A question for the BLU peeps

[BillyKaplan]

And "watered down" like the 3 existing casters? Why does Blue Mage get favouritism in this regard? Why is "job identity" all of sudden such an important thing that they essentially quarantined the job from everyone else?

It's not just job identity, the whole "we don't want them kicked out of parties or what not because they're missing skills" is also something that literally any other job in the game suffers from, but suddenly matters for BLU. Because that WHM without regen or GLA without Soul Crystal in Aurum Vale isn't a problem? Heck people without their level 70 job quests is part of why Shinru was such a pain for so long, but you don't see them slapping a requirement for that on the trial.
BLU, tho? WE MUST PROTECT THE PLAYERS. Riiiiight.

Gonna go with option D - "why not both?"

[jon041065]

It's not just job identity, the whole "we don't want them kicked out of parties or what not because they're missing skills" is also something that literally any other job in the game suffers from, but suddenly matters for BLU. Because that WHM without regen or GLA without Soul Crystal in Aurum Vale isn't a problem? Heck people without their level 70 job quests is part of why Shinru was such a pain for so long, but you don't see them slapping a requirement for that on the trial.
BLU, tho? WE MUST PROTECT THE PLAYERS. Riiiiight.

Gonna go with option D - "why not both?"

I don't understand that they thought the solution was to keep blu out of matchmaking. Shouldn't it have been "if you're concerned about getting kicked for missing a spell then ask your friends or make a pre-made group"?

[fumofu]

Gonna wait and see how it feels to play.

[Alestorm]

I'm fairly neutral on this and will wait patiently to see what we get. At worst I drop it and never touch it again; otherwise it could be a fun thing to do in between content patches.

[Jandor]

Would have rather had the class:
A) Added like it is.
B) Added like a normal class but gutted to the point it wasn't really a BLU mage just to fit into the role system
C) Not added at all?

I'd rather have had a proper job that's also a proper Blue mage.

Rather suspiciously that option is missing from your post.

[jon041065]

Even with a choice of soulstone that could allow BLU to fit any role, it will be shoehorned into the role it is the most optimal in along with only a handful of the skills out of all the ones you've spent who knows how much time racking up.

There are pretty much required spells on XI's blu depending on if you're going as melee or cleaving caster with many spells becoming obsolete as you level and STILL it's one of the most popular jobs in that game. I don't believe it would be an issue in 14 especially since you could just target the spells for the roles you are interested in and not worry about the others.

It truly is idealistic thinking it can fit into the game in its current state, and even more so to think it can come in so late into an expansion and hop right into the current raid tier. We can argue that they have successfully integrated jobs like RDM, WAR, and NIN, but BLU is a literally a whole different kind of animal to take on and bring into XIV. There are at least others willing to give this version of BLU a go because it presumably will allow the freedom for them to not only acquire a wide range of monster skills, but equip and use them at their leisure.

As a limited job, BLU does not have to conform to the game as we know it. Like this it has far more flexibility than it would if it was restricted by the holy trinity system this game uses now.

I don't think that poster was advocating for them to just remove the restrictions from blu and that would be the end of the process. Actually, I don't really see anyone saying to just make blu work in the full game before 5.0 releases. Most of us seem to be fine with waiting for them to do the updates like they said IF we knew that by 6.0 we would have blu available for the FULL game. Many that seem to be fine or excited with this iteration of blue mage didn't see to want to main the job while many of us that are upset did want to main it. Trying to sell us on limited jobs won't work because we view the cost as being too much. Take away that cost and we wouldn't mind if there's this solo side content. A lot of us have already said it looks fun but we can't support the price tag.

[Videra]

I'll go with the "added like it is and then a full version of the job or a curated and balanced spell set is added to let the job be used in the full game at a later date" option.

Not everyone views blue mage identity as something that is so wrapped up in what the spells have been programed to do in any given entry in the FF franchise. Many of us would accept spells that gave a similar feeling and they could take on an additional function as well. There have been many blue magic spells that have gone through several iterations so what's wrong with XIV having its own versions?

Yeah, everything this guy said. I'm sensing some bias on OP's part.

[BubblyBoar]

The both option seems to be missing, but okay.


That said, combat jobs get put into a role no matter what, always have been. BLU's identity is not being roleless, it is just learning and using monster spells. Full Stop.

[MrKimper]

BLU HAS to be assigned a role, and the skills it would acquire would serve to fit that role. We can't underestimate the meta. They would have to acquire the optimal skills; some of which could potentially step on the toes of our current jobs. Even with a choice of soulstone that could allow BLU to fit any role, it will be shoehorned into the role it is the most optimal in along with only a handful of the skills out of all the ones you've spent who knows how much time racking up.

Except BLU has never been this, even in earlier final fantasy games what made BLU unique was the ability to use monster skills, in the same way that what made NIN unique was the ability to literally throw items for ridiculous amounts of damage, the learning of skills were never what made BLU, BLU. I mean learning skills have always been rapidly different in each game, take Khimari from X, probably my favorite iteration of BLU because lancet made learning skills NOT such a crap shoot of waiting for enemies to actually hit you, the only times this was interesting is when you could manipulate enemies into attacking you(something which required other jobs).

Using optimal skills is--well pretty much what BLU was, and has always been, you never use EVERY single skill you've learned in a battle. Not once, you have a set of very powerful skills that you learn and use at later points in the game, early game things like goblin punch and aero are abandoned late game. Skills like moon flute are almost never utilized, why? because they're bad skills, using monster abilities against monsters is what made BLU unique(for me anyway) and is what cemented it's identity as a job.

Therefore I honestly don't see how BLU could be in any way more difficult to implement than something like RDM, which is KNOWN for it's versatility and repertoire of low level spells and being a jack of all trades, it just doesn't make any sense to me that they NEED to draw a line with BLU, that BLU is the single most complex Job that just can't fit into XIV's system. I honestly can't see it, heck SMN should have been where they drew this line if anything.

As a limited job, BLU does not have to conform to the game as we know it. Like this it has far more flexibility than it would if it was restricted by the holy trinity system this game uses now.

I'm sorry but I just--don't agree with this, BLU conceptually from what we've been shown is less free than every other job currently in the game. It's own unique content, the carnival, is a solo player instance and it's locked to level 50. This isn't me saying that BLU will be bad at launch, but it is in every shape and form less free than every other job right now.

Will BLU be bad? I don't know, I can't know. However was this the ONLY way to implement it in XIV? I don't think so and I really genuinely hope that they don't draw this kind of conclusion for future jobs.

[Hercub]

Hi:

I'm a new player and the only FF games I have played are 7 and 14, so I'm not certain of the history of the Blue Mage.

Somethings to think about from someone who loves this game but is new to the franchise:

1) Remember this is a new class/job from a patch separate and before Shadowbringer
2) So I suspect, somehow, we as the players are sort of beta testing this character so the FF team can decide how to update him in Shadowbringer.
3) I think if before and after BLU comes out if we add our suggestions consistently this class/job will get better.
4) Remember we actually do have a say in this world because so many requested BLU that they listened to us, I gather.


Suggestions

1) Limited class until a certain number of solid skills/techniques are acquired. (essentially separate from the rest of the game until a good solid book of spells is created)
2) After the book of spells are developed, the game approves the character to migrate to a regular role in the game through a series of Class Quests leading to a Dungeon where party activity is tested.

So start separate from the rest of the game and then migrate the character in once the spells are collected with the game guiding in what kinds or class of spells are needed to make that migration. Otherwise the character is free to be played alone.