Late to the BLU Party

[ChaoticCrimson]

I'm reserving judgement on BLU until it's actually available and we've had time to see how it is. Being forced to do preformed groups for any sort of group instance is a pain, but probably not a total dealbreaker depending on how it's used. I'm also interested to see what comes out of the Masked Carnivale challenges. Plus, we won't have a full picture until they eventually bring it up to the max level cap. Still too many unknowns for me to form a concrete opinion on it.

[Nihility]

just think of it like a side-activity
A traditional blue mage was never going to make it in as a standard job. It just doesn't fit the mold and that needs to be accepted

I don't see anyone complaining that you can't triple triad or gold saucer in raid content or gatherer or crafter for that matter
but they all exist and are all played and all have rewards

At the point something exists enough for them to show it to us it already is what it is and complaining won't change that. If it works they'll make more and if it falls flat they'll keep supporting blue mage as the one and only 'limited battle job'

[Andevom]

Are you seriously comparing gatherers/crafters with battle jobs?

Yes, yes I am comparing the two. Because just as DoH and DoL are separate from DoW and DoM, so are these new Limited Jobs. It's its own thing, not to be lumped in with DPS/Healer/Tank.

Yes, you can play these classes solo, but they weren't implemented in the game with the thought of being limited to solo play. You can gather items and sell them on the market board, making someone else happy with giving them the item they want. You can purchase items from the market board that others crafted / gathered. You can trade with others. You can help the battle classes getting better equipment, for example when a new raid tier is released and all the raiders want to get a higher item level with crafter gear.

Sure, you can do all of those things. But every example you just listed is not required to progress in those classes. You don't have to sell a single crafted or gathered item to gain experience or do quests for any of them.

And you can't progress in this game with only playing crafters / gatheres. You still need your battle class to get through the story. And the battle classes are the main point of this game, not the crafters / gatheres, they are more on the support side, helping you with getting equipment / money / glamour or whatever.

So you can't use BLU to progress in the story either. I don't really see the problem there, since my comparison here is of other jobs where you can't do that either. It's possible it exists, but I haven't seen a trove of posts where people are complaining they can't have their Botanist go through the entire main scenario. That's what my point is, to not lump it in with DoW and DoM.

But what is the purpose of BLU? It simply doesn't have one if it stays limited forever. Why get all these great skills from enemies if you can only use them on low level unimportant mobs? You can't complete the story with it because of the level cap. You can't enter palace of the dead or heaven on high (as far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong). You can't raid. There isn't even a reason for bringing a BLU in pony farming groups ( for example), why bother with a level 50 BLU when you can simply take a level 80 BLM? Sure you can do that "for fun", but that still is only possible if your team mates agree and don't kick you.

The purpose *is* to have fun. Obviously, I think this concept has a lot of potential to be fun in its own way. Maybe my threshold for being entertained is easy to meet, I don't know. The job sounds like it does what Blue Mage is supposed to do. I don't get myself hot and bothered over not being able to take it into that other content, because I have other avenues to get into those should I wish.

But let's think on content itself for a moment. Raids, for example, are very little about the unique qualities of each job and are mostly about the unique qualities of the fights themselves. That's built out of necessity, because in theory, each job should be able to succeed in those situations. To me, it's refreshing that SE is thinking about developing job-specific content where the emphasis is on your character's abilities. I don't see how that works if you have a party of diverse jobs.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of getting my skills from enemies and not just by level up. But if I get these skills, I want to use them. I think currently it looks like this will happen: people will either ignore the job from the start or get all the skills and then don't touch BLU again until new skills for it are released, because they can only use it for content they already did 394834 times. Of course this statement is a bit extreme, but I think it's a possibility.

You will get to use all those neat abilities, but apparently not in the way you want. I still think it's far too soon to pass judgment since we don't even know fully what the content BLU does will be like.

[Musashidon]

So wrong here. The anger is over blue mage being potentially limited from large pieces of the game even if it's able to reach the current level cap at any given time. We want to be able to main the job in any and every way that we can with the current jobs. We are trying to get the devs to make a compromise and give us a full blue mage while leaving the solo and open world aspects alone.

wrong? have to disagree. if blue mage was to ever catch up to lvl cap it would not be limited from large pieces of the game anymore and would be allowed in a majority of it meaning the people who would still be upset would be the minority raiders.

compromise is normally like meeting in the middle. your compromise is since we can't get rid of the op aspect of BLU you have to make it viable in raids because i said so.
which isn't compromise a compromise would be we would accept a max lvl blu who isn't allowed in in raids. at least this way you get most content without breaking end game.

Then what was my intent or what are you getting at?

well why are you so hung up on NGP? for me it wasn't some dodge like hey lets trick you into believing its more content. it was a question about how limited/unlimited blu is.

like i said a few people say oh its cant raid i hate blu! but is that really everyone? a lot of the blu hate is how low lvl it's stuck at and that is all pure speculation it could be stuck at lvl 50 just til patch 4.5 2 then get lvl 60 and then in may get bumped to 70 right before expansion.

second saying yoshi p hinted just deflects the discussion just like i could say back be he never said he wouldn't! there isn't a discussion there yes there is a initial discussion the starting of that topic but that's where it ends as the only thing said it either it won't happen or it will.

so here's for you. do you want blu to stay behind or do you want it to catch up? are you specifically upset its not allowed in raid content?

[Jkap_Goat]

"When it comes to BLU, my answer is that I'd prefer a good limited Blue Mage than a trash version of a non-limited Blue Mage. Especially a job so gimmicky, weird and quirky. Which is why I can't understand people claiming that they've been waiting for the job for years and that they wanted to main it, even without knowing anything about how it'd play and how much it'd ressemble Blue Mages. At this point I think that people would main anything as long at it had "Blue Mage" written on it."


I couldn't have said it better myself. I was so disappointed with RDM, I'm so happy BLU is staying true to it's roots and not , as you said as a generic magic Caster.

[Mibgestalt]

just think of it like a side-activity
A traditional blue mage was never going to make it in as a standard job. It just doesn't fit the mold and that needs to be accepted

People keep parroting this argument without any proof or points whatsoever. A traditional Blue Mage was a caster DPS with a sword that did damage and had niche support and debuff abilities. There is nothing in that inherently that is incompatible with an MMO or FFXIV's game design. Red Mage, a job that traditionally straddles two MMO roles was able to fit into this game. Not to mention jobs like DRK and SMN that are widely different from traditional iterations to make them fit into the game. It's honestly not a well-supported argument, unless you're directly trying to copy-paste FFXI's design or single-player abilities, which is something Square hasn't done for any other job yet.

I don't see anyone complaining that you can't triple triad or gold saucer in raid content or gatherer or crafter for that matter
but they all exist and are all played and all have rewards

These things are... not even related to raid content or the battle system whatsoever, so obviously no one would complain about them not having access to it? Blue Mage is, like all combat classes, built around the battle system. But it can only access a portion of the battle system content. That is the problem. This is such a false equivalency, I'm really not sure you believe what you're saying.

At the point something exists enough for them to show it to us it already is what it is and complaining won't change that. If it works they'll make more and if it falls flat they'll keep supporting blue mage as the one and only 'limited battle job'

No one is expecting Blue Mage to change before it's release. People are hoping the direction they're planning for the class can be altered moving forward. The devs do not have a good track record of supporting solo or side content to the degree that people would be comfortable with for such a pivotal FF job, and that is why people are worried. Lord of Verminion, Gold Saucer, Squadrons, these things all get meager updates that can be cleared or fully experienced with in a couple hours once every couple patches. People do not want Blue Mage relegated to the same status or frequency of play. It'd be a sad fate for such an iconic Job.

[Mibgestalt]

"When it comes to BLU, my answer is that I'd prefer a good limited Blue Mage than a trash version of a non-limited Blue Mage. Especially a job so gimmicky, weird and quirky. Which is why I can't understand people claiming that they've been waiting for the job for years and that they wanted to main it, even without knowing anything about how it'd play and how much it'd ressemble Blue Mages. At this point I think that people would main anything as long at it had "Blue Mage" written on it."


I couldn't have said it better myself. I was so disappointed with RDM, I'm so happy BLU is staying true to it's roots and not , as you said as a generic magic Caster.

Arguments like this aren't really making any point about the compatibility of Blue Mage in FFXIV. The "roots" part of the class, learning skills from monsters, has already been faithfully recreated, and is not incompatible with FFXIV. They could strip out job quests for Blue Mage and replace it with what they have now, and it would be faithful. This is totally independent of it being limited from other content.

You are arguing against the consistent themes and choices of FFXIV's class design and battle system and how you've grown tired of them. That is not a reason Blue Mage can not work or be faithfully recreated, and it's certainly not an excuse for the Devs to limit a job rather than expand their design methods and other jobs on a mechanical level.

[Andevom]

Not to mention jobs like DRK and SMN that are widely different from traditional iterations to make them fit into the game.

Right, because no one has ever complained about how they implemented DRK and SMN in this game, and they've been lovingly embraced by the community from the start.

[Mibgestalt]

Right, because no one has ever complained about how they implemented DRK and SMN in this game, and they've been lovingly embraced by the community from the start.

I mean if you really want to get into it, every job has suffered sweeping changes to fit into the game. White Mage, Scholar, Black Mage, all of them. Still, (increasing amounts of) people are still playing FFXIV, so those design choices can't be as hated as some would like to make you believe. There's no reason Blue Mage should be the first job where the line is drawn and limitations are placed because "it just can't work".

If anything the design philosophy should be to make jobs like this "Advanced Jobs", with additional content and hurdles to clear before being able to bring them into the full game, not "Limited Jobs", where they are just restricted from the full game arbitrarily, and (for now) permanently.

[jon041065]

wrong? have to disagree. if blue mage was to ever catch up to lvl cap it would not be limited from large pieces of the game anymore and would be allowed in a majority of it meaning the people who would still be upset would be the minority raiders.

compromise is normally like meeting in the middle. your compromise is since we can't get rid of the op aspect of BLU you have to make it viable in raids because i said so.
which isn't compromise a compromise would be we would accept a max lvl blu who isn't allowed in in raids. at least this way you get most content without breaking end game.

Even if it does reach level cap sometime doens't mean the devs will allow it in raids. They made it rather clear that they think right now blue mage would break endgame. That they don't want to put limitations on it's abilities because "that wouldn't be fun then" so they limited the job in other ways which people on my side find "not fun". There are more than just raiders that are upset with blue mage right now.

Compromise as in leaving the solo stuff alone for blu but also allowing a full version of blu. They could have a DF option "limited job mode" to allow people to have the crazy solo abilities, a curated spell set that they can balance and make feel like it fits in the game, or have two different blue mages with different job stones. Both sides can get what they want and most on our side have said we would wait even till the 6.0 expac.

On the other hand, if the future limited jobs take the gameplay resources that would have been spent if the next Diadem/Eureka, and the world building resources goes towards the overworld and benefits everyone instead of being a segregated instanced zone, then its a net benefit for all.

Remove "if the future limited jobs" from that statement and you would have most of the player base on board.