People who are mad about the "limited job" didn't actually want Blue Mage.

[Skyskip]

BLU can go into any dungeon its high enough level for just like any other class, its not locked out of anything. Roulettes are there for bonus xp and to fill parties and not content in and of themselves. BLU gets bonus xp from open world content to make up for the lost roulette xp and can enter dungeons with a premade group. It can do what other DPS jobs are doing.

You know for a fact that it cannot do what other DPS jobs can do. Stop being coy, it does you no favors.

Based on the piss-poor examples given in the live letter, there is no intention of bringing BLU to endgame content in it's current state. Because it'll apparently just one shot bosses and play havoc with the content. If it's so bad that they'd lock you out of roulettes, why in god's name would they allow a BLU in it's current form to stomp through endgame content in a premade?

[Alien_Gamer]

Sure, if Yoshi saying the only thing it can't do is matchmaking and it can go into dungeons with premade groups is me being coy and not stating facts then I'm being coy. I'll believe what Yoshi stated in the live letter over creative interpretations here.

[Skyskip]

You would know all about creative interpretations, I suppose.

I guess you went to the bathroom during his Death vs Bosses example that everyone's been tearing apart since he said it.

[Deceptus]

BLU can go into any dungeon its high enough level for just like any other class,.

You mean 5 year old content that is irrelevant now?

[Tyla_Esmeraude]

-Players wanted a reason to go back into the open world, now you have it.
-Players wanted something different from what we've had for the last 4 years, now you have it.
-Players wanted a unique job that didn't feel like what we already have, now you have it.
-Players wanted new content thats not copy pasta from previous stuff, we got Masked Carnival.
-Players posted fears that BLU would be a watered down caster with very little identity, they made it so its not.
-Players posted fears that BLU would be OP and break group content with monster abilities, they agreed and took steps to stop that. They even let premades bypass that restriction for those that really want to do group content with their friends.

1. Going back into the open world just for what, few weeks in until all BLUs have their spells. Then it's dead again. It's not about going back into the open world for one job, it's to make content in the open world that's actually worth a salt in terms of endgame.
2. It's nice to have something different, but what is even the point of it if it's gonna be always lagging behind and not be able to do normal endgame content. Are you going to have to farm for armor on another job just to equip it on BLU? Doesn't that defeat the purpose? Lots of people wanted to *main* BLU, not have to main another job just to gear up BLU to use it non relevant content.
3.Again, serves no purpose other than side content if they can't do current endgame. It's nice that they are experimenting, but they could've gone a more creative way to implement it so that it can be a normal full job.
4. Masked Carnival is nice and all, but that could've been something on top of point 3.
5 and 6. If their only solution to create hard to implement jobs is to relegate them to side content only, what's gonna be the fate of the future jobs? I feel the dev team is restricting themselves in that matter and aren't being creative enough to tackle this design task. The only way to make them relevant if they are gonna keep this system is if they make "limited jobs" have their own end game raid, where BLUs, BSTs, PUPs and such jobs get to battle together against foes. In that case, Masked Carnival shouldn't just be specific to BLUs and it should give rewards like armor to gear themselves up and stuff. Otherwise you are going to have to farm for armor on another job just for BLU and people won't even be able to make BLU their main.

It is side content though if it cannot access current endgame, (nor can it queue up for matchmaking), because believe it or not, it's what matters to most people. And I'm not even talking about Savage, I'm talking about normal dungeons, alliance raids and normal Alphascape that's considered casual. It's a new *limited* job in that regard, it's not a full job, a proper job per se.

[Fyce]

Here is a thread that talks about Yoshida's statement about Blue Mage from four years ago. I don't think the consensus was "Yeah, makes sense" though.

That thread was not about how SE would do BLU, it's about the rigidity of the system not allowing the team to get SMN and BLU right. Some of the posts are also very understanding of how BLU would be a problem in regular group play. Anyway, most of them are actually discussing how to change the system to fit BLU. Not the other way around... Which is actually the complete opposite of the complains we're seeing today against BLU. Lots of people are currently saying that they'd have prefered BLU to be shoehorned into that strict mould rather than keeping BLU identity intact.

Guess what, Square Enix solved the problem regarding the rigidity of the system by simply making a brand new one - with some obvious and expected incompatibilities with the established one.
Well, if people don't like that solution, they should've raised their voice before it was too late. Especially since I see a bunch of people claiming that "BLU is my favourite job ever! I've waited it for years!" If you love something that much, you should care about it and actually get involved. (And yes, that's the same argument we ear during elections: "Don't vote? Don't complain.")

I'm definitly keeping that link. Thanks.

[Arrius]

What's with this idea that BLU is about having overpowered and broken skills. It's about using monster skills and casting them as blue magic. Not all of them are broken and unbalanced and the class can play like a normal one in its history. Just because a few games had fun and gimmicky stuff doesn't mean that was ALL the class was built for. What is this nonsense even?

But how do you balance 'gimmicky' stuff in a dungeon, then in a raid environment? In dungeons, you can apply most 'gimmicky' abilities without trouble, making them borderline overpowered (think of morbol breath here). And by raid bosses, those wouldn't work most of the time due how they are close to be immune to everything, making them useless. Or even vice versa.

You can't strike a balance with the Blue Mage here in FFXIV unless they fundamentally change how abilities work in the game.
And that's something they aren't ready to make for a single job.

[Isala]

But how do you balance 'gimmicky' stuff in a dungeon, then in a raid environment? In dungeons, you can apply most 'gimmicky' abilities without trouble, making them borderline overpowered (think of morbol breath here). And by raid bosses, those wouldn't work most of the time due how they are close to be immune to everything, making them useless. Or even vice versa.

You can't strike a balance with the Blue Mage here in FFXIV unless they fundamentally change how abilities work in the game.
And that's something they aren't ready to make for a single job.

You make BLU work here the same way it has worked in every single iteration. Bosses are immune to Status/Death and other nonsense, trash doesn't matter, and you figure out the optimal spells to use on a fight for maximum DPS/Support. You can't use the argument that "Players might not have their skills" when we still run into Gladiators in the Burn. If SE truly cared about people having their necessary toolkit, everything after Haukke Manor would lock you out unless you had a Job Stone.

[Sploda]

You make BLU work here the same way it has worked in every single iteration. Bosses are immune to Status/Death and other nonsense, trash doesn't matter, and you figure out the optimal spells to use on a fight for maximum DPS/Support. You can't use the argument that "Players might not have their skills" when we still run into Gladiators in the Burn. If SE truly cared about people having their necessary toolkit, everything after Haukke Manor would lock you out unless you had a Job Stone.

To build off of this, they could've just as easily give BLU Job Quests like any other, and each quest simply said "go here and learn X skill" or "Search for X Skill" and the quest happens, you get the Monster Skill and bam, you've got a new skill. I didn't need a "Lets create a Sightseeing log of Monster Skills and have you go find them like you're filling a PokeDex". I wanted a Job I could play in all the game's content without needing to rely on always having 3, 7, or 23 other people ready to play with me. I wanted to play it through the MSQ, I wanted to solo/duo queue for roulettes and Normal Raids. Most bosses in this game are already immune to status effects, and Eureka Pyros showed us that they are perfectly aware of the power of Death, cuz most NMs are immune to it. They could balance BLU, very easily, they just chose to not balance it and instead just give you Pokemon: Monster Skills Edition and call it a "Job".

[Shurrikhan]

This is the most useless question ever.

Read more than a single sentence and you'll be aware of how badly you're misconstruing this. The only options I measured BLU against were specifically those BLU's implementation as such circumvents.

For instance, broadly speaking...

Option 1: Improve upon the current core gameplay such that it allows a job like a true BLU to be introduced as a full-fledged job.
Option 2: Establish precedent for anything outside of core gameplay to be sidelined. Continue homogenizing jobs and gameplay.

We got option 2 instead of option 1. Some people are pissed about that. They did not get "literally everything they wanted". They more nearly got nothing they wanted. Rather than the core game taking steps for what they saw as the better, the things they wanted a BLU for, it is now systematically precedented against any such change. If it's not template, it's segregated off.

You are cherry-picking disparate conflicts and concerns into a strawman of a shared voice while assuming at every step a false ultimatum, that a true BLU could not work in real content. That comes from the assumption that the current design is unimprovable, or at least that the devs will never allow for significant changes to it. The last, at least, may have some merit as an assumption, but that's the first issue that ought to be addressed, then. Praising something for taking the easiest route out the gate, so they can continue to ignore the feedback BLU represented more broadly, is backwards.

This is not a minigame. This is a new job with new job mechanics. If this is a minigame for you then you might as well call all of the job specific mechanics minigames.

Let's say we actually got a decent version of Chocobo Racing, whereby the different colors of Chocobos, as per Mario Kart or the like, each had unique abilities that could be unlocked while you progress up the competitive ladder, chocobo by chocobo, with further caps given each season tier for further abilities. Casual players therefore would tend to pick a couple favorite to progress and compete with in the season while those with more time on their hands could potentially level them all to exploit every unique advantage they might have, map to map, for the various strategies of counterplay Each color chocobo has its own mechanics, and a separate general progression system for each of the six colors or so.

Does that make it any less a mini-game?

It has progression. It has unique mechanics. But it does not interact with the larger game. It is a smaller game within the larger game, limited unto itself. It is a minigame. Would such a version of Chocobo Racing be damn fun? Yes. Ought it be mocked for not being part of the core game? No. But it remains a minigame.

BLU likewise is scarcely permitted to interact with the actual game. It will give nothing unto the assets or experience of the core game, and receive from it only its discarded bits. It is essentially cut off, a gameform limited unto itself. Even if you were then to add a full roster of "limited jobs" those jobs would scarcely be part of the overall game; such an insular, purposely segregated experience is much more akin to a minigame than to an addition to the actual game, or at best a limited mod offshoot of the original game. I meant full well what I said; it was not hyperbole.