So, what is the hold up on Beastmaster?

[Payadopa]

Next time they'll create something fully from the ground up instead of sticking a popular job names on it.

The funny thing is, 1.0 did exactly that and people didn't like it. Maybe this time it'll be different. Who knows.

[Deveryn]

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

Not really. Looking at past versions, it's still a mix of white and black magic (DPS and healing).

Summoner is now more accurate to previous designs as well.

Beastmaster as a playable job would definitely be that name only situation. I believe he's specifically thinking about that job when he makes that comment. Pet AI doesn't work well, especially in dungeons. There are versions of BST that would charm and nothing points to that even being possible here. Regardless of that, it would also be severely limited in many instances. What you're left with is just another melee job.

[Deveryn]

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

To say that Pet AI works is very disingenuous. I have plenty of experience with it elsewhere and I would use the term "work" very loosely. It works in other games like XI because you're never dealing with too many mobs at a time, like you might in XIV. Pathing and aggro have also been a problem not just here, but in other MMOs.

[Adamantini]

Look, not wanting to bring water to your hot fireplace of happiness, but as the vast majority have said, given the abandonment of the Blue Mage class, I highly doubt that beast master is going to be a cool thing to play.

I say this because:

I don't know much about the class, but from what I've read in this forum, its strength depends on the creature being used, since it is based on it that you will attack. That would be cool, but how do you envision it in FFXIV?

- SE has a habit of making everything tasteless, fast, and casual. I know that a large majority of players here are afraid of any idea that takes the least amount of work to achieve something in-game, even if it means nothing more than a cosmetic with no impact on the game. Therefore, capturing any pet will be easy and effortless. So there will never be that hard-to-capture pet where you would stop in town with it and leave your AFK character just to show how badass you are.

- I see the dynamics of BST similar to BLU: explore the world, go after your skills. Your strength depends on your performance in catching them all. So I wouldn't say BST would be anything but a limited job, getting the same treatment as BLU (you'll only get content when SE is out of ideas on what to release in the patch).

- Pets are never balanced in any game. In the end, either we would end up with yet another version of EOS and Selene, where pets do the same thing just by changing their appearance (which is boring, in my opinion), or there will always be one pet that is better than all the others, which will make everyone end up using just one.

So imagine the sum of it all.

I believe that if sometimes, if we had a little content with the dynamic "if you want, go for it", things would have a little more flavor.

- Why is BLU so limited? Let people make BLU groups and go make current content. What's the fear of a group full of BLU doing a savage (only making a system that detects a group of BLU, and dropping items linked only to BLU in this mode)? What's the problem with having a rank in POL/HOH only for BLU who reach the top? If someone thinks BLU is so absurd, why don't they try the least bit, and go after it?

If they could solve BLU's problems and this fear of the "minimum effort community", BST might be an interesting class as I love collecting stuff. Until then, we already have a class that exists just for the sake of existing, and almost no one plays with it, because there is no content and no reason to do so.

[Deveryn]

snip

It's a little soon to say BLU is abandoned. It's not going to receive updates that early in the expansion cycle. x.4(5) is the likely target for regular updates going forward.

BLU already does savage and has its own challenges. You should actually run the content and see for yourself. It's a phase skipping glass cannon. Even the players don't want something like that doing certain content because it more or less negates the challenges of that content. If BLU could do ultimates, you'd have everyone running around with those weapons. The same would be true with PotD and HoH.

They're not going to do extra work to make separate versions of all that content or some kind of 'system' to restrict loot drops just for a niche class.

It's also not engaging in current content because that's likely all people would play. They don't do all that work on 20 other classes so one can be the go to for clearing all the latest content.

[dspguy]

FFXI had "jug pets" which, if I recall, were ultimately superior in many cases from a zone charmed pet. Instead of charming a local beast, it simply summoned a pet by using a consumable resource. That's the same as a summoner summoning their pet (minus the resource). It would just be a "click ability, get pet" type thing.

They learned a lot from summoner (finally). Instead of pet abilities being delayed a few seconds from initiating the action, they just made the pet/summon an animation, nothing more. Abilities are pretty much instant. That's what they'd do with BST. It would just be a summoner by a different name. I hope to see them do it. To be fair though, I find they did a good job with most of the new jobs. They fit in and ultimately balance out well. But the balance is "too perfect." It makes everything so vanilla. But, that's what we get when we ask for more balance.

[kaynide]

Pet AI doesn't work well, especially in dungeons.

Just as a note, they have made significant strides towards working out AI-teammates in the form of trusts/squadron. It's nowhere near "there" yet, but between that and old Carbuncle/SMN code, the groundwork could be there towards some kind of pet job. I'm very skeptical it could happen...but the building blocks are there.

Why is BLU so limited? Let people make BLU groups and go make current content. What's the fear of a group full of BLU doing a savage (only making a system that detects a group of BLU, and dropping items linked only to BLU in this mode)? What's the problem with having a rank in POL/HOH only for BLU who reach the top? If someone thinks BLU is so absurd, why don't they try the least bit, and go after it?.

I'm not really in the "know"/meta/community around BLU, but I will say it was some of the most fun I had in a while. It wasn't perfect, but it was a lot of fun to figure out how to do the carnivale thing, especially the harder ones like Gogo.

Or trying to Solo Alexander, etc. Just to see what's possible.

[Adamantini]

It's a little soon to say BLU is abandoned. It's not going to receive updates that early in the expansion cycle. x.4(5) is the likely target for regular updates going forward.

Even because a lot of content has been released for him since the class was launched. 20-30 levels (and it's still below the other classes), few floors in BLU's exclusive content, and... remind me what else, there's so much that I ended up forgetting ~s

BLU already does savage and has its own challenges. You should actually run the content and see for yourself. It's a phase skipping glass cannon. Even the players don't want something like that doing certain content because it more or less negates the challenges of that content. If BLU could do ultimates, you'd have everyone running around with those weapons. The same would be true with PotD and HoH.

and what's the problem with letting people do what they want? If content will only reward BLU, what's the fear of letting people do what they want? I did the raids with BLU, only 1 left for me to get the morbol. It's chaotic, fun, but pointless. I don't want to redo things from past expansions, to get empty rewards. Since they will release this fight to me in the next expansion, why not now? Screw if it's easier or harder, if you limit the rewards to just that class, no one will get hurt

They're not going to do extra work to make separate versions of all that content or some kind of 'system' to restrict loot drops just for a niche class.

Is it really niche? Or do people only play with it when content comes out, because the rest of the time there's nothing to do with it?

It's also not engaging in current content because that's likely all people would play. They don't do all that work on 20 other classes so one can be the go to for clearing all the latest content.

Not everyone enjoys playing mage, or chasing after a huge list of skills out there. If you limit rewards to BLU only, no other classes will be affected.

[kaynide]

Is it really niche? Or do people only play with it when content comes out, because the rest of the time there's nothing to do with it?

I mean, it's no less niche than anything else in the game; some people like PvP, some people do Wondrous Tales. It's all about what you/your circle of friends have fun doing. We have fun abusing/finding loopholes in the game via BLU. Different strokes for different folks.

Not everyone enjoys playing mage, or chasing after a huge list of skills out there. If you limit rewards to BLU only, no other classes will be affected.

Eh, their point was that BLU shouldn't be available in current tier gameplay, because it purposely "cheats" the way trials/etc are intended to work for normal play. And finding those weird gimmicks is the fun. It really shouldn't be able to do current tier stuff..but old stuff? Absolutely yes.

[Adamantini]

Eh, their point was that BLU shouldn't be available in current tier gameplay, because it purposely "cheats" the way trials/etc are intended to work for normal play. And finding those weird gimmicks is the fun. It really shouldn't be able to do current tier stuff..but old stuff? Absolutely yes.

yes, but one way or another the fight will be released to them. So I repeat: If you limit the rewards only to BLU (drops items for Blue Mages only, achievements to clear the fight only for Blue Mages, Enable the "clear party" only for fights with Blue Mages) what's the problem with be open now?


EDIT: I would stay here discussing until tomorrow about BLU and why I think it's stupid to limit this class so much, but that's not the purpose of this topic, it's to talk about BST. So I won't answer any more about BLU related things unless I bring up the BST subject.
If you're interested, I can discuss about BLU in a topic related only to it. Just yell at one of them and I'll appear.