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

[Nestama]

Making BLU work as a normal Job just isn't really possible, unless you're fine with SE taking away what makes BLU, BLU (learning spells from monsters). I know some of you will argue "make it a Job quest!" okay well not every Job in this game learns a skill from Job Quests. Also, BLU will lose just about every spell it has except the ones that'll let it be balanced with other Jobs (and then lose old spells per expansion to make room for new ones, or be reworked again and again).

It will also never be allowed to be a Healer or a Tank, so anything that has a significant defence buff, counter/reflect or heal/regen will be removed. All spells that would allow quicker dungeon runs will also be removed, too.

At that point it won't even be a BLU.

[Alexandre_Noireau]

???

So you want SE to double down on their mistake? I mean that is likely but that's not what we should be aiming for.

Was releasing a SINGLE limited job
Not the idea of limited jobs.

It is cool that a Job has it's own content, progression mechanics, quirks, etc, BLU is amazing.
But by being alone you put him up against all the normal jobs. What BLU needs it's an enviroment, with more species like him.

If anything they should have released 3 Limited Jobs at once.

And we should be at the 5th Limited Job right now.

[Arzalis]

SE shot themselves in the foot. They created a job that doesn't work in the normal content loops and they need to spend development time creating content only it can use. So people play it for a few weeks to a month every now and then, then don't touch it for a long time.

It was a very very poorly thought out design choice on multiple fronts.

[TheRealMadruck]

Making BLU work as a normal Job just isn't really possible, unless you're fine with SE taking away what makes BLU, BLU (learning spells from monsters). I know some of you will argue "make it a Job quest!" okay well not every Job in this game learns a skill from Job Quests. Also, BLU will lose just about every spell it has except the ones that'll let it be balanced with other Jobs (and then lose old spells per expansion to make room for new ones, or be reworked again and again).

It will also never be allowed to be a Healer or a Tank, so anything that has a significant defence buff, counter/reflect or heal/regen will be removed. All spells that would allow quicker dungeon runs will also be removed, too.

At that point it won't even be a BLU.

-Say that to Summoner who also story wise also learns their abilities from enemies in other Final Fantasy games.
-Who cares if they lose spells...most spells are already not being used because it either isn't meta to use doing content or because there are alternative spells that are more powerful to use.
-Blue Mage in my opinion shouldn't be a healer or a tank...they're a caster class.
-If you think BLU should be a tank or healer, then why not also RDM? RDM uses a melee weapon, has access to heals and could easily be applied within the defined limits of what Blue Mage has based on spells RDM is known to have in other FF games.
-You can already burn through content via unsynced way faster than BLU. So you are advocating for a redundency of a game mechanic we already have? WHY?!?!

[ThaCa]

BLU is great way to recycle content while spending very little to expand to the spesific content that is only for them.

When it launched they put some effort to the colosseum, but ever since the additions have been fairly minimal and most of the content comes from doing the old content within the limitations of the Job.

They are already struggling with Job identities of existing ones and having them become more samey due design choices of endgame, having 1 more "normal" Job would be vastly less useful way to utilize the old content compared to having Limited Job(s).

[Atelier-Bagur]

SE shot themselves in the foot. They created a job that doesn't work in the normal content loops and they need to spend development time creating content only it can use. So people play it for a few weeks to a month every now and then, then don't touch it for a long time.

It was a very very poorly thought out design choice on multiple fronts.

Kinda like most content really. Eureka? Bozja? Most people only run it for either story completion or weapon/armor glam and once thats done then thats it. No loop there, c'est fini. Deep Dungeons? Even more so, people get the rewards and then call it a day, thats its, sayonara, see you later alligator.

With Blue Mage though, I still would like to have more open world content for it. FATE grinds with Blue would be a nice way....if they ever implement gemstones in pre-Shb zones > STILL WAITING ON THAT SE, I KNOW YOU KNOW THAT WE'VE BEEN ASKING FOR THIS.

[Nestama]

-Say that to Summoner who also story wise also learns their abilities from enemies in other Final Fantasy games.
-Who cares if they lose spells...most spells are already not being used because it either isn't meta to use doing content or because there are alternative spells that are more powerful to use.
-Blue Mage in my opinion shouldn't be a healer or a tank...they're a caster class.
-If you think BLU should be a tank or healer, then why not also RDM? RDM uses a melee weapon, has access to heals and could easily be applied within the defined limits of what Blue Mage has based on spells RDM is known to have in other FF games.
-You can already burn through content via unsynced way faster than BLU. So you are advocating for a redundency of a game mechanic we already have? WHY?!?!

-It works for SMN because now SMN actually summons (though now it's brain dead easy to play). With BLU, you're only taking away what makes it BLU (learning spells from monsters)
-Because it's BLU and the whole point of BLU is learning spells, even if they have no purpose. It's what I loved the most about BLU in FFXI (though what spells you had equipped also gave you different traits. Would be neat if FFXIV did that, too)
-But that's also what makes it unique and not just another Battle Caster
-Well you could make RDM a Tank in FFXI... but unlike FFXI, the devs of FFXIV made it a DPS with an okay healing spell and a Res.
-And you want to take away BLU's identity and make it just like any other Caster in this game.

Look, I get it. You want BLU to be like every other Job. The problem is, that means it stops being BLU and might as well be renamed as something else (Morpher could work. Make it play similar to how SMN plays. Transform into X monster and use X ability until you run out and so forth).

[ForsakenRoe]

Making BLU fit into being 'unlimited' while retaining it's 'op' (debatable, I was told by Yoshida that it had to be limited because 'what if you just LV5 Death raidbosses', I cannot LV5 Death raidbosses) would take effort from the devs, but it is theoretically possible.

When it was first announced, the job's reasons for being Limited were given: 'what if you just LV5 Death bosses, that's no fun for the rest of the team', and 'what if someone joins and doesn't have the right spells learned'. We can address both of these problems, without compromising on the 'identity of BLU'. At this point, I feel it's important to mention: The BLU Identity is that it learns spells from monsters. Learn method, % chances, number of total spells in game, all of these points have changed from game to game. Only 'learn enemy spells' is the constant 'identity of the class'.

My proposal would be (if I had any sway at SE), to rework the class's BLU Skill Log to work as 'skill glamours'. Basically, by doing job quests/levelling up, you'd get a certain 'base kit' of spells. Each of the 'learned spells' from monsters, would be a glamour effect for these 'base spells', allowing the player to create themes for their BLU without it affecting their performance. Some might want 'all blue spells', some may want 'Thavnairian Firedancer BLU' with all fire spells, etc. The one real 'identity' of the class, 'collect enemy spells' still exists for those who want to go collecting. The additional effects of the spells (ie instakill, petrify etc) would take effect in Unsync and Carnivale. This also allows for the BLU to be 'OP' in old content, making old Glam farms much easier to set up/solo. For example, by changing LV5 Death slightly to:

LV? Death, cast 2.5s, recast 120s
Deals damage with a potency of 600 to target.
Additional Effect: If Unsynced or participating in the Masked Carnivale, adds an additional chance to instantly kill the target. Chance scales based on difference in level between caster and target.

If every raidboss is NOT coded to be immune to LV5 Death, then a BLU can potentially oneshot older raidbosses to farm glam while Unsynced, but current stuff cannot be Unsynced, nor can Ultimates, thus the 'challenge' is not affected. And if it's super easy to get old glam from raids again because of this, it's easier to mentally justify removing those pieces from your Glam Dresser, which means more space is returned to the player. That's right, this would also help alleviate the Glam Storage issues the devs constantly face

By doing something like this, we solve both 'problems' Yoshida claimed the class faces, at once. Players would not enter raids with 'not the right spells', as they got them all from levelling. Players would not 'oneshot raidbosses', because the current-tier raidbosses are not affected by LV5Death until the expansion is no longer current. To me, the 'reasons' given are just flimsy excuses to justify the true situation: they had a design for BLU they wanted, and they didn't want to deviate from it.

If it were up to me, I'd have made BLU a tank. Getting hit by spell is quite iconic, out of all the learn methods in the series, after all. But it's a caster now, so that's what we're working with. A previous post of mine, which includes 'what spells do you get from levelling, and what spells are 'skill glamours' for those base spells', can be found here. I even found a way to get Final Sting into the rotation (without it killing you), and even a way to make it so you don't just spam 'Line AOE #5', instead making it so you'd cycle between the different 'shapes', based on what Libra tells you to use. Remember, BLU's design, even now, is a rotation where you do a big burst at 2min, and a smaller burst at 1min. I fail to see what part of 'making it unlimited will remove what makes it fun', when it's already part of the 2min meta, even in it's current state, and that the 'overpowered effects' can be preserved with something like what I put in the linked post. Just thinking outside the box a bit shows what it could be, rather than thinking 'oh this is how it is, so this is how it has to stay'.

Unless, the tragic loss of 'oh now I cannot use it to farm mog tomes in Aurum Vale spamming' is such an important factor, it justifies keeping a class one expansion behind? Let's be real, an unlimited BLU could do Ultimates, Deep Dungeons, Eureka, Bozja, Criterion/Variant, current Savages, roulettes, and even potentially PVP. I'd rather see the Morbol come from a super hard Carnivale challenge than 'do these old raids but as a team of BLU'. Doing Siegfried/Azulmagia without taking a single hit is a fun challenge, moreso to me than 'Diamondback to ignore the raid mechanic, and the 5 that come after it'. Make BLU the absolute lowest personal DPS in the game, and absolutely overload them with damage support skills like Offguard, Peculiar Light, Libra, etc

Lastly, I want to illustrate how daft the concept really is. Imagine Blizzard announced Wrath of the Lich King. Everyone's hyped. And then they say 'Yes we are releasing a new class, the Death Knight!', and everyone's going insane, saying they're gonna main it day 1 etc. And then it turns out, you cannot actually go to Northrend as a DK. Your endgame content is running BC dungeons and raids. Everyone's having fun doing Naxx25 or Ulduar, and you're stuck with Sunwell Plateau for endgame content. And whenever you say 'idk this is weird, I wanna be able to do Northrend stuff too', you're told that 'well DK can't, it'd be too OP because AntiMagic Shell is too strong'. It'd be marketing suicide, which is why it boggles my mind so much that SE actually went for it, and with one of the most fan-favorite classes in the series. If it was just a random minigame it'd be whatever, but the fact that it uses the BLU name and legacy, means it's cockblocking BLU from being anything more than a weekly Aetheryte Ticket farm for me and probably a heck of a lot of others

I'm not mad, I'm disappointed. Actually, no, I am mad too. So much potential, wasted. How does SE not look at 'class that learns skills from monsters', and 'open world area with many monsters roaming' (eureka) and not make the connection? We can go back and forth on other aspects, but the fact that Eureka is still locked off to BLU shows that SE has no clue what they're doing with the job. They'd likely just abandon it and pretend it doesn't exist, if it weren't for specific vocal people going CAN WE GET BLU UPDATE. Because now that it's limited, it has to get it's own, separate updates. Just saying, if it were a regular job, it's 'update' would be... the same time as every other class. New raid, new EX, new Alliance Raid, new Relic weapon, etc.

[Renathras]

Honestly, my only issue with BLU is that it was touted as a solo Job, yet many of the great abilities are gated behind group content, which makes no sense. Heck, with all the changes to the game to make much of the game's content soloable with Trusts, BLU would be the perfect Job (if they let you go to current level cap and even do end-game level dungeons/trials for the MSQ, just only in the story mode and not in the Duty Finder) for people that wanted to solo play, kinda like how the Knights of the Old Republic games had a lot of solo players wanting to play the MMO and upset they couldn't see the story solo.

Granted, I don't play solo, but I could see that having worked well had they actually gone all in on it.

BLU is fun, and making it like the other 19 would make it not a BLU.

"You get to use White Wind!" and it heals for 300 potency AOE as an oGCD with a 120 sec CD? That's not White Wind, that's Curing Waltz with a different animation.
"You get to use Mighty Guard!" and it's an oGCD that reduces damage taken by the party by 10% for 15 seconds on a 120 sec CD that later traits to 90s? That's not Mighty Guard, that's Troubadour/Tactician/Shield Samba.
"You can cast Angel Whisper!" and it's an 8 sec cast, 2.5 sec GCD that costs 2400 MP and Resurrects the target in a weakened state? That's not Angel Whisper, that's Raise/Resurrection/Ascend/Egeiro/Verraise.

Yeah, you could make a BLU that's just a normal Job with BLU names on spells but the spells are just normal spells.

That wouldn't be a BLU.

That'd be a RDM wearing a BLU skin.

[ForsakenRoe]

"You get to use White Wind!" and it heals for 300 potency AOE as an oGCD with a 120 sec CD? That's not White Wind, that's Curing Waltz with a different animation.
"You get to use Mighty Guard!" and it's an oGCD that reduces damage taken by the party by 10% for 15 seconds on a 120 sec CD that later traits to 90s? That's not Mighty Guard, that's Troubadour/Tactician/Shield Samba.
"You can cast Angel Whisper!" and it's an 8 sec cast, 2.5 sec GCD that costs 2400 MP and Resurrects the target in a weakened state? That's not Angel Whisper, that's Raise/Resurrection/Ascend/Egeiro/Verraise.

hi ren

White Wind: give it a massive CD to balance it, and it gains use as an interesting optimization tool. if there's a HP-to-1 mechanic like Charybdis/WhiteHole/god forbid, Life's Agonies, now a potential solution is to Bene the BLU, then they White Wind with their now full HP bar. Also, BLU literally has 'medica but scuffed range (exuviation), 'medica but lower potency cos medica has that trait now' (strotram) and cure 2 (pom cure) (edit: sorry, just checked, 500p means it's actually Cure 1, hilarious) we're a bit past 'it's just X with a different animation'. Not to mention how many 'circle AOE for 220p' the class has

Mighty Guard: Very specific effect you chose, but the fact that a caster would have access to a Troub equivalent would be interesting on it's own merit, Magick Barrier's a thing so I can see it (hence why I did so in my post). Side note, a quick wiki check says that MG has affected the party, not a solo target, in pretty much every previous MG incarnation. The only 'it only affects 1 person' version I can think of, that I've played, is here, and FFTA. For 'I want something that defends specifically the BLU', we can have a Third Eye/Arcane Crest style shorter defensive, using stuff like Cold Fog or Chelonian Gate

Angel Whisper: SMN has res, RDM has res but can cheat the cast time. What's the difference between those and Angel Whisper? Oh right: AW has a 5min CD, making it LESS OP than it's counterparts. Weird. I'd personally make it a 60s CD with no cast time, to set it apart from other raise giving casters who can cast multiple raises. OGCD or GCD idk about, probably GCD for 'balance'. Maybe bump it to 120s CD

And yeh, kinda weird that they went so hard on it being a solo focused job, and then made it unable to learn the best spells by being solo. Or letting it go in solo-focused content like solo DD runs or Eureka or Bozja.

I'd say it's not a BLU as it is, but a minigame wearing a BLU skin. Would anyone like it if LOV was released, but had Beastmaster as a job tied to it?