Suggesting Ideas for Blue Mage with feedback & Removing Limited Job Status

[TeraTyrantShadic]

The thread is open to hear more suggestions from everyone who wants to contribute to the conversation ;3

[Mariel_Crystallie]

I just wish 1 thing for now as the healer role on my BLU teams... I wish they could add some Regen spells...

[Liam_Harper]

I'm all for niche content but BLU is more in the Verminion category of wasted resources. The number of players with the Morbol mount (sub 0.1%) definitely isn't proportional to the development time put into it.

I feel they just took the wrong direction with it. Limited class was a chance to break the shackles of design limitations and make something completely OP with a wide range of varied abilities. Instead, they backed themselves into a corner with the Carnival and Alex Savage into making a fully balanced class where most of the abilities aren't varied at all, but just elemental potency nukes, weak status debuffs and clunky cast bars as tank. I can understand some people like BLU, but it could have been so much more.

Making BLU a real job wouldn't really make it that exciting more than restricting it even further. It's just a failed idea sadly. They should keep it as it is for those who enjoy it, but personally I'd rather they cut their losses for the future. I'd be a little annoyed if we lost our HoH/PotD, Hildebrand chain and a dungeon per patch, but then they waste their time on 70 BLU content for the 0.1% who stick to it.

[Seraphor]

They definitely need to do more with BLU to make it more worthwhile playing as, but I think using the Morbol mount as a metric is very disingenuous.
Getting the Morbol mount is a Savage-Ultimate tier accomplishment, in what is already a niche side content.
I guarantee you more people play BLU than play LoV, and many love BLU but haven't got the Morbol.
Astrope, Triceratops and the Sabotender mounts are also incredibly rare, does that mean that the Mentor system, Hunts and the Gold Saucer are failures?

They should introduce another limited job, and have them interact in the same content. Which will mean changing things up as currently BLU works best with an all-BLU party, and the Masked Carnivale is tailored to BLU only. The next tier of the Masked Carnivale should be open to both BLU and, for example, Beast Tamer.
The 61-70 run of BLU should include spells that spend the Limit Gauge, so that the job gets expanded, not merely piling on more copy-paste spells.
There needs to be openworld incentives to playing BLU. Achievements and mounts/minions for completing FATEs as BLU, but not requiring an all-BLU party, etc.

[Sindele]

Blue Mage is rad after the last patch swing. It will never work as a regular job without losing its identity. FF14 adheres to too rigid a paradigm for a flexible class to work without either being underpowered or at risk of displacing existing jobs, which would be a much greater disaster. It was disruptive enough adding a 4th tank, and just look at the arguably unresolvable situation around the idea of adding a 4th healer.

It's fun. Just play it for what it is.

[ReiMakoto]

They definitely need to do more with BLU to make it more worthwhile playing as, but I think using the Morbol mount as a metric is very disingenuous.
Getting the Morbol mount is a Savage-Ultimate tier accomplishment, in what is already a niche side content.
I guarantee you more people play BLU than play LoV, and many love BLU but haven't got the Morbol.
Astrope, Triceratops and the Sabotender mounts are also incredibly rare, does that mean that the Mentor system, Hunts and the Gold Saucer are failures?

They should introduce another limited job, and have them interact in the same content. Which will mean changing things up as currently BLU works best with an all-BLU party, and the Masked Carnivale is tailored to BLU only. The next tier of the Masked Carnivale should be open to both BLU and, for example, Beast Tamer.
The 61-70 run of BLU should include spells that spend the Limit Gauge, so that the job gets expanded, not merely piling on more copy-paste spells.
There needs to be openworld incentives to playing BLU. Achievements and mounts/minions for completing FATEs as BLU, but not requiring an all-BLU party, etc.

It is absolutely not an ultimate level accomplishment, on the whole from everyone i have spoken to who have the morbol mount, the consensus is that overall its easier than savage with the exception of brute justice who is just savage tier hard.

Morbol mount is the only real metric or success we can use. Number leveled to 60 doesnt mean anythin when it literally takes 20 mins to go from 50 to 60, you could go off cute justice minion (5%) but you dont need to do anything but reach level 60 and do job quests to get that. Unfortunately we have no other data to work with, so morbol gives a good idea of engagement as it is the culmination of engagement with the class.

[Melichoir]

it doesnt really matter how 1k potency varies between classes (likely due to weapon base damage, stat scaling, and backend calculations on the skills themselves), i'm talking about the existing case of a class having ready access to something that absolutely crushes content not being out of the norm at this point, so BLU wouldn't exactly be some weird extreme outlier. i do still agree that the gauge is a solid idea to limit some of the more crazy stuff

It does, cause youre citing potency.

Beyond that, yes, the newer classes tend to be disproportionately stronger than legacy classes, but no where in the ballpark how BLU would work on 1:1 translation. There is no skill in the game outside of BLU skills which can wipe out 50% of tankier monsters HP in 1-2 hits in dungeons when synced. There is "Oh yeah, DNC is somewhat stronger than the other classes," and "BLU just be destroying things." Gets worse when you understand HP snapshotting on things like Missile and how two BLUs can literally kill the tankier monsters in 2 seconds.

To be honest, I doubt that would be the reaction. Let's be honest ....DPS allowing them to learn their class at the early stages of leveling.

Youve got better faith in the player base, but seeing how the arguments and thought processes have gone in the past threads as well as tangentely related topics, the immediate response would be "TY SE! We love you"...and then 3 weeks later "SE why you still punishing BLU! Why these exceptions! No other class has this issue at 'x' level" and thatll turn into threads such as this where "What can we do to unlock the class and make it a full class." You read Reddit and OFs enough, you see a general trend in player rationality when it comes to balance on MMOs.

Similar to Red Mage job gauge is a bit of a stretch.... very different to that of a Red Mage's Job Gauge.

I wasnt talking about the mechanics side of it, but more of the theme side - I.E a caster who also engages in melee combat. Theme wise you can boil down the 3 casters (blue aside) to Basic B Wizard - Cast stuff and kill, Summoner is "I use pets to attack for me" (granted that due to balance they seem to be moving away from this and the emphasis to use pets - something I think is a mistake but I digress), and RDM is a hybrid Caster/Melee with more emphasis on the caster side.

They have their own theme of what they do. What I was saying in similarities is having BLU do physical stuff overlaps with what RDM does, though maybe inverted in that the focus is heavier on phys with bursts on magic. But then its a lot less a caster at that point and a hybrid melee dps.

Being honest here, going by levels. At best if they really want to learn an AoE as soon as possible....However what you suggested for Job Gauge increase the max points per 10 level is a great way to balance the job out early in the levels.

Youd have to tweak potency values and give them access to a basic AoE early that has similar output as other casters. The point would be preventing BLU from using powerful skills in a low level dungeon that they theoretically shouldnt have access too. You already see this as is with other classes when syncing to level, so youd have to create a similar system for BLU.

So basically let Blue Mages have 3 Separate leveling system for each role by learning spells that is tailored to a certain role. This may sound like a feasible idea and may just work, I did have a discussion of such an idea but omitted it at first. But since you brought it up it may work.

I wouldnt call it separate leveling, so much as youd just have different stances that limit what skills you use in each stance for added benefits of having the stance on (tank would be threat gen and def/hp, DPS greater DPS values, Healing improved healing output for spells for example). This would allow queuing as a specific role and remove issues where you wouldnt want melee or healers to have a TANK LB3 skill as an example. The coding issue would essentially be preventing you from removing stances on BLU when in dungeons or instances. On the flip side, if you want to not have a stance and have your full kit, that option is available to you in open world content and in unsynced content. So you have the ability to use all of BLUs skills to do cheese runs if you want - just not in content that is synced.

Another great suggesstion, and I believe FFXI already have the solution for that, when a Blue Mage uses Self Destruct or Final Sting (Its in the game), They will gain weakness, they will be alive but they will have weakness. If we adapt it to FFXIV's system we could say they gain the debuff Brink of Death.

I would want to avoid this because of it being a balance issue. The balance side is giving people the ability to address using a high risk ability by using other kits or abilities to work with it. If you tack weakness onto it, there is no real eason to use the skill, even as an execute because weakness stacks and persists through death unless its a complete wipe. Giving it a long CD + reducing HP to one would allow good healers to plan for the attack use in a fight and burst heal you back up, while at the same time discouraging an entire party from doing it due to how unlikely all people are able to heal the entire thing effectively with risks from raid busters.

That is fine, suggestion like these are there to help the developers to build their....... content at their own pace.

Im still in the position that it doesnt have to be a full class and in doing so would require rebuilding it. The problem ends up being the same no matter how you cut it - Either the changes will be to minimal and BLU will end up being a must bring, or theyll be to drastic and result in needing to rebuild how the class operates. Much of what I suggested would work (on paper atleast from a basic stand point) and fixes a ton of potential power issues but in doing so would require a lot of reworking and rebuilding how BLU works. The other route of doing as little as possible and making some minor changes to skills and leaving it as is just doesnt work in FFXIVs end game environment unless you are gonna throw out balance or some of the philosophies that the devs are currently pushing (reducing the meta aspect of raiding, for example.)

[Seraphor]

It is absolutely not an ultimate level accomplishment, on the whole from everyone i have spoken to who have the morbol mount, the consensus is that overall its easier than savage with the exception of brute justice who is just savage tier hard.

Morbol mount is the only real metric or success we can use. Number leveled to 60 doesnt mean anythin when it literally takes 20 mins to go from 50 to 60, you could go off cute justice minion (5%) but you dont need to do anything but reach level 60 and do job quests to get that. Unfortunately we have no other data to work with, so morbol gives a good idea of engagement as it is the culmination of engagement with the class.

See everyone I know, including those who love BLU, wrote off the Morbol mount the second they found out the requirements.
So like I said, it's a poor metric.
BLU also appeals more to casual players, so they're not as likely to want to attempt savage with it.
Plus it is side content, there's no way you can expect the clear rate of Savage BLU to compare to regular Savage.

Completing the job quests isn't that bad a metric, that requires you beat the final round of the Masked Carnivale, as does obtaining all BLU spells.
Or the Blue Mage log, there are achievements for completing 20 and 50 of them, is also a decent metric.
If someone has got those, then they've pretty much exhausted BLU content short of the savage fights (Not everyone is prepared to do savage, regardless of the job) which means they've completed the content as it stands, so... what else do you want from them?

If you still consider it a failure, what would make it not a failure exactly? In its current form, what are the requirements to show that it's succeeded?
5% uptake?
Considering we nearly have 20 jobs now, that's in the ballpark of how many people would 'main' any one job.

[ReiMakoto]

See everyone I know, including those who love BLU, wrote off the Morbol mount the second they found out the requirements.
So like I said, it's a poor metric.
BLU also appeals more to casual players, so they're not as likely to want to attempt savage with it.
Plus it is side content, there's no way you can expect the clear rate of Savage BLU to compare to regular Savage.

Completing the job quests isn't that bad a metric, that requires you beat the final round of the Masked Carnivale, as does obtaining all BLU spells.
Or the Blue Mage log, there are achievements for completing 20 and 50 of them, is also a decent metric.
If someone has got those, then they've pretty much exhausted BLU content short of the savage fights (Not everyone is prepared to do savage, regardless of the job) which means they've completed the content as it stands, so... what else do you want from them?

If you still consider it a failure, what would make it not a failure exactly? In its current form, what are the requirements to show that it's succeeded?
5% uptake?
Considering we nearly have 20 jobs now, that's in the ballpark of how many people would 'main' any one job.

Unfortunately the things you mentioned does not have any published stats on or I would be quoting those, at least i havent found stats on it. Also again im loathe to include job quests as again going from 50-60 and doing the job quests can be done in like an hour, but some might consider that engaging with it but I wouldnt probably a personal thing.

On your point of maining however, sure only 5% would "main" it but many more would also use it for roulletes, or 24 mans or reclears or anything else that would have people use more jobs. This would certainly be vastly more than 5%, and would be more use of the job as a whole than it currently has, at least for me.

[TeraTyrantShadic]

Youve got better faith in the player base, but seeing how the arguments and thought processes have gone in the past threads as well as tangentely related topics, the immediate response would be "TY SE! We love you"...and then 3 weeks later "SE why you still punishing BLU! Why these exceptions! No other class has this issue at 'x' level" and thatll turn into threads such as this where "What can we do to unlock the class and make it a full class." You read Reddit and OFs enough, you see a general trend in player rationality when it comes to balance on MMOs.

I believe the player base is more or less of a wildcard at this point. There are the good people and the bad people. Personally I don’t care which side, unless it is something I am very passionate about (Blue Mage in FFXIV becoming proper jobs) I’ll pick that side and help as much I possibly can. However I did post my document and the topic on reddit and immediately on day 1, two unconstructive comments popped saying that “Oh my god this thread again” and “It will always stay as a limited job” and 1 with actual constructive feedback/discussion which may or may not have derailed talking about World of Warcraft. Several days later and nothing but silence, no discussion and no feedback. As for the Official forums, I saw some threads talking about Blue Mages but they have long since been buried, either they have given up on hoping Blue Mage will become a real Job. In an MMO like FFXIV it can be difficult to implement Blue Mage, that may be so but it doesn’t hurt to try and provide ideas and as well as discussing it further.

Im still in the position that it doesnt have to be a full class and in doing so would require rebuilding it. The problem ends up being the same no matter how you cut it - Either the changes will be to minimal and BLU will end up being a must bring, or theyll be to drastic and result in needing to rebuild how the class operates. Much of what I suggested would work (on paper atleast from a basic stand point) and fixes a ton of potential power issues but in doing so would require a lot of reworking and rebuilding how BLU works. The other route of doing as little as possible and making some minor changes to skills and leaving it as is just doesnt work in FFXIVs end game environment unless you are gonna throw out balance or some of the philosophies that the devs are currently pushing (reducing the meta aspect of raiding, for example.)

I understand you have your own position as to why it does not need to be a full class. However I am going to go off tangent and explain why Limited Jobs is a bad idea and how it can set a bad precedent to future Jobs.

I think it is better to make it a full class. If players are just gonna allow limited jobs, it'll not just become another mini game but a reason for the developers to not focus too much on one class where people would love to see it and let it be a botched idea. Eventually this will become a habit, saying that a potential new class can come to FFXIV will be a limited job and will divide the community to those who want to play it as a real job and those who want it as a side content. This sort of argument can be easily summarized as "Blue is perfectly fine as it is'' and on the other side "Blue needs to be a real job" (I am on the other side). If you have read the document and why I presented my reasoning as to why the Limited Job system is a bad idea, cause it preys on the hype of initial release of new updates. "Hooray new updates'' The content will be active for at least a month or two and eventually the hype dies, then what? People who came late or sprouts who wanna try it can, but they won't receive much support unless someone is there to help them obtain their spells. Thankfully, we have such group systems like Free Companies, Fellowships, Mentors, Party Finders and Linkshells (Discord, is another possibility) that provides assistance, but even with those there are some who are reluctant to even help a new Blue mage. Which can make it hard or new or returning players trying out the job. Believing in the Limited Job system is equivalent to saying "Leave the new players behind and don't teach them about Blue Mage unless they can find specific players that can help them out". There's even some people dissuading new players and returning players to try out Blue Mages. If that is the case (It may be so) players are most likely not to try the class and there are many reasons why.

Another thing I want to point out that I have seen in the thread is using achievements as a guideline to see how many are participating in Blue Mage Content. Achievement data ≠ Number of people playing Blue Mages. Getting the Morbol mount is not exactly difficult but time consuming. Many players will see that they need to do savages synced and without echo which in many cases for savage raiding you need to put in time and dedication to the fight just to earn the achievement for the mount, especially for Brute Justice. I cannot say for certain about the player base time availability, but what I can say is that as a side content it is not really doing its job to incentivize new players to actually try it even with titles and mount many would just turn off and do their main job.

I can understand why many call it a mini game rather than a side content. It does not contribute to the current currencies needed, which are Allagan Tomestone of Allegory, Allagan Tomestone of Phantasmagoria or Sack of Nuts. It may provide Allagan Tomestone of Poetics and you can earn about 740 a week with a prime target included. It can used with the current and previous relic content, but eventually it will all be forgotten about until the next set of relic weapons or a content that uses Poetics plus you can easily earn them in roulette if you do all of them (580 + the poetics you get from old previous dungeons, 700 Phantasmagoria (Without mentor roulette), 210 Allegory (Without Mentor Roulette)) and can be repeated regardless while Blue Mage is capped weekly. It provides Allied Seals, you get can get Cute Justice (Minion), Incendiario (A Blue Mage Weapon which is very useful as it has 2 materia slots), the Whalaqee Accessories, and the normal Allied Seal stuff, but it really doesn't help with other than buying grade 7 or 8 materia which you can sell. Again, it'll become obsolete, with the exception of materias. Even with that on a weekly basis if you do not include the Blue Mage Log weekly you gain just 550 Allied Seals from just masked carnival and 1 materia costs about 400 allied seals. Not as effective as farming a trust dungeon for materia but chance for grade 8 materia is high, but let's say we include the weekly hunt target and Blue Mage Log's Prime target they gain 950 allied seals, 2 materias in a week. Which is still more ineffective than just trust farming Anamnesis Anyder or doing hunt trains everyday for cracked Planiclusters and Stellaclusters (Can even get them for doing the adventurer in need bonus from DR: Leveling and alliance raids) to sell materia. Even with selling the battle materia the main squeeze for Gil, is gathering and crafting materia and the legendary nodes most preferably High Quality (HQ) Ingredients.

Another thing is that you cannot even do Main Story Quests with it, if it really was a side content then they should be allowed to do so cause most Main Scenario Quests are single player instances with some quests requiring Duty Finder. You can swap jobs midway during the quests. An example would be that I would play Bard all the way up into Stormblood expansion and if I want to change jobs I can do Samurai and continue Stormblood expansion from there. This can be easily applied to Blue Mages but yet they put a requirement saying "Any Disciple of War and Magic (excluding limited jobs)" forcing you to play the main jobs already released, even though most of the quests have an instance where you can just do it alone.

How about squadrons? That is a side content that provides new ranks, and rewards for reaching the Captain rank and you get to recruit your own army to do missions whether it will be running dungeons or sending them out to complete a task. Does it provide something? Yes, though it is heavily RNG and it can vary from with different currencies like Contemporary Warfare books; Materia for gathering, crafting, war or magic; Crystal Clusters; Yellow Craft/Gather scripts; Bonus Company Seals; MGP and Gil. Most of these rewards, although random provides something to the bigger picture to help players out easily in all content. Even with that we can't run it as Blue Mages, so... a 'side content' that cannot run in a side content.

Side Content means it is content that intertwines with the main content and contributes to the overall content. Blue Mage as of the time of posting isn't even remotely contributing as significantly as playing a normal job and getting tons of things on both a daily and weekly basis. To say Blue Mage is a side content is saying that mini games are side content. Mini games may be side content, but it doesn't provide anything to the bigger picture and it just stands there being idle and in the background. The Limited Job is just doing that; Put it out, let the argument, rallying and drama happen with constructive feedback being buried under all of that or not happening during the initial launch of the new Limited Job and eventually people will forget about it. People never forget things, especially on the internet. I can imagine the same thing will happen to Beast master and Puppet master. Which can result in giving a bad experience for those who really want to use it as their main job and hoping to use it. However as of now I can see Limited Jobs somewhat useful in an experimental sense. Where this is all just a trial run, where we play it and see whether or not it needs improvements and as a community we provide the feedback necessary. It is a repeat of what I said in the last sentence but it has to be said again.

Moving away from why Limited Jobs is a bad idea. Mulliganing a job is also not an answer to the problem, with how they have already set Blue Mage feedback and constructive criticism needs to be based on what has been provided. New ideas and suggestions are great to the conversation, but suggesting to redo the class with the current system already in place is just too inconvenient for them and it will take up too much resources. As a community we work together not just ourselves but with the developer’s visions in mind. I can’t believe I am saying this but think of it as an assignment from your boss except there is no deadline (Other than next expansion) everyone including myself have to work within the framework of what they have provided and how we can improve upon it without forcing a mulligan hand. So far the feedback regarding how we could improve upon the current Blue Mage sounds great and I am glad we as a few people from the english community could come up with and I encourage even more ideas to be added to the thread. They haven't placed a Job Gauge yet, so there is still hope for the class to truly be added into the game. As many have said we have yet to see 100% of what they were planning for Blue Mage and that is true, but who is to say we are not trying to help shape Blue Mage’s future with the developers.