BLU for Duty Finder and Raids! Show your support!

[jon041065]

The most "realistic" approach would be to do a completly separate "regular job BLU" dedicated to DF and raiding. But that's basically designing and balancing a whole new job. So, not happening until a while... if it ever happen.

We agree on this besides how much work it will take. I was already saying that the animations could be reused between both versions but it really does seem that they were making a full job at some point before changing it into side content. A lot of the tools to make a full job are already there.

I think really they should have made blu into a full job to start off with and then have the side game content. Maybe the full blu would have come at capped at 50 still but I think announcing both full job and side content would have gone over much better.

[Elerus]

I would be really curious - although I know it's likely not something that could be confirmed - who the designers behind FFXIV's Blue Mage are. If I were a betting man the whole things just reeks of the same "brain trust" that brought us Eureka. The nonsensical design decisions, attenuated content, arbitrary gating . . . yeah, I'd be willing to flip that coin.

[Floortank]

I would be really curious - although I know it's likely not something that could be confirmed - who the designers behind FFXIV's Blue Mage are. If I were a betting man the whole things just reeks of the same "brain trust" that brought us Eureka. The nonsensical design decisions, attenuated content, arbitrary gating . . . yeah, I'd be willing to flip that coin.

We know exactly who designed BLU. They brought him out during Fanfest and talked to him.

[Vahlnir]

Never happening. Well, I get the "never say never", but that'd be way too much work. 49 skills, 24 slots, that's 63,205,303,218,876 possible outcomes that have to be balanced (and that will increase over time exponentially as they introduce new skills). You cannot realistically do that without dumbing it down so that multiple skills basically do the same thing, or are made completly irrelevant to the point of player never actually playing them. That'd be quite sad.

The most "realistic" approach would be to do a completly separate "regular job BLU" dedicated to DF and raiding. But that's basically designing and balancing a whole new job. So, not happening until a while... if it ever happen.

I agree with you, but I was just putting another possibility on the table.

[Shougun]

Exactly, it was their creative choice to let BLU have a crazy set of skills and an out of wack balance. Which is quite fitting for a Blue Mage. They've always been quite... eccentric.

By the way, they were pretty upfront about their feeling on that job four years ago already. If you thought that it was going to be a "regular job" when they precisely stated the opposite, well, I don't know what to tell you.
And it's not "caught in limbo", it's simply a new type of jobs. I don't know what's so unfathomable about that.

Never happening. Well, I get the "never say never", but that'd be way too much work. 49 skills, 24 slots, that's 63,205,303,218,876 possible outcomes that have to be balanced (and that will increase over time exponentially as they introduce new skills). You cannot realistically do that without dumbing it down so that multiple skills basically do the same thing, or are made completly irrelevant to the point of player never actually playing them. That'd be quite sad.

The most "realistic" approach would be to do a completly separate "regular job BLU" dedicated to DF and raiding. But that's basically designing and balancing a whole new job. So, not happening until a while... if it ever happen.

I agree that attempting to both balance and make compelling gameplay over a fully customize-able hotbar of over 48(+) skills is... well it's just something else lol. FFXI I think got away with a lot of it because when balance was off they just told the player "tough, deal with it". haha.

Of course as you know I believe your second possibility is the one those who want to see blue in duty finder should push for, and myself have been (well I talk about the "tamed" skills in the book, when the stone is flipped but I think you know what I mean).

Also just for thread reference, in case I need to reference myself later once Blue Mage is out lol.

My concerns and thoughts - Right now I see three possibilities, as of now:

1. SE is designing Blue Mage to be OP with all these monster skills, level 5 death is just going straight up kill things with a level 5 multiple with some chance to fail. Casting Ultima is going to make the room drop and pop, usually.
   
2. SE is designing Blue Mage with the mind of "balanced" solo open world, and mildy balanced dungeon combat. Such that Shiva's bow attack will not deal incredible damage like it does, blue mage is going to struggle to solo many dungeons and especially extreme content. It may very well be impossible to solo some of the content, Blue Mage maybe a bit stronger and versatile than most jobs but is not OP in the way one might think "oh wow, that's OP".
   
3. SE was going 1 and then heard feedback and is now moving towards making it function in duty finder after some patches to bring in the rest of the skills.
   
4. I don't see this one yet, but I would like 4 to be they mix together OP party finder / solo with restrictions and then also balanced kit allowed into current content (via specific highlighted skills in the blue mage book and a flipable job stone that'll turn them into tame variants).

Now 1 is how I saw this originally, and to be honest I thought to myself it sounded fun to go gather some OP very nearly 1:1 monster abilities and beat them up and rofl stomp dungeons. I still strongly wanted to use blue mage in group duty finder content, but I was intrigued with the idea of throwing balance to the wind for old content (like normal jobs going into stuff unsycned except even more extreme).

However after seeing shiva bow do very light damage and some of the info on bad breath I believe they're going route 2. Route 2, IMO (lol), sounds rather boring and personally as someone who liked other FF Blue Mages I think.. "that's a waste of a good job" (imo). It's important to state we can't know what route is for sure, or if they'll change their mind, especially as we haven't even tried it yet. As you said they could have just had bad gear or maybe even there are rotations that boost blue spells such that they dark arts something and it becomes much stronger. So my fear is we'll get 2, and I don't really have an interest in that - but I am fine to wait before going "wow, that's not fun". (I'm saying "I'm worried" currently).

3 is actually where I'm between losing hope and gaining hope lol. What if they're attempting to bring Blue Mage into duty finder content right now and it's going through changes and growth to that? Certainly I see Bad Breath and think to myself "this is almost balanced for regular play, tweak the cooldowns and it'd probably be fine".

I hope we get 4, I don't see it happening - yet at least, and I greatly prefer 1 over 2. 3 sounds like an emotional roller coaster that could turn out "omg thank you SE for not leaving Blue behind!" lol.

[Hercub]

My concerns and thoughts - Right now I see three possibilities, as of now:


[*]SE is designing Blue Mage with the mind of "balanced" solo open world, and mildy balanced dungeon combat. Such that Shiva's bow attack will not deal incredible damage like it does, blue mage is going to struggle to solo many dungeons and especially extreme content. It may very well be impossible to solo some of the content, Blue Mage maybe a bit stronger and versatile than most jobs but is not OP in the way one might think "oh wow, that's OP".
[*]SE was going 1 and then heard feedback and is now moving towards making it function in duty finder after some patches to bring in the rest of the skills.
[*]I don't see this one yet, but I would like 4 to be they mix together OP party finder / solo with restrictions and then also balanced kit allowed into current content (via specific highlighted skills in the blue mage book and a flipable job stone that'll turn them into tame variants).[/LIST]Now 1 is how I saw this originally, and to be honest I thought to myself it sounded fun to go gather some OP very nearly 1:1 monster abilities and beat them up and rofl stomp dungeons. I still strongly wanted to use blue mage in group duty finder content, but I was intrigued with the idea of throwing balance to the wind for old content (like normal jobs going into stuff unsycned except even more extreme).

However after seeing shiva bow do very light damage and some of the info on bad breath I believe they're going route 2. Route 2, IMO (lol), sounds rather boring and personally as someone who liked other FF Blue Mages I think.. "that's a waste of a good job" (imo). It's important to state we can't know what route is for sure, or if they'll change their mind, especially as we haven't even tried it yet. As you said they could have just had bad gear or maybe even there are rotations that boost blue spells such that they dark arts something and it becomes much stronger. So my fear is we'll get 2, and I don't really have an interest in that - but I am fine to wait before going "wow, that's not fun". (I'm saying "I'm worried" currently).

3 is actually where I'm between losing hope and gaining hope lol. What if they're attempting to bring Blue Mage into duty finder content right now and it's going through changes and growth to that? Certainly I see Bad Breath and think to myself "this is almost balanced for regular play, tweak the cooldowns and it'd probably be fine".

I hope we get 4, I don't see it happening - yet at least, and I greatly prefer 1 over 2. 3 sounds like an emotional roller coaster that could turn out "omg thank you SE for not leaving Blue behind!" lol.

I don't know who you are but you are bad ass. I agree.

[Auryan]

1. SE is designing Blue Mage to be OP with all these monster skills, level 5 death is just going straight up kill things with a level 5 multiple with some chance to fail. Casting Ultima is going to make the room drop and pop, usually.
   
2. SE is designing Blue Mage with the mind of "balanced" solo open world, and mildy balanced dungeon combat. Such that Shiva's bow attack will not deal incredible damage like it does, blue mage is going to struggle to solo many dungeons and especially extreme content. It may very well be impossible to solo some of the content, Blue Mage maybe a bit stronger and versatile than most jobs but is not OP in the way one might think "oh wow, that's OP".
   
3. SE was going 1 and then heard feedback and is now moving towards making it function in duty finder after some patches to bring in the rest of the skills.
   
4. I don't see this one yet, but I would like 4 to be they mix together OP party finder / solo with restrictions and then also balanced kit allowed into current content (via specific highlighted skills in the blue mage book and a flipable job stone that'll turn them into tame variants).

Now 1 is how I saw this originally, and to be honest I thought to myself it sounded fun to go gather some OP very nearly 1:1 monster abilities and beat them up and rofl stomp dungeons. I still strongly wanted to use blue mage in group duty finder content, but I was intrigued with the idea of throwing balance to the wind for old content (like normal jobs going into stuff unsycned except even more extreme).

I'm the opposite, I find point 1 to be the most boring of the options. Point 2 would be my pick. This option creates the opportunity of looking for other BLUs with different builds to do trials and 8-mans. It sounds like it'd be fun to organize an all-BLU party with my FC. As for point 3...that is highly unlikely based on the way they develop content. BLU has been in the works for over a year now and what we see are the results of that time in development. Feedback is usually taken after the content comes out. A famous example would be Eureka. 4 is also unlikely. I really don't think it's as easy as just curating "party-friendly" spells. It would require SE to essentially create two entirely different jobs under the title of BLU. So much work to balance the party mode and provide updates to the solo aspect.

I think it's more likely that BLU will stay as is and will slowly rise in level caps and get additional content to the Carnival (and hopefully other things). I hope that it can get to the newer Shadowbringer areas early in the 5.x series, but barred from any raids (along with the usual restrictions).

[jon041065]

I'm the opposite, I find point 1 to be the most boring of the options. Point 2 would be my pick. This option creates the opportunity of looking for other BLUs with different builds to do trials and 8-mans. It sounds like it'd be fun to organize an all-BLU party with my FC. As for point 3...that is highly unlikely based on the way they develop content. BLU has been in the works for over a year now and what we see are the results of that time in development. Feedback is usually taken after the content comes out. A famous example would be Eureka. 4 is also unlikely. I really don't think it's as easy as just curating "party-friendly" spells. It would require SE to essentially create two entirely different jobs under the title of BLU. So much work to balance the party mode and provide updates to the solo aspect.

I think it's more likely that BLU will stay as is and will slowly rise in level caps and get additional content to the Carnival (and hopefully other things). I hope that it can get to the newer Shadowbringer areas early in the 5.x series, but barred from any raids (along with the usual restrictions).

Hello again Auryan. Hope you're doing well.

I'm still going to disagree. I hope 4 happens in the sense that there is a way to switch between OP limited blu and a full job blu so that the people that want the solo job don't have it changed on them. I think 3 is the likely outcome out of the four though.

[Hercub]

I'm the opposite, I find point 1 to be the most boring of the options. Point 2 would be my pick. This option creates the opportunity of looking for other BLUs with different builds to do trials and 8-mans. It sounds like it'd be fun to organize an all-BLU party with my FC. As for point 3...that is highly unlikely based on the way they develop content. BLU has been in the works for over a year now and what we see are the results of that time in development. Feedback is usually taken after the content comes out. A famous example would be Eureka. 4 is also unlikely. I really don't think it's as easy as just curating "party-friendly" spells. It would require SE to essentially create two entirely different jobs under the title of BLU. So much work to balance the party mode and provide updates to the solo aspect.

I think it's more likely that BLU will stay as is and will slowly rise in level caps and get additional content to the Carnival (and hopefully other things). I hope that it can get to the newer Shadowbringer areas early in the 5.x series, but barred from any raids (along with the usual restrictions).

All, good in the hood, man. But some Elves are not Elves as they seem. Moderator up and down man, they cannot be Ivy League. Like those Coopers and Vanderbilts, cool with me known them "sense" the time of Final Fantasy 14 at the Lion school that I went to. Times up for the showcasers when the Blue Mage comes bonding with the Viera away from the Bunnies. What do we call ourselves dogs, cats not Bunnies Man that is not what Viera means the Wolves in Final Fantasy 14. Well, I say again. All's Cool in the hood with this game and all's good in the Hood with this game but I know some outsiders just want to be dragon. We go back to the time of the NRA, that is in Final Fantasy 14 speak the Play Boy Bunny Gangster which is Viera. Nah, man not Northern Republican Army not National Rifle Association, which is straight up Hillary and Elizabeth Warren, but instead this game knows NRA means like always meant "Not Riverside Amen." Cool, man, All is good in the hood and all is cool in the hood. I don't know man, this game is great, those patches are cool, man. Well, thanks for the respect. Really cool of you to accept me FF14 as I accept you, tons of love man. You got to the root of problem. Man, I love you. We are cool.

[Shougun]

I'm the opposite, I find point 1 to be the most boring of the options. Point 2 would be my pick. This option creates the opportunity of looking for other BLUs with different builds to do trials and 8-mans. It sounds like it'd be fun to organize an all-BLU party with my FC. As for point 3...that is highly unlikely based on the way they develop content. BLU has been in the works for over a year now and what we see are the results of that time in development. Feedback is usually taken after the content comes out. A famous example would be Eureka. 4 is also unlikely. I really don't think it's as easy as just curating "party-friendly" spells. It would require SE to essentially create two entirely different jobs under the title of BLU. So much work to balance the party mode and provide updates to the solo aspect.

I think it's more likely that BLU will stay as is and will slowly rise in level caps and get additional content to the Carnival (and hopefully other things). I hope that it can get to the newer Shadowbringer areas early in the 5.x series, but barred from any raids (along with the usual restrictions).

Not that I'm saying you can't enjoy 2 (vaguely stronger job, still /requires/ parties to complete most group content) so don't get me wrong there, your opinion is yours, but I guess to me it just sounds like a bad use of an iconic job*, and.. a very hard sell. *To be fair not as iconic as say Paladin but still pretty known, at least compared to Necromancer - that was in like what one game? lol.

I guess let me put it this way, let's imagine Blue Mage is vaguely balanced (such that spells are not OP as their monster counterpart, "2") but blue mage is still a bit stronger than say normal jobs (and versatile):

If it's version 2 - you make a group of Blue Mages for content that was semi challenging to a bit challenging at the time gear was new, but now your blue is probably (we don't know how gear works) over gearing the area and your blue is far more versatile / likely slightly more powerful than a regular job. In this context if we sync our normal characters to do shiva extreme she'll still have some challenge but not really much (due to our gear, and knowledge of the fight), now imagine even more powerful characters with that gear - it's even easier BUT we had to go through all the work of finding people just to do it because while stronger we're not strong enough to solo it.

So.. it sounds like to me "more work to have a vaguely easier time than a synced job, but a much harder time than if you went unsyc with your normal job". Or in other words you hit the sweet spot between "easy enough that it isn't that interesting" and "slow enough that it's worse than just being a regular job, if you wanted to farm it". By sweet spot I'm being sarcastic of course lol, imo that's a bad spot (imo :P).

I'd also say it's a bit, imo, annoying SE would make a job that a number of people have began to love (FFXI and other) and force it into "you must use party finder or you can't really play it (at least develop it, spells wise - they'll have the circus for some added solo value), but you can only play it in content that you could do better with your other job, and it can't play in new fresh content that rewards most of your jobs / account progress best". The only saving grace in that mess would be if Circus is both amazing fun AND offers great rewards (right now the rewards are.. eh.. but that's only one page we've seen out of many - they could get spicy ). If I can't do new content then at least I want to be able to do the old content in grand style.

"Titan casts gaol on solo blue mage"
"blue mage uses reflect"
"Titan is gaol'd"
"blue mage summons titan's sand plume under titan's feet"

So I guess if Blue Mage is for people who like to shout for party finder / have a close knit of people available and it's balanced such that it's only a bit better than a normal job.. but that it can't take part in relevant content and can't farm content better than unsyncing - well I can easily say I will not value Blue Mage. That's a big if lol. I know I've said it a few times, cause at this point we're having hypothetical discussions but it's an easy if that then this sort of function. My estimation is that if Blue Mage is version 2 then "how much will I be annoyed" relying greatly on how much fun and value Circus can bring, if circus blows my mind and drops awesome things then it can help take away the sting but if circus is "okay" and all of version 2 is true then.. Bleh lol.

If it was 1, OP version, I'd have fun going in and breaking bosses and FATEs (lots of fates I'd like to solo but you can't due to the sync), telling their wipe mechanics to get rekt and farming stuff that I'd otherwise have more trouble with on a regular job (like some primals are harder to solo than others due to specific mechanics).

I agree wholly that 4 is not an easy task, but I would say it is a feasible one.