Let's not be too hard on SE about BLU and in general.

[DeaconMoore]

Don't be too hard on SE eh? Hmm, well, I don't know. Is it too hard to ask for a BLU I could main?

On one hand it's cool they're willing to make something buff and apparently different enough it'd break the game, but shouldn't that go into it's own little game? Lets call it FF Blues Cool and make it a stand alone product.

On the other hand I was getting super hyped hearing Blue Mage and then all that energy went poof outta me hearing "limited job", "level 50 capped", "no duty finder", etc. I don't know guys, this is an mmo, when you pick up a class you expect it to be fully playable in all the games content, not just in a small selection of it off on the side to be done when you're bored.

Personally, though I'll see what its about when it gets patched in, I'd sooner have no BLU mage at all than a limited one. It'd have been better to put the resources spent on this BLU on a different job that wouldn't be so limited imo.

[jon041065]

I'll be hard on them because I believe they can do better than how they made things sound during the live letter. I could understand and be totally fine if they said they were working on a project with some details of what it actually is but did not give us an estimated patch it would be done and we were just asked to be patient.

[Reynhart]

The thing is, it's locked at lvl 50. Why play BLU in the lvl 50 overworld when your lvl 70 characters can kill everything in one or two hits. Why go lvl 50 BLU in PF duties when most people unsync them in. BLU may be fun to play and collect abilities on, but once you have, it's almost useless. That's my gripe with it.

Why level another job when you already have your main lvl 70 and can do every content with it ? Because it's fun to play something different for a while, especially right before a new expansion, a time period where new content is the most scarce.

Is it too hard to ask for a BLU I could main?

No, it's not. But I'm not sure people would really be pleased to see BLU twisted and gimped to fit it. Especially since we still don't know for how long BLU will have a reduced level cap. For all we know it could be bumped to 80 at 5.0, because the new content could be designed to be BLU-proof from the get-go. As I said elsewhere, if the level cap of the game was 30. SCH would be totally broken and I'd understand removing it from matchmaking.

[Alleo]

I am sorry but SE is not our friend, we dont get this game for free. We are paying for this monthly (+expansions) and thus as a customer have the right to complain.

As long as posters are not directly insulting people they have the right to complain and post about this. You dont need to like the complain, thats fine but your post sounds like we should stop criticism just because they are working on the game and content.

Have nobody complain about things they dont like and they might introduce the x. version of the content again and again while more people will simply stop playing and at the end they will stand there and say: Nobody complained so we thought that people like it..which depending on how much people they lost this could even be bad for all those that still enjoy the game.

They have stated more than once that a complaint is worth much more than a compliment, because then they can know if something is not good. Then they can react towards it and make it better. Otherwise they will just lose more and more people without knowing why which is the worst for a company that wants to earn money.

Thus no we should not stop complaining, we should do it in a nice way without insults but I see far more good and thought out posts then those that are just insulting.

(And sorry if Eureka over all languages and over so many different sites is seen as mostly bad then its not about "this is just not content for you" but more like "this is probably bad content for many". And lets remember, without complaints we would still have that horrible "greed only" rule in the 24 mans..)

[DeaconMoore]

No, it's not. But I'm not sure people would really be pleased to see BLU twisted and gimped to fit it. Especially since we still don't know for how long BLU will have a reduced level cap. For all we know it could be bumped to 80 at 5.0, because the new content could be designed to be BLU-proof from the get-go. As I said elsewhere, if the level cap of the game was 30. SCH would be totally broken and I'd understand removing it from matchmaking.

...

Ok...

Here's the thing, why on earth would a game designer purposefully design a class that is broken? Now, don't get me wrong, I know it's easy to do that, I've done it myself, but you don't just stop there when designing. You look at your monster, take a step back, and tweak it so it's not broken while maintaining the feel you want it to have. Seriously, take a look at even Black Mages. They managed to present them as a class and yet where are all their instant death spells? Those spells appear in other FF games starting with the first one, so why not here? Hmm, probably because they're too OP and defeat the feel and nature of a MMO style game they were putting the class in.

This is an MMO not a single player game. All classes should be able to play together at will. No class should be banned from content because it's OP/broken. It should be designed to be playable in all the content.

Unless they're going to change direction on what they've shown I really doubt BLU will be level 80 and allowed in all content in 5.0; it'll be 6.0+ before we see level 80 BLU given what's been said thus far.

BLU as is isn't even a class, it's really just a mini-game. How's that not twisting and gimping it?

[Vexander]

I like Blue Mage, but then again, I don't think I have expectations for it either.

[Dualgunner]

One thing I think needs to be appreciated is the passion, no matter your position. If people didn't love this game, or love their communities, or love this series, there wouldn't be the outrage. There'd be a quiet "huh".

[Reynhart]

Here's the thing, why on earth would a game designer purposefully design a class that is broken?

Blue Mage, Enemy Skill, Lore or whatever the name is, in every game you have freely access to the skills it was always broken. And, like Yoshi-P said, it's part of what make Blue Mage fun.

Seriously, take a look at even Black Mages. They managed to present them as a class and yet where are all their instant death spells?

Sure, they removed one or two instant death spells. It doesn't fundamentaly change the class (Especially since Death is usually a very high level spell, and we're still "only" lvl 70). How many staple Blue Magic would you have to remove to make BLU fit into a single spot in the holy trinity, and at that point, would it still really be worthy of the Blue Mage title ?

In most games, Summoner is basically a flashier and more powerful Black Mage (And when its not, it frequently plays as a solo job when it summons something), so they had two options :

• Make it flashier and more powerful Black Mage...but then, what's the point of Black Mage ?
• Make it something else so that both jobs are totally different, even if it means ignoring the SMN archetype.

They did the second, and people are still upset by it, even though SMN is a fairly strong job in the game. They did the same choice for DRK, that has really not much ties in its previous incarnations. They did the same for RDM, probably because a "master of none" has no place in an MMO. So, this time, they said "No ! We need to stick to what Blue Mage is, even if it means changing the rules".

All classes should be able to play together at will. No class should be banned from content because it's OP/broken.

Blame the playerbase. In every BLU thread, you had people saying that they would glagly kick someone who didn't make the effort to learn every skill there is, whatever the difficulty or the randomness behind. There, now, you can't kick a BLU.

Unless they're going to change direction on what they've shown I really doubt BLU will be level 80 and allowed in all content in 5.0; it'll be 6.0+ before we see level 80 BLU given what's been said thus far.

They didn't say anything about how BLU will be treated in the future. The level 50 cap is not there by accident, it's because it's the level cap for the base game. If they only wanted BLU not breaking current content, it would be released with lvl 60 cap. And since SB came with HW, we can assume that SH will come with both SB and HW, so if you go beyond lvl50, then you can go up to 80 for the same price. And, again, SH content can de designed with BLU in mind, to limit how much the job will be broken.

BLU as is isn't even a class, it's really just a mini-game. How's that not twisting and gimping it?

In a game where the main complain is the lack of new content and following the same formula, this is new content. And for that alone, it's fare more interesting for me than simply another job that you'll drag in the same old type of content with the exact same turn of events and the exact same rewards.

[Alleo]

Well when I read up on Blue mage they seemingly have in common that they get their skills through the monsters they fight but even there how they get it from them is quite different from each game. So Blue mage in FF14 who would learn certain basics skills for duty content by taking on quests to kill certain monsters and get certain skills from them would still be like other blue mages just with a quest marker as the guide line. (And seemingly it was not all the time OP either.)

The death skill could also still be in the game but simply either locked for duties or just dont have any effects on them (or less effect on monsters in duties).

So even with some balance the basic of the job which is getting skills from monsters would still be there. You are also even with that limited job limited. Its not like you can go around and get every single monster spell in the game. You might have the ability to copy stuff from monsters but can only have 49 skills at release and can also use 20 of them actively. Thus you are already not 100% a blue mage either because it has restrictions. So why would it be bad if we got one more restriction in form of a certain rotation in duties? Again this would be taken away for solo content and the blue duty. There they could be as overpowered as they want to be.

So that way: New content, still playable in every other relevant content, overpowered in solo play, still has the identity of the job by getting all skills from killing monsters (just some have also quests before that).

They didn't say anything about how BLU will be treated in the future. The level 50 cap is not there by accident, it's because it's the level cap for the base game. If they only wanted BLU not breaking current content, it would be released with lvl 60 cap. And since SB came with HW, we can assume that SH will come with both SB and HW, so if you go beyond lvl50, then you can go up to 80 for the same price. And, again, SH content can de designed with BLU in mind, to limit how much the job will be broken.

They have made quite sure to say that this was a solo job and that you can only do the old duties if you use a premade group because it would otherwise be too strong. How exactly would it make sense for it to reach lvl80 in Shadowbringers? Because if that would be the case it could simply destroy any raiding scene because those endgame raids can be done with premades thus would be content that blue mage can do.

Also why would they design content for the new expansion with blue mage in mind if they stated that its a limited job and solo play. And they have said that one of the reasons they chose to go that way, was the fear that blue mages would be kicked out of duties because they would not have certain abilities. What change other than creating restrictions would change that? And if they use restrictions to make it playable in shadowbringer instanced content then why restrict it at all? Why not release it at lvl 60 and raise it to 70 at the expansion release? Why state that over the 5.x patches they will increase the levels but never said that its going to be max level if that would be that case?

[Shadowshinra]

(Also which blue mage is the real blue mage? Because as far as I can see no FF has the exact same blue mage in their game. Heck each one of them seems to get their skills in a different way. So why would it be so bad to have another adaption for FF14?)

People have become so fixated on FF11's version of BLU (Including the devs it seems), it's the only one with an enormous amount of skills you can choose from. More or less every other version had around 30 and even then you would only use a select few of those, around 10 at best. (Aqua Breath, Death, Needles, Mighty Guard and Goblin Punch for example) as the others were either useless or extremely niche. And sure they were strong, but they were far from OP. In your FF5 example, Blue would usually only be used as a cross-job because it was usually out classed by Samurai or Mystic Knight for example. So the idea that they would be too op for XIV is just silly. So is the argument that they would be like BLM if they were turned into a normal job with a future update. (Apparently using any sort of spells = BLM now?)