Quote Originally Posted by Blueyes View Post
I know that people are going to say that FFXI and FFXIV are different games, but the point is that they made it work. When people admit that this particular take on Blue Mage is nothing more than a mini-game rather than an actual job, and are okay with that, it's saddening to see.

They are very different games though. Look at red mage in XI versus XIV where it's a pure damage dealer with a bit of utility via vercure/verraise and a group damage buff compared to what it was in XI for example.

They could have made BLU a traditional job in FF XIV. They could have confined it to one role, with a set of abilities like every other job, just tying the monster part into the lore and job quests, and had it function just fine. Or, they could go full on classic blue mage with hunting down skills etc but limit it like they did. Maybe they should have done the former, but trying to do both I think would have lead to issues because of FF XIV's structure. They would have to balance blue mage around having all of its best spells, which means that blue players would be required to go and get those spells, and use those same best spells, to be competitive. A burden no other job in the game has to deal with. You would also have the issue of blue mages in duty finder without an adequate selection of spells holding groups back and potentially getting kicked for it. I don't think a middle of the road approach here is going to work. Either they sacrifice end game viability and go full ham with the skill hunting nature of the job, or they sacrifice that to mold it into a single role job like every other job in the game with a defined skill set they can balance.

FF XI and XIV really are very different games despite both being MMOs. XI's blue mage would not work in XIV. Something had to give. Maybe SE chose the wrong path and should have made it a normal job, but that would have come at a cost on the other end to make it fit.