Late to the BLU Party

[Fyce]

That has always been RDM's thing. They've never been able to learn the strongest white or black magics, and have never really had an involved affair with melee (push "attack", swing swing, next turn). We received a RDM that may not have been as good at filling spots as in the single player RPGs, but it still fulfills the fantasy of RDM.

You pull from both white and black schools of magic, you have a melee attack. They may not be as strong at being party filler in high end content as they could in single player RPGs, but they shine in places like POTD and HoH where they absolutely can fill that jack of all trades role. This plays back into the discussion with BLU where, while RDM shines in this side content, it's still a fully playable job in the rest of the game.

I find it amusing that you have to admit that one of the most important and iconic aspect/identity of RDM only works well in a "limited" (see what I did there? Heh) amount of content in FFXIV, Deep Dungeons being your only example.

--- The rest of my post isn't aimed directly at you. ---

It makes me really curious though: what do you guys actually like with the iconic Blue Mages? You are clearly fine with jobs losing A LOT of their identity coming into XIV as long as they "work" in all content, so it makes me think that you actually don't really care about their identity and iconic aspects/gameplay since you're fine with changing almost everything to the point that the only remaining identity is pretty much only the name of the job (hello Summoners!).
I'll quote myself:

At this point I think that people would main anything as long at it had "Blue Mage" written on it.

I wasn't being sarcastic or anything, it was a genuine thought. I've been following this debate since it started, and not a single time someone against Limited BLU has managed to show me what they actually liked so much from BLU that would remain in a non-limited BLU in FFXIV. Only one person tried, by saying that -for them- BLU was some sort of nuke mage using strong attacks, and that it was basically their only use. I then pulled up a wiki to see how much nuke and straight forward damage skills they usually had... It turned out that this person had literally dismissed 95% of Blue Mages toolkit. They also couldn't care less about learning abilities in an unusual way.

So, if you are actually okay with throwing out everything that consititute BLU's identity, what's left that you actually like? Because when I read stuff like this:

How do you balance a job that has no real rotations or combos? Simple. Give it real rotations or combos.

then I am really questionning what aspect of BLU you love so much, because statements like these basically throw every situational/gimmicky skills out of the window (which, again, is 95% of what Blue Magic was about in older FF titles). For me, it translates to: "I don't care about how BLU plays as long as it's called BLU and works in all battle content". And, no offense, but that seems to be a really weak reason to support non-limited BLU specifically.

When we say that you can play with your friends as "any of the other jobs", you people answer with "but these jobs are not BLU", implying that it's specifically BLU being actually important somehow. So there must be something that you actually care about that constitutes for you BLU's identity. So, what is it? Is it because you like the name "Blue Mage"? Is blue your favourite color? Do you simply find it funny to see your character use skills with animations used by some monsters? After throwing the gameplay and the toolkit out, there isn't much left...

You are fine with giving up so much that it genuinely makes me wonder what you actually like with Blue Mages and Blue Magic in general.

[jon041065]

snip

Well blue is my favorite color and might have been why I went frost as my spec for death knight when WotLK came out. But let's keep that a secret.

For me, I wanted a job that could learn and use enemy spells throughout the full game. I was really hoping for a tank like this person's write up. https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...concept_pitch/
To me that would have felt "blue mage" enough to satisfy that fantasy and still be fun to main. Playing jedi shadow/sith assassin on old republic made me fall in love with caster based tanks.

I also just love the melee/caster hybrid. It's what I normally play as if there's that choice. FFXIV's rdm is pretty fun but wish it was building up a meter with melee combos for a big spell finisher. That's what I thought blu was likely to end up as and be the melee version of brd or mch.

The learning method isn't super important to me and there's been multiple versions of how to learn spells in past FF games so they didn't have to go with this one but they did and that's fine. I was more in favor of hunt logs that would say "go kill 20 cactuars" and then you would get 1k needles. Again, the learning method wasn't that important to me because how spells would be learned wasn't the most important part of blue mage to me. I wanted a job that was as 50/50 as possible between melee and casting with the spells being enemy abilities.

Having OP spells isn't part of the blue mage fantasy for me and there have been suggestions by myself and others for how to make spells like death and bad breath work in a raid setting. As well as concepts and ideas for how to make blue mage feel unique beyond just reskinned spells with the correct names.

I like the idea and aesthetic of blue mage. I like that it had the potential to really ride the line between being a melee or a caster. I like the idea of using enemy spells to make the job feel different. I like that it's so different compared to typical fantasy tropes. These were the things I was looking for when I was one of the people begging for blue mage to be in the game. To be able to get the killing blow on a new savage boss in current content using goblin punch. To then go farm up some crating mats for new expac items and use something like Trine or Grand Delta to aoe down mobs. To be able to do more than just my trinity role because of the various spells that blu could potentially use despite which role SE might have assigned to it. Not many mmo players these days like to do things beyond "just tank/heal/dps and don't worry about dpsing/your utility" and blue mage could have finally felt like "I'm home" in terms of jobs for someone like me that does enjoy trying to play to all the strengths my job/class has. It's why I miss the off healing that enhance shamans had on WoW during the MoP expac.

Trying to be as faithful to "blue mage" as possible wasn't as important as a job that felt like blue mage and I could actually main. This isn't even that truthful to blue mage BESIDES using the more common learning method. No other main FF title had more that 30 blue magic spells besides FFXI. No other main FF title let you make builds besides FFXI. No other main FF title excluded blue mage from the full game after it was unlocked besides FFXIV.

[Zareshi]

snip

Heh, limited. Was RDM's iconic aspect/identity that it could replace a healer/caster? Or that it pulled from both schools and could melee? Realistically the only unique thing was that it could Dualcast in FFV.

I'm not against the idea of having jobs specialize in other content (PotD/HoH, masked carnivale, etc), I just hate that BLU is set into it's box away from everything and that the choice is forced on me to either do this content alone, or run other/current content with friends. Afterall:

..while RDM shines in this side content, it's still a fully playable job in the rest of the game.

RDM can also fill that flex role in other side content too, deep dungeons just feature prominently in my mind for them since they're the solo kings in those places.

Going back to BLU though; for me the idea of BLU has always been fun. I don't know that I'd go so far as to say I find it funny, but it was really unique using the same skills that were trouncing your party against other monsters. Black Mage always got bigger fire/thunder/ice spells, white mages always got bigger cures. Blue Mage was throwing back breaths and some oddball abilities to either damage, support, or even hinder (Hi, Roulette) in fights.

As for XIV, how the abilities would be learned isn't as important to me, though it does make for some nice side content. Honestly I could see the only reason you originally (back in FFV etc) would have BLU learn abilities by experiencing them was as a tutorial to the player as to how that ability worked. 1,000 Needles does 1,000 damage, ok. Aqua Breath is party wide damage. Bad Breath royally messes up the party and run away on sight. Compared to Black Mage where Fire makes fire, Fire 2 makes bigger fire, etc.

For me BLU is about using the monster's spells back at them yourself. I'm understanding though of the world design of XIV, that to have it be a fully realized job the abilities would not be as ridiculous as they could be in older single player games where that was a more viable approach.

After throwing the gameplay and the toolkit out, there isn't much left...

The same could be said of any job, really.

That's one of the short comings to MMOs. You need to consider balance when you create something, and what works when it's a single player game won't always work on the larger setting (in this case the broken abilities). You can distill the essence of the class you want to make, and turn it into something unique that fits your world.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...concept_pitch/

This is a fantastic pitch and example. I would like to see some aspect of learning the abilities added to it, but it's not as important to me. That could even be done via job quests. I also find it funny they called renaming tank LB so far out.

[Mibgestalt]

So, if you are actually okay with throwing out everything that consititute BLU's identity, what's left that you actually like? Because when I read stuff like this:then I am really questionning what aspect of BLU you love so much, because statements like these basically throw every situational/gimmicky skills out of the window (which, again, is 95% of what Blue Magic was about in older FF titles). For me, it translates to: "I don't care about how BLU plays as long as it's called BLU and works in all battle content". And, no offense, but that seems to be a really weak reason to support non-limited BLU specifically.

You are fine with giving up so much that it genuinely makes me wonder what you actually like with Blue Mages and Blue Magic in general.

Personally I find arguments like this to be some of the weakest and most offensive, really. You're trying to diminish what other people like about the class to make it seem like the Limited version we're getting is some "true distilled essence of the job" that only the truly devoted and worthy will appreciate, as though you're qualified to decide that. You call out some random guy for saying Blue Mage is a nuke mage, and then make a patently false claim that "95% of Blue Magic in older FF titles is situational or gimmicky". Of all of Blue Mage's spells, even in older titles where the most gimmicky and situational spells are, 30-40% are just straight damage spells of various elements. There are more straight damage spells in every iteration of Blue Mage (except Quina but he's about as unorthodox as it gets and no one is here whining BLU doesn't use a Fork except me), as opposed to support or debilitating or "quirky".
Do you even like Blue Mage to be misrepresenting it so much just to fill your Limited Job agenda? Like... what do YOU even like about it?

It's honestly pretty disrespectful to people just for having their own opinions and liking different facets about the job. It's like me saying that people who love the Lvl 3, 4, 5, ? spells don't like Blue Mage and should just wait for Arithmetician to be added because their idea of Blue Mage isn't ACTUALLY Blue mage. Just because someone likes it more for casting and learning monster skills, or the aesthetic, or whatever doesn't make the job any less important to them. And even if you force someone to concede that, OKAY, guess they don't REALLY like Blue Mage, it's STILL not wrong for people who love and play FFXIV to want a class to be adjusted to play it in all of FFXIV.

[Alleo]

Personally I find arguments like this to be some of the weakest and most offensive, really. You're trying to diminish what other people like about the class to make it seem like the Limited version we're getting is some "true distilled essence of the job" that only the truly devoted and worthy will appreciate, as though you're qualified to decide that.

I dont really know why people go around and say that this is the faithful version when Blue was used in a party in other games, had it get skills from monsters(which it would still do anyway) and other than that it was different enough from game to game as far as I can see.

So having it in it like its now but give it a rotation for duties too would imo not change the job itself that much. I mean its not like people can always use all the skills all the time anyway since you need to choose around 20 of them and its not like we can learn every single spell from a monster either, its still restricted to those spells that they choose.

Thus they could have just said that you are restricted from using the duty if you dont have all the skills, then if you have all the skills unlocked they could just give you certain skills for duties and the rest is solo only content. This could even finally introduce a job that is less static and maybe more advanced to use. But instead they went the easiest way with it and just left it completely unbalanced and solo only.