blue mage

[Zojha]

A lot of people want traditional.

Well, that's the entire point of appealing to nostalgia and FF tradition by implementing traditional FF jobs, rather than something new and innovative >_>

[TarynH]

something new and innovative

Sounds good! I like taking things out of context too!

The point in my post was that while yes, people do want traditional, the developers can also think a little outside the box. Like RDM. It looks traditional. Has traditional elements; using sword and magic, with light armor. But it's innovative in the fact that they gave it it's own "red magic," so it will have a defined role. They could do the same with BLU, which already has it's own "blue magic," but is difficult to place in FFXIV. Which has been stated in the past. It has also been stated that they are not sure how to implement a "spell learning" system.

So yes, tradition is great and all, but if it doesn't fit, then they have to get creative with it.

[Zojha]

The point in my post was that while yes, people do want traditional, the developers can also think a little outside the box.

And my point was that innovation is the antithesis to tradition. So if you're going to think outside the box when appealing to tradition, there is no point in appealing to tradition in the first place.

Hence, why Summoner is so commonly complained about, in spite of being a solid job. I'm fairly certain that the same will happen to Red Mage as well - the perceived identity of a red mage simply doesn't fit in a trinity game, so the people you appealed to by putting a traditional job in in the first place will be disappointed, because they aren't going to get the tradition they wanted the job for, they're going to get something else.
That's not to say people won't enjoy the job - but they'd enjoy it just as much if it had been sold as Spell Fencer instead.

The same applies to Blue Mage. If you can't offer a traditional blue mage, don't do something else and sell it as one - Sell it as something new from the get-go. The only thing you lose is a bit of hype before people realize it's not going to be the traditional blue mage they hoped for, but something else that just carries the same name.

[TarynH]

Snip

A good example of keeping with tradition, while making innovative changes, would be Batman's origin story. Through the years it has received several tweaks; including how he was trained to fight, how he thought up the costume, how he acquired his tools, etc. Some of them were little, and some were huge changes. However, the traditional narrative of his parents being killed hasn't changed.

I'm saying you can still have the traditional BLU. It can still learn spells. Although the easiest way to implement this would be through job quests. However, unless they make sweeping changes to the job system, the job has to fit into one role. Which is why people debate over dps vs tank. But nowhere was it determined the BLU had to be "hit" in order to learn the spells. They simply had to witness the spell being used, regardless of it hitting the BLU or not. How else would you explain the healing and buff spells it learns? The BLU isn't "hit" by those.

Edit: Going back and looking at "traditional" BLU, it's pretty un-traditional. It seems to change with almost every iteration. Being hit, witnessing it, stealing it with Lancet, obtaining items dropped by enemies, eating the enemy, to beating a mob senseless to give it TP (a combination of being hit/witnessing). So I think they have a lot of wiggle room there to play with "tradition."