The Limitation Dilemma: Why Final Fantasy 14's Limited Job was a Mistake

[Atelier-Bagur]

IMO, the biggest issue I have with BLU is just the simple fact they insisted and even sold it on the premise that BLU would be a solo job. So far, some of the biggest pieces of content with solo content, e.g., Palace of the Dead and Eureka don't even allow Blue Mage to interact with it, which frankly is abysmal.

A class who's one of the biggest selling points upon release and for a long time was the given fact they saw it as a solo job. - The only solo element of this class is Carnival, and frankly nobody cares for those rewards because absolutely everything you get from the Carnival in terms of currency is something you can get far more efficiently doing other pieces of content.

Blue Mage has got to be the most underwhelming content they've ever released due to half-baked decision making. Probably the worst decision they have ever made.

Meanwhile Masked Carnivale happens to be the most diverse and fun set of challenges than many of the games regular raids.

It's not perfect and I certainly wish they could make Blue specific versions of current content anyway like Blue Deep Dungeons and Raids. Blue is a fun decision they've done and the only problem is that they need to add more content for it. It's an entirely different game.

[TheDecay]

The reason BLU is so fun is because they don't have to consider balance.

The only bad ideas with Blu are limitations that shouldn't exist, like exploratory zones, deep dungeons, and Ultimates. If the concern is diminishing the rewards from those activities, then limit those, not the job.

BLU not being able to freely queue is for a good reason, so that players that didn't learn every spell they could have don't get bullied.
At the same time, they're reworking significantly parts of the older game to make it soloable. What's silly is that BLU cannot avail themselves of those changes, too. With the addition of Duty Support, BLU should be able to go through those dungeons with NPC parties but they can't, nor do BLU get any quest credit for what duties they do complete, MSQ or not. The player should have this freedom, even if their job is not free to do the current things or to fully be rewarded with an Ultimate title or whatever.

Players ableto be free from the great homogenizing is what BLU and limited jobs are about.

Perhaps, they should stop using "balance" as an excuse and hire/train more personnel and put them on the balancing team instead of siphoning the budget into Forspoken 365.

[Kaurhz]

Meanwhile Masked Carnivale happens to be the most diverse and fun set of challenges than many of the games regular raids.

It's not perfect and I certainly wish they could make Blue specific versions of current content anyway like Blue Deep Dungeons and Raids. Blue is a fun decision they've done and the only problem is that they need to add more content for it. It's an entirely different game.

Yes, they are diverse, and that diversity amounts to very little when all they have elected to do is release 6 turns in the past 4 years. That is one of the issues, the other is there is very little reason to actually continue doing it. Again, any currency you get from Carnival you get far more efficiently elsewhere. Also again, for a job advertised as being solo it has very very little of solo value.

Yes you are right, it's the problem that they don't add more content to it, this is why it is disappointing and very underwhelming. No amount of fight diversity is going to resolve the class if they do it on such rare occasions. They don't even need to release a Blue specific version of Deep Dungeon, they just need to have a Blue-exclusive achievement, and then keep Necromancer as exclusive for completing it on a non-limited job.

BLU would work if they elected to release content more frequently. However, there is a very slim chance in that actually happening. Until that changes it's underwhelming at best IMO.

[Eastwall]

I guess you can put up a pf for synced old savage...

[CidHeiral]

I love Blue Mage, it's fun because it's broken and OP. This would no longer be the case if it had to be balanced against all the other jobs.

[Kranel_San]

Isn't blue mage a normal job in 11 though?

That's correct, and to my knowledge, there aren't any balancing issues with BLU in FFXI.

[Renalt]

I think they realized it was a mistake given the fact we haven't had a 2nd Limited Job and no word of one even in the making. It was a one off experiment that failed.

[Blueyes]

My biggest fear going into the Fan Festival later this month is the possibility that they may announce a new limited job.

I firmly believe that SE could satisfy both camps if they really wanted to. Give Blue Mage a unique ability, like Unbridled Strength, that unlocks the limited potential of Blue Magic. It can only be activated under specific circumstances, like when participating in content through the Blue Mage Log, Masked Carnival, and so on. Without Unbridled Strength activated, you get treated like a normal job with a balanced selection of spells that can participate in all activities.

Unfortunately, SE has yet to express interest in letting Blue Mage be anything more than a limited job. I pray that no other fan favorite job will suffer the same fate.

[Heroman3003]

The only problem with making Blue Mage a limited job was pretending like it's a job. Blue Mage is not a job, it's a side attraction on par with things like Firmanent or Island Sanctuary or any sort of optional side content to go do for fun. Putting it on same list as actual jobs and such was the real mistake with it. The limited jobs are a good and fun idea, but they should never have been called 'jobs' because excessively whiny people in community will use that as excuse to have it be made into a 'real job' which can only ever happen by removing everything that makes Blue Mage unique (and yes, it will HAVE to happen, regardless of your thoughts on current job homogenization, Blue Mage would have never fit into the game at any point in its history, past or present, without being reworked from ground up and homogenized to at least somewhat fit into existing roles).

[Fawkes]

Isn't blue mage a normal job in 11 though?

FFXI never had quite the same obsession with balancing jobs. So they didn't mind if certain jobs fill a certain niche, or have no niche at all.