Did the devs explicitly mention that BLU can't raid?

[Lambdafish]

They specifically stated otherwise. This is not an introductory period, this is a brand new system called a "limited job" that is designed for solo play.

See, this Yoshi P talking, so we need to read between the lines. Remember he said "We said that BLU does not fit into XIVs system, but we didn't say we wouldn't add it", and "We said that adding a new job during a patch would be too much work, but we didn't say we wouldn't do it".

We have two pieces of information, which is what BLU is designed for, and what it can and cannot do. One of those pieces of information is that BLU can do most instanced content as a pre-formed party, and a lot of the justification for locking it out of matchmaking and special battle content makes sense, raids not so much.

Also ask yourself, why didn't they just wait until the expansion? New jobs are used to sell expansions, so why are they adding BLU in 4.5 with no expansion requirement? The answer would be the same as why they added custom deliveries in 3.5, to test the waters with a new experimental feature to expand upon it in the expansion.

[Zakon]

See, this Yoshi P talking, so we need to read between the lines. Remember he said "We said that BLU does not fit into XIVs system, but we didn't say we wouldn't add it", and "We said that adding a new job during a patch would be too much work, but we didn't say we wouldn't do it".

Nothing he said here contradicts their stated goal with Blue Mage.

They didn't think Blue Mage would fit into XIV's system... so they made a special system designed specifically for them, separate from the other jobs. A "limited job" that is designed for solo play.

They never said they wouldn't add another job mid-expansion since it was so difficult, so they didn't. They added a minigame dressed up as a job. It didn't take dev time or balancing because it isn't designed to play like other jobs or be balanced to begin with.

[Nariel]

snip

They didn't made a years of developement to release BLU as what it is to just rework it afterward, especially when they insisted that much on how it work so differently than other job.

Xpc do have other job to sell + a new race.

They need a content to push people to play until xpac release and lets be honest Eureka don't do that very well.

You really have to ear that BLU don't work like any other job and have his own meaning outside of teamplay to understand "Limited job" is just a side feature barely releated to the main dish that are the other not limited job and instances.

They could have made it work like every other job without any trouble, but they'll loose the blue mage vibe they want him to have in the process. They created a whole new feature for him (and maybe other job in the future) called Limited job for him to express the whole blue mage potential they wanted him to have. Like it or leave it. I'm leaving it.

[Saefinn]

They didn't made a years of developement to release BLU as what it is to just rework it afterward, especially when they insisted that much on how it work so differently than other job.

I get this would make them incredibly reluctant to. But if Blue Mage is so poorly received in its existing state, they may choose to, otherwise, that year's work will have been wasted regardless, in which case there would be an incentive to salvage it. But at the same time, there has been waste in Diadem and Eurka, which had potential but were poorly received and just need reworking in the right way to gain people's interest, they tried it with Diadem and still didn't get it right and I do not yet know if Eureka improved in later versions as I could not put myself through more endless FATE trains.

But I am in mixed minds about Blue Mage because I love what they've come up with as the job, but I just hope they don't mess it up. I can live with not having duty finder access, but my biggest concern with it is that it becomes side content, which SE has a poor track record for, see: Diadem & Eureka. If they can make it worthwhile, fantastic. But they've not been explicit on what group content will be available to a Blue Mage, whilst I expect on content stuff is unlikely, but I think I might not mind so much if Blue Mage ended up a patch behind, where the last patch content is still relevent, but not the focus.

[Dhaid]

They could've just said,"There's just so many skills to add, we need to take our time adding them in," and It would have gone over much better.

Personally I wouldn't mind learning a whole bunch of skills, then having a bunch restricted when going into group content so the broken ones aren't breaking things with the excuse of friendly fire.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Also ask yourself, why didn't they just wait until the expansion? New jobs are used to sell expansions, so why are they adding BLU in 4.5 with no expansion requirement? The answer would be the same as why they added custom deliveries in 3.5, to test the waters with a new experimental feature to expand upon it in the expansion.

Because they've consistently seen the largest drop of subs between this point and the expansion. 4.5 onwards has been a massive dry period since they have very little content to offer over an extended patch cycle. Blue Mage is simply there to help mitigate that loss, though unless the updates come fast, I suspect most people will be done with it in a week or so. As for Custom Deliveries, they did precisely the same thing: releasing Zhloe in 3.55a. It turned out to be nothing more than a glorified turn in system that saw no changes whatsoever throughout Stormblood. Ironically, one could argue Custom Deliveries replaced Beast Tribes in Stormblood given only the Namazu had any real relevance due to the lack of a relic outside Eureka.

There isn't a hidden meaning here nor is this a beta test. It's simply SE trying to keep people subscribed over the next seven months when outside of Blue Mage, all they have to offer is a 24 Man, an EX Primal and Eureka for long term content.

[Shadowshinra]

Because they've consistently seen the largest drop of subs between this point and the expansion. 4.5 onwards has been a massive dry period since they have very little content to offer over an extended patch cycle. Blue Mage is simply there to help mitigate that loss, though unless the updates come fast, I suspect most people will be done with it in a week or so. As for Custom Deliveries, they did precisely the same thing: releasing Zhloe in 3.55a. It turned out to be nothing more than a glorified turn in system that saw no changes whatsoever throughout Stormblood. Ironically, one could argue Custom Deliveries replaced Beast Tribes in Stormblood given only the Namazu had any real relevance due to the lack of a relic outside Eureka.

There isn't a hidden meaning here nor is this a beta test. It's simply SE trying to keep people subscribed over the next seven months when outside of Blue Mage, all they have to offer is a 24 Man, an EX Primal and Eureka for long term content.

Precisely, there's probably a reason why Mr Atma was on the design team for BLU and that's because of the RNG factor of learning spells, something that wasn't apart of classic BLU, you either learned the spell or you died to it. By making it RNG and having them in the 1-50 zones is to cover two things. 1 to keep people subbed during the fall off period aka Padding content and 2. To have people in the 1-50 zones. Something SE get a lot of flack for by new players who think the game is dead because there is no one around in said zones.

[Liale]

See, this Yoshi P talking, so we need to read between the lines. Remember he said "We said that BLU does not fit into XIVs system, but we didn't say we wouldn't add it", and "We said that adding a new job during a patch would be too much work, but we didn't say we wouldn't do it".

We have two pieces of information, which is what BLU is designed for, and what it can and cannot do. One of those pieces of information is that BLU can do most instanced content as a pre-formed party, and a lot of the justification for locking it out of matchmaking and special battle content makes sense, raids not so much.

Also ask yourself, why didn't they just wait until the expansion? New jobs are used to sell expansions, so why are they adding BLU in 4.5 with no expansion requirement? The answer would be the same as why they added custom deliveries in 3.5, to test the waters with a new experimental feature to expand upon it in the expansion.

Yoshi P does not give bonus content ever, what he does is say we are working on it please look forward to it and then you never see it or you see it 3-4 years later. Sooooooooo yeah you read through those lines and 3-4 years later you will finally get it when everyone has forgotten about it or you will just never see it. They didn't add it to test the waters, they added it to stave off pre-expansion boredom and because it's designed for force you to do their old world content making it look like it's not dead. I suspect they will fail on both accounts as atma the minigame sounds ghastly and it will only keep the world looking alive for like maybe a month. So yeah, lets revisit this in 3-4 years and see if they are just testing it for later.