SE, the concept of "Limited Jobs" is a really bad idea, turn back now

[Auryan]

I don't have a problem with the concept.

Now, if I were a big fan of BLU, then maybe this would miff me. But I'm all for SE experimenting with other forms of content. And honestly, jobs they pick for limited jobs...are probably jobs they were unlikely to ever add as normal jobs. If Yoshi P thought they might add blue mage in 6.0 for example I don't think they would have added it as a limited job. Same with beastmaster if that ends up as the next limited job.

I also wouldn't be shocked if they stopped adding 2 new jobs per expansion. I could honestly see it slowing down to one new full job in 6.0. Because every new job adds overhead in future expansions. They all need new weapon models, new job quests, new artifact gear, new spells and animations, and they all have to be balanced. So I expect eventually two jobs per expansion will dwindle to 1, further cutting down the chances of jobs like blue mage or beastmaster anyway.

If it's 'get this job as a limited job side content or never at all' I'd easily take the former. The game needs more side content outside of the endgame loot treadmill, and this is a system that could be fun to see expanded on in the future with more limited job specific duties liked the masked carnival.

That is how I see the limited job system. Thank you for describing it better than I ever could. I don't think the idea of jobs as content is inherently bad. It comes down to execution.
When I look at niche jobs like PUP, BST, BLU, Orator, Mime, Arithmetician and so many others, you get the impression that these jobs would never even be considered of being added to XIV without this concept. And I know that people get attached to BLU thanks in large parts to XI, Tactics, etc, but I think that having it in whatever form (and as much requested side content to boot) is better than people constantly requesting it after every expansion and the devs going, "We're thinking about it."

I haven't really thought about the balancing and cost issues down the line, but it could very well be how things will eventually go. That makes the idea of limited jobs that much more interesting, since it's not a tool do the content like the standard jobs, but rather more like content in of itself. If they can develop and expand the system slowly like they with other side content such as the Gold Saucer, I think we'll have a very reliable and consistent form of side content in these jobs. At least, that's what I'm hoping.

[grinkdaboy]

my final solution to the blue mage question:

add a true blue mage that works just like a normal job. have 1 job quest per level to get all the skills.

[Kalise]

I love the idea of limited jobs, and would like to see the concept expanded further with more limited jobs and minigames tired to those jobs.

It's a great concept to keep players that don't want to contribute to a party out of battle content (further enhanced by the trust system in shb) and it's something other than roulettes and gold saucer for the most casual players.

My qualm with this line of thought, is every time I go into Masked Carnivale, I think back to Kingdom Hearts and the Colosseum side content (Later in FFXIII-2 also) which is arguably some of the best side-content for a game.

With my immediate thought being... "Why couldn't this be something that ANY job can do as side content?"

Like, imagine how much fun it could be to have a Colosseum side content (Which we have precedent for with the Coliseum in Ul'dah which currently is only used for PLD quests) where you get to fight bunches of different enemies, including multiples of (Less powerful) bosses. Like fighting 2 Ifrits. Maybe fighting Susano and Titan at the same time.

Since, I personally fail to see the exact reason why such side content, must be relegated to dedicated "Limited Jobs" instead of being available to ANY job? I mean, you can't even argue that it's because of how "OP" the Limited Jobs are (Supposed to be) due to the fact that in order to make it fun, it'd have to be balanced to their power level anyway (Hence why most things in the Carnivale are immune to insta-kill spells)...

In addition, there's also my inability to see why, if such content HAS to be relegated to a specific job... Why said job needs to be "Limited" in order to have that content? Since again, the content will be balanced around their power level irregardless of if they're "Limited" or not. So, what's the major difference between it being balanced around an "OP" Limited job and being balanced around a normal job variant of the class aside from one inherently removes potential content from people who aren't "The most casual players" (With the other not actually removing content from these players)

Like, a non-"Limited Job" BLU could still have Masked Carnivale. It could still have the ability to go around the overworld and learn cool new spells from monsters. It could still do all the same things that the current "Limited Job" version could do. Only, it would also be able to be played by other people who want to do other things with it too, it could be used by all players (Casual included) to do MSQ's. It could be used by raiders to raid. It could be used by all players (Casuals included) to do roulettes. It could be used by all players (Casuals included) to do Exploratory Missions.

This is what I don't fully understand. No-one has yet to present a compelling argument about why a "Limited Job" system is beneficial in any way. The best I've seen is about development time in regards to "Balancing", but that needs to be done anyway for the unique content they get used in because otherwise stuff like Masked Carnivale wouldn't be very interesting at all (For example, it's already markedly less interesting because of Final Sting/Self Detonation cheese, imagine if Doom/Tail Screw would work, or if things like Ram's Voice > Dragon's Voice combo was dealing "OP" levels of damage to everything in there)

[Laphael]

This is what I don't fully understand. No-one has yet to present a compelling argument about why a "Limited Job" system is beneficial in any way. The best I've seen is about development time in regards to "Balancing", but that needs to be done anyway for the unique content they get used in because otherwise stuff like Masked Carnivale wouldn't be very interesting at all (For example, it's already markedly less interesting because of Final Sting/Self Detonation cheese, imagine if Doom/Tail Screw would work, or if things like Ram's Voice > Dragon's Voice combo was dealing "OP" levels of damage to everything in there)

Your "only" argument is a quite big one. Yoshi said a normal job needs 1 year of developement time of a whole team, while only 1 person worked on blue mage on the side. That is an immense difference in ressources.

A second argument is the freedom they can have with limited jobs. In my opinion, they have been too careful with Blue-spells; they should have made it more overpowered overall, but Blue mage is basically still in Beta, capped to 50.

I fear, they will get demotivated to try new things with all the ppl complaining and that would be really sad.

[Kalise]

Your "only" argument is a quite big one. Yoshi said a normal job needs 1 year of developement time of a whole team, while only 1 person worked on blue mage on the side. That is an immense difference in ressources.

A second argument is the freedom they can have with limited jobs. In my opinion, they have been too careful with Blue-spells; they should have made it more overpowered overall, but Blue mage is basically still in Beta, capped to 50.

I fear, they will get demotivated to try new things with all the ppl complaining and that would be really sad.

The thing is, if they made it more overpowered... Then they'd still have to balance it for Masked Carnivale (Or other content they decide to make specifically for "Limited Jobs" to justify their existence)

Also, Yoshi mentioned he said to the development team that they could have more freedom with designing BLU spells, which suggests that at some point, more than 1 person was/is working on the job.

Then, with all of this as is, be it the fruits of a single person only or with the assistance (Even partially) of a team, what they ended up with is... A more or less balanced job with only a select few skills that present a problem balance-wise (Which are easily resolved with very minor changes).

Yes. Development time is a major constraint on BLU as a non-limited job.

[BillyKaplan]

Since, I personally fail to see the exact reason why such side content, must be relegated to dedicated "Limited Jobs" instead of being available to ANY job? I mean, you can't even argue that it's because of how "OP" the Limited Jobs are (Supposed to be) due to the fact that in order to make it fun, it'd have to be balanced to their power level anyway (Hence why most things in the Carnivale are immune to insta-kill spells)...

The thing about the Masked Carnival is that lore wise it's not even really limited to BLU. It's how we ended up in it but it's basically a display of strength and magicks for entertainment in the coliseum. Anyone with a GLA should be able to partake in stuff like that since that's what GLA is all about. And you want me to believe people wouldn't pay their weight in gold to see long lost ancient spells and skills, revived for their viewing pleasure? They don't even need to admit it's Black Magic, I'm sure the charletans in Ul'dah can come up with something else entirely, maybe even excuse it as part of Blue Magic and hand-wave all accusations away under that. Because adventurers as skilled and well traveled as us probably met a baddie at one time or another that knew a spell like that.

Like, a non-"Limited Job" BLU could still have Masked Carnivale. It could still have the ability to go around the overworld and learn cool new spells from monsters. It could still do all the same things that the current "Limited Job" version could do. Only, it would also be able to be played by other people who want to do other things with it too, it could be used by all players (Casual included) to do MSQ's. It could be used by raiders to raid. It could be used by all players (Casuals included) to do roulettes. It could be used by all players (Casuals included) to do Exploratory Missions.

Yeah that's what's been brought up since BLU's reveal - you don't have to lock BLU out of content in order to give it all this side content. And the devs themselves already lock BLU out of its own content based on skills it learned or hasn't learned, why can't they do something like that to regular content?

[Oreos]

People really need to stop giving the "limited resources" argument. SE is a multi-million dollar company that has been in the gaming industry for decades. 14 is one of their most profitable games EVER. They are not some ragtag team of indie devs looking to break into the market with a few thousand bucks and a dream.

From this first, and hopefully only, demonstration of what a limited job would be, there is really no justification for excluding the job from content.

[Bright-Flower]

BLU as it is not can't just be thrown into high end content.

They could have designed BLU as a normal job, but considering they just added red mage in SB I don't think a fourth casting dps is high on their priority right now.

To allow BLU into end game content, they have to balance it. To balance it, they have to make it more like other jobs to a degree. They have to give it an actual rotation. They need to give it an array of weapon options. They'll need to balance it around having all of its tools available which means getting all those spells becomes mandatory and not a side content game where you can just go after what you want.

There is a theoretical version of blue mage the COULD have made, that could have been a single role job with a bit of utility and fit into the same mold as other jobs. But that isn't the BLU they made, and I think trying to shove THIS version of blu into endgame content wouldn't work out very well. They would have to basically redesign BLU as a regular job if they're going to let it into the end game. And I don't think they're going to do that.

SE is a big company yes. But FFXIV still has a finite budget and dev team, and even if they wanted to start pumping more money into the game it would take time and money to train new developers, throwing more money at a project like this is not a quick fix. WoW tried that with WOD and look how that ended up for example.

SE isnt' some small idie studio. But being a larger coproration also means it has its fingers it a lot more pots and FFXIV isn't its only ongoing project. Would i like to see FFXIV get more resources? Sure, but that doesn't mean the suits at the top are going to deem that the best investment of their resources.

[ReiMakoto]

That is how I see the limited job system. Thank you for describing it better than I ever could. I don't think the idea of jobs as content is inherently bad. It comes down to execution.
When I look at niche jobs like PUP, BST, BLU, Orator, Mime, Arithmetician and so many others, you get the impression that these jobs would never even be considered of being added to XIV without this concept. And I know that people get attached to BLU thanks in large parts to XI, Tactics, etc, but I think that having it in whatever form (and as much requested side content to boot) is better than people constantly requesting it after every expansion and the devs going, "We're thinking about it."

I haven't really thought about the balancing and cost issues down the line, but it could very well be how things will eventually go. That makes the idea of limited jobs that much more interesting, since it's not a tool do the content like the standard jobs, but rather more like content in of itself. If they can develop and expand the system slowly like they with other side content such as the Gold Saucer, I think we'll have a very reliable and consistent form of side content in these jobs. At least, that's what I'm hoping.

The issue we'll have with this is what happens when they release new limited jobs. We've been lead to believe that BLU is budget content made by a small amount of the team, so if they commit time to more limited jobs, what happens to BLU? If BST is released, will they get their own carnival or will they have to do the BLU one, if they they have to do the BLU one, so much for BLU being a unique thing. What about a third job PUP? In a world where new limited jobs get the same attention BLU got and BLU keeps being updated as well, the more it takes away from the excuse why they weren't implemented in the first place as regular jobs due to lack of resources, as it would become a resource drain to maintain all these jobs. If they add more limited jobs, and the old jobs get less content, or get straight up dropped, then the content would have been a hollow excuse for content and would personally kill any enjoyment for these jobs.

[ReiMakoto]

Snip

Oh its this argument again, Quickfire:

-Just like how there are 4 melee dps? I'm sure we didn't NEED another one of those before they added SAM
-BLU does have a rotation, you just need to go out and learn it, and its as interesting of a level 50 rotation as the other classes.
-The game already has a system in place checking what skills you know, having BLU learn spells in the overworld or in the "limited job" space could have allowed for an unlock of duty finder
-They just added the Aetheryte Earrings as an example of scaling equipment, the BLU weapon from level 1-60 could have been scaled like the earrings, then past that point have new weapons for BLU, and the design of the weapons would be easy too, like how DRK weapons were just bigger pld swords for the most part, BLU weapons could just be halfsize blm staffs.
-BLU's balance is already really solid as a level 50 dps. Its personal DPS isn't too high, and the only truly unbalanced things it has is the Ability to kill itself (which some idiots would do a lot), Peculiar light being 30%, slightly overtuned there, and white wind, maybe, theres been a lot of discussion on the BLU threads as to the usefullness of this skill, and I don't want to rehash it here. BLUs design as a support magic dps is already solid and would fit in well into the endgame imo if they just tidied up its single target spells, and made a preset list you must use for raids: See Duty Set Idea Here