more diverse, open MMORPG, with more vague, deeper mechanics and calculations to fulfill a mid ground class between DPS/Debuffer/Buffer class. Not possible in our game.

BLU is interesting but man is it a pathetic DPS especially since half our spells don't work on anything but trash & on trash easier just spam 1000 needles which is essentially our main/ almost only real damage move.
I'm curios why chose almost entirely status effect skills over you know useful DPS skills, fact got like 5+ stuns 5+ debuffs all which have around same potency & couple suicide skills instead is little insane, cool animations but worthless to me in almost every fight.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fyce

Sorry, but the vast majority of the time, the most effective method is very rarely the one where you'll get the most fun. This is not exclusive to FFXIV. Not even to video games. These situations are the exception, not the rule... and for one very good reason: this is extremely hard to produce.

You are basically asking them to find the perfect balance when it comes to fun and reward satisfaction, while also managing to keep it within the context of MMORPGs (thousands of live players to satisfy, high number of hours to sink in the feature, technical constraints).

---

I mean, you're basically blaming the player for asking for high quality, or to be allowed by the systems of the game to have fun. Shouldn't they ask for as much, even if difficult to develop?

"Pagos is bad because the players don't play it as intended!"

Now.

"If you don't enjoy BLU is because you are not playing it as intended!"

This has to stop. That line of thought is just as terrible feedback, makes just as bad argument, as someone saying that BLU is the worst thing to ever happen since WWI.

Blue Mage is more than divisive, and a very cuestionable design decision for an MMORPG at this point in its life cycle. If this was 8.0, i would understand this class completely but is not, we are close to the beginning of the "mid age" of this game (honestly, being generous, XIV is indeed 8 years old, not 5).

Classes so alien to the "main game instances" with a completely diferent progress system is not exactly what the game needs now, or at least, is what i think. I would have much rather them reworking the combat system (a lil speed up would be cool, and more unique gameplay mechanics with visual unique cues to each class) or the role system (maybe a new party system with a new role or hybrid jobs) to refresh the 5 years past of a combat system that has long served its purpose.

There i would think resources should go, prepare XIV to enter the coming decade, one that might be very well the last of the MMORPG genre as things are going on.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I mean, you're basically blaming the player for asking for high quality, or to be allowed by the systems of the game to have fun. Shouldn't they ask for as much, even if difficult to develop?

---

Difficult is understating it. Also, there is a difference between asking for something difficult, and asking for what most would consider a theoretically perfect solution out of subjective notions.
When Reveria said that their limit for "fun" was 10 kills of 7mn fights, that's roughly an hour of play. This can hardly qualify as a "grind" in the context of MMORPGs.

So, in short, they were asking for a grind that fit their lack of patience and tolerance for that kind of content, and labeled it (something that doesn't fit these requirements) as "bad design". That's not asking for "high quality", which is something I don't blame. That's asking for a magical unicorn made of diamonds.

Having high standards is fine, as long as they are realistic.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fyce

Difficult is understating it. Also, there is a difference between asking for something difficult, and asking for what most would consider a theoretically perfect solution out of subjective notions.
When Reveria said that their limit for "fun" was 10 kills of 7mn fights, that's roughly an hour of play. This can hardly qualify as a "grind" in the context of MMORPGs.

So, in short, they were asking for a grind that fit their lack of patience and tolerance for that kind of content, and labeled it (something that doesn't fit these requirements) as "bad design". That's not asking for "high quality", which is something I don't blame. That's asking for a magical unicorn made of diamonds.

Having high standards is fine, as long as they are realistic.

---

"That absolutely isn't the case here, and the gulf between the "fun" way and the "effective" way is so large it points to a massive shortcoming in the design," and "that's a good 6 hours of grind on 4 year old [8-man synced] content [to get a single ability]" are two very different issues. Nonetheless, in either case:

There is a vast difference between a perfect solution and being reasonably allowed to build an ability set around or with the inclusion of fun abilities (or, simply most abilities being fun), providing a whole and functioning kit, rather than solely the most muted and straightforward ones, where only a tiny minority of the overall kit is truly usable.

There is a vast difference between creating content that allows players to enjoyably revisit old content and 6 hours of grinding among an efficient team (which can be gathered almost solely in this context) to get a single skill.

I don't really like that BLU is so weak it has to be carried through party content by stronger jobs to even have a chance to learn it's skills, doesn't help that the drop rate on said skills is often miserable, took me 2 hours to get Glower.

The solution can be so easy, yet people come here to offend & defend the current state of limited jobs.
The side content that BLU offers is totally fine, gathering your own skills is a unique feature. The masked carnivale is another challenge, which sounds refreshing and fun.
But why stop there? Every other job has quests tied with skills. Why not do the same for BLU and hand out skills that are needed for duty finder content?
Simply said, get your self-destruct skills (fun skills) from the outside world, while learning DPS based abilities from job quest that are required to enter the duty finder.
Why does it have to be only one-sided content while it could be both sided. Why gate the one or the other, but not benefit all?
Stop being stubborn.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zephera

I don't really like that BLU is so weak it has to be carried through party content by stronger jobs to even have a chance to learn it's skills, doesn't help that the drop rate on said skills is often miserable, took me 2 hours to get Glower.

---

You can do the content with a full party of BLU if you got the overworld/easy dungeons skills. Can tank properly, heal a lot and do tons of damage, so technically you can beat Shiva EX with a full party of BLU.

I got glower at the second try. RNG god wasn't in your side :/ (a friend got it at the 8th try)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ChocoFeru

You can do the content with a full party of BLU if you got the overworld/easy dungeons skills. Can tank properly, heal a lot and do tons of damage, so technically you can beat Shiva EX with a full party of BLU.

I got glower at the second try. RNG god wasn't in your side :/ (a friend got it at the 8th try)

---

Yeah, dungeon trash is really easy with BLU thanks to all it's AoE, but I did 3 runs today of Satasha Hard with a full BLU party for Ink Jet and the 2nd boss and the Kraken were agonizingly slow, mostly because they're immune to missile and tail screw. In the time it takes for a team of BLU's to run around and kill all the kraken arm adds to stop a wipe from happening against the kraken, he'll have a new set of arms up to take down. If the drop chance on the skill was guaranteed for how long that took, I would have been much happier as the first run was fun but the rest turned into a real slog, after just 3 runs of it my team was exhausted.

EDIT: It probably would have been a lot easier if someone swapped to a lvl 70 class, but none of us wanted to bite the bullet and take the chance that other people in the party might ditch the moment they got the skill leaving the charitable person hanging with nothing to show for it themselves.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ChocoFeru

Can tank properly, heal a lot and do tons of

---

Tried an all BLU Ifrit Ex and the "Tank" BLU got absolutely slaughtered.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fyce

When Reveria said that their limit for "fun" was 10 kills of 7mn fights, that's roughly an hour of play. This can hardly qualify as a "grind" in the context of MMORPGs.

So, in short, they were asking for a grind that fit their lack of patience and tolerance for that kind of content, and labeled it (something that doesn't fit these requirements) as "bad design".

---

No, it's bad design - at best. At worst, it's a massive disrespect of the player's time.

I may have said I'd be fed up with an hour of Primal kills, but really it was an arbitrary number, maybe I'd last two hours. Regardless, that's irrelevant because context is important, and you completely missed the context of my argument. It seems you may be focusing on your preconceived notion that I am just a whiny, impatient MMO player rather than what I'm really trying to say. I'm going to try to elaborate a bit further about the various poor design decisions behind Blue Mage since maybe I wasn't clear - because it's not just poor spell learning rates. But we'll start with that.

By the time my group got our Shocking Strike from Ramuh last night, we had easily exceeded 75 kills, but we'll cut it off there because I wasn't keeping strict track of the kill count for my own sanity. Average kill time was probably just shy of 2 minutes, so in theory we spent about 150 minutes. I agree that's probably not super horrible! But like I said, context is very important here, so let's apply it: that means the learn rate for primal spells is very low, as we're experiencing similar problems with Shiva and Leviathan.

Now with that mind, let's go back to my 7 minute level sync kills, and assume our luck was the same. Imagine spending 8.75 hours for a SINGLE ability. There are six primal skills to collect. 52.5 hours if your luck is consistently that bad, and assuming you can kill them that fast, and never wipe. Oh, and I don't really think it's feasible (not the same as possible) to 8 BLU these fights. So you probably have to do it twice if all eight of your friends want it. So make that 105 hours. If you consider our Ramuh luck an outlier (it probably is, in fairness), that's still a lot of time spent on just these six skills, and we haven't even touched dungeons or the other trials.

That's absolutely unreasonable, and if anyone can tell me they think BLU (or ANY job, for that matter) is fun enough to sustain that much grinding of the same 6 fights, I applaud them and bravo, I'm glad the FFXIV was able to fill that niche, sorry to bother you. Let's not forget that these fights are 4+ years old at this point, and many players probably already grinded at 50 cap back then for weapons and mounts, which means they've already sunk probably an equal amount of time into them if they had bad luck.

Ok, so it's in theory absurdly grindy if you want to respect the content. Why is that bad design? The main reason is what I said earlier: they designed the learn rates knowing people would want to speed clear the content, meaning they did not care if you want to actually play Blue Mage. If you want to actually play BLU, you are potentially signing up for multiple days (actual quantifiable days, not just a few hours a day for a week or whatever) of your life to complete the kit. That is insulting to the player's time, and disconnected from the what the progression of the job could be instead. Why not give a boost to learn rate for BLUs who decide to challenge themselves and do the content level synced with their friends, or even bigger a boost for minimum item level? If either of those were the case, the best way to learn the strongest spells very well might be actually having fun, playing Blue Mage, but the devs said "nah screw it, they'll just get their friends to carry them" and those interested in doing it the other way have to really want to risk a lot of time and patience. Blue Mage should have an active role in it's own progression, but due to the difficulty of doing it on your own, it sits in the back and memes while your friends do it for you.

This leads into another poor design decision: spell distribution. There are too few spells available to the strictly solo player. I don't think I have to explain this, but just in case, BLU was touted as a "unique solo experience." When only 15 or 16 of the 49 spells available to you are easily soloable, I think that the design has failed on arrival. On top of this, because so many spells are also locked behind capping, you barely feel any sense of progression as you level. Then, on top of THAT there's almost no sense of progression Because you level SO insanely fast. It's so abbreviated I have to wonder why it didn't just start at 50. In one sense this could be a blessing considering how painful some of the spell acquisition can be, but if they had slowed the leveling process somewhat, and spread the spells out over more enemies in the open world, the leveling process could have been more fun for longer. Instead, you get a superficial and abbreviated leveling process, 30 minutes of spell scavenger hunt, and then hours and hours of either attempting to get spells with a group or getting carried through content barely participating.

Speaking of the solo experience...Blue Mage just isn't strong enough on its own to be that unique solo experience. You can level to 50 on your own sure. You can get some spells on your own, sure. But the only true solo aspect of BLU is the Carnivale - which by the way, seems like it will be a fun puzzle especially if you go in blind. Learning a good 75% of your kit requires some form of outside help, and most of it at 50 so you won't have most of your kit. We were told BLU would be insanely imbalanced and could never be a real job because of that, but I'm not seeing it. You have Missile, Tail Screw, Doom, and White Wind as the really stand out "busted" skills, with Diamondback as an honorable mention for some interesting tanking solutions. Of those, Doom is sort of a victory lap spell you really probably don't get until you've got most everything else anyways, so it doesn't help you much progressing as a Blue Mage. Missile and Tail Screw (and Doom obviously but again, it's likely one of the last skills you get) do work on some enemies, but their single target nature and hit rate would make it pretty difficult to make a lot of progress truly alone in level appropriate content, and let's not forget all the bosses that are immune. And really is it actually that impressive to solo a dungeon if the devs just willingly have handed you an instant KO spell or three? The novelty is there but it's short lived.

Blue Mage really needed to break the game in it's own context, but it doesn't. I'm sure we'll see some fun things come out as more people finish the unlock process, but that's the problem. You can't leverage any of the potentially strong stuff while leveling, while learning spells, while playing on your own. The solo experience just doesn't exist and that's deplorable considering BLU paid for its existence because of those claims. Blue Mage could have been really fun solo experience from start to finish but all the systems undermine the concept (yes, even the Carnivale because good luck doing everything there without having most of your spells, and therefore hinges on your group participation), and therefore is bad design. My presumed impatience has nothing to do with it. Whether or not you like or don't like to group has nothing to do with it. Objectively speaking, the design of the class is at odds with how it was advertised and expected to be used.

help I'm bad at forums accidental quad post

help I'm bad at forums accidental quad post

help I'm bad at forums accidental quad post