Adding to Advance Job / Features, and Limited Job -> Advanced job
Was wondering about adding to and introducing the concept of advanced job and advanced job features for a few reasons, where the difference is from the two is if it's on top of or built within the job's behavior.
For example Bard allows you to play and compose music, that'd be an advanced job feature but the bard itself would not be considered advanced. Meanwhile, and I know it's a bit contentious if it should stay that way, Scholar and Summoner are an advanced job as if you level one you level both - this behavior is rather unique.
One of the main thoughts that sparked this was for SE to look into flipping all concepts of the limited job (Puppetmaster, Beastmaster, Blue Mage, etc) into the counterpart an advanced job, although I know it's not "just" or "simple" - if this could be done it definitely wont be done by 4.5 release (perhaps even deeper into 5.X).
This leads into another, I think more important point, as I've seen said fairly well here (focus on point 3 and on):
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Elerus
Prediction time:
1. BLU will be released to widespread adoption. It'll be new content in a period where people are content starved.
2. The class might see an initial downward tick in population, but it will be relatively minor. There are all manner of safeguards built into the experience to ensure retention. Eureka the job will have Eureka the grind built into it, I imagine the chance to learn monster spells will be lower than anticipated, and the bonus exp from world mobs will be relatively minor.
3. Then people reach the Carnival and here's where it gets interesting: this will be the height of Blue Mage talk and engagement.It's designed to be the height of the experience - and here is where it will fail. In short order, a number of days if not less, a full and complete guide to the Masked Carnival is released. I cannot see Square designing a niche solo experience with the complexity of 25 Savage Mode raids. Most fights will be primarily about finding and grinding for that perfect spell to counter it. Furthermore, we'll have guides which boil the entire experience down to a recipe-list. Sure, one could opt not to spoil the experience, but people as a whole will.
4. We will see the class numbers and engagement start to take a nosedive shortly after this. As the endgame BLU experience is turned into a checklist on Reddit and Square cannot keep up an endgame for everyone else and then the odd-kid out BLU's "custom content" quickly goes from Masked Carnival to Hidden Sideshow. There will be a trickle of content for it, but not enough to recover enthusiasm for the class nor enough to keep up with what everyone else is getting.
5. There be a tiny community of Blue Mages, just as there's a small community that enjoys Verminion or Chocobo Racing. To those people, from me, hats off. No, seriously - I enjoy the PvP in this game which as I understand it makes me a bit of an oddity. Tragically, though, for most Blue Mage will be a quaint and curious sidetrack, something to be entirely ignored or at best endured when the occasional bone gets tossed its way.
Let me sidetrack into another point. Let's say I'm wrong. BLU is popular and acclaimed. So, reasonably Square continues the experiment. In short order we have Defanged Beastmaster alongside Hamstrung Puppeteer added in future patches. Of course, they'll need their own sandboxes as well. Square goes from designing one endgame experience to two with Blue Mage . . . then 3 . . . then 4? Where does one draw the line? Even if they roll everyone into the Masked Carnival "setting" they all cannot fight the same battles - they need to be tailored and crafted to each Limited Job. Without designing two separate, parallel, and yet equal content pipelines how does one fulfill both communities? One side or the other will be left anemic in comparison.
Just a note that while I think what the above said makes sense, I'm not saying it WILL happen or that every point I agree with 100% - please check with me first if you have an issue you'd like to go over. I might have a slightly differing opinion, or greater lol. I think the content has the possibility of being exciting but even I'm thinking Blue Mage would last longer, and stay relevant more often, if it is not side job first. As if the content doesn't succeed to gain interest then Blue Mage will probably die for good, unless someone at SE is going to put it on their shoulders to raise up (possible lol). Rather if its job first side content second then even if blue fails it'll be raised up (by the necessity of balance), and the side content can be developed as people enjoy it and SE finds adequate time.
Which is, in a rough summary and my personal input, if the content is bad we've lost the opportunity to play a job in normal content (really all together, if its really bad) and if it's good then there is a massive undertaking to keep content pouring into the concept which is made greatly worse when we add more "limited jobs" to the system. Rather if they're advanced jobs that can part of the normal content flow (current content added each patch) and have side content then the side content can be released a lot slower than if they were limited and people would be okay (mostly lol).
Other reasons being we might see weird extra things because why not - something different, something new, and I'm fine with that. Although just not all at once, we still need normal content lol (it's not a rush to design as many advanced features and jobs, just an opportunity).
So here is some light thoughts on how we might see some of these advance (adv.) job and features:
Bard (adv. feature, music):
The bard can compose and play music outside of combat. We already have this concept, also seems like a number of people want to see features expanded/added to so there is that.
Dancer (adv. feature, dance):
The dancer may compose a dance set, via both unique and general emotes. The visual composing rather than audio of bard. I'm sure some of the RP people might do something with that. Depending on the feature set I imagine it would be used outside of dance, for example someone may have wanted to have the thinking emote over a longer period of time - good for minor customization or sequence emotes and also probably really helpful for those who create machinima on youtube.
Puppetmaser (adv. job and feature, creating a key part of their combat (puppet), and special customizable smart minions):
The puppet master crafts, tinkers and hones their puppets. Besides having to create a key part of their combat which is quite unique (SE would be wise to thoughtfully balance the cost/steps so it's not a "rich person only" job) they may also create customize minions that they can use outside of their own job. These minions besides visually customize-able may even be taught tricks. Like beckon them onto your shoulder (or even allies), flips, dance with other dancing puppets, etc.
Beastmaster (adv. job and feature, tame and train, also Shepard of the land):
The beastmaster travels far and wide across the land to catch the-- .... Like the puppetmaster with elements of DoH (crafting) the beastmaster heads towards DoL. They learn what their animals wants and needs, a master of animals - not only opening up unique minions and mounts by their taming, they can also use these skills to gather from animals and Shepard them. Besides having a few loyal animals as combat companions the learning and training of others could be a means to gather animal parts, unique or not. I imagine a feature set working really well with a farm system, but either that can't be part of housing (more like FFXI mog island) or they need to ensure that housing is no longer limited (a lot more apartments with a full feature set, instanced housing, something).
Like the Blue Mage with their blue mage book the beastmaster instead could be a way for SE to introduce a bestiary... :). Also for financial encouragement they can use a lot of the work that went into making the in game bestiary to produce a physical version filled with more notes from the lore team/one eye.
Dragoon (adv. feature, jump, jump around):
Masters of the landing on the floor, there are special locations throughout the world to test their jumping skills. Insert hidden and some obvious jumping puzzles throughout Eorzea, optional of course. People familiar with Guild Wars 2, or the Golden Saucer can imagine some non-instanced and semi-instanced content. Big aside but I heavily believe Dragoon should take almost no fall damage (that's like.. what they do... lol). I thought it might be cute for a reward to include leaping lizzy boots, which are actually a mount that allows you to leap much higher with an ability (hulk jump). Just a side content with some glamour, mounts (some unusual ones, like leaping boots), perhaps a passive for your character as a whole to lower fall damage once a certain number are done, unlocks a few shortcuts here and there, etc.
Summoner/Scholar (adv. job, twinzies - share exp):
Bound together by class, they level as one. To be honest not my favorite example, but I put it here because it's one that's in the game now. The issue, some may see, is that the abilities they get (Arcanist) needn't be so similar if they weren't bound at the hip, so that you could have more theme'd to their job. Imo SE has improved their differences and experience a lot over time though, so some of my/others feelings are in part (perhaps not wholly) just left overs from before.
Blue Mage (adv. feature and job, learns their skills from monsters - including very devastating ones (some restrictions on where to use), also can take part in a unique carnival content):
The blue mage does not learn skills via leveling except for the skills gained from first obtaining the job. All other skills must be learned by seeing them on the field. The Blue Mage has two bars that they can switch between (like PvP and non-pvp bars everyone knows exists). The Lion Heart stance allows blue mage to call upon the most dangerous spells in almost careless means, to protect their allies Blue Mages will only take this stance in select circumstances (basically only content SE doesn't want Blue Mage to OP). The Azure Eye stance increases learning chance and also restricts some of the most dangerous magics. These stances may be switched between outside of duty and combat, switching the stance switches your hotbar. Blue Mage has a set of careful skills that are colored on their blue mage book, these colored skills (gold highlight for example) must be learned to enter a duty of equal or lesser level (blue mage may not enter a dungeon without knowing all highlighted skills, this set of highlighted skills will create the balanced raid allowed Blue Mage). I'm not trying to design the blue mage entirely here but can also consider that Lion Heart type skills can enhance the player and Azure Eye such that say Azure Eye contains Bad Breath (but nerfed a bit for raid balance). However, when you equip a certain Lion Heart skill the ability is fully unlocked allowing SE to keep classic skills classic and also balanced when needed (ex: Stool Pelt a skill from a gorilla will include passive equip effect of unchained Bad Breath, meaning full potential unlocked, and 10% max hp boost).
Besides being very powerful when in lion mode (which is restricted away from end game content) there is a special arena where they can use their full set of skills as content.
Also gains enhanced open world exp when in lion mode.
Chemist (adv. job/feature?):
Haven't thought this one through all the way, so whoever is a fan of this job should be allowed a stronger thought on it but I can imagine SE doing something with this one. Job quest leads from Alchemist perhaps, or something DoH-ish.
[tl;dr ish] The thought is to add onto the lore/concept of a job in side content just for fun and flavor but that the job will be able to ride the main stream of content so that when their side content is not updated often it's quite okay (like if dragoon opens up a bunch of jumping puzzles, and SE hasn't added a new puzzles in two patches people will be okay lol). Also the opportunity and side content in of itself is part of the point of the post :D.
No need to agree with each point of side content concept, although if you wanted to add / suggest one of my thoughts feel free. I'm more interested if people would like to see the concept of advance features like bard be added where it makes sense / fun or if people would be interested in seeing abnormal twists on behaviors but can still compete in the end game space. Like if Blue Mage could "unleash the Lion" outside of duty finder (full ability list unlocked), must learn their skills, and has a side content (the carnival) that is occasionally updated. Or for example a job that must build part of it's competency like puppetmaster, an interesting/new experience for sure (also probably not for everyone), and can also make a customizeable minion as a sort of side of the side experience.