Don't like Blue Mage? Here is how to convince SE to change it...

[Elerus]

I don't think you fully graps how hard and time consuming it is to "design one set of skill for group content". They can't even keep a good balance between three tanks that has been around for more than three years now. Same for the three healers. And if the leaks are correct, we're getting one more for each of these roles.
And now you ask them so simply make another set? And your argument is that WoW did some stuff and that "they are a multibillion dollar company". That's... not how that works. At all.

P.S.: WoW's balance is trash compared to FFXIV's. Lots of builds are absolute tosh, and every expac you get everything thrown upside-down. I really wouldn't take it as a good example.

Great! Using your logic Square should full stop put an end to all this "limited class" nonsense and ANY new classes and focus on what they have because they cannot even manage what is presently in the game. Who knows? Perhaps you're right. I think many would disagree, but it's an interesting notion.

[Fyce]

Great! Using your logic Square should full stop put an end to all this "limited class" nonsense and ANY new classes and focus on what they have because they cannot even manage what is presently in the game. Who knows? Perhaps you're right. I think many would disagree, but it's an interesting notion.

What about "my logic" has to do with anything of what you talked about? My logic is that the amount of ressources is finite, and that you are asking something that goes beyond the line. Stretching that into saying that they shouldn't do anything else is ridiculous.
Fallacious arguments and strawman won't get you anywhere with me bud'. (Edit: Well, actually that's wrong. It usually gets people in my blacklist.)

[Elerus]

What about "my logic" has to do with anything of what you talked about? My logic is that the amount of ressources is finite, and that you are asking something that goes beyond the line. Stretching that into saying that they shouldn't do anything else is ridiculous.
Fallacious arguments and strawman won't get you anywhere with me bud'.

Likewise moving the goalpost won't with me. But I'll assume you wish to converse in good faith. So, allow me to help you. I will now quote verbatim what you wrote earlier:

They can't even keep a good balance between three tanks that has been around for more than three years now. Same for the three healers. And if the leaks are correct, we're getting one more for each of these roles.

Square, by your own admission, cannot entertain "my" idea because it takes too many resources. In fact you then point out they cannot even adequately handle or balance the jobs present in the game at this moment. Therefore, since Square are already in your own words overburdened it makes no sense for them to add any additional new jobs - Blue Mage or otherwise.

[Acidblood]

1.
I wasn't expecting it to be implemented until we'd first had previewed sweeping changes to job design favoring cohesion, identity, and versatility over templates. With those changes in place, the minimal further effort would be required to integrate BLU, while BLU in turn could promote further beneficial changes.

2.
None, ultimately, save for its "moments of glory" in combat, which would not be unique for having them -- only in the shape they take. All else, I'd actually hope would gradually become the property of all jobs for whom it'd at all make sense.
Learning skills from who you fight and how you fight them? Sold. I'll buy that for everyone, albeit to a lesser degree.
Combos not as chains but as inherent synergies between different effects, bonuses, or aspects within different skills? Sold. I'll buy it for everyone.
BLU could be the first to prototype the change, letting the devs test the waters and give a poster boy to the potential change, but it should be in the interest of universal design where possible.

:snip:

As much as I would like to see something similar, it is simply not realistic at the moment, to say nothing of the risk. Which is why I think it's smart that they have implemented Blue Mage the way they have; if their intention is to open up and expand the combat system then Blue Mage is the perfect 'test bed' for it (i.e. there is no type of ability that is out of place for a Blue Mage). And by making it 'limited' they can test and gather feedback with minimal risk of disrupting the established game (such as accidentally making a current tier raid bosses killable with Death).

This is pure speculation of course, which is why I framed my questions the way I did; this is the here and now, we must deal with reality, so given the realistic choices, which is the lesser of the evils.

[TThibi]

Would like to say for every one of you crying about a job that has not even been released yet there are a hundred of us eager and willing to give SE the chance to show us something new. Limited job or no it's a good thing I personally am tired of following the same tried and true fully mapped leveling route for every single job. Which I can't help doing it's a mental program it's like autopilot. Am I sad it appears bluemage spell learning parties can't happen? Yes! Would I benefit as a blu from grinding spells from dungeon mobs? No i'm a filthy casual I do other things with my time. Let SE drop the other foot, lets give the system a fair shake, and if it works yay if no then complain with riteous indignation but don't complain before it's even live.

[BillyKaplan]

Waiting until after BLU is released to complain about its inability to partake in matchmade group content is akin to people returning after the MSQ roulette changes to find the cutscenes unskippable. Not only is SE even less likely to change things up then, but why should we wait to voice concerns about things we already know we don't like?
NO ONE IS SAYING TO GET RID OF MASKED CARNIVAL. They just want BLU in regular content too, yeesh.

But don't worry, I'm sure they'll put very lovely carrots behind the Masked Carnival to pad those participation numbers, luring in all the people who otherwise would not have bothered with the class because they can't use it outside of that content. And then, because you have so many people not really interested but with motivation to partake, you're going to get people with zero tolerance to other people, you're going to get bots, you're going to get griefing, just like you did in virtually any other game mode SE has introduced before, be it PvP, Eureka, or what have you.

[Powercow]

Let SE drop the other foot, lets give the system a fair shake, and if it works yay if no then complain with riteous indignation but don't complain before it's even live.

I've said it before, I'll say it again:

No, let's NOT wait until January to try out BLU, discover it can't play with people (like they explicitly said), and then be told to wait until Shadowbringers launches, then be told to wait until 5.1, 5.2, 5.3... don't worry guys, SE will TOTALLY fix it! People like you are why 1.0 was such hot garbage and you should be ashamed of saying something like this.

Nobody here has a problem with BLU learning skills from enemies. I have literally never seen that complaint. Nobody would be broken up if BLU had a unique progression system where the majority of their skills were gained from enemies and not simply from leveling. Hell I was excited for that part! Nobody's complaining about the Carnival either, outside of it being a potential waste of resources. Nobody says BLU shouldn't have anything unique or interesting about them. Every single complaint about BLU (aside from one guy being disappointed about the cane) is about it being excluded from endgame content for incredibly flimsy reasons. THIS IS NOT SOMETHING WE NEED TO PLAY TO KNOW IT IS BAD.

[Shurrikhan]

Let SE drop the other foot, lets give the system a fair shake, and if it works yay if no then complain with riteous indignation but don't complain before it's even live.

You say this like it's reasonable, yet specifically choose an idiom synonymous with an unchangeable inevitability? That's not asking for a fair shake. That's accepting the axe.

By the time it's live, it's not going to change unless the (early) live presence is specifically a testing ground.

[Shurrikhan]

As much as I would like to see something similar, it is simply not realistic at the moment, to say nothing of the risk. Which is why I think it's smart that they have implemented Blue Mage the way they have; if their intention is to open up and expand the combat system then Blue Mage is the perfect 'test bed' for it (i.e. there is no type of ability that is out of place for a Blue Mage). And by making it 'limited' they can test and gather feedback with minimal risk of disrupting the established game (such as accidentally making a current tier raid bosses killable with Death).

This is pure speculation of course, which is why I framed my questions the way I did; this is the here and now, we must deal with reality, so given the realistic choices, which is the lesser of the evils.

All improvement, all change, starts with here and now. No one is expecting sweeping changes today or even next patch and quite likely not the patch after that. What we're expecting is for the devs to show that they're aware of where barebone or ill-thought developments have felt lackluster, know how to gradually implement improvements to those and other areas of content, are willing to accept that the treadmill pattern is getting stale, have plans to renovate from it so that patches feel fresh, and will finally develop side-content is such a way that its assets and tech created for that purpose also aids the far greater bank of content outside the game.

It is of course the perfect "test bed", as you've said. The problem is that everything we've received in and with its announcement points at it not being prototypical, but rather -- placating. Rather than showing foresight, it looks like smug self-assurance, "Those things you say you want or find dull, you don't; we know better. And since you guys love side-content so much even when the resources spent offer nothing to the vast majority of the game, here's more side-content."

The possibilities are damn near endless. They've just been explicitly and implicitly cut down until we've been left with just a single toe of what it could have been.

[Reynhart]

Nor are our options here solely "get a butchered BLU" or "don't get BLU at all".

I suppose they started their BLU concept expecting it to fit XIV's mold at first. If they ended with that version of BLU, I'd assume that it's because they didn't find a way to make a traditionnal job work while retaining the core concept of BLU.

Sure, they could have made BLU learn their spells via monsters in quest, like other jobs did, but I'm not sure people would have really liked that. At best, they could have made you chose the order of the spells (14 spells for 14 quests and you pick one of them at each quest). Their is also the issue BLU is frequently massively overpowered in every game it appeared on.

They also commented on how not having the appropriate spells might result in being kicked, but, for me, it felt like overdramatizing. After all, you're not forced to do your job quest right now, so you could end up with a tank not having all its skills (True story when I ran Coil, our WAR forgot to unlock Infuriate ).

The stronger the mob, the less they're affected by a Slow, such that the damage reduced from a trash mob and a boss are very similar despite their varying power levels.

You'll probably end with FF frequent issue with debuffs. The only mobs that would be affected significantly by them are those that you can kill without those effect easily. Especially if BLU is the only job to have expanded CC.