Limited Job #2: Beastmaster

[dinnertime]

This is why I said what I did on the previous page. Either they make limited bst and anger the people that wanted a full job, make a full job and anger people that wanted it limited, do something similar to what I said which would still anger some, or just don't even do jobs like bst.

It'll take a considerable amount of resources to give every job a limited aspect just to accommodate one or eventually two limited-exclusive jobs, and there's no good reason to do so. Reverse it so limited jobs have full versions and it would be less work, but I think it's just more efficient to make them full jobs flat out or else the devs will just show how deaf they are to criticism that's been said since the reveal of the concept.

It's a neat idea. Turning jobs that have no chance in hell of being added in the game as side content that's free from job balance. Sounds rather interesting. And coming from the forums who are always yelling about "homogenization" and "loss of identity", you'd think more people would be open to the concept. Then again, it is the forums after all.

Isn't that the crux of the matter? BLU not being like the other jobs. Balance and content design just doesn't take it into account and that gives it access to things and capabilities that no other job has. Which in turn comes at a price of not being able to do every content due to content not being accommodating (PotD/HoH) or barred as to not trivialize further (max level content). If it was able to hit 80 today it will still be banned from certain things like Savage and Ultimate.

SE does relatively well with job adaptation because they've mostly stuck with adapting easier job archetypes. The simple ones like PLD, WHM and BLM are all clear-cut and straightforward. And when things get more complicated like say BRD, where in other FF titles it's a support-leaning job that has almost nothing to do with bows, they have to bend the idea to fit what works with the game with varying results. And this can go pretty bad if you look to SMN, that was a name-in only job until several expansions later. Some jobs are just harder to translate from job concept to playable job. Which makes some potential jobs unlikely to be added. I don't have high hopes of seeing Arithmetician being added any time soon.

Pick another job? I'm sure a lot of SMN lovers from the franchise preferred BLM (or any job) over 'doesn't-actually-summon-anything-until-SB' SMN. Honestly, people who love a job concept centered around their fantasies were likely to be disappointed anyway. Some people wanted BLU to be a mage tank, some wanted a duel-wielding battle mage and others a healer with a mix of monster-related gimmicks. All plausible (excluding the spell acquisition and other important factors).

Neat idea, sure, but was it executed well though? I'll let the countless topics of criticism towards BLU/limited jobs from the past answer to that.

They already do just fine with making some jobs feel different. Arguably the caster role, something BLU could've belonged in, is the most diverse in gameplay. It would've been in good hands if it was a full job. Again, FFXIV is already known to twist around job concepts to fit the gameplay, and they should've done that with BLU. I would rather see a true FFXIV version of BLU than a version of it that tries to be "authentic" at the cost of a lot of things because they're afraid they might offend people if it wasn't, but ironically what they tried to avoid is what happened.

And for SMN, they took a while to find something that actually works and changed their mistake of a design philosophy which I will forgive. I love SMN, I've been playing it since ARR and I'm happy with the direction it's going because I get to summon large, powerful beings and the gameplay is fun and almost perfect. Anyway, I assure you if BLU was a mage tank (a concept we haven't seen fully explored) or a melee/battle mage, healer or whatever that is a full job, it'll still be well accepted than the limited job BLU we got.