Blue Mage: Are you kidding me!?

[Seraphor]

A lot of the arguments in this thread were that BLU couldn't be done and it was selfish and egotistical to expect the developers to balance it on top of balancing other jobs.

I wouldn't say selfish or egotistical, I'd say 'unrealistic'.

There's a clear divide between two contradictory ways to implement Blue Mage, and for all the nay-sayers, they are contradictory.
You cannot balance a purely horizontal progression system into FFXIV's incredibly strict vertical raid ladder, using the existing role system. "But game x has a horizontal progression system!" Yes, but that isn't built around a role trinity with as strict balance as FFXIV, this game is probably the most balanced MMO out there, and people here riot if their potency is nerfed by 10 points so...
Add in the 'gimmicks' that Blue Mage is known for, like the level spells, and balance becomes a pipe-dream.

So the two options were always a Limited Job, or gutting the identity of Blue Mage like all the other classes.
The other classes get that treatment, so why not Blue Mage?
Well they could have, however Blue Mage is somewhat different in this case. There might be other jobs that have had their identity's altered a bit, but It's a matter of scale, and Blue Mage would require enough of a change that I can see why they had a more difficult choice to make.

Red Mage has always been known for using both black and white magic. It may not have the same 'role' as it did in previous iterations, but it still has its signature black and white magic.
Summoner might have been more of a nuker than a pet job with DoTs, but it still retains its identity of summoning... summons, and it still has a nuking mechanic with Bahamut.

Blue Mage has always been the skill collector job. It has always been its own minigame, whether it's getting hit, seeing the skills, eating the enemies or finding key items, you always have the job of seeking these skills our yourself as a sidequest. That's always been the signature of the role, and its appeal. People enjoy hunting down the skills, that's the point of it. Very rarely do those skills actually come in handy for endgame, and besides a few niche examples Blue Mages usually aren't useful for actually beating their respective games.

Like I said, they could have ignored this and tried to fit it into the role system, but they chose not to, either way some people would be pissed off.
Those who enjoyed the collecting aspect of old Blue Mages would feel like it's a weak imitation, and I can't help but feel that those who wanted it shoehorned into the role system just wanted to play a Blue Mage in name alone. Summoner seems to be the closest facsimile, it uses 'enemy skills' in the form of primals, and has some 'gimmicky' spells in the form of DoTs and debuffs, plus physick and resurrect.

They also could have done both, created some sort of system to separate the two aspects, have an entirely different set of skills that bare no resemblance to the ones you go out and collect, then unlocks once you've collected all skills up to lv 50 or something.
This is where it gets unrealistic, that would require them to balance two entirely different jobs, while only getting the 'pay off' of one.
Could they do this in the future? Maybe, but there's no way they'd do it half-way through an expansion.

[Neela]

BLU isn't a traditional Job, it is a new design.

Secondly Eureka criticism is pretty unfair as the argument is more often then not "its to grindy". And I agree its boring to just afk in the fate train or wait in the base. However if you actually play the content and interact with new people and not just stick to your social circle the content is actually pretty enjoyable. And even if its not for you, thats fine, there are other people who enjoy the content the way it is. And you'll have to learn to accept that not all content is designed with everyone in mind. Only a minority of the player base is raiding, SE can't always cater to that part. They have received fights like Ucob and Uwu at the cost of 3 dungeons. Personally I'm not fond of light party content but saying that the raiding player base is forgotten this expansion because BLU can't join the raiding scene immediately is an absurd statement.

I understand the sentiment that you wish to "main" the content you enjoy with your favorite class however everyone has a different favorite class. Its interesting that they design a new combat class that doesn't exactly fit into the raiding format immediately. I'd like to see where this goes and if its a success I hope they bring out more classes like BLU.

well spoken, absolutly +1

[Karshan]

In all honesty I don't know what the future holds for BLU. Will it raid one day ? Will it never ? I don't know.

What I DO know is it can't for the moment, so I won't spend time on it, also for the moment. If things change, I'll gladly try it out, and if things don't, well it will surely have an appeal for many other players.

It's not like it's the only new class related thing that will be added for the next 2&1/2 years. 2 non limited jobs are coming, new job actions for the ones already here...
So in the end, no harm is done once you go past initial disappointment that it's not a classical job, and the fuss could calm down a bit.

[RopeDrink]

You say that, yet when you all hit that Shadowbringers content-cap and have nothing left to do during downtime, you know you're going to try BLU - because why wouldn't you, other than some self-made restrictions bourne out of hate for the handling of it? I'm glad to be one of the few who have no experience with BLU in previous games and can safely treat this like a different content type rather than 'but but but, muh normal job'!

[RopeDrink]

I wouldn't because what reason would I have to?

Nobody said you had to - but you also can't say there is a reason not to other than the already mentioned 'self-made restrictions' that everyone is throwing up out of hate for BLU design. Nobody has to do the fashion report, or do command missions, or visit the saucer - I have no use for MP, but hey, I'll go buy tickets because why not? Plenty of downtime, especially when you've hit the point of an expansion where you're back to the weekly reset grind and little else. Same applies to BLU. You may hate that it's not a standard job, but there's no reason to avoid it entirely other than you just hate the concept - when checking it out can be easily done during downtime to see for yourself.

[Dualgunner]

Lol @UwU and UCoB costing 3 dungeons. No, Eureka cost you three dungeons. At most UwU and UCoB would have cost one dungeon collectively and even then, do you *want* a dungeon designed by that sadistic team that are at their best making...


Actually yeah. Screw UwU and UCoB let's get ultimate level dungeons.

[TheHeavenAbyss]

Blue Mage was never a job that I cared too much, so I don't have a strong opinion eitherway, but I more leaning towards the side of SE making it a regular job.

As for the argument of Blue Mage being more accurate to its identity as a limited job, I can agree, but I still think it is preferable to make it a normal job than to keep its identity at the cost of keeping it out of certain content.

I think unlocking the classic Blue Mage spells via Job Quests or make it so that certain Blue Mage spells can't be used in DF would've been an easier solution. I think the Level spells could be dificult to implement the way they are in other FFs, but stuff like Aqua Breath, Goblin Punch, Matra Magic, Mighty Guard, White Wind, Nova, etc would be simple skills. Bad Breath could be some debuff or DoT instead of actually paralysing, stuning, poisoning and all that. LV5 Death and LV4 Holy and all that could be part of the job mechanic, as in we would raise some Blue Magic meter (or something more creative) and increase a level that would unlock different commands like LV3 Def-less, LV4 Holy and LV5 Death.

Yes, this is different, and I know the last part about the levels has nothing to do with how these spells work in other games, but personally I think this would be faithful enough to Blue Mage, at least as much as other jobs are faithful to their original versions.

I think the job might still be reworked eventually into a normal job if enough people keep demanding. Maybe this way some balance might be reached someday.

[Karshan]

You say that, yet when you all hit that Shadowbringers content-cap and have nothing left to do during downtime, you know you're going to try BLU - because why wouldn't you, other than some self-made restrictions bourne out of hate for the handling of it? I'm glad to be one of the few who have no experience with BLU in previous games and can safely treat this like a different content type rather than 'but but but, muh normal job'!

Oh I didn't express myself quite well. I did not say I will never touch it. I said in its current state I'm not interested, but I might be in the future, depending of course on what awaits this job. As someone said repeatedly, wait & see, and I'm gonna do that, I'll just wait longer than january and see what comes out of it after 5.0 hits

[Darkpaw]

I think the job might still be reworked eventually into a normal job if enough people keep demanding. Maybe this way some balance might be reached someday.

While you have made a well written post. I highly doubt a normal job comes out of this. Everyone points to one thing lately that I've noticed. "We want it to be able to do all content." Like this is the only job in the game that can not do all the content. We have two sets of jobs that actually can not do all the content and they aren't "fake jobs" Disciples of Hand and Land jobs. Can't take a BSM to raid, or an ALC, or a FSH, or even a BOT. Can't run through the MSQ, or dungeons, or trials, or any of the current in fashion content for whatever patch we're in.

Could they have made a raid balanced job out of blue mage? Sure, I even half expected them to, but they chose not to. They chose a different path. They were aware from the moment they made this decision it would be divisive to say the least, but this is still where they chose to go. So there's a plan in place. If you have already prejudged it and said no I'll never play this and rabble rabble rabble, That's fine. It's apparently not content that is intended for you. It's intended for those people who have asked for more open world interaction (which this is a step in the right direction), more solo playability so people aren't automatically forced into having to be in a group to do everything (yes, it's an mmo but it doesn't mean that people want to spend all day every day being forced into groups with strangers just to do things. Sometimes it's nice to go feel productive in the world on your own.) new and innovative risk taking ideas on various forms of content, for completionists who wanted more things to collect and show off, it's meant for those people. People who never let their sub lapse but don't raid, don't stress about current tome cap, and are looking for new ways to interact with the world that isn't just grind dungeons, or throw yourself at the same raid bosses over and over and over again. Sure, as far as we know they may never make it to be able to do MSQ, but for a lot of these people I imagine. That's okay. So for those of you looking forward to BLU, enjoy the content they tried to make. For those who have determined to hate it and reject this implementation, there's still at least two more fully balanced jobs coming for you in 5.0 Please look forward to it.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Just wait, see how BLU works, you are not denied from PF and the level will go up in the near future. See how it works till 50 before you already start flipping tables on the forums.

This is wishful thinking at best. Everything they have revealed thus far implies the precise opposite; they have no intention of making Blue Mage a fully fledged jobs but simply solo content. Why should people wait to voice their complaints if they aren't dislike the concept? Most players upset want to play Blue Mage when 5.0 hits, not somewhere down the line even if they do eventually re-balance. They don't need to wait and see. What they have seen already isn't to their liking. Hence the vocal backlash.