SE, the concept of "Limited Jobs" is a really bad idea, turn back now

[Nezerius]

Can someone explain to me why you would want Blue Mage if it can't be an actual Blue Mage. For it to "party ready", they'd have to strip all the mechanics of a Blue Mage and make you learn skills through normal class quests. The class would have to be balanced and would not be any different from any other mage class. You would not get the opportunity to learn all the cool moves you can learn now nor would you be able to bring a "cheat" class into older content.

Move the BLU abilities to job quests, obtained over the course of the leveling process.
More job quests than any other job, but mostly having the objective of "Find unmentioned monster x in area y to capture ability z", have some story sprinkled in every 5 levels (like current job quests).
Duties could have a requirement of having the job quests completed up to that point (ie: queueing up for Baelsar's Wall would require the BLU to have completed all the job quests up to lvl 50).

As for cool and unbalanced moves? Allow those to be collected in the "Limited Job" kind of way, and only have them be useable in those scenarios (open world, the BLU-only instance, unsynced old content?).

[Skyskip]

Can someone explain to me why you would want Blue Mage if it can't be an actual Blue Mage. For it to "party ready", they'd have to strip all the mechanics of a Blue Mage and make you learn skills through normal class quests. The class would have to be balanced and would not be any different from any other mage class. You would not get the opportunity to learn all the cool moves you can learn now nor would you be able to bring a "cheat" class into older content.

Because I want to play the goddamn game with it. Not useless side content.

[Zakon]

Yeah, lets just copy that.

Red Mage doesn't play like any other job in the game. Why would you think that Blue Mage would be a slightly re-flavored version of something else?

[Seraphor]

Because I want to play the goddamn game with it. Not useless side content.

Are crafter/gatherer classes useless side content?

[Kitfox]

Can someone explain to me why you would want Blue Mage if it can't be an actual Blue Mage. For it to "party ready", they'd have to strip all the mechanics of a Blue Mage and make you learn skills through normal class quests. The class would have to be balanced and would not be any different from any other mage class. You would not get the opportunity to learn all the cool moves you can learn now nor would you be able to bring a "cheat" class into older content.

-You get to play a class using a cane as a weapon, some will like that aesthetic.
-You get to use monster abilities, some will like that aesthetic.
-You get unique leveling experience.
-You get unique skill system.
-You get unique solo content.

None of the reasons need to get in the way of group play either. I find game breaking cheat abilities utterly boring, I might get chuckle at first, but we're looking at an MMO where endgame and content at the level cap is the bulk of the experience. Cheating as a gimmick would get old so fast and completely lock you out from the majority of the relevant game content: dungeons, trials, extremes, savage, ultimate, deep dungeon, eureka. All you really have left is the limited solo content. I'd much rather take a job with the above unique points and aesthetics and have it available for all the game content rather than get a chuckle from breaking the game a couple of times. I realize there's a player type that enjoys cheating, modding, using third-party scripts and bots to gain an advantage, but I'm not one of those people.

[InkstainedGwyn]

Are crafter/gatherer classes useless side content?

Quite a few people view endgame as the only game. Hence the number of threads we get asking for them to cut back on MSQ and speed up levelling times. They're here to raid with their friends.

[XelphatolTylenolCepacolAlcohol]

I don't usually post here, but I logged in just for this. This Limited Job thing is a horrible idea. Making a job that can't do ANY current content and most of the older expansion content is idiotic. This concept of a "Limited Job" should have been shot down during the planning phase.

And the 10-minute volley of excuses that boiled down to "It's too hard to balance" was a load of crap. Blue Mages are known for a handful of abilities, and the team could have implemented them in a way so as to not to be unbalanced. It wouldn't be an exact copy of the abilities in previous titles, but few abilities are. Hell, in other offline FF installments, White Mages can't throw stones, Thunder isn't a DoT, and Red Mages can't hurl magical energy swords, but here we are!

It's ridiculous that this excuse is used with Blue Mage of all jobs. The job that only has a few abilities in common between installments, with the rest of the spells being totally unique to the game. Frog Drop, Gatling Gun, Magic Breath, Stone Breath, etc. SE could have made quite a few entirely new abilities and still called them Blue Magic.

And don't even get me started about being "faithful to flavor." Blue Mages of the past have learned spells by being hit, yes (and not even in XIV apparently!). But Quistis learned new spells by using items dropped from monsters. Quina learned by eating monsters. Kimahri used an ability on monsters. And no Blue Mage, EVER, to my knowledge, had an RNG-based "chance" of learning an ability (I never played XI, so please excuse me if I'm incorrect there). It's such an obvious hook to increase re-sub and re-grind old content.

The excuses as to why they couldn't implement it are, truly, a crock of shite. And before anyone comes in with "the fans would have complained if..." nonsense....yes, yes some would have. Just like any other class. But they would have at least been happy with a full-fledged job and accepted (and, frankly, most have expected beforehand) some compromise to fit the FFXIV system. The salt would have been a few pinches compared to the entire mine's worth SE is now getting.

[SonKevin]

I'm tired of people bringing this up whenever they try to adapt a job into XIV's gameplay style. We'd never have gotten Summoner, Bard, Dark Knight or Red Mage if the dev team insisted on translating the job into a system that it wouldn't work with.

People want a playable blue mage. By playable, they mean a job that uses enemy skills and is usable in party content. Nobody wanted a special job that is a literal translation of the job at the cost of being segregated from the rest of the game.

So you want a job, the uses enemy skills, but the enemy skills aren't unique because they have to fit into a rotation like every other class? Why even bother at that point? It would just be a carbon copy of RDM except you'd change RDM's skills in one that looked like enemy skills. You might as well make something brand new.

[Skyskip]

Are crafter/gatherer classes useless side content?

No. Because it engages with the rest of the game and supports the economy which is an inherently social experience. They also aren't jobs. BLU is a solo job. It's existence is a contradiction and does nothing that a level 70 or 80 job can't already accomplish better by steamrolling irrelevant content.

[Elerus]

Can someone explain to me why you would want Blue Mage if it can't be an actual Blue Mage. For it to "party ready", they'd have to strip all the mechanics of a Blue Mage and make you learn skills through normal class quests. The class would have to be balanced and would not be any different from any other mage class. You would not get the opportunity to learn all the cool moves you can learn now nor would you be able to bring a "cheat" class into older content.

In almost every Final Fantasy Blue Mages have learned their skills with a different twist. For reference please read here: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/B...ge#Appearances

I find it really confusing when people throw out "but you wouldn't be able to learn every monster skill! There would have to be arbitrary restrictions! It wouldn't be Blue Mage!" What "blue" magic meant already varied highly from FF to FF. I never recall being able to learn every skill from a monster, even every iconic skill - there has always been a curated list of what can and can't be learned even in a single player FF.

So, having restrictions on Blue Mage would not suddenly mean it's "not a Blue Mage". There have always been restrictions, again, even in single player FF games.