So, what is the hold up on Beastmaster?

[MoofiaBossVal]

Beastmaster captures and use pets. This will not be possible.
I've played MMOs with this mechanic, there was always a pet superior to the other and most of the time it would break the balance.

So what? FF14 is a braindead easy game. So what if one pet does 2% more damage than another? PvE isn't competitive. And if pet balance really is a problem, just do what WoW did and allow you to stat swap pets so they all have the same level of competitiveness.

Considering how terrible pet AI (especially pathing) tends to be in MMOs, I suspect they probably scrapped the idea even if they had ever considered it seriously. They've already pretty much eliminated pet function for ACN/SMN/SCH and haven't touched Chocobo Companions since HW.

If FF14 devs can't be bothered to fix pet pathing then they could just take the lazy route like GW2 did and give the player the ability to teleport their pet right ontop of the target, bypassing pathing issues. Problem solved.

[Soge01]

With the way Summoner currently functions, I'd like to see Beastmaster work the same way, while giving Summoner a more Caster playstyle again while maintaining to a degree the way our egi and demi are summoned now.

The Ancients show us how we can actually carry around all our little critters via crystals. Twould be interesting to just throw our own version of those crystal seals, like pokeballs, to have our monster of choice in the moment due their super powerful ultimate attack before recrystalizing and coming back to us so we can call forth another powerful beast of our choosing.

I just want to summon my own cyclops like that and have it rain destruction on my enemies with its eye beams and club! xD

[Cidel]

Didn't the devs say that all jobs going forward would be original to FFXIV, specifically because people end up with preconceived notions of a job (based on some other FF game) which don't fit how a job might work in XIV? (Honest question, not rhetorical; I am fairly sure I remember that being said in a live letter, but it's almost midnight and I am far too tired to go digging through live-letters to check myself on that.)

I'm leaning towards "no;" I have yet to see that said in any actual interview in recent memory or any live letter unless it was officially translated much later after the actual broadcast and not by a third-party translator as it was live. One person dropped that claim in another thread and I haven't seen a follow-up referencing where that claim came from. The only thing anywhere near this that I recall was any time around Stormblood and Shadowbringers when Yoshida said he wanted to start introducing some jobs that are unique to XIV (Gunbreaker and Reaper, and arguably Sage which is literally a Sage in name-only). Other personal job comments said by Yoshida was a far-eastern styled caster, but that might have been mentioned as far back as Heavensward. If he claimed all jobs going forward after Dancer will be new creations, it flew over majority of the playerbase's head.

I mean, beyond that, this game has been steadily moving away from pet-based combat; the SCH fairies are two appearances for the same thing, SMN pets no longer have HP, etc. Whether you think that's a good thing or not, it is a thing... and an XIV version of BST seems like it would be a sharp U-turn in that regard, which I suspect is unlikely.

I agree, they are so bad at pet-controlling concepts that if they ever decided to open that can of worms known as limited jobs again, it would probably be so far removed from the core gameplay of XIV, moreso than BLU that it would probably be a Eureka, Island Sanctuary, or Verminion-esque content that even having a Beastmaster job stone would be a superficial afterthought (though given BLU's treatment, that's par the course). They could literally make a Pokemon-esque side content and call that "Beastmaster."

[RukoBoshi]

I'm leaning towards "no;" I have yet to see that said in any actual interview in recent memory or any live letter unless it was officially translated much later after the actual broadcast and not by a third-party translator as it was live. One person dropped that claim in another thread and I haven't seen a follow-up referencing where that claim came from. The only thing anywhere near this that I recall was any time around Stormblood and Shadowbringers when Yoshida said he wanted to start introducing some jobs that are unique to XIV (Gunbreaker and Reaper, and arguably Sage which is literally a Sage in name-only). Other personal job comments said by Yoshida was a far-eastern styled caster, but that might have been mentioned as far back as Heavensward. If he claimed all jobs going forward after Dancer will be new creations, it flew over majority of the playerbase's head.

Here's the source of the interview where Yoshida mention job design going forward.
https://we-are-vanadiel.finalfantasy...id=381&lang=en

The quote :
"Yoshida : Job names are especially tough. (laughs wryly) After all, there’s no point if a job is similar to its namesake in name only; its gameplay experience needs to match their pre-established design too. At this point, I’m thinking we have no choice but to come up with brand new jobs that haven’t appeared in the FF series before."

[kaynide]

I'm for BST personally, but the devs have said a lot against it.

1) I can't remember when, but devs said they do not want to do a pet job
2) There is a bit of soul searching in job development; the devs have said they kind of don't really want to add many more jobs, if any. One of the final dungeons in ShB is a tease/troll on this, as they technically added "Berserker", "Thief" and "Necromancer" to FFXIV...as bosses- jobs that many fans want, but the devs have been adamant about NOT adding.
3) BST was mentioned as being a possible limited job, but it would entirely depend on BLU's success.

In my mind, they should add BST, and they should do it as a limited job that basically copies Pokemon/acts as an activity a la Triple Triad. But eh, I dunno.


Important point, they can/do change their minds often. Ultimately it's going to be about what hypes/sells expansion packs.

[Winterfang]

Here's the source of the interview where Yoshida mention job design going forward.
https://we-are-vanadiel.finalfantasy...id=381&lang=en

The quote :
"Yoshida : After all, there’s no point if a job is similar to its namesake in name only; its gameplay experience needs to match their pre-established design too.

Maybe I'm not understanding what he's trying to convey here, but isn't that exactly what they did to Sage?

[CKNovel]

So what? FF14 is a braindead easy game. So what if one pet does 2% more damage than another? PvE isn't competitive. And if pet balance really is a problem, just do what WoW did and allow you to stat swap pets so they all have the same level of competitiveness.

We're not talking about damage alone but mechanic as well.
What if we could capture a Morbol or Malboro and have it spew its 30 debuff on the ennemy?
Could you get the Mist dragon and freeze the ennemy?
What about the size of the ennemy? You'd have to be able to hide it or reduce its size.
What if an ennemy is able to heal, wouldn't it be broken?

You'd have to limit the possible capturable monster, then limit their utility and remove all flavor until all that remains is a cosmetic with stats.
You'll have to limit the job, for the same reason that Blue mage isn't playable in high end content.

[Payadopa]

Considering how terrible pet AI (especially pathing) tends to be in MMOs, I suspect they probably scrapped the idea even if they had ever considered it seriously. They've already pretty much eliminated pet function for ACN/SMN/SCH and haven't touched Chocobo Companions since HW.

And yet MMOs have it and it works. That's not a valid excuse.

[RukoBoshi]

Maybe I'm not understanding what he's trying to convey here, but isn't that exactly what they did to Sage?

Yeah, that's exactly what they did, and i think they are trying to move away from that.
This is something they definitely must have noticed when they started to design a Sage job and end up with something completely different.

I don't know why they named it Sage anyway, but i think they don't want to do that again.
Next time they'll create something fully from the ground up instead of sticking a popular job names on it.

[Payadopa]

So what? FF14 is a braindead easy game. So what if one pet does 2% more damage than another? PvE isn't competitive. And if pet balance really is a problem, just do what WoW did and allow you to stat swap pets so they all have the same level of competitiveness.

I agree. You can already go into extremes and raids without being oPtImAl. A pet is essentially like a piece of gear. It's not this outlandish, inconceivable idea.

On that note, can we just acknowledge that perfect balance is impossible and inject some much needed diversity back into the game?