The Blue Mage Argument at a glance

[Darkpaw]

Speaking personally, I'd rather get different, real jobs from the limited dev resources than any limited job, ever, no matter what they are. BLU is one of my favorite FF concepts, so it is hard for me to accept I'll never get to play it as a real job. I'd rather never get BLU in XIV than have all that dev time wasted on a minigame implementation of it.

FF has plenty of amazing job ideas throughout its history that would work in XIV. Just focus on the ones that work in the game and let the rest go. Don't waste all that time and effort on stuff that's better for a single-player game. Just make a different single-player game called Final Fantasy: Forever Blue to satisfy all those BLU fans out there. Don't try to shoehorn a version of that into XIV that will not fully satisfy anyone.

That's you personally though. This game isn't designed around any one gamer, or any one group of gamers. Therefore the content can't be designed to suit everyone. Just because you don't like the idea (I'm not going to say don't like it cause none of us have played it to fairly say it.) Does not mean that it's a waste of resources. No matter how many other people back up that position on the forums because the forums themselves that we are posting on only represents a very small part of the community. There are so many more players all with their own opinions, some may share them some may not. Calling it a minigame is not an accurate portrayal. If you want to call it side content fine but this is not a minigame it is legitimate content. That addresses a lot of concerns many in the community has had.

Opening up the solo based side of things is a smart marketing choice. Not everyone wants to spend every minute of their time online surrounded with people. It's nice to have that option but some of us actually want stuff we can do on our own. So when our fc mates aren't on, or our friends aren't online we can go and still play a game we love without having to meet new people who may or may not have toxic attitudes. Blu is uniquely suited for this kind of content so I can understand why they have chosen to go the way that they have and personally while I wish as much as anyone else it was a job I could main at implementation have to agree with SE on this implementation and design choice. I don't particularly like it but I understand why they did it and I support them trying something new and different.

The job system is not some holy relic that can never be changed or altered in any way and every job that comes in has to fit nice and neat into that system. That would get real boring real quick. I like the idea of taking a chance and trying something completely out there. The crux of it being if this were not blue mage. If this were not one of the more highly requested jobs people I think would not have such a major issue with this system. It's just the nostalgia of blue mage that is making this so unforgivable

[GrenGarm]

That's you personally though. This game isn't designed around any one gamer, or any one group of gamers.

All anyone can do on these forums is speak for themselves. I see a lot of people speaking for themselves that they hate this idea. A solo class in an MMO, on the surface, is a horrible concept. A class that can't even be leveled to max is, on the surface, the worst idea I've ever heard of for an MMO. Sure, we're a minority of the total population, but we're the people who care enough to come here and voice our opinion. I never even posted on these forums, though I read them for years, until this BLU debacle was announced.

Sure, it might turn out fine. But, from what we know, these are, in my opinion, extremely bad design decisions. And I'm going to say that now, before I've played the class at 50, because if we say it in six months then it's far too late.

The fact that someone wants to solo for a while doesn't negate all the people who might want to experience group content with this job without having to rope friends into running ancient content with them. What would be a thousand times better? A job that you can play solo AND in a group at max level. This is pretty darn basic, to me.

Like, it blows my mind that I even have to argue that I want all jobs to be playable at max level and in a group. XIV is an MMO. This BLU concept ignores what all three of those letters stand for. It's insane.

[jon041065]

All anyone can do on these forums is speak for themselves. I see a lot of people speaking for themselves that they hate this idea. A solo class in an MMO, on the surface, is a horrible concept. A class that can't even be leveled to max is, on the surface, the worst idea I've ever heard of for an MMO. Sure, we're a minority of the total population, but we're the people who care enough to come here and voice our opinion. I never even posted on these forums, though I read them for years, until this BLU debacle was announced.

Sure, it might turn out fine. But, from what we know, these are, in my opinion, extremely bad design decisions. And I'm going to say that now, before I've played the class at 50, because if we say it in six months then it's far too late.

The fact that someone wants to solo for a while doesn't negate all the people who might want to experience group content with this job without having to rope friends into running ancient content with them. What would be a thousand times better? A job that you can play solo AND in a group at max level. This is pretty darn basic, to me.

Like, it blows my mind that I even have to argue that I want all jobs to be playable at max level and in a group. XIV is an MMO. This BLU concept ignores what all three of those letters stand for. It's insane.

We are on the same side on blu so I agree with everything in your post but I think it's too far to say there is no point in a solo job. A job like freelancer or onion knight could ONLY function in strictly solo content. With blue mage it's more that they didn't want to make some concessions to fit it into the framework of the full game but with something like freelancer there is no room to do that with. The current restrictions on blu would make WAY more sense on a job that can use almost any weapon/armor/magic type in the game. I didn't see you argue against there being solo content available as options for full jobs but just going to state it again so that people don't jump all over our posts. OUR SIDE IS FINE WITH SOLO CONTENT AS LONG AS IT'S NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF RESTRICTING JOBS! Besides freelancer! lol

I recommend people check out this thread and see what kind of content we could all push for if we came together. Especially the quote at the very top.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ue-Limited-Job

[Darkpaw]

It blows my mind that I have to explain common sense on these forums about the difference between voicing concern and apprehension on an idea and actually trying to give feedback before we have any amount of significant information or first hand experience with a system but here we are. I'm not saying that your side will turn out wrong. All I've said is get as much info as you can. Experience it first hand and then give feedback and constructive criticism based on reason and logic rather than emotional reactions based off of limited information and no experience. There's nothing wrong with wanting what you want, but you aren't getting it right now and since they've long said it takes roughly a year to make a full on job we have atleast that long to wait. So in the mean time all I'm suggesting is that we take a step back from the condemnation and abandonment of an idea that they worked hard to give us. Go experience it get all the information you can first hand. Come back and give criticism and feedback then. Because that makes for a much stronger argument and a much more valid point then railing against something we don't know about in it's entirety yet.

Hypothetical here: Let's say between launch and 5.0 blu gets it's levels lifted to level 70. (Not likely I know but for the sake of argument let's just go along with this.) Come 5.0 it's allowed to level 80 and the only restriction on it in current content is to lock it out of roulettes and matchmaking services (which is fair for the points they brought up about possible exclusion of various players and a number of other issues that could arise from a player not having a specific skill) But otherwise it can join all content and that's the limit of the limited job system. How foolish would we feel for railing against it a month before we even touched it?... let me stress again I know this is a hypothetical but since most of these arguments are based on a hypothetical worst case scenario lets just run with it. This is what I am saying. Nothing more, nothing less.

[GrenGarm]

Hypothetical here: Let's say between launch and 5.0 blu gets it's levels lifted to level 70. (Not likely I know but for the sake of argument let's just go along with this.) Come 5.0 it's allowed to level 80 and the only restriction on it in current content is to lock it out of roulettes and matchmaking services (which is fair for the points they brought up about possible exclusion of various players and a number of other issues that could arise from a player not having a specific skill) But otherwise it can join all content and that's the limit of the limited job system. How foolish would we feel for railing against it a month before we even touched it?... let me stress again I know this is a hypothetical but since most of these arguments are based on a hypothetical worst case scenario lets just run with it. This is what I am saying. Nothing more, nothing less.

If that were the only restriction, then why not just open up the matchmaking once you have the required skills? Why punish all BLU players because some players might not put in the required work? If the job is balanced enough to run max-level content with friends then it's balanced enough to run roulettes. But Square has stated this cannot happen and is never going to happen.

Yes, it takes them time to develop. So, the longer we wait to voice our disapproval, the longer it will take them to fix this situation.

It doesn't matter to me, at all, how fun BLU is to play at level 50. I want a real job. First-hand experience won't change my mind on that. No matter how insanely amazing BLU is to play, it's still just a Gold Saucer game until Square designs it as a real job.

[Darkpaw]

This is accomplishing nothing so I’m going to stop chasing my tail and have the same basic conversation over and over again. I hope some day your pleas get heard and something gets done to find some middle ground. You seem like a decent enough person. Good luck on getting your voice heard. As I said I hope it all works out.

[Lambdafish]

If that were the only restriction, then why not just open up the matchmaking once you have the required skills? Why punish all BLU players because some players might not put in the required work? If the job is balanced enough to run max-level content with friends then it's balanced enough to run roulettes. But Square has stated this cannot happen and is never going to happen.

Yes, it takes them time to develop. So, the longer we wait to voice our disapproval, the longer it will take them to fix this situation.

It doesn't matter to me, at all, how fun BLU is to play at level 50. I want a real job. First-hand experience won't change my mind on that. No matter how insanely amazing BLU is to play, it's still just a Gold Saucer game until Square designs it as a real job.

Ok here's the thing, we don't know what BLU will be like when it releases. The only two reasonable opinions worth sharing are cautious optimism and cautious pessimism. Maybe they are testing the waters, and the restrictions are there because the content is new. Maybe in updates BLU will get closer to being a "real job", maybe it won't. At the end of the day, this is BLU, anyone who wanted BLU got the most faithful BLU they could ask for. Anything after that is pure speculation and assumption, which adds nothing to the discussion.

[GrenGarm]

At the end of the day, this is BLU, anyone who wanted BLU got the most faithful BLU they could ask for.

This is disingenuous, because no one asked for a BLU that can't play the game. No one said, "Please lock me out of all relevant content so BLU can be faithful." Nobody.

[Shurrikhan]

Your Pros and Cons leave out possible benefits, perhaps due to pessimism, and assume as a necessary something which is not (an implemented BLU not being a real BLU), respectively.

You've made a decent summary of the forum discussion, fallacies and all, though.

[Darkpaw]

Your Pros and Cons leave out possible benefits, perhaps due to pessimism, and assume as a necessary something which is not (an implemented BLU not being a real BLU), respectively.

You've made a decent summary of the forum discussion, fallacies and all, though.

Thank you, I know it's not perfect, but I hope it is decent and concise enough to cover most of the bullet points so people don't have to read page after page to just get caught up. So if they want to post their opinion they can while understanding at the least on a basic level the reasons it's so divisive.