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

[Shurrikhan]

Again, the core concept of BLU isnt the use of skills within a rotation. Its the fact you can LEARN monster skills.

The original 1.x roadmap intended that you could learn new skills from a combination of combat itself and NPC interactions. Fight alongside Yellowjacket spearmen and you may learn something different than you would from the Flame Cavalry or Gridania's Wailers. Fight giant crabs, targeting their joints via the incap system, and you're more likely to work out armor penetration techniques. Fighting wolves -- buffed with each time they bleed you -- you're more likely to learn defensive skills to keep them at spear's length, by first doing so more manual means.

That concept never came through before the whole span of "build your own job" or "get better at what you want to do by doing it" design philosophies were made anathema and dumpstered in favor of nearly zero-customization jobs, but... that runs awfully close to BLU's "core concept". You're describing a job based solely off its mode of skill acquisition, when universally applicable improvements could very well include that for everyone. That's not inherently "unique". It's just being the one job that isn't terrible in X aspect, which, in the case, has nothing to do with combat itself.

That is something BLU can uniquely excuse being added to the game, but if it's to be something truly "unique" to BLU, in gameplay, it will only be so liminally or because SE dropped the ball in following through.

What's unique about BLU has far less to do with how it acquires its toolkit and far more to do with the expanse of that toolkit, the myriad ways it can interact with a fight and, in that process, itself. That might not be as easily tagged as "monster-learned skills", but it's what actually makes it feel different in how it plays, not just the shape of its grind path.

[Elerus]

It completely kills my interest in any job they might throw into the limited category.

I'd rather they just use that effort to make the existing jobs better or more engaging. Just my 2 gil on limited jobs going forward.

This is something I've not addressed but I've got to lend my agreement on this sentiment. Let's say, for sake of discussion, the next "limited class" (and I think the concept should be done away with entirely) they introduce Beastmaster. As a person who played a Beastmaster Hunter for YEARS in World of Warcraft I would of course love this and love to see FFXIV's take on it . . . and I also know I'd hate to play this new class only to be told when I start enjoying it "so you like this new class? Fantastic! Now stay in your little confined playpen while the real classes get access to all the new and novel content. Oh look your friends logged on. Time to put away your toys and join the real jobs, you can play with your ball and cup solo when they're done."

I'd much rather . . . you know play the class I enjoy with them, or better yet be able to play the class in content that I want when I want. It almost seems silly I have to type that out in a modern MMO.

[EusisLandale]

Now stay in your little confined playpen while the real classes get access to all the new and novel content. Oh look your friends logged on. Time to put away your toys and join the real jobs, you can play with your ball and cup solo when they're done.".

Except these limited classes would have new and novel content, and they are real jobs.
Have to say, I'm loving how this suddenly makes content type that is met with fairly regular "It's just X boss from Y dungeon/raid reskinned. Lazy!" qualify as "new and novel"

You want new raid content? That's all well and good, but drop the BS about content that isn't that narrow specification being non-content.

[Transient_Shadow]

Here's an idea. Lets wait for the content to actually drop, play said content for a reasonable period, and then give honest feedback. Whining about something that hasn't even dropped yet is just silly and helps literally no one.

[Powercow]

Here's an idea. Lets wait for the content to actually drop, play said content for a reasonable period, and then give honest feedback. Whining about something that hasn't even dropped yet is just silly and helps literally no one.

Yeah! Just give it a chance! Wait half a year then try it out! Then wait another year or so to *really* get a feel for it! Then maybe give some feedback so they can fix it 2 years after that! Don't worry guys, by 7.2's launch BLU might not be a total mess!

People like you are why we got 1.0 the way it was.

[Blueyes]

Here's an idea. Lets wait for the content to actually drop, play said content for a reasonable period, and then give honest feedback. Whining about something that hasn't even dropped yet is just silly and helps literally no one.

There's a problem with this statement. "Let's wait for the content to actually drop." What content? You mean dungeons from A Realm Reborn? Those have been around for 5 years. We already know what those are like. Yes, Masked Carnival will be something new, but people aren't "whining" about that. People are providing constructive criticism about being barred from participating in the content that every other job can join. We aren't waiting for content. We're waiting to see what it's like to be excluded from content.

[Elerus]

drop the BS about content that isn't that narrow specification being non-content.

My, you seem aggressive over someone holding a different viewpoint, you have an alright day over there?

I don't raid beyond what is in the Duty Finder offering save on a rare occasion. I do have one friend who raids and does EX content. But the fact remains that, whatever new content is added for every other job Blue Mage will be excluded from it.

[Rhivryn]

Disagree. I've actually wanted them to implement something like a "Fun Job" category, with jobs that didn't fit in the combat System they've developed, such as an actual Bard job, Dancer, and others; with non combat gameplay that would have the world feel more alive.

But I love the implementation of Blue Mage, I can't believe they had the balls to actually do it. My only misgiving is that I hope they are working on bringing it up to Max level and able to do current duties. I don't care about the time frame, just as long as it's getting worked on. I can really see requiring a strict set of abilities to be able to queue, but I can see it working if they do that.

[Elerus]

My only misgiving is that I hope they are working on bringing it up to Max level and able to do current duties.

I've seen this sentiment several times and I'm very confused on where it's coming from. Did I miss a piece of new information? Would you be so kind as to enlighten me? This is exactly the opposite of everything that I've heard about Blue Mage: it is not meant for group content, it can with some duress enter into a premade group for ancient content. It will be level capped at 50 and that cap will be increased throughout Shadowbringers patch cycle.

At no point did Square ever say they are going to let Blue in any form into current content. Given their present design of the class the second they do that it would destroy that content: insta-deathing bosses, stunning primals, acting as a tank, healer, dps, and who knows what else. Look, I want Blue Mage to be able to run current content as well, but as much as I want the class as a fully fledged class if Square keeps it in its current design it would be madness to allow it into current content and I just cannot see the reality in which they would ever do that.

[jon041065]

First of all, while being blue magic they are monster move, with a lot of variation.

They can use the elemental weakness as a mecanic, you use a fire element spell to grow up a debuff on the monster and consume it with a wind spell for additonal damage per exemple, force to rotate between different duality whith cooldown on the "stack consumer"..

Man, I love that idea. Made me think of what I hoped samurai use a system sorta like skillchains on XI. That instead of combos, there would be the same initial starter, then like three mid combo moves, and then two finishers. The middle combo moves would be like the royal road effects and either boost, spread, or lengthen the effect of the skillchain. The finishers then would be the typical large finish or smaller finish with a DoT. The "lengthen" effect for the large finisher could be some debuff that you could consume like your fire -> wind idea. So you have to make choices in combat to do things like "I should combo a spread DoT" or "I need to consume my stacks on the target".

I like the idea of two job crystals for blue mage. "Carnival Mage" can be the announced iteration (FFV blu) with the limits and the supposedly crazy solo capabilities. "Blue Mage" then can be the XIV version, hell it wouldn't even have to be a ranged caster, with a proper rotation or gameplay gimmick that makes it different than what we have now and be used in the full game. The dev team has done overall very good with their own versions of the classic FF jobs with a few misses but those have also become better with time after listening to feedback.

For a full version of blu, they could do something similar from another. If anyone has played Legend of Legia 2, do you remember the girl with the elemental magic? If you just spammed the elements they barely did any damage but there were many many combos depending on which elements and which order they were performed in. That's something they could do here for blu gameplay/rotation. Just give each offensive blu spell an elemental affinity and make combos like I described from that other game as the base rotational stuff and then the ogcds would be spells like bad breath or aqualung. The mechanic could be like a very expanded mudra system where you trigger your built up elemental combo or be the actual job gauge to track and then the elemental explosion happens as you finish the "spell combo".


To anyone at SE that is reading these forums and is in charge of gathering our feedback. PLEASE don't go forward with the limited job system unless you do a limited and full version of these jobs or the limited job is onion knight/freelancer. When I heard "it's too hard" as an excuse to not balance the blue spells, I really heard that we have seen the best that Yoshi and the dev team can do already and that I shouldn't expect the game to get better going forward. That more of the same is the best I could hope for. That's a terrible message to be sending to your playerbase and I'm not the only one that heard it that way. I do have faith in Yoshi and team that they can do a lot better than what the live letter made it sound. I will be quitting WoW for the first time due to the game itself and not a guild issue and it got this bad because of lazy and "it's too hard" reasonings for decisions that have made the game worse and worse since 2012. The current expac is awful and I don't want to see 14 start go follow a similar path. There is nothing wrong with solo and other forms of content that are not endgame but they shouldn't come at the expense of limiting jobs. They are the tools that we use to interact with your game. If you tell us that you are working on things and they need more time then most of us will be fine to give you that time. Just no more cutting corners please.