BLU for Duty Finder and Raids! Show your support!

[Valdegarde]

What I am personally interested in is this:
What is it in the actual gameplay of BLU that makes people a fan of the class?
I get the "learn stuff from enemies" part appeals to collectors but the resulting gameplay sounds quite ... dull. You just spam all abilities at your disposal, Guild Wars 2 style.
Can a BLU even get some sort of flow like BLM or SMN, making the class feel round / mandating player skill?

I personally think they can. Perhaps have some archetype ranges for skills that can contribute to an overall flow, for example you can choose between matra magic/magic hammer/lancet for a required MP sustainability spell, each having unique effects, AoE in Flamethrower/Aqualung/Trine, debuffs in Off-Guard/Degenerator, buffs in Dragon Force, etc., and have the options represent different types of damage being done, with certain aspects being more useful for certain fights. Classes already work this way in minor ways, classes with high burst or consistent uptime have differing fights they excel in. It's borderline theorycrafting, but there are ways to have a large pool of skills and still be usable in this game we all play called FFXIV that includes classic Final Fantasy jobs all having their time in the light.

On a personal level, I like Blue Mages and Blue Magic on one level because they represent a more intimate relation to the game world; one gets to feel as though they are using the abilities of your enemies and feel that there's a way to strategize with myriad abilities that you'd otherwise only get to see, not use. The act of collecting them ranges from satisfying, interesting, to downright annoying but I never felt was integral to "being" a Blue Mage, merely one way of establishing that interaction to the game world. This is the constant idea behind methods that have been noted to be very different between iterations.

I really loved them for that, even if in many of the games you'd try to use them as pseudo casters with a wider bag of tricks when you're not abusing game mechanics in specific fights. Going through all the hoops to get Quistis' Shockwave Pulsar and seeing her use this amazing attack was great, even if it in reality wasn't some major advantage over the other spells one could use. Same with Strago and Grand Delta. Game breakers like Degenerator, Bad Breath, etc. are more of like a "wow, that works there?" than something I consider to be Blue Mage's niche identity. And really, in each game you could use Blue Mage's more tricky abilities in abusive ways, there's dozens of other examples like just using Odin every fight or something, it's not a Blue Mage unique thing.

[Valdegarde]

One of my bigger fears is that the dev team's inability to incorporate some of these unique but balanced ability types into an overall gameplay style isn't a fault of Blue Mage's identity but a growing lack of innovation across the game, which bodes extremely ill for jobs to come such as Dancer, that would really benefit from having more creativity injected into the current healing paradigm. It depresses and scares me and as a Blue Mage fan, hurts that this is where the hammer's dropped.

These are all my very heartfelt and honest feelings as a longtime Blue Mage and FFXIV fan and I hope that people who don't understand why others can be so upset right now give these thoughts a little empathy even if they ultimately do not agree.

[Granyala]

jobs to come such as Dancer, that would really benefit from having more creativity injected into the current healing paradigm.

Yeah.. I'm super curious how they will do that one. I hope they don't just copy/paste the usual suspects and give them a paint job (AST *cough*)....

Thanks for explaing your affection, I guess I am too detached in regards to class performance to really care about a connection to the game world. To me, how a class feels when I play it is the most important factor. Does it flow or does it feel clunky / incoherent? Is it fun? Is there room for technical improvement?
That sort of stuff.

[Stanelis]

Pretty sure I remember people asking for BLU to be just like this searching for monsters and learning their skills.. why are people suddenly mad now? Did you really think you could take all these monster skills into raids? They even said years ago if they implement BLU it would be a solo job because if they did it any other way people would complain and say it doesn't feel like BLU. They could make it immune to the status effects but wouldn't that just defeat the point of the skills?

Most bosses are already immune to status effects (such as stun). Also, you know, they could just have made it so the damage from the skill you learn scales depending on your gear, just like with all the other skills in the game. Another half designed piece of content from SE, because it seems it is more profitable to develop new items for the cashshop instead.

[BlitzAceRush]

These are all my very heartfelt and honest feelings as a longtime Blue Mage and FFXIV fan and I hope that people who don't understand why others can be so upset right now give these thoughts a little empathy even if they ultimately do not agree.

I'm OK with BLU being limited and how they intend to implement them, I also like how this could open up my desired job (Beast Tamer) of having a chance of making it in. However, I do understand your point of view. What it comes down to here is compromises, I don't see it as a lack of creativity they effectively wanted to be creative and create something unconstrained by the rules of the battle system, but that comes at the cost of it working both ways, if its designed to work outside of the system then it can't be part of the system, that is the compromise they've chosen, it may not be the one you want, but they tried to make it more then a Blue "flavoured" mage and this was the price.
However, if you and others are OK with compromising the other way, them locking BLU to a smaller limited selection of it's abilities that they can and do balance for normal content then I see no problem with doing so and letting BLU do normal things, that may even be their plan, "Limited" could also eventually not just mean "limited in what it can do" but also mean "when used in normal play, parts of this job become limited or unavailable"
Voice your opinion on BLU let them know that even if limited from it's over-world state you'd like to see BLU usable everywhere but don't throw the whole idea they've presented under the bus, we just don't have enough information of their plans long term with "limited jobs."

[GenericMagus]

I'm in total support of this thread. SE gave us the BLU balls. SE, do the right thing, what the community wants

[Lambdafish]

For example, Bard had to find or do little quests to learn songs, Beastmaster had to catch enemies, for most Summons they had to be defeated first.

And if BRD was actually a BRD instead of Archer with songs, it would be a limited job. Beastmaster was outrighted stated to now be possible thanks to limited jobs, and I guess you ignored the outcry from SMNs as to how they are constantly screwed over by the fact that they can't actually summon, other than bahamut. Also, using games like FFVIII that don't use the job system aren't really examples, those are game gimmicks, not job gimmicks.

I should also clarify my point that while my personal preference found BLU too much work on my FFV playthrough, that doesn't mean I felt that it was a bad idea, or that it wouldn't make a fun piece of content in XIV.

[Blueyes]

I will say this. I am happy with Blue Mage. I like the aesthetic style and that it really does learn spells from fighting monsters. Masked Carnivale sounds like it can be a fun solo experience. I'm even glad to see that Blue Mage starts at level 1.

What I don't like is that Blue Mage has been labeled as a limited job. Restricting Blue Mage from group content was absolutely unnecessary. It shouldn't be allowed into content because some of its spells will be over-powered? Why must SE give Blue Mage those over-powered spells in the first place? Why couldn't spells have been balanced with group content in mind? People will kick a Blue Mage who doesn't have their spells? People will also kick a Gladiator, Conjurer, or Thaumaturge who haven't bothered to put forth any work towards obtained their job crystals and crucial job actions.

And while yes, Blue Mage can participate in certain content through pre-made groups, it seems unlikely that Blue Mage will ever be allowed to reach the current max-level which means it will be limited to outdated content. Item level restrictions will keep Blue Mage away from any current content.

Limited jobs are a horrible idea. I have never been more disappointed.

I know it's too late to lift the "limited" restriction in time for Shadowbringers, but maybe by 6.0, Blue Mage will be balanced so that it can participate in max-level content without being completely broken. If that means the majority of its spells must be rendered meaningless in group content, then so be it. Blue Mage should be a Job, not a Limited Job.

And yes, it is possible for Blue Mage to be true job while retaining it's unique method of learning spells. The only thing keeping it from current content is that the job is unbalanced. SE only made it harder by designing Blue Mage to be unbalanced right from the start. But it's not an obstacle that SE can't overcome. They just have to be willing to do it.

The identity of Blue Mage won't be butchered by re-balancing the job to properly function as a DPS in current content. The one and only factor that truly defines a Blue Mage is its ability wield the abilities of monsters. Blue Mage has that covered. Whether there are a hundred Blue Magic spells to learn or whether Blue Mage can function as a tank or healer, none of that is necessary.

SE wants Blue Mage to be a solo job. Blue Mage doesn't need over powered spells to be a solo job. It needs sustainability and mitigation. Blue Mage can be designed so that it can solo content like Palace of the Dead better than other jobs without being so strong that full parties of Blue Mages becomes the meta strategy for clearing ultimate raids.

People wanted Blue Mage as a full-fledged job. Not this limited nonsense.

[Ilan]

BLU doesn't work for party content, don't pretend that it does. What we would get is this, or a watered-down imitation of BLU, which would generate backlash regardless. This is BLU exactly as BLU should be, and putting it in a party scenario wouldn't work because it can't be balanced against other jobs. This is how the backlash looks:

Community: "We are bored of the predictable formula, give us something we have never seen before"

Devs: "Here is a brand new concept for how jobs are played, and here is BLU exactly as it is in other games"

Community: "Nooo, we never asked for that"

Right and now we have:
"Hey you've got your BLU, but you can't play it in actual content because its to broken for an MMORPG"

See what they did there?

[Lambdafish]

Right and now we have:
"Hey you've got your BLU, but you can't play it in actual content because its to broken for an MMORPG"

See what they did there?

I actually said that exact thing in a post on the second page, and that fact doesn't invalidate the argument. The devs should slowly lift restrictions on lower level content, and design content like PotD to accommodate the uniqueness of BLU. But they should never be able to raid, or do high end content specifically designed for party synergy. Forgive me for having rationality, and seeing both the good and bad in something, rather than throwing my pitchfork at something new.