Build YOUR Roadmap to the Blue Mage you'd like to see :)

We've got a lot of feedback threads and uh:

https://media.giphy.com/media/vPTBpRQD1HLVu/giphy.gif

Lol, no but really - we have a number of feedback threads but I'm interested in seeing people's idea of a solution and on what time frame they think it'd be fair. Most of our threads are "I don't like X" based (which is fine), so I was wondering what solutions might read like. Especially from some of the more prolific blue mage posters, but I'm interested in general as well of course.

If you disagree with someone's roadmap make one of your own and if you feel like it explain what you hope it would accomplish :).

Hoping to see a more realistic and detailed road map than "fix blue mage" date: now. lol Even if I'm sure that's how many feel. Although don't feel like you need to write a whole book either, one liners are fine just hopefully if there are cheeky one liners there are some informative ones too :). If you like how blue mage is you can still post a road map~! Perhaps how often you want to see spells updated.

Anyway here's mine:

Aside note first there was a level system suggested by Reynheart where in spells equal your ilevel of sorts, and so below you can scrap out limited blue mage materia/gear balance ideas with this system in it's place if you want. How that balances I'm sure might differ from their vision of it and how I see it but I'm a fan of this concept as it can make every spell worth collecting even if you don't intend to use it (for ilevel purposes). It also means people who want to play the limited side of blue mage don't need to worry about gearing it up much. If SE wants people to have it gear up lightly it could be the minimum level requirement of what you're wearing determines the max "ilevel" you get from your spells. Such that level 10 gear is 50 ilevel, 50 gear is 200, etc - but you still don't need to worry about getting current tier tomestone gear for example if blue mage ever catches up in level.

4.55

• Every cast of a learnable spell in instanced content increases the drop rate of said spell (buff shown on buff bar will show rate), such that instanced bosses have MINIMUM chance of 25% and each cast will increase that further. You may hold more than one "chance up" blue mage buff (perhaps to a limit of two), but the buff will not expire unless you either log out or successfully learn the ability (or cancel it). One run with many casts will be above 50% chance, two runs with many casts is pretty much guaranteed, three runs you win the lottery (and most likely impossible to have a fourth). Any suicide spells (like final sting) will have an enhanced % up per cast as they only cast that spell once. This system may apply to the open world, but I feel the starting chance and growing rate can be lower then - since it's easier/less stressful to pick up stuff in the open.
• Once a monster casts a blue mage spell you haven't learned then their nameplate will have a blue mage learn icon on it (either at the end within the name, or on top like the elemental notices). Now you know they have something you can learn and it's just about chance now. Helps with weird spells that might not be obvious they cast it yet as well ("did they use their buff..? I can't tell." Well now you can lol).
• Increase the potency of many spells, this is the first pass of buffs without rushing the team too hard to get it done by February. If time allows add many more interactions between spells. People can post their ideas on how to or not do that here.

4.56

• Add more potency, QoL, and interactions to the current blue mage kit. (feedback thread linked above). The balance target goal (imo) is that blue mage can solo any content that has a spell they need to learn, so long as they're the right level, have the proper gear, and spells. Naked blue mage with 1 spell vs EX primal is okay to have, a lot, of trouble, but a well geared and well kitted blue mage shouldn't evaporate so easily - imo. A smart player with a good kit of armor and spells should begin to make the game look broken (but in a fun way like via strong interactions, not a "press one spell win" way).
• Add materia slots to blue mage weapons. Consider making the materia more powerful for this weapon only, such that x2 for stats, and x3 (or more) for elemental resistances.
• Add power control sync to blue mage - I believe you might need two options but simply being able to "level sync" (like a FATE) on demand would be helpful. The other secondary option might be turning on a mode that prevents you from dealing more than 10% a monster's hp in damage from a single action. Side bonus could be when you level sync yourself you get a base bonus chance to learning a spell :). These two systems together would future proof learning old spells and help players who want to control their experience.
• If not some deep code issue - unlock squadrons for blue mages.

4.56 - 4.58

• Continue working on the squadrons if that hasn't been changed.
• If some spells are ready then release them (just a few as reasonable, we don't need a deluge that leads to a drought later lol or some employees health risk xD). If not keep working on making the blue mage kit to make it more engaging (making more spells viable and intertwined) and less % based.
• Also while it may not be a valid task right now begin and make sure blue mage can when valid (level meets requirement) enter obscure places like Eureka, treasure dungeons, and deep dungeons (even if some of them restrict blue mage to premade/solo only).

4.55 - 5.0 or 5.5

• Program duty finder can check if you're missing job quests that have abilities as a reward. Leveling dungeons will be lenient to players and allow them to join even when missing spells, most MSQ too. Level capped content will ask players to finish their job quests (some MSQ will ignore this, some of the harder MSQ will not). For example a level 70-79 leveling dungeon will not require you to know any skill within 70-79 even if you could technically go do the job quest and have it for said content. However a level 80 capstone dungeon would ask the player to go get any and all missing 70-79 skills first. Introducing the system earlier will help players understand and get used to it sooner, blue mage will slide into this system neatly later but sooner can keep things smooth.

5.0 - 5.1

• Add to the level cap of blue mage if possible (60, +10).
• Add a few (6) "gold" bordered abilities (that will have a DF counterpart later, but not yet). Keeping the potency and interaction opportunities going. Some gold border abilities can be ones we've already learned (so you may see 2 old abilities become gold, 4 new gold abilities, and 1 normal - whatever break down works for SE).

5.2 - 5.3

• Level cap up (60 or 70, +10), focus on gold abilities (6-10) but adding general blue mage skills is good too if possible (just keep going as fast as possible without ruining the health and sanity of the team).

5.3 - 5.4

• Polish and prepare systems for DF, add more gold skills (6-10). If at level 60 cap then move to 70 here (+10).

5.5

• Level cap up (80, +10), there should now be 24 gold skills (after adding the missing gold skills ~6).
• Unlock all contents to blue mage under a two job stone system where their gold skills have a balanced DF variant (and can only be used while in DF mode), and while in unbalanced mode you can do whatever. Job stone flipping will manage their restrictions, hotbar, gear, and they will gain access to a battle cane when under DF mode.
• For weapons add a battle cane (which shares glamour options with the normal cane), for the team's sanity focus on adding current tomestone and raid weapons and ignore old content unless there is time for it. (No Ifrit cane at 5.5 release). Battlecane will have damage like other battle weapons (and will not have the x2 materia buff that the other cane has).
• Duty finder will not let you join in unbalanced mode, duty finder will not let you join if you're missing skills under the same rules other players have (as detailed above).
• May not join current end game content as an unchained / "OP" version of Blue Mage (must go as DF version). Of course you can pre-made/solo run content previous to "current" as your OP version.
• Blue Mage RNG has been taken care of and wont leave blue mages in a horrible position. At most you run an instance four times, literally impossible miss past that.
• Blue Mage spend less time leveling but more time getting skills, balancing out some of the time spent compared to other jobs.
• Any player can do blue mage side content without having a crazy geared blue mage main, and leveling is faster so the content isn't "blue mage main" only. Ensure balance of the carnival is focused more on skill usage and less on your gear, helping it be a side content for those who want it to be / stay that way.
• If someone wants I'll try to make a list of every issue blue mage could have (help me compile it :) ) and then how one may be able to solve it with as little pain as possible, but I believe with the RNG and DF covered most of the major pain has been revealed already. As for spell selection, we thankfully have the limited side of things - thanks to limited Blue Mage does get a huge array of skills (and can use them, outside of DF). Most of the issues present about blue mage with the help of a limited component (and some DF/RNG tweaks) melt away (aka limited component and a main component helps blue mage be a better blue mage than just a blue mage with main component or blue mage with just a limited component).

6.0

• For all the major primal content add canes. If there is time add for some of the other major old content, but otherwise just the primals and don't worry about going back anymore (no darklight cane).
• Add gold skills as needed to keep up with other job's abilities at release of expansion, other non-gold skills will be added as the team can find time and sees value in it.

6.+

• Side content abilities and carnival whenever SE feels like it.

6.5

• Beastmaster is added as a limited pet class Shepard sort of DoH job. It is full planned to add beastmaster as a optionally main job later, this is said at the release of the job. This schedule (hopefully? lol) would help SE release three jobs each rotation (2 from an expansion and 1 from in-between two expansions X.5 to Y.5).

7.5 (or earlier)

• Beastmaster can be played as a side Shepard monster gathering pokemon farm etc experience, but can now also be played as a balanced job in any and all content.

8.0

• Major old beastmaster weapons added, too old and non-major weapons ignored (beastmaster design only looks forward now).

Puppetmaster next~

So given a X.5 to Y.5 release schedule, (like 4.5 to 5.5) would people be okay with limited jobs becoming advanced jobs? Would we be excited to see weird side content related to a job, but also be able to play it later? Or no. Lol.

Hope to see what other people think are good timelines and what that might entail, doesn't have to be in my format btw.

Other's Maps:

• Valdegarde
• Lambdafish
• Alexandre_Noireau
• Dyvid
• Shurrikhan
• Freyt

https://i.pinimg.com/236x/70/b7/04/7...hotography.jpg

We got quite a bit of road mending to do.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Teraluna

https://i.pinimg.com/236x/70/b7/04/7...hotography.jpg

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Your road map makes me sad, where's it going? lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Teraluna

We got quite a bit of road mending to do.

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Oh, this is SE's road map XD? Point of thread is post yours though :P

I honestly hope it doesn't get combos but instead has something unique.

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Originally Posted by KokonoeAiyoko

I honestly hope it doesn't get combos but instead has something unique.

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When I say combo I meant interaction between abilities, are you suggesting drill cannon doing more damage against petrified targets is bad or that you don't want a "1 2 3"?

Ram's voice / Dragon's voice is another example that we have currently (dragon does more damage to those hit by ram's voice). If you have an idea for a unique mechanic that isn't either of the above please feel free to post that to the ability thread: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...d-Job-Focus%29 .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KokonoeAiyoko

1, 2, 3 only because I'd like to see more fresh concepts.

If you mean interaction between enemies, weather, elements, status effects, etc. then yeah I'm all for that.

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Changed wording to interaction to be clearer :). I realize combo is already a wording in the game so it was my bad for picking an already in use for a specific mechanic word lol.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shougun

When I say combo I meant interaction between abilities, are you suggesting drill cannon doing more damage against petrified targets is bad or that you don't want a "1 2 3"?

Ram's voice / Dragon's voice is another example that we have currently (dragon does more damage to those hit by ram's voice). If you have an idea for a unique mechanic that isn't either of the above please feel free to post that to the ability thread: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...d-Job-Focus%29 .

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1, 2, 3 only because I'd like to see more fresh concepts.

If you mean interaction between enemies, weather, elements, status effects, etc. then yeah I'm all for that.

If I were to be as realistically content with my favorite job's implementation, I would say something like...

1. Update the level cap to 60 sometime before Shadowbringers, responding to fan feedback and balancing some current spells while allowing some new spells to fill in some gaps. Test this by removing some restrictions, such as possibly some duty finder instances but not roulettes. Add a limit break and allow access to Squadrons and (maybe) Palace of the Dead. In unsynced content, Blue Mage can utilize all of its spells while in synced content some are locked off. Perhaps one way to do this is to add another duty finder condition to unsynced, like "unsynced party + unsynced blue mage spellbook set"

2. Upon Shadowbringer's release, update the level cap to 70 and test some roulettes, possibly trials or normal raid. Leveling dungeons might be reasonably forever locked off, but 50/60/70 might not be. I wouldn't die if not though. Continue to add spells, maybe increase the spellbook cap to 28 or 30 or so. Consider a PvP capable set.

3. No later than the second raid tier (5.3?) bring Blue Mage to 80 and allow them access to current things based on what worked and didn't work prior. Perhaps give a grace period of a week or two so that there's no grief about something bugging world first clears, but from this point forward Blue Mage is looking pretty close to a normal job, fulfilling perhaps something like a caster Ninja role. Now it only needs to worry about new spells and balancing once an expansion, although possibly Masked Carnival could get some more stages every other patch or so. By this point a Carnivale savage might be interesting.

1 > 50 in 1 hour.

As someone who has always supported the current implementation of BLU, I don't want to see the core of the job changed like others, however, the job could really benefit from some QoL.

5.0:

- Squadron dungeons enabled for BLU. (Dev time may impact this, would also accept this in any later patch, so long as we have dev confirmation that they are willing).
- Skill adjustments to nerf 1000 needles, and make other skills more useful.

5.1:

- Level cap updated to 60.
- Totem reward is given at original 49 skills obtained, which unlocks leveling roulette for pre-50 dungeons and the level 50 portion of the level 50/60/(70?) roulette.
- Another Totem reward is given at all skills obtained, which unlocks leveling roulette for pre-60 dungeons and the level 60 portion of the level 50/60/(70?) roulette.
- New challenges added to the Masked Carnival.

5.3:

- Level cap updated to 70.
- Totem reward is given at all skills obtained up to this point, which unlocks leveling roulette for pre-70 dungeons and the level 70 portion of the level 50/60/(70?) roulette.
- New challenges added to the Masked Carnival.

5.5:

- New Limited Job released, along with new "limited raid" (masked carnival equivalent) that can be participated in by both BLU and the new limited job.


This means that by 5.3, BLU can participate in roulettes in a balanced way while also retaining the core side content aspect that it was designed for. The next limited job incorporating BLU into it's "raid" also expands the idea of what a limited job is and builds it up as a parallel to the existing job system with its own parallel endgame. Also at some point, rename the mechanic, calling it a "limited job" is demeaning and doesn't sell it very well, something like "Disciple of Collection" sounds better, and also allows for the discipline to have its own category in shop vendors for gear and glamour, and be given more freedom in how it is defined as a role.

4.55

Blue Mage and all it's related content removed from game. Apologies from the developing team for this miss managment issued. A new EXP ring for levels under 60 issue to all players that had leveled Blue Mage to level 50. Blue Mage to be reincorporated later into the game after Shadowbringers release as a full fledged job.

5.0

Combat System and Party System changes.
- Combat now considered Element and Passive stats much more, also, a more diverse variety of enemies, including bosses, are vulnerable to new and old status effects, stat modifications, etc.
- Party System change: Light Party 5 players, Full Party 10 players.
- New role added: Support. Hybrid Roles of Support + DPS, Tank or Heals that fill the new 5th slot for Light Party and the 9th and 10th slot for Full Party.

Role Support:
Support jobs offer huge buffs and enfeebles to allies and enemies, they come equiped with a suit of diverse skills that allow them to be a kind of Hybrid class between support + healer, DPS or tank roles. For this reason, all role skill will be removed from the current roles and added into these new Role jobs as part of their main arsenal.

New Support Jobs at 5.0 release:

Blue Mage - Support + Magic DPS and passive healer.
Riskbreaker (We need more vagrant story here!) (Gunblade) - Support + Melee DPS and passive tank.
Viking - Support + Tanking and passive DPS.

(By passive, i mean, slow non bursty DPS/Heals/Mitigation, is there, but cannot hold for +2 minutes of constant combat)

Blue Mage comes with several famous Monster Magicks, minus the more silly ones. It's role in the party is to enfeeble enemies with debuffs to their resistances and stats while doing average DPS from range and have a few shield and passive regen skills as an extra service.

5.1
The Masked Carnivale is added to Gold Saucer. Only Blue Mage jobs can participate on it. It incorporates the more silly unbalanced skills and re-uses the current skill acquisition system with some modification, instead of being RNG based acquisition it will be a progress bar that counts either Seeing the Skills or Killing the monsters. This Carnivale will allow Blue Mages to get the more powerful Monster Magick but only for shows (here is where we reintroduce the whole questline now) and they would mostly like, real Monster Magick + Special FX to allow Blue Mages to more like "Simulate" these "sillier" skills during the exhibitions rather than truly learning skills from Hydaelyns literal Gods.

Further classes will be added to all roles, and the whole concept of a "Limited Job" gets scrapped - The new concept to add is "Job Challenges" where new trials like the Masked Carnivale are added to all different classes with time, like jump platforming trials for dragoons, 1vs1 arcadey fighting simulators for monks, laser tag for Machinists, etc, let imagination run rampant with that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Given that feedback takes around 6 months to be implemented, thats not going to happen, sorry. I'd also not have development on BLU affecting the quality of the expansion, I'd rather they delete BLU from the game than follow your feedback.

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Why in the...world do you have to act like that? This is a feedback thread for everyone's voice to be heard. That's why it's MY road map. Do you really want to go out of your way to completely invalidate me specifically so you can have your way? I disagreed with some aspects of Shougun's roadmap, but I didn't tell him that I hope his idea doesn't happen. You have YOUR road map too, there are other topics for this backstabbing.

In this arena that was set up for some future construction, here comes utter destruction. Wonderful.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Valdegarde

Why in the...world do you have to act like that?

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If I came across as malicious, I apologize, but this is a public forum where I have the right to respond to comments. I did not disagree with your roadmap, only the notion that BLU needs fixing before Shadowbringers. Maybe I'm just jaded by the forums entitlement lately and your post gave me vibes of those posts. The devs aren't miracle workers, we have to remember that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Valdegarde

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Would recommend changing some words just encase things turn into a report storm and feelings get hurt (if it gets too off topic), you didn't hurt me by saying that f* thing (since it was an example not a statement, but if a GM reads stuff because things were getting out of hand - just giving a friendly suggestion lol). Also the thread was set up so if you disagree you've already posted what you prefer - as you suggested :P, I rather wanted to see what people thought was a good solution vs arguing over key wording SE has said or should have said (popular activity right now, and maybe a worthy one but just stopped offering an interesting read to me). SE, if they want, can read through our maps and see if they feel it has anything of reason haha.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

If I came across as malicious, I apologize . . .

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Nice, looks like we're back on topic. Thanks guys :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

If I came across as malicious, I apologize, but this is a public forum where I have the right to respond to comments. I did not disagree with your roadmap, only the notion that BLU needs fixing before shadowbringers. Maybe I'm just jaded by the forums entitlement lately and your post gave me vibes of those posts

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I viewed your post as entitled as well, but I accept your apology and offer my own. Thank you for clarifying that. I made effort to present a roadmap in my own opinion based on what I'd like to see, I don't believe I asserted a notion that there's an objective need involved. I would be happy if my roadmap is followed, I don't necessarily expect it. To say I'm not deserving of even my own ideas in this, an idea topic was very hurtful and I thank you for your apology.

I too wish to see BLU deleted. It seems to have too many skills that are detrimental to a party's overall makeup, while at the same time not offering proper DPS options aside from 1k needles and even that wont do much against high level bosses since it is SET at 1k and has a 6 second cast timer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Uielyave

I too wish to see BLU deleted. It seems to have too many skills that are detrimental to a party's overall makeup, while at the same time not offering proper DPS options aside from 1k needles and even that wont do much against high level bosses since it is SET at 1k and has a 6 second cast timer.

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What BLU skills are "detrimental", exactly? Mighty Guard is no replacement for a proper tank because BLU still doesn't have the HP or defense to take hits that well except in easier content like dungeons, and their damage output gets totally gutted by it on top of that. White Wind is powerful, but it's not very efficient because you'll be overhealing most of the time and trying to substitute for a proper healer in harder content is just going to make you run out of MP unless you're spamming Blood Drain instead of a move that actually does decent DPS.

Also, 1K needles gets outclassed by almost everything eventually if you keep yourself properly geared.

No offense, but I feel like you didn't actually play the class that much.

The only change I really want:

The entire idea of Blue Mage is that it's meant to be a solo combat job right? In that case, we should be able to get EVERY spell without grouping up even once. They should add some solo only duties to acquire ALL the spells that blue mage can learn.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alexandre_Noireau

4.55

Blue Mage and all it's related content removed from game. Apologies from the developing team for this miss managment issued. A new EXP ring for levels under 60 issue to all players that had leveled Blue Mage to level 50. Blue Mage to be reincorporated later into the game after Shadowbringers release as a full fledged job.

5.0

Combat System and Party System changes.
- Combat now considered Element and Passive stats much more, also, a more diverse variety of enemies, including bosses, are vulnerable to new and old status effects, stat modifications, etc.
- Party System change: Light Party 5 players, Full Party 10 players.
- New role added: Support. Hybrid Roles of Support + DPS, Tank or Heals that fill the new 5th slot for Light Party and the 9th and 10th slot for Full Party.

Role Support:
Support jobs offer huge buffs and enfeebles to allies and enemies, they come equiped with a suit of diverse skills that allow them to be a kind of Hybrid class between support + healer, DPS or tank roles. For this reason, all role skill will be removed from the current roles and added into these new Role jobs as part of their main arsenal.

New Support Jobs at 5.0 release:

Blue Mage - Support + Magic DPS and passive healer.
Riskbreaker (We need more vagrant story here!) (Gunblade) - Support + Melee DPS and passive tank.
Viking - Support + Tanking and passive DPS.

(By passive, i mean, slow non bursty DPS/Heals/Mitigation, is there, but cannot hold for +2 minutes of constant combat)

Blue Mage comes with several famous Monster Magicks, minus the more silly ones. It's role in the party is to enfeeble enemies with debuffs to their resistances and stats while doing average DPS from range and have a few shield and passive regen skills as an extra service.

5.1
The Masked Carnivale is added to Gold Saucer. Only Blue Mage jobs can participate on it. It incorporates the more silly unbalanced skills and re-uses the current skill acquisition system with some modification, instead of being RNG based acquisition it will be a progress bar that counts either Seeing the Skills or Killing the monsters. This Carnivale will allow Blue Mages to get the more powerful Monster Magick but only for shows (here is where we reintroduce the whole questline now) and they would mostly like, real Monster Magick + Special FX to allow Blue Mages to more like "Simulate" these "sillier" skills during the exhibitions rather than truly learning skills from Hydaelyns literal Gods.

Further classes will be added to all roles, and the whole concept of a "Limited Job" gets scrapped - The new concept to add is "Job Challenges" where new trials like the Masked Carnivale are added to all different classes with time, like jump platforming trials for dragoons, 1vs1 arcadey fighting simulators for monks, laser tag for Machinists, etc, let imagination run rampant with that.

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I agree with most of this but don't delete the blu systems that are already in the game. I'd like to see limited blu be renamed into Freelancer or Mimic and use those system to build up a true solo only job that can pull abilities and traits from ALL DoW and DoM jobs.

Limited blu could be the ground work for something like this then SE could build it up over time like having a patch that adds "war and blm" choices to Freelancer/Mimic.

Here's a thread I made awhile back about a base idea I had for a blu caster or melee job and for others to share their own ideas.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l-Blu-Concepts

Here's a thread where some of us talked how we think limited jobs could be changed into something accepted by more of the playerbase.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ue-Limited-Job

Just my thoughts on a lot of the feedback mentioned, the chances, in my opinion, of them raising the level cap so much so quickly: because Blue Mage can enter any content with a premade party, they're never going to let it enter currently relevant raiding. So I would expect that the 10 levels per expansion is really all we can expect. They could, however, make the level gaps larger and raise the cap by 5 levels twice per expansion.

As far as other changes, too many enemies are immune to too many status effects that make blue mage spell combos worth performing leading the dismal DPS for the job. So Blue Mage needs at least one spell with a decent potency on its own. Water Cannon could have its potency upped to 180. Additionally I would like to see it's DPS adjusted by the inclusion of weapon damage and stats. This is just as much a factor to their poor damage as anything else.

However what I think would be far more interesting is to change Blue Mage into something new for the game. It has some of the basic toolkit to allow it to be a tanking job. Mighty Guard operates as a tank stance, it has a defensive cool down in the form of Diamondback, and a group agro ability in the form of The Look. The job would require a unique armor set that has tank levels of vitality and defense with caster levels of intelligence, so that could be a lot for Square to insert into the game. That, to me, would be the most interesting solution to the job since it's not really working great as it is.

If we are going off the current path of side content here are the change I want to see before 5.0 hits.
- Add primals to Masked Carnival or have special Primal Fight design just for Blue Mage
- Add other options to get Dungeon spells like FATE or Leve
- Open up Palace of the Dead to BLU

Going forward here is what I want to see from the job:
-Spells learned from Open World content only to include FATE, HUNT, and LEVE other wise just make it a DPS Caster
-Change to BLU Guide book to give monster family instead of location.
-More combo type spells
-(I'm going to get hate for this one) Make it harder to learn spells in the open world so the level experience and spell learning experience are about equal in progression time.

4.56
Devs officially realize limiting jobs produces something less than a job. They rethink and rebrand the whole endeavor to Extended Jobs, jobs which are capable of everything other jobs are, but have additional content (most related specifically to gaining or using their abilities).

5.0
New job design paradigm: "Play the job, not just the role." Jobs diversified according to their identities and are now considered according to metrics within each role. Far greater potential versatility. Every job can, to some extent, play nearly every role. DRKs can shed some of their armor and mitigation skills, or CNJs their water-as-healing aspect and dps, and SAMs and the like can tank, or be invaluable to someone else's taking through sheer mob harassment. Thus, it's no longer an issue that a full-fledged BLU could play any role, provided they take the skills for it.

BLU a real job, though with a lingering beta phase from having been made a real job so late.

BLU, in turn, has been revised to have around 120 available skills, decently balanced in various combinations against each other, and has been extended to level 80, though one must have already completed the 5.0 questline to move past level 70 on BLU, ensuring that players have a backup job in case BLU Savage implementation must be delayed. Almost all BLU abilities still Skills or Spells, but some are at much-reduced GCD lengths triggered. The few oGCDs available do not give free damage, but instead simply spend resources built by the Skills and Spells that would otherwise augment them. You pick 24/26/28/30 skills over levels 50/60/70/80.

BLU by default has a trait for each element, building an effect-resource or synergistic debuff over casts or damage in or by that element. Certain Skills can further these traits, but the basic idea is that you build around a few elements that will synergize at certain macrorotational points, moving from your most flexible skills towards those that are the most powerful per GCD but the most demanding (and therefore least often viably usable).

Certain BLU skills are in packages, such as Inner Turmoil and Outer Turmoil learned from Midgardsormr, and tend to make up the center of your given build.

Not every combination of skills will be competitive. But there should be at least 30 or so highly competitive builds with some 3 to 7 competitive for any given fight. (This makes full use of the Simming features below.)

Enhanced in-game support features, including an official parser and rotational assembler/simulator that allow for testing one's theoretical and personal bests, together allow for decreased skill-gap despite greater potential complexity. One can plug in and test rotations, use dummy party members, check for rPPS, etc.

The game uses these to build your history over time through your battle logs and judges whether you can perform a given role according to the maximum mitigation over burst and over time, healing over burst and over time, or damage over burst and over time that your gear can theoretically put out, times the best 25% of your history for relevant (e.g. by tags: casual, dungeons, first run) content. If you haven't shown yourself capable of running X content via Y role, you can't queue for it. It will tell you how to boost your rating in that role, for that content, or --if possible via gear in your bags, inventory, or purchasable via tomes-- a change in equipment. Being a PLD won't automatically mean you can tank, but neither will --if all stats ans sims and history show you capable-- a MNK necessarily be unable to tank.

SSS reworked into a larger Training Hall / Proving Ground setting, which now actually allows for tanking and healing activities as more than just damage checking, borrowing damage timings and procedures from the most role-difficult boss of the content where multiple. These can work to quickly beef up your history.

Stats are now wholly transparent in % and additional stat required to reach the next breakpoint. These now support a thousandths place, making those breakpoints more frequent.

Companies -- GCs, via high ranks and GC tasks, FCs, PC (Private Companies; basically PMCs), and TCs (Trade Companies) -- may make their own Training Grounds (of sorts, in the case of TCs). This is even required for a couple quests in preparation for a new style of AI-inclusive content called Siege. You get one shot. Plan well. The required Sieges are easy enough, but later ones can be far harder; though the AI has been vastly improved upon and can be scripted precisely through these Training Grounds, it's recommended to bring more players to endgame Sieges, sometimes as many as a premade group of 16. In these cases, take as many as you players think you'll need, and you split the rewards, and as many AI recruits or mercenaries as you think you'll need, and you pay them in advance. Yes, there's a lot of warfare, including mercenary work, available in this expansion.

New side-content (which turns into a new playstyle for all content) that's actually helpful. The Arcanist guild in combination with the Grand Companies has come up with a new Tactics-oriented training method aptly called Tactics. It's active turn-based and will have you play with a full 4-man team, letting you see different jobs working together towards optimized performance. After a certain level of progress through the training, you can even choose to play Squadron missions in this mode. Expect more people to be up in your business about a class they don't actually have fully leveled after this is released, but also expect that while they may not understand the difficulties of the double-weaved DRG opener, they will likely know when you should be using DS and BL in a given composition and how to maximize your DPS in at least a dummy fight.

Vast catch-up mechanics now available for Squadrons. Squadron members may now be recruited from the open-world in a sort of combination with the NPC Trusts system. Squadron members, in turn, can act as Trusts, though their dialogue may be a little less situationally fleshed out.

Difficulty curve across levels and over the course of each expansion's level-capped content reassessed and reworked, with, especially across leveling content, an increased focus on party coordination.

Roles are now things we partake it rather than merely being specialized for. All do their part, according to their job's toolkit, in decreasing (party) damage taken and increasing enemy damage taken as to clear each encounter as quickly as possible (including what safety margins are effective; wipes are slow). Mitigation methods are now far more active, riding primarily on deeper macro-rotational implications of gauge mechanics and the burst opportunities it can provide rather than almost solely on cooldowns.

Virtually all attacks are now cumulatively mitigated cleaves of sorts, dealing damage to the first in line with x% Pierce being dealt to the next, minus the first's mitigation, and the x% of the result again to the one behind, minus the second's mitigation, and so forth. This means that virtually everything is interceptable. Mob animations have been largely revised to accommodate this. At the same time, all damage is dealt as cast bars and indicators disappear, and animations timed to be in full-swing at the time of that damage. Mobs now turn in a slower, more "as-needed", and thereby more natural fashion, allowing for active dodging without loss of positionals. Positionals, in turn, now make two checks for position, at the start and approximately mid-way through their animations to offer further lenience.

Damage dealt now staggers. This means that damage dealt by your party at precise times can save the life of a tank, while tanks in turn are the most able to take blows without cost to their throughput. Though non-tanks are now more closely able to survive relative to tanks, tanks will still be of tremendous value for not being staggered or knocked back.

Enmity revised. Mobs no longer perfectly know who hit them unless they see it. (The portion of) damage for which origin is unknown is considered "loose" enmity, and will instead be distributed among known targets. Tanks have a further raw bonus to enmity. Thereafter, the fact that they're hitting it in the face can hold most so long as the tank is putting out decent damage.

Mob AI varied. Different outputs have different modifiers. Some may hate those who mitigate more than those who deal damage to it, or seek out healers where noticed. Some may accumulate or settle enmity more steeply. Tanking at this point revolves around thwarting enemy attacks in all kinds, not just stacking a metric to ensure the attacks go for you; the tank may not always be the best person to receive the attack due to the involvement stagger and vuln-strikes.
Armor classes reopened to mostly everyone, though at differing costs and strengths. All DoW/DoM jobs again can make use of every primary stat supplied by DoW/DoM gear, though their differences can lead to differences in playstyle, such as a support-oriented Monk or a Samurai tank. A Monk can viably wear anything above a robe and short of Fending, to different effect each, though Striking remains the recommended, maximum-throughput, "meta" choice (unless subbing for a tank or healer).

Not all builds are as feasible, at least outside of, say, PvP (where armored Bards and Machinists may be worth the speed and accuracy penalties of armor), but since the impact is noted for DF content and given in theoretical ST/Cleave/AoE damage, this will not noticeably harm DF quality. The worst builds and players this system will permit will still be far superior to the worst of today.

Accuracy returned (as "Precision"), but as a much more versatile stat with granular performance. One does not merely hit or miss; instead, all damage hits at +/- 5% accuracy on a sort of bell curve, with the center sample position based on your Accuracy minus enemy Evasion. One must do less than 50% it's considered a Glancing Blow and cannot generate procs. If one does over 150% damage, it's considered a Critical Strike, a may generate further procs. Thus, Accuracy is a very strong stat if fighting highly Evasive enemies, but is still useful (especially to ranged classes) at all levels. Spells instead use Focus, to the same effect. Healing against a staggered ally uses Focus in the same way as Accuracy.

Skill Speed renamed to Haste, and Spell Speed to Acumen. Both buffed as to be more attractive for high oGCD jobs.

Strength now naturally increases resistance to Stagger. Mind now naturally increases resistance to Waver (the spell equivalent, which works cumulatively with Stagger). Dexterity naturally increases Evasion. Intelligence naturally increases maximum MP. All provide throughput, just at different affinities that gradually delineate over time.

Primary Stats may now be "junctioned", changing part of their benefit from their base forms to Determination or Break for Strength, Haste or Precision for Dexterity, Focus or Spirit for Mind, and Insight or Acumen for Intelligence. This can be set to occur automatically to certain breakpoints.

Added Defense comes at cost to Focus/Precision and Skill Speed/Spell Speed. Magic Defense is gone. Its benefits are given baseline at Striking/Scouting/Aiming levels to everyone. Apart from that, one simply takes cloth because it doesn't have any of the harm other armor classes do.

Thus, leveling is far, far more gear-accessible and jobs each have a variety of play-styles available to them. Different gear sets now provide gear- option variety rather than redundancies of gear progression per every 1-to-4 jobs.

Role Actions scrapped. Cross-class returned in a wholly new form, as Masteries. Rather than taking select skills, you take packaged traits with more-or-less handcrafted choices for each job/class from each job/class you've leveled, including further choices that same class or job. Every job itself acts as a preselection of a set of these choices, and thus reduces freedoms significantly, but usually in favor of raw power that tends to work better for serious 8-man content anyways. When still in gear-progression, it is virtually never competitive for any more than 2 out of 8 party members to stay as classes, however strong the utility they provide is. In more niche but less throughput-demanding content, however, they can thrive.

If you want a Storm Mage, deactivate the Lifesteam trait from Conjurer, tap instead into Water's Wake, augment into From the Mists, take Thaumaturges Affinity: Lightning, link the two, grab The East Wind, grab Fury of the Elements, and voila, you've got someone capable of sustaining a tornado that pelts enemies with lightning strikes for some of the best possible burst-sustained crowd control + focused AoE in the game.

Gunner and Warden added to the game. Gunner acts as the base class for MCH, onto which MCH adds solely engineering skills and those synergizing with them (the rest is still purely GUN), and can eventually open up into Marksman and supports the dual-class job, Corsair. Warden acts as a base for Dark Knight, from which many skills are adjusted upon taking the vow, and can eventually open up into Rune Knight. Archer eventually opens up into Ranger as well as Bard, who now doubles down on song- and support-related skills while the rest remains with Archer.

5.1
Huge improvements to the early game. New Game+, previously delayed, finally implemented. New content forms. Old zones revisited and re-envisioned, making many some 4x larger than previous. FATE revisions and replacements via newer, more intuitive and entertaining dynamic world content.

Open-world levels "Squished" automatically to allow for players to revisit the old world usefully at any time and party meaningfully with newer players in older content.

You no longer see mob level, nor does it particularly matter. If anything is shown at all, it will merely be one of 7 ranks, each with a different graphic: a fair fight at center, 3 weaker than you, and 3 nominally stronger than you. The lowest is a trifle, something you could potentially one-shot; the second still fairly weak; the third a non-challenge, the fourth a decent enough fight; the fifth one you'd better outmaneuver somewhat; the sixth will doubtless kill you unless you're damn smart about how you fight it; and the seventh will probably one-shot you.

The most any zone will be shifted is three ranks, its actual stats scaled to match that difficulty given your likely throughput.

When in a party in the open world, your strengths are averaged somewhat, and mobs will further scale to meet that party sum, either by linking additional mobs, increasing spawn chances of greater mobs, or scaling even the normal mobs themselves. If you, as a level 80, want to go back to Bentbranch to play with a newbie friend, you can now do so without their contribution feeling irrelevant. You'll be stronger, of course, but not so much stronger that the challenge is lost or your level-10 partymates are without significant value.

Vastly increased Guild involvement.

Go on Salvage, Patrol, Bounty, and Booty missions for the Marauder's Guild on ships and isles and the Reaver-controlled coasts. The budding Gunner's guild has some classy negotiating, escort, and tourney jobs for you, and the Yellowjackets a plethora of Outpost, Patrol, Survey (DoL related), and Provisioning missions. The Arcanists can get you involved in seeking out fraud, finding smugglers and contraband, running numbers*, sorting confiscated goods*, and testing inventions and simulators (i.e. that Tactics game-within-a-game and combat guides). (*Joking/not quite joking.) The Thieves' Guild isn't just Jacke's crew, and if you can win over their network they will, piece by piece, provide information and jobs from all through Eorzea. Jacke himself will still provide a slightly more morally-inclined stream of tasks as well, from information gathering yourself to catching those who've gone too far.

"Job Plus" aspects for everyone.

Learn the songs and stories of the people, for your own interests and for their implications on your Bard toolkit. In turn, you can put that knowledge to use in bars for information gathering, alongside your subtlety learned from being a Rogue. Use your Dragoon skills to scale whole cliffsides in a few short bounds. Fight dragons or alongside them. (No one gets more combat special quests out of Heavensward.) Find places of power and other disciples to train with as Monk. Build up your reputation as a Gladiator, and perhaps disavow it for an entirely new one as a Paladin. As a Paladin or Samurai, you can serve a liege, if you wish. Build up your mechanical arsenal as Machinist, adjusting your toolkit and building new armaments for yourself and (as the latter's not curtailed by balance) your colleagues.

Mechanical depth added throughout the revised open world. And the world is now decently dangerous.

Everyone now has access to Stealth, but the ones who know it best do it best, and those equipped for the task atop that (a Rogue/Ninja in proper Rogue/Ninja gear) the best of all.

Sprint revised. Mounts revised. Movement physics revised.

Mob camps now have advanced AI and can be difficult to take down on Behests. Go with friends or Trusts, likely setting out at night or with due distractions.

BLU officially determined to be able to join Savage by 5.2.

There, now you have an exciting open world in which to play Extended Jobs, perfect for those initially hesitant to play BLU because it wouldn't be a real job, while BLU finishes its beta phase.

5.2
BLU a full-fledged job, usable in Savage.

Frontiers added. These are auto-generative "fringe" extensions of the open world accessible from certain places in the open world or via exploration missions -- places like the Bone Seas (a desert, not a sea, btw), Eastern Coerthas, the Deep Shroud, and a free-form relook at the Weeping City area and that of around the Lost City of Amdapor. Multiple seeds run simultaneously, overlapping only at landmarks where different parties can run into each other. Most make use of a sort of dynamic fog/blizzard/sandstorm mechanic that will obscure view in transition areas, hiding this ability to be entirely apart from other parties in your own seed and to combine seeds. The content form is open to a plethora of objectives, from basic Hunts or special gathering to escort missions to quest-specific uses such as finding some crashed Garlean tech. Additional survival and elemental mechanics may be present.

Exploratory Missions revised to not be literally sh*ttier than the basic open world at this point. Eureka now requires level 60, down from 70, and is now useful for leveling via Challenge Logs and quests, while power scales with actual level to a degree, up to level 80.

News: considering a redemption of Eureka and two final chapters that are total shift from the previous four, one as a two-hour high-difficulty piece of challenge content that involves a 72-man war for survival complete with a ton of early-, mid-, and late-game depth, heavy meta swing, and (looking through my notes) some 4 pages of awesome stuff. Development will not proceed until an in-game player poll signals a positive reaction to what all is promised. Not expected to complete until 5.4 at the earliest.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

W O R T H R E A D

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Amazing.
I feel it kinda tackles many issues of the game outside the mere implementation of the Job itself. Never thought of the brilliant idea of Jobs designed to play New Game+Campaing with maybe potential changes to it based on stuff that happens post expansion. Or maybe im extending this too much.

Is one of the Dark Soulisht thing i've either read or typed in this forum, is amazing for me at least. I guess im saying, several of those "changes" are more interesting in their implications than in how affects Blue Mage, screw BLU, give me those other changes at the end.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alexandre_Noireau

Amazing.
I feel it kinda tackles many issues of the game outside the mere implementation of the Job itself. Never thought of the brilliant idea of Jobs designed to play New Game+Campaing with maybe potential changes to it based on stuff that happens post expansion. Or maybe im extending this too much.

Is one of the Dark Soulish thing i've either read or typed in this forum, is amazing for me at least. I guess im saying, several of those "changes" are more interesting in their implications than in how affects Blue Mage, screw BLU, give me those other changes at the end.

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I just figured "what's the most amount of good for the game I can excuse under the premise of getting it ready for a proper BLU"?

I really doubt you're overextending anything. I already cut out two-thirds of the post for the sake of others' sanity...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I just figured "what's the most amount of good for the game I can excuse under the premise of getting it ready for a proper BLU"?

I really doubt you're overextending anything. I already cut out two-thirds of the post for the sake of others' sanity...

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Ya know, it's the first time i see a post that makes me think maybe im not a bit too crazy for having a private google docs document called "My desired expansion".

Of course, it would make zero sense to anyone else in the planet. Hahahaha.

Regardless of what happens to Blue Mage, I want to thank you, Shougun. Throughout this ordeal you've been a relentless positive force moving toward dialogue on both sides of the BLU debate. I've seen you consistently reach across to those of opposing or even hostile viewpoints in an attempt to incorporate or at least understand their feedback. Here, too, I've no idea if Square will ever change Blue Mage. Personally I've given up on the class and have not touched it in days (farming Seiryu Extreme instead) yet nevertheless you find and offer a way to present constructive and actionable feedback. It would be a damn shame if the Devs just ignored all that energy and insight. I am not saying they have to do precisely as outlined - hell I'm not saying they have to do anything (I mean they hold the keys) but many businesses I know would kill for that kind of focused, rational, consumer feedback. I tip my hat to you, sir. Carry on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Elerus

Regardless of what happens to Blue Mage, I want to thank you, Shougun. Throughout this ordeal you've been a relentless positive force moving toward dialogue on both sides of the BLU debate. I've seen you consistently reach across to those of opposing or even hostile viewpoints in an attempt to incorporate or at least understand their feedback. Here, too, I've no idea if Square will ever change Blue Mage. Personally I've given up on the class and have not touched it in days (farming Seiryu Extreme instead) yet nevertheless you find and offer a way to present constructive and actionable feedback. It would be a damn shame if the Devs just ignored all that energy and insight. I am not saying they have to do precisely as outlined - hell I'm not saying they have to do anything (I mean they hold the keys) but many businesses I know would kill for that kind of focused, rational, consumer feedback. I tip my hat to you, sir. Carry on.

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Man... Now i'm on cloud nine..
https://media.giphy.com/media/l46CwW...q532/giphy.gif

That was really nice to say, thank you~. If it means anything I've also really enjoyed reading your posts throughout this blue mage fun :3

Also wanted to thank those who spent time to write out their own maps here. The amount of time and detail was better than I had hoped, it actually took me a while to read through all of them lol - well done :).

It would be nice to get something similar to FFXI around the 90 cap I believe it was where they have access to certain very potent and powerful abilities with a limit and cost to them. I forgot how the setup worked entirely but it was cool being able to do boss moves.

Mine is pretty simple.

4.55
- Add some new skills

5.1
- Level 60 cap
- PotD access
- More masked Carnivale challenges

5.2
- New skills

5.3
- PvP access, nothing complicated, pvp loadout just like any other job

5.4
- More skills

5.5
- Level 70 cap
- HoH access

6.1
- Level 80 cap
- New skills

6.3
- Level 90 cap
- New skills

I imagine at this point the number of skills would be around 100. Few people would expect a blue mage to have every skill, and each could contribute uniquely, and could be requested based on skill, being able to challenge content in unique and useful ways.