Blue Mage: Are you kidding me!?

[redcurrant18]

Well in other games like FFXI you can main Blue and proceed through the main storyline with no problem despite the gimmicks some of their spells have.

[Lambdafish]

Well in other games like FFXI you can main Blue and proceed through the main storyline with no problem despite the gimmicks some of their spells have.

And FFXI is a completely different game where all of the jobs were completely unbalanced, some even being excluded from content. Not really a fair comparison is it.

[redcurrant18]

Can't think of a job that's completely useless since they've introduced the Trust. In the original game I can imagine it must've been difficult. I started off as a relatively weak White mage before unlocking Blue Mage recently and stayed that way since then.

[Seraphor]

You're talking as if the literal only way to make BLU be unique is to push these limitations onto them.

Meanwhile, there's actually a TON of design space available to make BLU a completely distinct and wholly unique class, you know, without restricting them from being able to participate in like 90% of the game's content and not even be particularly unique in the 10% of the content they CAN actually do...

Like, as a "Normal" class, they could still push leveling into the Overworld (Such as restricting duty finder until level 50/60/70/80 or something).

They could still push the Learning spells mechanic in lieu of Class Quests (Maybe they could have put in class quests that basically say "Go learn X core spell everyone would ask you to have in order to do group content").

They could still create new and different progression systems to use.

You really can't have these 'different unique progression systems' for 'normal' jobs, not if people want to "main" it.
Imagine a new patch or expansion comes out. Everyone else gets to rush through the MSQ and unlock all their skills along the way. Meanwhile you have to spend x hours hunting down your skills before you can even start the new content, or have to take regular 'breaks' out from the MSQ to go and find your skills. BLU would be held back in comparison to all other.

As for balance in this respect, you can't make BLU too OP because then it'll be required for high end raids and world first, and hold everyone back as they wait for the Blue Mages to catch up and get their skills. So you nerf them down in line with everyone else, and now BLU has this disadvantage of having to learn their skills manually while no other job does, and they don't gain anything for that.

The only way to make learning the skills manually 'fun' and to give the system any merit is to make that the goal in and of itself. By making it a 'normal' job and a viable high end raid job, learning skills instead becomes an unnecessary hurdle to the "real" goal of raiding.

Well just looking through the data mine having a balanced blu seems rather easy, use the skills they already are putting in, have a checklist you need to make with those skills (i.e, need 1 cone 130 attack, 1 aoe centered on you ect) then tune some of the skills that seem more "OP" to have reasonable numbers.

From the skillset we've got, I don't see how this would work at all.
You have Aquabreath and the thunder cone AoE that interact with each other, so they're useless on their own.
Rams and Dragons Voices, that's a combo, so you can't take those separately.
Then all of the other 'similar abilities', how do you decide which ones to take? You don't, the meta will invariably decide for you and you'll be booted for taking the 'wrong' skill, unless the skills have no discernible difference, and then what's the point?

There's no sense in 'tuning down' skills either, because then BLU would fail to work as a solo class. It'll need those massive DPS boosts to kill things that you'd otherwise need a party for. Mighty guard would need to make you as tanky as, well, a tank, but taking that into a raid as a DPS would break the mechanics. Self-destruct and Final Sting, depending on their costs/repercussion, can either be too OP or too debilitating for serious team play, with no middle ground.

The only place I see a 'separate skill set' working is for PvP. Making yet another skill set for instances... well that's just throwing a whole other job in there for them to try and balance.

[ReiMakoto]

From the skillset we've got, I don't see how this would work at all.
You have Aquabreath and the thunder cone AoE that interact with each other, so they're useless on their own.
Rams and Dragons Voices, that's a combo, so you can't take those separately.
Then all of the other 'similar abilities', how do you decide which ones to take? You don't, the meta will invariably decide for you and you'll be booted for taking the 'wrong' skill, unless the skills have no discernible difference, and then what's the point?

There's no sense in 'tuning down' skills either, because then BLU would fail to work as a solo class. It'll need those massive DPS boosts to kill things that you'd otherwise need a party for. Mighty guard would need to make you as tanky as, well, a tank, but taking that into a raid as a DPS would break the mechanics. Self-destruct and Final Sting, depending on their costs/repercussion, can either be too OP or too debilitating for serious team play, with no middle ground.

Well it does work, if you look, the aqua breath, high voltage combo is essentially pointless unless mana costs are relevant, because you could do the exact same damage by doing 2 flamethrowers, they do already have no discernable differane outside of status effects, which are also not relevant for bosses. Rams and Dragons combo is more relevant, but then have that as part of the points system. Also even if the potency was tuned down the high potency skills could have relevant uses, eg end of fights, or if you knew you were going to die anyway, or long transitions ect. And a Blu tanking could never replace and actual tank so that wouldn't be relevant.

[Lambdafish]

Can't think of a job that's completely useless since they've introduced the Trust. In the original game I can imagine it must've been difficult. I started off as a relatively weak White mage before unlocking Blue Mage recently and stayed that way since then.

I never said useless, I said unbalanced, which the game still is (looking at you RDM). BLU is fine in a game where job balance is not a priority, i.e. not XIV.

[Kalise]

You really can't have these 'different unique progression systems' for 'normal' jobs, not if people want to "main" it.
Imagine a new patch or expansion comes out. Everyone else gets to rush through the MSQ and unlock all their skills along the way. Meanwhile you have to spend x hours hunting down your skills before you can even start the new content, or have to take regular 'breaks' out from the MSQ to go and find your skills. BLU would be held back in comparison to all other.

So BLU mains would have to go hunt down and learn their skills.

And the problem is????

Surely, BLU mains, would accept this, which is why they decided to main BLU instead of any of the "Normal" classes. Like seriously, people are complaining simultaneously that they're bored of all the classes having the same progression system, yet somehow it's a major issue if a job doesn't have the exact same progression system as everyone else...

Also, what MSQ are you doing that REQUIRES the 2-3 new skills you'd learn from just leveling up? What MSQ are you doing that deletes all your previous skills that were functioning just fine to clear content? Bonus skills from a new level cap really only matter for end-game content, which gives BLU players plenty of time to sort out their skills after rushing through the MSQ...

The only way to make learning the skills manually 'fun' and to give the system any merit is to make that the goal in and of itself. By making it a 'normal' job and a viable high end raid job, learning skills instead becomes an unnecessary hurdle to the "real" goal of raiding.

The "Goal" is whatever YOU make it. If you just want to raid as BLU, then learning skills is a "Hurdle" to get to the goal. If you just want to go collect some skills and not do any end-game content, you can still just do that even if it is a "Normal" job.

If you don't want to put up with learning spells manually, you don't have to play BLU. There's a plethora of other jobs that learn skills by leveling up. But why prevent someone else from having fun collecting their spells and then going into group play on the job just because it's not one you like?

If someone decides to main BLU, they do so, either in spite or BECAUSE of the unique progression system. Not because they are FORCED into maining BLU and so need to complain about how the character is different and they don't like it, before then complaining that every job progresses in the same way and is boring to them...

[Lambdafish]

And the problem is????

Surely, BLU mains, would accept this, which is why they decided to main BLU instead of any of the "Normal" classes.

Clearly you haven't met the community. There would most definately be "Why do I have to do this" threads and complaints. As you point out in your comment, BLU isn't a "normal" class, which is why it is a limited job, a brand new way to play the game based around certain constraints that previously prevented jobs that people wanted in the game from being implemented.

[Kabooa]

The only way to make learning the skills manually 'fun' and to give the system any merit is to make that the goal in and of itself. By making it a 'normal' job and a viable high end raid job, learning skills instead becomes an unnecessary hurdle to the "real" goal of raiding.

This is false. There is literally an entire game franchise out there where everyone worked like Blue Mage, and skill hunting itself was fun, often challenging, but a means to the end of pushing into end-game content with the best selection of skills you could have.

That game is Guild Wars 1 and every expansion it released, that not only provide a clear roadmap of how this system could have been implemented, but also how to implement it in a way that doesn't require continuous upkeep and separate content development to justify it.

[Kkun]

-snip-

A solution to this would be to still call it a 'Limited' Job, only that the limitations may be that you'd have to learn all/most/specific skills. Or just call it Special Job or something to differentiate it from normal. I wouldn't mind Limited/Special jobs so long as they experience all/most content, just maybe not in the same manner as the normal jobs. If BLU had less limitations (I include the implied always behind cap in this), say only these: being unable to participate in duty finder and high-tier content (this restriction could be lifted when the level cap increases) and being able to be 'locked' out of content/underperform in them without preparing (maybe BLU could still do duties as premade with only a few/weak skills for example or maybe there are certain skills that can't be/need to be taken*), I don't think there would be any problem. It would still be a 'new way to play the game', just that it's better in that it's not at all as restrictive as the current implementation. And people shouldn't then complain because it is not a normal job.

If Limited Jobs were introduced this way/similar without the unnecessary restrictions, then I would look forward to these types of jobs in the future and I'm sure as would many. However, in the current implementation, there's too much restrictions and questionable reasons as to why these have been done except that, I think, they would be a lot of work and these can't be done currently. For instance, I'd imagine they'd have to make a system that would allow the chosen BLU spells to be learned automatically by levelling for PoTD (since you could have put mostly level 1 spells then have a level 50 spell for your 24 skills*). They'd also have to choose/make skills to balance for PVP and make a mechanic for BLU there. Not to mention the amount of skills they'd need to balance*. Of course, if they do decide to change or are planning to change how these types of jobs would work, I would eat my words and be happy but it is heavily implied that this will be how things will go and they don't have plans to change them.

I would be satisfied if they give us good answers as to why they HAVE to do these but the reasons given were really hard to fathom.

*If BLU would stay the way it is, then it would obviously require a lot of work as there will be a lot of skills to be added in the future. I personally think adopting the PVP-style skillset change would be the best solution with less work (Please don't think I'm saying it would be easy to do or that it would be the best thing to do). The collected skills system could be usable in past content and the balanced skillset would be for current content. For past content, the player could choose either. Of course, this is just my opinion and I'm not the developer but I personally don't see why the unique learning aspect and the Masked Carnivale couldn't have been kept as exclusive content to BLU just as Performance is to BRD.