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

[TeraTyrantShadic]

I am here to share my thread discussing Limited Job:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...w-Limited-jobs

Also I would like to point out I also have interacted with the JP community and with certainty I can say they dislike Limited Job. I have even given my reasoning as to why it Limited Job is not a good idea. Here is my post quote in response to a user in the japanese thread:

"It was bad when there wasn't a nerf on Self-Destruct or Final Sting. People are abusing these abilities, so the developer team decided to fix the issue and they did. Blue Mage aren't hated, however the limited job system is the main issue. Right now Blue Mage is ok, it can still be improved but it is not the problem. Blue Mage is a symptom of a bigger issue. Limited Jobs are a bigger issue to the game, this is because it is limiting the capabilities of a job and the potential of future jobs to fit into FFXIV rather than allowing creative freedom over it.

Here is the thing, you can queue with a normal party via Party Finder and you can still learn spells without all members being Blue Mage. A Limited job only party won’t be fun because everyone is playing the same thing and pretty much everyone knows that there is a set spell set for optimized fast runs in any content, hence why blue mage is looked at it being overpowered with 3 others of the same class rather than 1 class in a group of 3 random classes other than Blue Mage.

At the moment yes, Blue Mage is strong but that is because they have not adjusted the spells and moves to fit the dungeons. HOWEVER! I would like to point out an article that said Yoshida-P was planning on removing powerful skills like Level 5 Death, meaning they are planning on balancing it. Not just that they aren't that overpowered in raids, I'd argue that Blue Mages in a normal party setting would be fine since most of their overpowered spells won't work (As the FATE bosses now cannot be affected with level 5 Death or Missiles anymore), rather the uniqueness of spells can easily help benefit the party instead (An example would be using Dragon’s voice in Alexander’s add phase of the fight. Not just that but comparing the DPS time it took to clear A12S with a team of normal party and a party with 1 Blue Mage the time it took to clear is nearly identical even if the Blue Mage has optimized their damage output.

Suffice to say, Blue Mage will eventually become a normal job (Hopefully). You can try playing dungeons alone, but in certain cases you can't. Mainly because some bosses require mechanics to be done and it needs 4 people sometimes to get past the mechanic, even with diamondback there is another damage type known as fixed damage. Meaning it will deal a fixed amount of damage and no mitigation can stop it. A prime example would be Shiva EX, her move 'Icebrand' deals a fixed amount of damage and the only way to lower its damage is to share the damage among the 7 party members. I tried casting diamondback to mitigate the attack with no party members and died. There is no possible way you can mitigate this sort of damage unless you stack with 7 other party members which splits the damage.

Which leads to a problem, how far are you willing to make it more inconvenient for players to learn the spells? Looking at it this way, people who are at the initial hype of the release of Blue Mage will immediately learn the spells no problem as everyone will participate in obtaining the spells together. However bear in mind as we can have returning or new players who can possibly come in late to join in the Blue Mage content and it can be difficult for them to obtain spells. They may not find people who could spare free time since 5.4 could be the release of the new Ultimate Raid and Savage raid and that is assuming Blue Mage is being released then. 5.5? Bozja content people would want to do content that is relative to current content rather than previous content because of the hype. The hype is what brings people and the moment it dies (Approximately 1 - 2 weeks before activity for blue mage dies down), it can be harder or easier to do the content. It is due to the fact Blue Mage cannot queue Duty Finder normally, it means that they cannot learn the spells immediately and have to reach their level cap to even learn it as in order to be able to solo a dungeon they need to be able to kill monsters quickly, and even then there is max cap dungeon and it will still be a challenge to them. Plus it is a chance based learning if you do a dungeon or trial alone. It will only be a 100% if you are in a synced full party, it doesn't have to be a full blue mage party as you only need to be a full party while synced.

If you enjoy playing it alone, good for you. However I disagree, if you want to do some fun activities with Blue Mage like running a dungeon for fun it is hard to find friends who are willing to play old content or those who have time to spare as well as long party finder wait times of over 1hr+. Whereas with the current max cap you can run a duty finder as many times as you want as a normal job with the que popping within 5 minutes or less saving a lot more time than using a party finder system.


I would argue that the reason why it should become a regular job is that there's no reason for it not to be. If the point of the class is that it's concept means it's overpowered, and to preserve that it must be kept limited, then why would the devs still nerf it when it clearly breaks the game in the content it shares? If the devs realise the job being overpowered in these areas warrants a nerf, and that such nerfs are evidently possible, regardless of the need to maintain the job's concept, then why not balance it so it can be properly integrated into the rest of the game? That way, Blue Mage players will be able to enjoy the rest of the game's content playing the job they like and the job can be properly balanced, as the devs evidently have the intention of doing regardless of its limited status being removed. The argument that the job is unbalance without improperly infringing on its core concept doesn't hold up when the devs are still patching it to be less op.


Limited Jobs is a horrible job system that shouldn't haven't even been in the game in the first place. Blue Mage on the other hand is brought in, it may not be perfect but it can be improved to fit the current game of FFXIV. With the new addition to the spells for Level 60 I'd say they are slowly integrating Blue Mage to be a normal job."

Few believed it should stay where it is, but I can answer this. Blue Mage Log, Masked Carnival, Spell Collecting, and the achievements are not tied to the Limited Job system, rather to the job itself. If we were to move it to the normal job system everything you had with Blue Mage which I just mentioned will still be there achievements included. No amount of analogy can really simplify it and I doubt it can be simplified because Limited Job in of itself is the same as the normal job but worse and horribly implemented, not just that I will repeat what I had said and said time again. It sets a bad precedent, it is an omen to a darker future for any upcoming jobs that can possibly become a limited job. I have played the other FF games and I can say all jobs can be implemented into a MMO setting. even with the system FFXIV has it can still work. Any new and future for Limited Job is not for limited job, instead its for Blue Mage specifically.

Taking puppetmaster as an example of a new limited job (Which I hope not), if they were to create a content related to it like a masked carnival and puppetmaster collecting/log. It is not limited job related in fact its job related, this is because the content produced for puppetmaster is only for puppetmaster and it cannot participate masked carnival or even Blue Mage Log. If anything it will have its own Puppetmaster Log, which goes to show you don't need the Limited Job system. You can make it a normal job and let it have these little mini games on the side. Limited Job system is just a copy of the Normal Job system, but with a level cap and restrictions which is barely anything in of itself. It is nothing unique rather it is a hindrance to developing the job/class itself, plus like I said in my post within my quotes Blue Mage is getting patched. It used to be Fate bosses can be killed with Level 5 Death, now it can't be killed with the powerful spells. This is an MMO first and foremost and because of this everything has to be balanced no matter how you look at it.

In a destructoid article (https://www.destructoid.com/stories/...543587.phtml):

"Getting down to business, I asked Yoshida to shed some light on this decision out of the gate. Noting that there is potential for "Blue Mage-only PVP content," he explains that using "powerful blue magic" is what makes the class so interesting, and given that it "breaks the balance of the game," it wouldn't be feasible to allow raid participation (he clarifies there are "no plans" for that). He also explains that certain abilities (like Level 5 Death) would have to be removed entirely. With that in mind Yoshida and his team resolved to make Blue Mage as fun and as wacky as possible, which includes more updates in the future."

It shows OP skills are bound to be removed, however there a point in which it is saying there is no plans for it to participate in raid content, I disagree considering we are doing Blue Mage only raids, not just that but Aetherial Mimicry just shows the job is moving to a point where it is almost time for Blue Mage to join the ranks of a normal jobs where it can possibly participate in normal content.

In regards to OP (original poster) I agree it is time to rethink the way we think about limited jobs and move Blue Mage into the normal job system as nothing will be lost with the transfer of it to a normal job.

[Mirau]

As much as I'd like to see BLU become a full-fledged job - I do hope they take the limited job aspect and keep it around as a side-game. FFXIV would benefit from minigames and side-activities like the BLU spell log, even if it became a normal job.

[TeraTyrantShadic]

It still can be a side game even without the Limited Job system. As I have explained, it is related to blue mage and in no way related to the limited job system. So if Blue became a normal job, we can still play all the side activities without the Limited Job System.

[Deceptus]

The problem with BLU is it's NOT overpowered.

Bosses are immune to it's most powerful spells.

Other than that and it's OGCD's, it's nothing more than copies of the same 200-220 pot skill. Not exactly strong. Regular jobs can pretty easily out dps it.

[Allegor]

It's also very short lived content. If you're late to the party, chances are you'll rely on fc mates or friends to carry you because nobody plays BLU after the first week or two. Saying that BLU, in its current form, is a complete waste of dev time and resources is a hill I'll die on.

[Videra]

It's also very short lived content. If you're late to the party, chances are you'll rely on fc mates or friends to carry you because nobody plays BLU after the first week or two. Saying that BLU, in its current form, is a complete waste of dev time and resources is a hill I'll die on.

You right.

[Auryan]

In a destructoid article (https://www.destructoid.com/stories/...543587.phtml):

"Getting down to business, I asked Yoshida to shed some light on this decision out of the gate. Noting that there is potential for "Blue Mage-only PVP content," he explains that using "powerful blue magic" is what makes the class so interesting, and given that it "breaks the balance of the game," it wouldn't be feasible to allow raid participation (he clarifies there are "no plans" for that). He also explains that certain abilities (like Level 5 Death) would have to be removed entirely. With that in mind Yoshida and his team resolved to make Blue Mage as fun and as wacky as possible, which includes more updates in the future."

It shows OP skills are bound to be removed, however there a point in which it is saying there is no plans for it to participate in raid content, I disagree considering we are doing Blue Mage only raids, not just that but Aetherial Mimicry just shows the job is moving to a point where it is almost time for Blue Mage to join the ranks of a normal jobs where it can possibly participate in normal content.

How'd you get that from the article? If anything, the interview shows the opposite of what you stated. Yoshi-P explicitly said that BLU is known for using powerful blue magic (no kidding) like Lv. 5 Death. And these powerful and wacky spells come at a cost of balance. So his statement is pretty much bringing up the whole "Job fantasy vs Balance" debate, in which he argues that BLU's fantasy is dependent on having access to these crazy spells. That very statement contradicts yours where he said that there are no plans for raid participation (which can be read as reaching max level and doing the most current of raids).

Even sillier is that the article in which you use as "evidence" of an eventual balance was published in February 2019, 10 months before patch 5.1.5. where they raised BLU to 60 and added more powerful blue magic. If their intent is to balance the job, why add more of these problematic spells only to remove them at some point instead of, you know, not adding them in the first place?

It's all very pretzel logic-y and conspiratorial. Especially when the devs have never said of anything of making BLU into one of the standard jobs and has even gone further to subtly (or not so subtly to some) reference other potential limited jobs.

[tyranical69]

I would totally agree to advocate for Blue Mage to be a real job and remove the Limited job system!!! It just seriously sucks not being able to play on a duty finder.

[Savagelf]

how about no let keep going down limit jobs because i see no way they going add beastmaster or puppetmaster without limit them and they just as fun with limit them plus i think make so these three job can group will be easy and make dungeon focus be a hub for them would also be cool blue mage get Wander palace as it hub. beastmaster get Hulkbreaker isle. puppetmaster get the antitower. also may i suggest complimise allow player to group with they grand company squardon.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

Alternative: Keep Limited Jobs, but make it so that they're not 20 levels behind. Lagging behind one expac would be enough to keep the previous content decently relevant.

Also, give Limited Jobs more things to do. Being gated out of things like MSQ and Squadron is silly. And if you're worried about BLU cheesing Deep Dungeon, then make it so that Deep Dungeon records don't count for BLU since it's easy mode. I don't mind not being able to use Duty Finder so long as I have access to reasonable amounts of content, not just old dungeons I've gotten bored of or Trials/Raids I need to wait for seven other people to join my PF for.