Why we have to rethink the way we allow Limited jobs

The problem specifically regarding Beastmaster is that they can't make SMN function as a true pet job... How they would introduce yet another one like that? It honestly would be a slap in the face of every SMN out there if they introduced BST as a regular job with fully responsive pets when in Shadowbringers they literally made Egis into just non interactible entity that casts a couple of abilities with a delay.

The other point is simply the potential "pokemon" nature of Beastmaster kind of screams alternative gameplay for me. And it would fit this glove much more than BLU ever did.

If you want my 2 cents, the ARR pet system would be ideal for Beastmaster namely because the pets can take damage back then and during initial release of Ramuh, Summoner could send in titan egi to tank Ramuh. Plus Beastmaster is all to do with pets and the master together, the pet can be tanking and the beastmaster can be healing only the pet (cannot heal other party members) and DPS-ing. Or it can be the pet healing and the Beastmaster replenishing its MP pool and DPS-ing. Back then summoner and scholar was all about micromanaging your pets watching out for their HP and moving them away from aoe or positioning them to benefit the party.

Only reason why Summoner and Scholar became like that was some players didn't want to micromanage pets thus their pets GCD are now also the Job's GCD which sucks but what can we do. If anything I want 2.0 Summoner where it forces you to micromanage your pets, while doing your DPS. SMN and SCH was a true pet job, but they have gotten rid of it for the sake of simplicity. The whole point of a pet is to micromanage it, I have not fully understood FFXI's summoner but what I can say is that their powerful skills comes from their summons plus summoner just kinda sits there and only gear swaps, use job ability and command summons. Different game I know, but it makes you feel you are controlling a pet. FFXIV ARR had it, but now they simplified it.

The nature of collecting pets as Beastmaster or any other class with similar nature like Puppetmaster or Blue Mage is not an excuse for Limited Job to exist, if anything it promotes more content for the job itself and not the system. The system is only there to make a specific cap limit and to prevent it from ever queuing in duty finder with randoms.

Beastmaster Content and Pets ≠ Limited Job System

There is literally no connection to it whatsoever other than it is a status and its a debilitating status that doesn't contribute to content and rather limits it where the developers have stated "It allows more freedom to work with" and it contradicts with their statement since now you are seeing Blue Mages' OP spells being nerfed where it cannot be using on most FATE bosses anymore.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TeraTyrantShadic

If you want my 2 cents, the ARR pet system would be ideal for Beastmaster namely because the pets can take damage back then and during initial release of Ramuh, Summoner could send in titan egi to tank Ramuh. Plus Beastmaster is all to do with pets and the master together, the pet can be tanking and the beastmaster can be healing only the pet (cannot heal other party members) and DPS-ing. Or it can be the pet healing and the Beastmaster replenishing its MP pool and DPS-ing. Back then summoner and scholar was all about micromanaging your pets watching out for their HP and moving them away from aoe or positioning them to benefit the party.

The nature of collecting pets as Beastmaster or any other class with similar nature like Puppetmaster or Blue Mage is not an excuse for Limited Job to exist, if anything it promotes more content for the job itself and not the system. The system is only there to make a specific cap limit and to prevent it from ever queuing in duty finder with randoms.

---

The interaction between Titan-egi and Ramuh was a short-lived exploit, an oversight and nothing more. It'd be silly to use that design mistake as an example for SMN (or as inspiration for another job).

Speaking of SMN, my experience with the egis pre-Shadowbringers was a mostly negative one. For one, they would frequently forget their actions, but still incur cooldowns. Which feels more frequent then than now. Nothing sucked more to see Garuda use Enkindle only to just spam her regular attacks, move a little and never do the action.
Second is that outside of handful of situations like trying to make Garuda not waste Contagion, there really weren't all that many interesting pet interactions. You use commands, the pets (hopefully) carry them out and you go about your business. And sometimes you threw a buff on them, but it really wasn't that much more engaging than it is now.

"Promotes more content" = more resource into something. Your point about needing to put more content for just BST is countered by the fact that doing so would be more resource intense for no better reason than just job fantasy. Seeing as no standard job has meaningful side content attached to them, and even those that do are minor (Perform) or not at all important/frequently updated (egi glamour).

They would not add side content for one job when they could simply add another job that requires less resource and time to adapt. Why add a standard BST with glorified beast glamour when you can add Animist or Morpher with similar fantasies, but none of the extra resource sink?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Auryan

The interaction between Titan-egi and Ramuh was a short-lived exploit, an oversight and nothing more. It'd be silly to use that design mistake as an example for SMN (or as inspiration for another job).

Speaking of SMN, my experience with the egis pre-Shadowbringers was a mostly negative one. For one, they would frequently forget their actions, but still incur cooldowns. Which feels more frequent then than now. Nothing sucked more to see Garuda use Enkindle only to just spam her regular attacks, move a little and never do the action.
Second is that outside of handful of situations like trying to make Garuda not waste Contagion, there really weren't all that many interesting pet interactions. You use commands, the pets (hopefully) carries them out and you go about your business. And sometimes you threw a buff on them, but it really wasn't that much more engaging than it is now.

"Promotes more content" = more resource into something. Your point about needing to put more content for just BST is countered by the fact that doing so would be more resource intense for no better reason than just job fantasy. Seeing as no standard job has meaningful side content attached to them, and even those that do are minor (Perform) or not at all important/frequently updated (egi glamour).

They would not add side content for one job when they could simply add another job that requires less resource and time to adapt. Why add a standard BST with glorified beast glamour when you can add Animist or Morpher with similar fantasies, but none of the extra resource sink?

---

In ARR it was a lot more interactive, and works all the time. Though I have skipped over Stormblood and only came back around 5.15 so it was kinda too late for me to help out Blue Mage at the time but better late than never. ARR summoner pet system could work for Beastmaster since you have to micromanage your pet, you can still let the pet skills be part of the GCD of the job and things that are like healing a pet or buffing can be OGCD. So most of the time it would auto attack but not just that your job abilities are essentially OGCD and related to assisting the pet and your pet skills like what we have now is related to your GCD skills but with a cooldown to it like Egi Assault I or II but with more variety plus it works since you'll have different pets so you need to name it like 'Beast Skill I' and so on. Plus Egi these days don't have HP and really can't be damaged or hurt, it's another reason why I said it ARR pet system works with beastmaster, because it makes sense for a pet to take damage especially if it's a beast. Also it was an existing content, but I have no clue how they operate but I am going to assume they still have the old pet system tucked away in a file somewhere, literally you aren't spending any extra effort just to copy and paste an existing code. The only effort there is the animation and models of beasts, but even then we already have the beasts model in game not just that but their own attack animation. If they feel like or want to they can add unique new beast skills they can if they so choose to.

However let's now put it in a scenario where they don't have it anymore (The ARR summoner pet system code), at that point you may as well reskin Summoner and call it Beastmaster since both jobs are near identical except Summoner pets are more magical while beasts are more physical. However that is only considering just the job itself, right now we live in the age where Job Gauges are the defining feature of the job and is a unique selling point in FFXIV where no other games have this feature. You could say FFXI's TP system is same as the FFXIV's job gauge but it is vastly different, this is because XI prides itself on Skill chaining and Magic Burst as the TP gauge is build up of weapon skill and it gets stronger when it hits max TP (3000) while in FFXIV the Job gauge lets you unleash powerful attacks and spells. If Beastmaster were to have a gauge it would be related to the pet in itself. An example would be the depending on the pet it can go one of three way, Go berserk and deal an increased amount of damage for a period of time or deal a powerful one hit attack (DPS); Heal or buff the entire party or Remove status ailments like a esunaga (Healer); Activate a mitigation strong enough to withstand a tank buster (Tank).

As for promoting more content, they did put in more resources into the job itself and not the limited job system. If you look at Blue Mage right now, the newly released stuff is the stages and Blue Mage Log. None of that is related to Limited Job whatsoever if anything it is only related to the Old Dungeons, Blue Mage itself and not Limited Job. If they were gonna add more content to Limited Jobs then they would do something like adding a Limited Job roulette which is basically saying it is developing content specifically for limited jobs which I highly doubt they will ever do and I hope they won't do that. I said promote not add, meaning it will support the content. Adding beasts for beastmaster is not a thing when the models of beasts already exist in the game the only thing needed to add is just unique or extra spells and moves. Kinda like Blue Mage where we don't even have a Limit Break not just that but spells are slowly being adjusted and now it is almost adjusted for normal party composition.

They can easily add in beastmaster as a normal job because they already have the foundation, simply put Summoner is the very foundation for pet jobs, however it isn't the perfect system hence it is being worked on sometimes. The only reason why they have added side content for Blue Mage is because of the position it is in. It is far cheaper to develop the job as a normal job to prevent wasted money, time and effort on a system that doesn't work. I mean we have seen the jobs overhauled from HW to SB with the Job gauges.

As for Animist and Morpher. Animist as far as I know it is basically a support role in the tactics series and in all honesty it's vastly different from a beastmaster. Animist calls on the powers of animals to help them, meaning you still need an animation of the beast to come out to attack and then run away/disappear kinda like one of the moves in as a hunter in WoW where you can call a flock of crows to come and deal a dot on an enemy and then they scattered. The difference between the two is that one already has animation for the beast itself (Beastmaster) in which the animations of every beast in game exists and can be reused/recycled, while the other you need to make a special animation regarding to its unique attacks depending on the beast as you can reuse the models but you have to change it a bit just to make it do certain movements/animations. Plus with Summoner you can still move pets meaning if I have a healing pet as a beastmaster I can move my pet to a location where I can't normally reach the opposite side of the stage where a party member needs healing. It is only recurring in tactics if anything I doubt it can be added, if it was recurring more often in the main series then it is more likely to be picked. Though Astrologian is from Tactics itself so who am I to judge as to whether or not it can be added. Only other reason why I would see Beastmaster being added to FFXIV is because of FFXI and since it was plausible to add BST in FFXI in an MMO setting people would think it can be done so for FFXIV, in which I agree seeing it as a normal job. As for a Morpher, I'm going to be honest and say if it was put into an MMO it'll be far weaker than Blue Mage. This is due to the fact you can only morph into one monster at a time (I am not informed but I think you can only morph into one monster at a time) and you'll be given a set of skills which in all honesty I rather have a mix and match of skills of my own choosing rather a set of skills, hence why I think Blue Mage can be made into a normal job. I'll say before and I'll say it again it is doable, the process is complicated and long but the solution is there and the key to making Blue Mage a Normal Job is the Job Gauge itself. By technicality SMN, BLM, BRD and RDM don't follow a strict combo like DRG, MNK, NIN, SAM, PLD, WAR, DRK, MCH. I mean every class has a rotation but it's a combo when there is a dotted line on the move itself that is most often seen in melee classes to indicate what move to use next. I think what we have right now with Blue Mage is the foundation for a normal Blue Mage job. As they need to work on a job gauge and eventually balance Blue Mage through the job gauge. Since all mages work like this, technically you can spam Ice spells as a black mage (Though that wouldn't be a good idea and you won't contribute a lot of DPS) and be a Ice Mage there is nothing there stopping you since Enochain is still building up so long you keep a hold on the element gauge and don't let the timer hit 0. Unlike SAM where you have to do 1-3 separate combos to even be able to use your Iaijutsu and you still need to use it for Kaeshi: Iaijutsu. Simply put you can spam useless spells as a black mage and get away with it because Xenoglossy can be casted after gaining 1 Polyglot after 30 secs regardless of ice or fire on the elemental gauge, which kinda does sound like a Blue Mage spamming sonic boom just to weave in their OGCD. Hence why I said Blue Mage can be a normal job and it is doable, to put it simply they just need to make the job gauge for it and the problem will easily go away. Obviously they will need to balance it but the OP spells are there but in a form of a job gauge.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TeraTyrantShadic

-snip snap-

---

Had to do a double take cause I thought Shougon randomly wrote an essay out of the blue. But seriously, narrow it down. Brevity is the soul of the wit and all that.

I think you're the first person that I have interacted with that not only looks forward to more egis, but actually wants to...honor another job with the system. First for everything, I suppose. I very much disagree with the ARR egi's being good, they were barely passable. And seeing as that wonky system is your basis for your BST idea, we're going to run into plenty of problems here.

You're talking out of your ass when saying current BLU is more expensive than a standard version. Granted so am I, since I'm not game developer at SE, but using what I can see it would be the opposite. BLU's spells are mostly repurposed from in-game monster abilities (which, duh, Blue mage), has handful of weapons (an increasingly difficult issue as many of the newer jobs can attest to) and one AF set, and even its own niche content (Masked Carnival) has no unique monster models and just rearranges them for puzzles in an arena that isn't anything extravagant. And of course, it's not balanced and is not constantly being balanced with the other jobs/current content thus saving precious resources.

When I mentioned Animist and Morpher I said similar, as in not literally the same, but close enough. But you're whole wall-like last paragraph is just a deflection of my major point. Namely that there is no reason at all to bother with a job like BST that requires more resources over a job like Animist and Morpher that don't. With that in mind, the devs would always favor those jobs over something like BST. Unless it's entire emphasis is collecting and raising beasts, aka a limited job.

But that's silly, since limited job is just an arbitrary epithet they just put on jobs, and not at all describes how they're designed and how they interact with different content.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Auryan

I think you're the first person that I have interacted with that not only looks forward to more egis, but actually wants to...honor another job with the system. First for everything, I suppose. I very much disagree with the ARR egi's being good, they were barely passable. And seeing as that wonky system is your basis for your BST idea, we're going to run into plenty of problems here.

---

If they really do decide to release BST in FFXIV, and use the pet system, i just hope they revamped the whole pet system first, the egi system before Shadowbringers was definitely wonky, but there will always be rooms to improve, and that's the developer's job. BST is one of my favorite job concept wise, i always loved jobs that has pets in games, but SMN/SCH egi/fairy system was not done well so i think there's slim chances they will bring it here.
Though, if they do, i hope it won't be a limited job, just like how Blue Mage went, i don't like sinking my time in some side content that'll "expire" in just a few weeks, days even.

IMO its still not right to just throw anything random to make a limited job that cant participate in the current contents and can only do the "blue mage exclusive" content which is very limited and need party full of blue mages that is very hard to find nowadays

I dunno, right now limited jobs are just a few of the devs 'hobby project' something they play around with when they have the extra time kind of deal. Now if they do decide to bring in more limited jobs, I at least hope they figure out some interesting content to go along as well. Seen these ideas pop up a few times, but changing limited job to something along the lines of 'challenge jobs' and maybe having challenge versions of dungeons, trials, and raids, stuff where the elements are involved, more CC is needed,yata yata, and then not just Blue Mage, but Beastmaster, Puppetmaster, and whatever else (some ideas of a true bard/dancer have also been tossed in) could team up for the challenges. I think id be a little bit more interested at least, especially if there are some decent rewards as well, lol.

I think most Jobs should have a "limited" mode that has all the abilities they should have, instead of just a predefined rotation set. When there are more "limited" jobs and if they can play together, instead of being isolated islands like Blue Mage currently is, it'll all make more sense. Game play should then involve more elemental aspects as well as active buffing and de-buffing, and maybe real summons.

Limited Job I would rather hope to think it is a 'Beta Testing' type of system. Obviously it would mean the job becoming an eventual normal job alongside with its normal contents and I don't mind that. But the Limited Job system is not a good one especially if that job relies on a dungeon, raid (Savage for J Kick, can't even solo A8S and it is better to work as a group for it since the learning rate is 100% when you are in a synced group) or trial (Some of it can only be obtain in extreme trials like Feather Rain and Glass Dance, both of which are just not soloable. A prime example is with Shiva and her ability to use Icebrand a conal AoE damage (Immediately after she has transform into sword form) and the damage has to split between all 8 party members to prevent tanks from dying hence why you see tanks facing Shiva towards everyone the moment she changes to sword form, you cannot mitigate it with Diamondback I tried and it didn't work because it is a fixed flat damage that must be shared with party members.

Masked Carnival is just a filler content, and I rather have them spend more of their time investing their budget into making more normal jobs than adding new filler content. Filler content is just there as a filler, once it is done no one will repeat it and players who are late will need to find a way to do it without the 1/2 week initial release hype and party finder isn't the all perfect solution since people may have to wait over 30 minutes to 1 hour or more which is ridiculous when our Duty finder can do it under 5 minutes for a DPS queuing during peak playtime. They can still do Masked Carnival even when it is a normal job, and it's the least worrying thing to balance because it only affects Blue Mage and no other job.

Unfortunately this is what Blue Mage is right now an island of its own content. A limited mode for each job would be a terrible idea mainly because the Normal Job benefits outweighs the Limited Job in terms of system. Limited Job prevents a job in participating in normal content like Deep Dungeon, Squadron (Trusts at level 71), Eureka, single player instances in MSQ (Main Story Questline) or MSQ in general. Plus with how Blue Mage is, it is better to learn spells in groups and I would rather have it queuing in Duty Finder normally as it will be a lot easier for people who want to obtain the spells as soon as possible without the necessity of Party Finder.

We already have debuffing and buffing as Normal Jobs as well, Ninja with its Trick Attack acting like Off-Guard with a 1 minute cooldown; Astrologian and its cards granting cards that gives a 6% buff with the correct matching of the class 3% with the wrong matching and the same is applied to Lord and Lady of Crowns except 8% for correct matching and 4% for wrong matching all in the while restoring 8% of their MP every time they draw their cards. Dancer and its Closed Position allows to share its Esprit buff with the person they partner with and Technical Finish where it gives an Esprit buffs the party members within 15 yalms depending on how many steps you did plus it stacks with the Standard Finish's Esprit. DNC, BRD and MCH have a reduced damage taken ability like Shield Samba, Troubadour & Tactician (All reducing damage by 10% and are listed respectively). Same can be applied to Tanks like PLD, WAR, DRK and GNB where each have their own unique way of giving defensive buff to the players; Paladin with Passage of Arms, Divine Veil and Intervention; WAR with Nascent Flash, Shake It Off; DRK with Dark Missionary, The Blackest Night; Finally GNB with Heart of Stone, Heart of Light and Aurora. Bard is also one of the jobs and the only job to actually promote buffing other jobs with its songs as a passively while the song actively plays for 30 seconds rotating it with Army Paeon (Direct Hit rate increase by 3%), Mage's Ballad (Increasing Damage Dealt by 1%) and Wanderer's Minuet (Critical Hit rate increasing by 2%). While there is one other action allowing to buff the entire party's direct hit rate by 20%. Plus they have another buff to give out which is Nature's Minne where it increases HP recovery by 20%, can be useful to a tank or someone near death have that extra 20% HP recovery before a tank buster to be easily recovered or a raid wide damage hits respectively.

As for the elemental aspect it was tried before and mainly applied to primals, it is useless hence why you see elemental materia and the elemental stat no longer being used and became obsolete. However if you're talking about Condensed Libra then that move is a gamble because you cannot control which buff you will get and it can work for Red Mages and Black Mages, Summoner (with its summons and during Firebird Trance), and all of the melee jobs can still be buffed from it except for healers as most of their damage dealing spells is unsuspected damage (even though at lower levels White Mage has wind and stone before hitting Level 72). It's a nice niche move, but it could be adjusted a bit to act more like a 1 minute cooldown rather than a spam for it.

As for a Real summoning, we already have it as a normal job and it can be further improved, you don’t need to move the Summoner into the Limited Job Category. They are doing it with Monk right now reworking it for patch 5.4. So really if anything you don’t need a Limited Job system to rework something unless it can take a whole year and people want it now rather than later, I mean balancing Blue Mage for normal party composition is a nightmare but making a job gauge for it can significantly reduce the workload for balancing the skills and spells it has obtained.