A question for the BLU peeps

[Reynhart]

It'll be balanced and still use enemy spells, just like it always has. Just stop with the nonsense.

I'll give you that, you're persistent with that "always has been balanced". It still is completely false...
And, just to stop with your nonsense :

We believe one of the unique traits of the blue mage is the ability to learn and use the monster's abilities that could potentially break the balance of the game. In order to bring out this uniqueness as much as possible, we have made the Blue Mage into a Limited Job that can be enjoyed alone.

Straight from the Live Letter.

This idea that BLU must use their enemy spells EXACTLY as enemies do is wrong and it needs to stop being repeated.

Tell me, how do you use spells like Death or Bad Breath "not exactly" like monster without making them completely different spells ?
Or you know what, you're right, they will be different. A spell like Exploder or Revenge won't do hundreds of thousands of damage to a monster like they can to you...because monster have hundreds of thousands of HP, and characters don't. Happy now ?

[jon041065]

Tell me, how do you use spells like Death or Bad Breath "not exactly" like monster without making them completely different spells ?
Or you know what, you're right, they will be different. A spell like Exploder or Revenge won't do hundreds of thousands of damage to a monster like they can to you...because monster have hundreds of thousands of HP, and characters don't. Happy now ?

By making them feel similar. Is the Thunder and Aero spells in 14 different than they have been in the past FF games? Absolutely

Are they completely different? No

They still do the correct type of damage and feel similar enough that most don't complain about them. Blue magic in 14 would just require they feel similar enough to satisfy most players. To a lot of us, bad breath wouldn't have to do all the traditional status ailments. Someone weeks ago said they felt it would be fine being some up front damage, a DoT, and the damage taken debuff of trick attack. My idea would be that it applies the fire, water, earth, poison, miasma, and bleeding DoTs in the game. Both ways would feel similar to the feeling of "using bad breath to make my enemy weaker and ruin their day" to me and I believe a lot would agree with that.

You guys won't convince us with the argument that if the blue spells are not at 100% of the strength of the enemies' version then it's not really the same spell. There has been plenty of blue spells in the past FF games that have not been copy and pasted versions of the abilities that enemies use and that's been fine. Many of us would be fine with it in 14 as well.

[Awha]

No, he became head of the FF online division like 3 years ago but didn't work on FFXI directly.

Their concept for smn was also not something a lot of players were happy with and they have changed it quite a bit in both expansions. Same with changing brd to "bow mage" in 3.0 and then changing it yet again in Stormblood.

It is too late for there to be any changes made before 5.2 and that's why most on our side have said we are fine with a 6.0 time frame if it meant getting a blue mage that can be used in all content that the current combat jobs can.

As I said before in an ideal world having both will be awesome, and hopefully moving forward the listen to all the feedback offering a solution for both sides. While I have not read every post in this forum on this topic but I do not think going about this as picking sides is the best way to go about this. In the end we all are on the same side as FFXIV players. Also I do agree as players we have gone against the intended concept provided by the developers, but most of the time that is a result of the content already being released and the community actively providing feedback on aspects they liked and disliked.

Which is a waiting game.

[jon041065]

As I said before in an ideal world having both will be awesome, and hopefully moving forward the listen to all the feedback offering a solution for both sides. While I have not read every post in this forum on this topic but I do not think going about this as picking sides is the best way to go about this. In the end we all are on the same side as FFXIV players. Also I do agree as players we have gone against the intended concept provided by the developers, but most of the time that is a result of the content already being released and the community actively providing feedback on aspects they liked and disliked.

Which is a waiting game.

I think what has disappointed me the most about Blue Mage - from announcement to posts to discussions and everything in between - is how it's brought out some really terrible things from people. Some people are looking forward to it as it was announced; some are disappointed; some are in between.

But the group of childish, selfish players that have spoken out disturb me. Especially those that chime in with something along the lines of, "Too bad, I want it like this! But they better not do it to Dancer!"

That 'I got mine' attitude is just toxic and does nothing but incite arguments. It's like saying, "Sorry you got sick, but at least I'm okay!" Or, "Sorry you wrecked your car, but mine drives fine!" Seen and heard it too many times. It's disturbing to me how little that selfish attitude has been touched on in other people's comments...

This guy got it 100% correct. There are people on our side that have said they think limited blue mage is a waste of resources. There are others that have said they rather blu still not be added in the game instead of like this and I am one of those people. To me, that doesn't meant to delay or cut what they already announced. Most on our side don't have a problem with the content but with limitations on blu being the cost of it. I've also said I want to see "THIS version of limited jobs crash and burn" in the sense that SE ends up seeing that the content itself is well received but not "jobs as content".

There is too many on the other side that are saying the type of things in the quote I added. I do wish that we could be united and tell SE that we do WANT more open world content. That we do WANT more types of content that can be done solo or low manned. And that we DO want combat jobs that are not put in a restrictive state. That we could support other players in getting the type of content that interests them and NOT at the cost of what others want.

I don't know what to say for the people that are in love with the concept of limited jobs and don't believe that the game can have the type of content they are interested in WITHOUT limited jobs.

[Reinha]

Rather than a playstyle that focuses on resource management/rotations/priority systems, the playstyle would be one that focuses more on using the right skills for the right situation to overcome what would normally take a party to do. This playstyle is only possible if the skills are powerful. This doesnt mean you couldnt have rotations or priority or even resource management, but unlike OTHER classes, youre skill use and decision making wouldnt revolve around this.

BLU does not need to be overpowered to be a true BLU. But it needs to have several staple spells to be a true BLU. Things like Bad Breath, that inflicts lots of status ailments, in a game where no jobs really use debuff that matters. So either the spell works and it's clearly shifting utility, or everything important resists and it's useless. Things like White Wind that heals everyone for a lot (And sometimes also clears status ailments). Either it works the same and you immediatelly have a DPS with huge healing power, or it heals for a pitiful amount, and it's useless.

As I said before, lets have both skills at full strength. At level 50, in solo mode. They can bring BLU exactly as planned for level 50 game play and it doesn't mean the job can't evolve when the player chooses to do job quests or level to 70 or 80 just like other jobs. This evolution would be optional.

Furthermore, cause youre so keen on ignoring this, let me reiterate - To create a solo content class that operates completely without a party WITHOUT rebalancing dungeons or content would require it to have one set of playstyle to make it remain interesting, and then have another playstyle that is balanced for party play that ALSO makes it interesting.

I didn't ignore it, I addressed it. Please stop bloating your posts with nonsense. They are a huge pain in the ass to read and edit. DRK has 9, 3 and 3 skills with conditional effects for Dark Arts, Grit and Darkside respectively. If BLU gets a party stance that enables a job gauge and some conditional effects between skills, that's no more designing a second job than giving DRK these things was. All the base skills can exist for solo play as well, IDC.

You dont know it was a bad idea to begin with. All you have, much like most of us, is speculation.

It's level 50 and that's a fact. If you need to level the job to be assured of that, be my guest. I'll get to it once the reward for that grind is end game.

So, without applying anything I said, youd be ok with unimpressive monster skills as 'filler'? Color me a touch skeptical. Second, do me this favor. Level up a new character, no special gear. Then go fight some monsters and stand in their pancakes. Tell me if that skill doesnt hurt then. Even those 'filler' skills hurt if youre not overgeared, as theyre supposed to.

I made the suggestion about filler monster skills for people like you, who are not happy with having skills nerfed for group play. So here we are, an alternative to nerfs! "Level up a character" just for you? How about nah, although I did test my level 66 dragoon in level appropriate gear against a level 68 Pantera and a level 68 Highwing Chapuli. Their skills "Catching Claws" and "Scission" (not autoattacks) seem to be between 200-250 potency, which is less than the average in a DRG basic combo and about on par with Jolt II. So you are just flat out wrong if you claim that there are no weak monster skills to form a rotation with. Panteras and Chapulis are clearly not meant to kill player groups with those skills.

You mention (below) that you dont think people would be jealous? Tell me something, do you think people would be a-ok if the devs said "Well, we were gonna put dancer and Gunblade in, but we scrapped those plans because we decided to focus on just BLU, which will probably end up in a DPS slot btw."

Nothing needs scrapped, and we can wait for a functional Blue Mage. Is this all you have left against a full job BLU? Development time? I was also referring to job related side content (Carnival, Unicorn, Perform), not jobs themselves, when I mentioned jealousy.

TLDR; 1) Monsters have weak skills to balance the strong skills so a balanced rotation is possible even without nerfing skills, although both are fine with me.
2) Some skills cannot be allowed in higher content as they are. They can be left behind in irrelevant content instead of leaving the whole job there.
3) Leveling to 70 or 80 as BLU would be optional. One doesn't have to unlock the "rotation" game play if one prefers to play with unnerfed situational solo skills against level 1-50 enemies.
4) I and many others are happy to wait as long as it takes to get BLU made into a full job.

[Reynhart]

By making them feel similar.

Ok, so what is similar than a one-hit kill on a specific level of monsters ?

As I said before, lets have both skills at full strength. At level 50, in solo mode. They can bring BLU exactly as planned for level 50 game play and it doesn't mean the job can't evolve when the player chooses to do job quests or level to 70 or 80 just like other jobs. This evolution would be optional.

If you remember correctly, that's what I said when I imagined a "lvl-thousand needles". Saying that BLU can break "early level" content but not necessarily lvl80, and that there's no indication that BLU won't ever reach the same cap as everyone else, despite what lots of people seem to claim. I also said that current monsters weren't designed with BLU in mind, while SH ones will, reducing the capacity to break the game without changing the spells. And also that BLU was capped at 50 probably because lvl50 is the base lvl cap, and there's may remain some people that didn't buy the expansions.

[jon041065]

Ok, so what is similar than a one-hit kill on a specific level of monsters ?

Do we need the one-hit kill spells? Sure they can be available to the "limited job" blue mage but a balance blue mage doesn't need to have them to feel like a blue mage to many of us. And what's wrong with a spell like Death doing a large amount of damage if the target resists it? That's worked in the past.

[Reynhart]

Do we need the one-hit kill spells?

Maybe we don't need a one-hit kill spell. And maybe we don't need a powerful healing spell, nor a very powerbuff barrier spell, or a transform spell, or a percentage based damage spell...but at one point do we still have a Blue Mage ? Blue Mage is not simply "learning spells from monster", it still need to have some iconic spells.

Or, Blue Mage could still have those but you can shift how battles occur. If BLU has a death spell that works like the Lucii Ring, maybe you could have a party setup focused on keeping the BLU alive and still during ten minutes for a Death spell to be channeled. Which could have been done with Black Mage, technically...

In the end, the reason why I like the idea is not specifically because of Blue Mage but because it shows that they might break some mold at the cost of preventing matchmaking. And, like I said in another post, maybe it could open the door for talent trees or special item bonuses, that simply wouldn't be activated out in matchmaking (This could be an option like "min ilvl" and "undersized" in DF)

[jon041065]

Maybe we don't need a one-hit kill spell. And maybe we don't need a powerful healing spell, nor a very powerbuff barrier spell, or a transform spell, or a percentage based damage spell...but at one point do we still have a Blue Mage ? Blue Mage is not simply "learning spells from monster", it still need to have some iconic spells.

Or, Blue Mage could still have those but you can shift how battles occur. If BLU has a death spell that works like the Lucii Ring, maybe you could have a party setup focused on keeping the BLU alive and still during ten minutes for a Death spell to be channeled. Which could have been done with Black Mage, technically...

In the end, the reason why I like the idea is not specifically because of Blue Mage but because it shows that they might break some mold at the cost of preventing matchmaking. And, like I said in another post, maybe it could open the door for talent trees or special item bonuses, that simply wouldn't be activated out in matchmaking (This could be an option like "min ilvl" and "undersized" in DF)

Myself and others obviously feel the cost they have gone with to break the mold some is too much.

I never said for blue mage to not have iconic spells but that it doesn't need a one hit kill spell. I could have elaborated more and said to level restrict it. Like it can kill enemies X levels below you and do a lot of damage if it's unable to kill the target.

Blue mage could have balanced spells that either are the iconic versions or are versions that have the same spirit/feel and be XIV's unique versions.

I wish they broke the mold with a talent system instead. I gave some of my ideas on it in this thread. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...21#post4829321

As for gear sets, I'd like to see them in the full game but doubt we will see that. I gave my idea of where they could work in this thread.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ue-Limited-Job

I would be ecstatic with a freelancer or similar job as the "limited job". This is the change I'd like to see happen with the Carnival and such but have the "limited job" be able to pull certain abilities/traits from the other jobs. Then also give it a trait called Mimicry that will let you just straight up copy one of the other jobs. Or just call the whole thing Mimic. That way it keeps intact the announced blue mage content if you choose to play it as that way but would have a modular nature and they won't have to develop content for every single potential limited job.

[TheHeavenAbyss]

Would it feel like Blue Mage to you guys if the White Wind spell was a Heal all type of spell, like Medica, instead of a spell that cures based on the HP the user has?
What if Bad Breath was just a DoT+vulnerability debuff instead of inflicting a bunch of status ailments (that have varied even in different FFs)?
What if Death, instead of one-hit-killing, just dealt massive damage (and maybe could be used to kill enemies outside DF)?
What if 1000 Needles, instead of doing always 1000 damage, just dealt damage in a regular way (or maybe could just deal 1000 damage and just be accepted as useless in end-game, which is probably the way they'll do it anyway)?

I don't think that, by saying "If Death was too difficult to implement, we could accept if they didn't include it", is suddenly accepting that they take away everything else that a Blue Mage is. As was said before, even the Blue Magic spells' effects have changed from different FFs and some only appeared in some. Would it be that unreasonable to adapt them to FFXIV and not include everything? You still have a lot of iconic spells that could be included easily as damage dealing spells (with any other properties that they could decide to add for job mechanics), like Goblin Punch, Matra Magic, Aqua Breath, Flamethrower or as support spells, like Angel Whisper (to Raise) and Mighty Guard (to add some defensive buff to the party).

I think there is so much that can still be done even within the limitations of such a different game like FFXIV. As was said before, even Thunder is different than it used to be. Blizzard, Fire and Thunder was always the holy trinity of Black Magic. They only differed in the element, everything else was equal. Now they're all different, with Thunder even becoming a DoT. But it still feels like a Black Mage. It still has the three elemental spells and they're all important. They even took other typical black magic spells from it, like Bio, Aero and Stone, giving them to other mages. And I think it's still good.

Heck, Red Mage doesn't use the same Fire that Black Mage uses, as was usually the case. He has his own version of Fire, Verfire, and the same for his other spells. Some might think it doesn't work, but I think it's pretty faithful to what a Red Mage is. He uses Black Magic, White Magic and a sword. If Blue Mage also used "modified" versions of monster spells like Ver-Bad Breath or Ver-Death, it would be reasonable to me.

I don't necessarily dislike the idea they're going with, I'm pretty open to the idea of enjoying this limited job thing, I just think the excuse of "it's too difficult to implement Blue Mage as other jobs, so we'll make it its own thing" is giving up on something that doesn't seem that hard to do. But well, I'll wait and see.