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

[TheRealMadruck]

I have gone through all the comments and I wanted to address a few of them:
(if it appears that I am strawmanning, I am not trying to. I am merely paraphrasing the best I can from memory all comments I have read)

"It is better that we get BLU as it is than nothing at all"
This is bad logic. SE currently has a precedent in relation to clear design for the core fundamentals of its Job system. There are many ways BLU could have been implemented while not excluding it from alot of the multiplayer aspects.

"Why are people complaining about how BLU is being designed"
Noone is advocating in any of the posts I have read since the announcement hating on the Carnival idea or the style of acquiring skills. As someone already stated, it is merely the fact that this job is being left out from certain portions of the game that are foundations to FF14's system...one being DF for example.

"Do you know how hard it is to design skills around all of a game's content"
Actually I do, one of my good friends IRL helped design the original combat system for Star Wars Galaxies. Yet he was adamantly against how Jedi were implemented as a sort of a "limited" job in that game and how after backlash from players they opened a pandora's box letting everyone play Jedi that eventually killed that game. As for development, It is difficult...if it has no previous precedent. But since FF14 does have a core system in place, the choices SE has had to make to design BLU to be "unique" could be still attained within it's current structure.

"How do we know that BLU won't be later allowed access"
You are right, we don't. But I have seen what another MMO known as SWTOR did in relation to making content designed for "solo content" did to that game. It practically killed its most dedicated players even if SWTOR retains some numbers. No solo content should never subcede any part of the multiplayer aspect of a Massive MULTIPLAYER Online game.(Yes, SWTOR also was affected by its F2P model, but what I mentioned also effected it further)

Then my favorite comment...
"If don't you like the game, you should just quit"
I have heard this same comment made from individuals for over 20 years now since Ultima Online. Comments like this come from individuals who have nothing intelligent to add to a conversation. Usage of comments like this denotes a lack of empathy IRL for others opinions and perspectives. I am glad that the overwhelming part of FF14's amazing community typically is above these type of short sighted foolish comments.

[ChocoFeru]

Fun fact, in most FF games, Summoner is only a flashier and more mp-expensive Black Mage (Not sure people would like a "faithfull" FF summoner)
But, in most games where Summoner actually has a real "pet", the party literrally go away to let if fight solo. So in a sense, maybe it should have been a Limited Job.

Yeah. In FFXI Summoner was more Summon-dependant, like in FFX or FFXII.

In FFXI you controled the summon and he did damage for you, or heal for you, buff etc... the player was secondary, doing lower spells.

In FFXIV the "summon" (Egi) is just secondary and less important. A shame :/

[Shurrikhan]

I'm pretty sure you could suggest your own view of BLU and it would be received "too powerful"/"too weak"/"not faitfhull" complaints at the same time. It's not that easy to create such a versatile job.

You've tried, then? Thoroughly? Have you see the work of those you'd trust with difficult work attempt it? Don't toss in a slipped premise and pretend its common sense or a widely held myth and pretend its fact.
You've seen other versatile jobs fall flat or be dismantled because of some flaw inherent in being versatile? I can't think of any examples for which that has been true, yet I've seen many a successful versatile hybrid.

First, it would have affected their ability to be useful in content. What would happen to unlucky DRKs that couldn't manage to "drop" their Blackest Night "accreditation" ? And BLU is built upon running around seeking monsters, the other jobs are not. Remove that from BLU and you have simply another hybrid mage.

I never said anything about removing its acquisition mechanic. I very clearly said that everyone could face that same issue and it would do nothing to make them unable to perform in the current climate of instanced combat short of Savage. The acquisition mechanic is a non-issue. People often forget to do their latest job quests and come out fine given the current difficulty. Exchange a forgotten job quest skill acquisition for a forgotten monster-kill skill acquisition and nothing changes. A warning that "You have not yet unlocked all the skills available to you. Do you still wish to queue for duty?" would be apt for both, but is still currently unnecessary.

Yes, more the reason to not add another opportunity for underperforming. Like I said above, be unlucky enough that you can't drop that one mandatory skill and you're screwed. And the people you're paired with in matchmaking are also screwed.

No. ... No. We already allow for far, far, far greater underperformance just due to player stupidity in ways that cannot be as easily checked. In that context, refusing to use a traditional acquisition system the potential underperformance of which can be incredibly easily checked is ridiculous.

In theory, you're right, but seeing what they did with most jobs in SB, it doesn't seem to be the direction they want for their playerbase.

Well, what's most under fire with BLU, BLU itself, or the direction it indicates? It doesn't take but a page of threads to randomly choose from to find that more players would choose better in-game guides and support tools over dumbing down the game. If the devs continue to favor the latter, that's on them.

You're right. White Wind and Angel Whisper are overpowered in the context where you need healing. Bad Breath is overpowered in the context where mobs is not immune to status ailments...Blue Mage is so overpowered that they decided it was worthy a being a Limit Break in two games. There is also something else to consider. BLU frequently has access to more elements that BLM, frequently limited to Fire/Ice/Thunder.

And none of that matters to an MMO. You know what else is OP? Life Surge Full Thrust. Foul. Deathflare. Should I just spam those every GCD? No. Obviously what applies to the turn-based combat of FFI-X will not apply directly to XIV, or we'd all be auto-attacking once every six seconds, for seemingly a Foul every strike.

In a content where elemental weakness has been removed, BLU would lose that specificity.

The loss of elements being differentiated by a Pokemon-esque wheel makes virtually no difference to how well elements can be diversified in a toolkit. Your lamenting a specifically poor design to the point of ignoring all others, almost all of which are better. You can integrate elements or similar aspects into a BLU-unique combo system, such that ought take a combination of lower-tier and higher-tier abilities to ramp up an element, "spin" it a certain way, nuke, ride that "spin" onto the next phase of play, etc., etc. You can have spells within a specific element convey specific benefits that then synergize with other elemental schools. You do not need to limit all interactions to Wind beats Fire beats Ice beats Wind || Earth beats Lightning beats Water beats Earth.

I won't lie, it sound extremely convoluted...and it also point how silly "speed" is actually calculated in this game, since your Slow wouldn't actually "Slow" the target.

It slows, just by a variable percentage such that the potency you prevent is roughly equal between being used on a squirrel, a colossus, or Omega Weapon. But fair enough; I made a mistake in giving the full details. Here: % = your potency / target's potency. It's a simple ratio.

Problem is, at that point, you're not just creating a new job, you're changing lots of formula in the game. A game that is purposefylly streamlined to be available for a broader audience.

You mean, purposely dumbed down... to frequent playerbase complaint. Gutting and hollowing =/= streamlining. Intuitive design =/= convolution.

What's the actual complaint here? That I'd rather a game with so much potential not bore itself into obscurity? If so, you're going to run yourself ragged on these forums ensuring that everyone has the PSA that "SE likes 'em dumb," and without a bit of relevance to show for it.

[Ilan]

It is an MMO. It's also irrelevant to the fact that sometimes people want to do things by themselves. Not everything needs to be group content in an MMO.

Well yes, but the fact that a whole class is solo content is ridiculous, especially if its the class that many people wanted to play. The worst part is that we'll probably get even more classes that are locked like that.

[Adeacia]

What if we were given 2 choices?

Add blue mage to the game as they are, or never add it at all. Since that does seem to be the case.

What would you prefer?

[BillyKaplan]

What if we were given 2 choices?

Add blue mage to the game as they are, or never add it at all. Since that does seem to be the case.

What would you prefer?

To many people, these options are one and the same. Imagine a BLU fan who LOVES raiding, but hates the kind of overworld grind you'd have to go through to get BLU's skills with this design. This hypothetical person would not play BLU like that.
Meanwhile, if they had never added BLU at all, that person at least had hope that it would be added eventually. Right now, SE seems intent on not revamping BLU to work with, well. The rest of the game. At least anything relevant. So at best BLU's addition is irrelevant, at worst it's disappointing.

You're basically given a choice to play BLU, or to play XIV.

[TheRealMadruck]

What if we were given 2 choices?

Add blue mage to the game as they are, or never add it at all. Since that does seem to be the case.

What would you prefer?

This is called a false dichotomy, there are more than just 2 choices. They could easily implement the system as is with the Carnival/skill acquirement still in place. They could streamline the damage of abilities to be in line with other caster classes. They could have designed skill gaining around instance combat similar to what other jobs have in place for the core needed to play BLU and give the option to cosmetically apply a appearance to a set number of skill obtained to appear different similar to SUM egis.

There are numerous things SE could have done...but choose not to. Why? My opinion is this decision is based on money. SE know BLU is a extremely popular class and basing skills around a grind on RNG like relics of the past help maintain players to subscribe into the game. It is that simple....

[Shadowshinra]

This is called a false dichotomy, there are more than just 2 choices. They could easily implement the system as is with the Carnival/skill acquirement still in place. They could streamline the damage of abilities to be in line with other caster classes. They could have designed skill gaining around instance combat similar to what other jobs have in place for the core needed to play BLU and give the option to cosmetically apply a appearance to a set number of skill obtained to appear different similar to SUM egis.

There are numerous things SE could have done...but choose not to. Why? My opinion is this decision is based on money. SE know BLU is a extremely popular class and basing skills around a grind on RNG like relics of the past help maintain players to subscribe into the game. It is that simple....

Precisely, it's also a reason why the job is limited to 50 (despite their excuses) to keep people in the 1-50 overworld something that gets a lot of public flack by people claiming the game is dead because there is no one there. The fact that the learning is RNG (something that only appeared in one FF if I'm recalling correctly) is to keep the players there longer to keep up the facade.

[Adeacia]

This is called a false dichotomy, there are more than just 2 choices. They could easily implement the system as is with the Carnival/skill acquirement still in place. They could streamline the damage of abilities to be in line with other caster classes. They could have designed skill gaining around instance combat similar to what other jobs have in place for the core needed to play BLU and give the option to cosmetically apply a appearance to a set number of skill obtained to appear different similar to SUM egis.

There are numerous things SE could have done...but choose not to. Why? My opinion is this decision is based on money. SE know BLU is a extremely popular class and basing skills around a grind on RNG like relics of the past help maintain players to subscribe into the game. It is that simple....

It's called this is the choice they ARE giving us. Get it like this or don't get it at all. I for one, like that it won't be a normal job as it would just be another generic mage if it was and I would never play it.

People complain about things not changing in this game, then they give us something new, and people complain that it's not the same as everything else. I like the limited job idea for being not a generic job like the rest and look forward to more of them in the future.

[Aerlana]

It is an MMO. It's also irrelevant to the fact that sometimes people want to do things by themselves. Not everything needs to be group content in an MMO.

You are right, the first MMORG i did play more than 2 years in a row was wow (after testing L1 and EQ for 9-12month each)
And during BC, i had many fun trying to solo some vanilla contents. I also enjoy doing my quests alone as much as possible (hard sometime on vanilla/BC).

like in real life, sometime we want just to be alone, relax on his armchair, reading a book, playing a game etc. Not alltime being with other people.

BUT, with BLU we dont speak about content. But a job. A thing to play the game, the job is the tool we use to do the content. It is not fit to "being solo" or "being for parties" (even if some jobs are strongher than others in solo content).
FFXIV will be the first MMORPG where a job exists only to be soloplayed.