Beastmaster - Limited Job - Melee/Ranged/Gatherer Hybrid

[Shougun]

now obviously as yoshida says an employee suggested the idea of limited BLU to him, but the detail he left out is... obviously they suggested this to him, to not waste some of the work they already made. this is most likely why they thought a limited job was worth trying. and why they gave half truths in the reveal. they were trying to hide what happened to the job, and why it was made limited. but also thought it was better than not having BLU at all.

To add some historical context, in the ARR beta (long time ago), Yoshida had made comment that blue mage he was thinking would be a mini-game like side content where you hunt down a large collection of spells via a book of spells, and so for a very long time Blue Mage was being viewed as a job that wouldn't be a normal job. The word limited job, iirc, was not used but the description lines up fairly well to what was said long ago. Similar time they also determined that for Fisher.

[ForteNightshade]

I would be rather surprised to ever see another Limited Job after Blue Mage. The reception just... wasn't worth the suspected development cost. Granted, this is largely on the dev team for how poor Blue Mage's introduction was. But even with its massive improvements over the years, there still doesn't seem to be enough interest.

[Auryan]

I would be rather surprised to ever see another Limited Job after Blue Mage. The reception just... wasn't worth the suspected development cost. Granted, this is largely on the dev team for how poor Blue Mage's introduction was. But even with its massive improvements over the years, there still doesn't seem to be enough interest.

What was the suspected cost? How do we gauge the level of interest? And how do we determine if BLU or any content for that matter is succesful or not?

I...kind of don't know, but if we're talking purely based on the percent of people that does any single content and level of investment put into it, you'd think content like Ultimate and Ocean Fishing would be on the chopping block.

[Garnix]

I would be rather surprised to ever see another Limited Job after Blue Mage. The reception just... wasn't worth the suspected development cost. Granted, this is largely on the dev team for how poor Blue Mage's introduction was. But even with its massive improvements over the years, there still doesn't seem to be enough interest.

The last time I remember Yoshida speaking about it he said "the feedback isn’t far from their expectations.”
Source
And that was before they added the major improvements when raising the cap to 60/70.

I think there is a lot of interest for blue mage. The thing is...there is just nothing to do with it.
As someone said earlier, it is meant as a mini-game, like Fishing. Once your log is completed, you don't play it anymore.
I said it already, but if they somehow find a way to add a BLU roulette, I would probably play BLU regularly.
Another major difference compared to fisher is the patch cycle. We get new fish every patch. But we get new BLU content once a year...
That's a real bummer, and that's also why I expected to get a new limited job in each expansion, so that they could eventually give us something new for one of the limited job on a more regular basis.

[Trobon]

The last time I remember Yoshida speaking about it he said "the feedback isn’t far from their expectations.”
Source
And that was before they added the major improvements when raising the cap to 60/70.

I think there is a lot of interest for blue mage. The thing is...there is just nothing to do with it.
As someone said earlier, it is meant as a mini-game, like Fishing. Once your log is completed, you don't play it anymore.
I said it already, but if they somehow find a way to add a BLU roulette, I would probably play BLU regularly.
Another major difference compared to fisher is the patch cycle. We get new fish every patch. But we get new BLU content once a year...
That's a real bummer, and that's also why I expected to get a new limited job in each expansion, so that they could eventually give us something new for one of the limited job on a more regular basis.

I guess I don’t get the whole “nothing to do with it” thing. That’s either true for everything or not really true for BLU. Once you get BiS with Any class what is there to do with it? You can farm glams, mounts, help others, etc. The only difference for BLU is you’re a step behind other jobs and have to use PF, but you can still do 80%+ of the things you do with any other job once you hit level cap and get BiS.

Now the update schedule I get. That’s a big issue for BLU players, but overall any job has a finite number of things to do with it, BLU just happens to have a slightly smaller list.

[Shougun]

I guess I don’t get the whole “nothing to do with it” thing. That’s either true for everything or not really true for BLU. Once you get BiS with Any class what is there to do with it? You can farm glams, mounts, help others, etc. The only difference for BLU is you’re a step behind other jobs and have to use PF, but you can still do 80%+ of the things you do with any other job once you hit level cap and get BiS.

Now the update schedule I get. That’s a big issue for BLU players, but overall any job has a finite number of things to do with it, BLU just happens to have a slightly smaller list.

Old Deep Dungeon(s) and Old Eureka(s) would be a huge space for content. Just ensure a few extra steps are taken to prevent them ruining things for others, like a blue only leader board and perhaps the necromancer achievement being Azul Necromancer or something. With the opportunity for more weapons (Eureka relic, Deep Dungeon weapon) also adds some special value to the content for blue over just the general sense of being able to far more easily handle the content on your small party scale to lonesome settings (may be that when you enter it is 'just you'.. though for eureka that'd be a lot of data for just one person, I assume).

Want to update another thread I had for blue mage (thread on the idea of updating opinions post 60/70), but thoughts on adding beast master content as well. Perhaps special ways to progress both the job and the tribes, might have a monster arena (like FFX had) that mirrors the Circus a little but is less specifically elemental based and more general skill performance based (meaning something more akin to how you kit out your character in a diablo game, the best sets and abilities that are fun and work for you, vs circus which has more specific concepts of what you need in order to succeed).

[dustdjinn]

I want limited jobs to work together. Some kind of adventure for blue, beast tamers and (in the future) puppet master would be really fun and make me want to put time into Blue mage.

[ForteNightshade]

What was the suspected cost? How do we gauge the level of interest? And how do we determine if BLU or any content for that matter is succesful or not?

I...kind of don't know, but if we're talking purely based on the percent of people that does any single content and level of investment put into it, you'd think content like Ultimate and Ocean Fishing would be on the chopping block.

Considering the sheer amount of abilities, animations, quests and the Masked Caravel, it could be estimated to cost at least that of a fully fledged job if not more. And the return of investment doesn't look to offset that. Granted, Garnix pointed out it's partly the dev teams own fault for giving Blue Mage such finite amounts of content. On the other hand, I suspect they aren't committing to it because of the perceived lack of interest.

As for how I'd determined whether Blue Mage were successful. The fact we aren't getting another Limited Job. Keep in mind, they not only hyped up the system at Fanfest of all places but specifically name-dropped Beast Master and Puppet Master as potential candidates for later additions. That tells me they had far bigger plans for the system. For them to not even mention it whatsoever, kind of suggests they no longer believe it'll garner much interest. Yoshida can say it met expectations but that's really just PR speak. He certainly isn't going to say it didn't because, well, that would only further push people away.

You also can't really compare it to Ultimate because the target demographic is much different. Ultimate is only intending to cater towards the higher end playerbase. It was never intended to garner huge interest yet has grown in popularity. Blue Mage, on the other hand, was intended for more mass appeal as casual content. So the expectations were far higher. Maybe it did reach the expected goal but seemingly not enough of one to release a second Limited Job.

Of course, this is all speculative on my part. We could be surprised with Beast Master in 6.3 for all any of us know. But it's a hunch of mine they'll quietly abandon the system entirely while giving Blue Mage small updates.

[Auryan]

-snip-

Most of the spells are repurposed monster abilities that have been in-game for years. The handful of unique abilities are nothing too extravagant and would be comparable to Lost Actions from Bozja, of which there are dozens. BLU also has very few unique gear and the weapons not being an important source of stats reduces the need to create a lot of them, saving resources. This has been an issue with newer standard jobs. And of course it's much less micromanaged by the balance team since it's not in direct competition with any jobs/roles as a result of its limited job status. The MC and job quests, like the abilities, are rearranged and reused assets in an arena or taken place in ARR/HW/SB zones with no solo duties. Occasional NPCs like Gogo being an exception. I would argue that not having many unique content and repurposing older content is what makes BLU a relatively inexpensive piece of side content. Well, compared to huge investments like Ultimate and Bozja anyway.

The question regarding a new limited job isn't that clear-cut. When Yoshi mentioned PUP and BST, he didn't mean to say that these are being actively worked on. He was saying that the limited job concept would open up the possibility of adding jobs that up until that point would have never been considered. It's less that these are sure things, and more that these gimmicky and obscure jobs may see the light of day someday, maybe.
I recall an interview with Yoshi explaining their initial plan for BLU was to release about 128 spells. After reaching that goal, they would start taking in feedback and seeing how that goes. It's a pre-ShB interview from a few years ago that I may misremember, but that number was oddly specific and seeing how the last BLU update released exactly 24 spells, with another 24 to go to reach that number, I think I'm not too far off.

I was comparing BLU and Ultimate based on participation rates and resource cost. Based on those two criteria, it's no doubt content like Ultimate is a huge resource pit that someone could argue is better spent elsewhere. However, it fulfils a niche that few content does and I guess is enough to justify the low rate of active usage and hoarding of developer time.

We don't know much and they haven't directly spoken about it in months. Maybe in the coming months leading to EW they'll share more details going forward.

[Garnix]

I guess I don’t get the whole “nothing to do with it” thing. That’s either true for everything or not really true for BLU. Once you get BiS with Any class what is there to do with it? You can farm glams, mounts, help others, etc. The only difference for BLU is you’re a step behind other jobs and have to use PF, but you can still do 80%+ of the things you do with any other job once you hit level cap and get BiS.

Now the update schedule I get. That’s a big issue for BLU players, but overall any job has a finite number of things to do with it, BLU just happens to have a slightly smaller list.

I guess it is true, considering I barely play any job aside from my main once I am done leveling.
However....
Do you bring your BLU to do hunt trains? Nope...
Do you do maps with BLU? Yes, but only the older ones, which most people don't do.
Do you get minor rewards for playing BLU every day? Nope.
Can you pop a quick roulette just to have some quick fun? Nope
Even the weekly BLU reward I never touch because I don't want to sit in PF...
Also, no Eureka/deep dungeon, no pvp either.