Please reconsider stance on blue mage

[Aegis]

Thank you. So many people seem to talk about Blue Magic like it was some amazing thing, when all I remember it for (outside XI) is a bunch of fairly meaningless spells, the odd useful one, and the overpowered/exploit ones (using Level 5 Death to grind levels in the castle basement in FFV).

I can't speak for others, but I found it enjoyable to be hitting mobs with their own abilities. It's certainly a step up from BLM's non-elemental elemental spells.

In XI they were particularly well done because they felt quite visceral. Head Butt's knockback and Bludgeon's 'thwack! thwack! thwack!' sound effects brought a grin to the face of everyone I knew who go BLU to 18. The graphical effects were nice too, and they didn't even need to create new ones they just used the mob's move graphics.

[Zarzak]

You pretty much illustrated exactly why elemental resistances were removed from the game. You just left out one line:

"leviathan? Wait, we don't have any BLMs. Screw you, guys, I'm dropping and requeueing until I get in a party that has a BLM" /ragequit

Or.... You equip your weapons with fire element materia melded in/Ifrit weapons/however you want to spin it.

Or give the offslot a use for dps classes via a elemental power stone that turns your physical damage into X element.


Pretending that a elemental resistance system is difficult to implement is lazy at best. It has existed for over 15 years in other MMOS just fine and you know how many events people say "Welp time to kick everyone but the wizards since this is an ice boss and they have the best fire magic"

[Dwill]

Fun.

I had all jobs in XI to at least 75 except for three. Even the most unwanted jobs I levelled, which were, at various points: SMN, DRK, THF, MNK, BLU etc were fun to play. They were interesting, they each had job-defining characteristics none of the others had. I had a blast playing all of them. In fact the ones that were more of a chore for me to level where the ones that were in the highest demand: PLD, BRD, WHM etc. Because I always felt stressed when I was levelling them as so much was expected of me.

I will admit that part of this is because levelling was a huge part of XI (it isn't here) and the endgame was mostly horizontal progression that offered niches for lots of jobs (BST solo'ing Despot, BLM duo'ing Kaiser Behemoth).

Even just posting this is bringing back memories of low-manning apollyon (the one with the mobs resistant to one damage type on each floor) with a few BLU and a RDM. Or THF and COR duo'ing Charybdis. Or NIN/DRK tanking Proto-Ultima. PUP solo'ing Diabolos. The list goes on and on.

Fun is a subjective concept. I mean you even show it with this post :

Wait, are you saying 'fun' has an impact on game balance. The most broken things in XI weren't fun. Soul Voice wasn't fun, it was just an ability. Utsusemi wasn't fun by most people's standards, it's just what you did.

Souleater guillotines, now they were fun. Closing distortion Skillchains with a SATA Viper Bite in Garlaige Citadel was fun. Solo'ing imps on BLU was fun. Solo'ing Lamia no. 5 on BST was fun. 5 song rotations on BRD was fun. Soboro Sidewinder builds were fun. Everyone I know who levelled PUP to 75 found it fun even though it was the biggest pariah in XI.

None of these were game breaking. Balance exists independently of fun, unless the only time you enjoy a class is when it's overpowered compared to the others.

For me, Utsusemi was fun (and it was gamebreaking balance wise). For me, having Soul Voiced Double Minuet was fun. Souleater Guillotines were one hit move than would result in you getting killed which in my opinion, wasn't fun. On something as subjective as fun, I will agree with Duelle here and say that balance supersedes it.

Or.... You equip your weapons with fire element materia melded in/Ifrit weapons/however you want to spin it.

Or give the offslot a use for dps classes via a elemental power stone that turns your physical damage into X element.


Pretending that a elemental resistance system is difficult to implement is lazy at best. It has existed for over 15 years in other MMOS just fine and you know how many events people say "Welp time to kick everyone but the wizards since this is an ice boss and they have the best fire magic"

It's not that it's difficult, it's just an unnecessary hassle and it's an actual lazy way to make content last longer than it needs to. I don't know anyone who is eager to go back to farming resistance gear or elemental weapon just to do one encounter, all for the illusion of depth. The elemental wheel is a relic from the old era of MMO and it should stay dead and buried.

[Aegis]

On something as subjective as fun, I will agree with Duelle here and say that balance supersedes it.

Wow. So it's more important for a game or a class to be balanced than for a game to be fun? That's literally what that sentence means. Balance > Fun. No qualifiers, no caveats. Balance supersedes fun.

I personally would argue that balance is an entirely different axis than fun the two are largely unrelated. A class/ability can be overpowered and boring or underpowered and fun, or perfectly balanced and be either.

Edit:

For me, having Soul Voiced Double Minuet was fun. .

Go march or go home

[Dwill]

Wow. So it's more important for a game or a class to be balanced than for a game to be fun? That's literally what that sentence means. Balance > Fun. No qualifiers, no caveats. Balance supersedes fun.

I personally would argue that balance is an entirely different axis than fun the two are largely unrelated. A class/ability can be overpowered and boring or underpowered and fun, or perfectly balanced and be either.

Fun is subjective. What someone finds fun, someone else finds boring so of course balance in this case as to supersede it.

Edit:

Go march or go home

Hence why I said fun and not optimal.

[Aegis]

Fun is subjective. What someone finds fun, someone else finds boring so of course balance in this case as to supersede it.

I disagree. As you point out, FFXI is, and always has been an imbalanced game. It's been going on for over 12 years now and is SE's most successful ever game.

How important can balance be?

fun > balance

[Dwill]

I disagree. As you point out, FFXI is, and always has been an imbalanced game. It's been going on for over 12 years now and is SE's most successful ever game.

How important can balance be?

fun > balance

Fun is subjective. That's not hard to grasp.

[Aegis]

Fun is subjective. That's not hard to grasp.

Only to a limited extent. Most people can agree on most things.

Watching paint dry: not fun
Playing with your children: fun

If fun were so subjective, so difficult to pin down and design for, no games would ever be made, because games are designed to be, above all other things, fun.

And my point still is, balance isn't as important as you think it is. Otherwise how could such an imbalanced game be so successful? Answer me that.

[JakzChurchill]

I thought a good idea would be to introduce BLU along with the monster arena from FFX. This would be an arena every class can tackle but it would be run by blue mages and as a BLU each fight would be rewarded with a monster skill and you would have to have unlocked a certain amount or certain ones to complete each job quest.

I put this idea forward because I believe earning skills in the wild in this fast paced game wouldn't have the same sense of achievement that beating a boss version would. You would barely notice the skill being used and just run around hitting mobs till the 'skill learnt' message appeared. Making the skill grind overly monotonous

This idea would also make it so with the Blue Mage job crystal attatched all class abilities learnt after 30 would become blank slots for spells. From there you could build out your job. I was also a huge fan of the matching skills to make traits idea, it made for some interesting combinations where you could build a job to your playstyle as opposed to the elitists chosen path.

[Dwill]

Only to a limited extent. Most people can agree on most things.

Watching paint dry: not fun
Playing with your children: fun

If fun were so subjective, so difficult to pin down and design for, no games would ever be made, because games are designed to be, above all other things, fun.

And my point still is, balance isn't as important as you think it is. Otherwise how could such an imbalanced game be so successful? Answer me that.

Balance is as important as I think. FFXI was successful because it was the first Final Fantasy MMO ever done and it had quite a few similarities with EQ so it attracted a lot of people that were fan of either or both. The game was really fun if you were a bard, a samurai or a red mage. Wasn't really as fun for summoners, dragoons or beast master who were all discriminated for playing a class that they had fun with. And what's fun for most people first and foremost is not feeling discriminated for playing something that they enjoy. So yes, balancing the classes to make sure that the players playing they are not left aside for certain content that they want to enjoy, even if it means that certain abilities might look bland and boring to certain people.