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

[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?

[Renathras]

Hi Roe!

White Wind: give it a massive CD to balance it, and it gains use as an interesting optimization tool.

And what would that be?

If BLU was a Healer, then a 3 min CD (like Lilibell Macrocosmos) might make sense...except you're talking about a partywide Bene in that one case. And we're not talking about BLU being a Healer Job. At least, most people aren't. It couldn't work like White Wind does now. No other Healer spell works by giving people the HP the caster has as an AOE heal. That's mega overpowered if used when the BLU has high HP and mega underpowered when they do not. It has "interesting interactions" with other Healers in theory. In practice, if it's that powerful, it becomes meta. Recall how groups were tossing WHM for AST for P3S specifically because of how Macrocosmos let the party skip out on needing to Healer LB? Now dial that up to 11. The CD would have to be "once per fight", AND BLU be a Healer Job.

Imagine, for a moment, if we gave, say, Time Mage or RDM Macrocosmos. "0 Healer clears" would now be commonplace. In the example above, what's to stop the party from just dropping the WHM since they could have a PLD Clemency and RDM Vercure the BLU, then the BLU uses White Wind to top off the party, no Healers needed? Wouldn't this be VERY VERY BAD?

Mighty Guard: Very specific effect you chose,

I started to go with Magick Barrier, but Mighty Guard traditionally has been Wall (Protect + Shell, often + Haste), so all damage types would make more sense. The point stands, it wouldn't be some interesting ability, it'd be the same boring and bland ability that parties are already guaranteed one of anyway since the standard comp already has one Ranged. That's not "interesting on it's own merit", honestly. It's the opposite of that - boring.

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.

It wouldn't. That's the problem. Turned into a "standard" ability, it would be Raise. It would lose its unique properties. Also, need I remind you that you (and everyone else in the Healer forum) complained endlessly over the 0 Healer TOP clear? This is the kind of thing that allows for 0 Healer TOP clears.

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.

Agreed.

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?

Mechanics, lore, and execution, it's a BLU, not a minigame. Minigames would be things like Doman Majong or Triple Triad. The Job as it is is very much a BLU, both in how it functions and how it plays and via its lore; all the things that make a Job a Job. Not sure what LOV is, but I've seen people ever since BLU was released want Beastmaster added as a Limited Job like it with a Pokemon "gotta catch 'em all" thing for taming pets. So quite a few people actually do want that.

...me personally, I've never had any kind of love of BST, so I don't care and more power to them. I have, however, lone loved BLU, and I like this one. I just wish it could do a bit more, worked solo as billed, etc.

[ForsakenRoe]

Hi Roe!

Skill rebuttals, feel free to ignore if you are not Ren

- WW CD, I was thinking 5min originally, but you prove the point for me. Life's Agonies was AST-preferred because they had a tool to deal with it, and WHM did not. If BLU could WW and solve the mechanic, with the help of WHM's Bene, then that means WHM can also do the mechanic (with help). It's still not ideal, because you're burning two moves to get the same effect as AST's one, and is comp reliant, but it's better than 'I feel like I am griefing if I go WHM here'. But yeh, if the CD was like, 5min, then the TOP example doesn't exactly hold much water, because it's three uses in the entire encounter. I get where you're coming from, but 'how often is the thing accessible' is a big part of what makes something OP, and Bloodwhetting/Clemency are far far more accessible than WW would be

White Wind: 2.5s cast, 240s recast
Restores HP to all allies in <range>. HP restored is equal to caster's current HP.
Additional Effect: When Unsynced or participating in the Masked Carnivale, recast is reduced to 2.5s

edit: oh, you could also reduce the range if needed to balance it. For example, I can reach across the arena to hit everyone for Caloric Theory despite being on an edge (my DC has settled on Rinon's hexagon strat it seems), because Rapture is 20y. But if White Wind is only 10y, or 6y, or whatever, then it cannot reach the whole way. You'd have to have the BLU middle to get it to work. And in that strat for the mechanic, you cannot guarantee the BLU is middle (the fire marked people go middle to start). Playing around that limitation, and finding either a strat that lets you abuse WW, or just deciding 'ok we cannot use the WW cheese here, lets move it to Pangenesis', is part of the fun of raiding

- Time to delete Magick Barrier then. Or, make MG be the Physical equivalent of MB. I'm not a fan of how ranged are 'necessary' by virtue of having Troub and a 1% party stat boost though, I'd rather they get actual good design, that justifies bringing one, not just 'well we need it or we are 1% weaker'. As such, I don't see Troub and such being good because they're locked to being PRanged only. Like if a melee got a Troub equivalent, I'd be like 'oh damn that's pretty interesting', not 'noo Troub was the ranged thing they can't do this'

- Raise/Verraise/Resurrection also have no unique properties. They all function the same, Verraise is different only because it's affected by a separate trait. AW's long ass CD is the one thing that makes it 'unique', and that can be kept for balance sake if its that big a deal, just... not five minutes, jesus. Also, if the raise CD is shorter (eg, 60s OGCD), doesn't the idea of 'BLU is the low PDPS, super supporty big RDPS job' actually justify it having a lower CD? If we're to believe that RDM's damage suffers all the time because 'but Verraise!!!!', surely it's fine for BLU, who would have even less personal damage (if I got my way), to have strong raise potential too? Remember, RDM can back-to-back multiple raises, this BLU would still only get one, because of the CD. And as for TOP... it was RDM's machinegun raising that saved them at the LB spam section, this wouldn't change that. They'd still need the RDM for that, maybe they'd swap the SMN to a BLU in this case but... yeh it'd be at most, the same result. I don't think it'd be 'zero heal runs would be commonplace'.

Let's say Island Sanctuary came out, but! BST was the job you used to progress through it, as a limited job. It's got a questline, it's got 'catch animals', etc, all the trappings (heh) of BST flavor and identity. But locking an iconic job, to a piece of content that is forgotten about after a couple patches, is not savvy business practice to me. At this point, I only go to Sanc to put in what the math wizard discord tells me to put in, to get the cowries, to stockpile for next expansion to get Crafting Materia for melding. I don't touch the place outside of that. Probably a lot of players like me, too. Next patch, 6.5, I expect the max rank to hit 20, and after that, I fully expect it to be just... complete. Left to gather dust, for people to participate in if they want, but it doesn't get more content added. Like Eureka, or Bozja, or Diadem. Which is probably why they did not lock BST to being the method used to progress Island Sanctuary. Because if they stick a Limited Job onto a piece of content, ie Carnivale, then that content has to keep getting updates. If the job goes stagnant (ie, if BLU got to a certain level cap and just never got updated again), then everyone, even BLU enjoyers of current year, would consider it to be a waste.

And, let's also consider, if they added BST as a LJ, then now they have to do BLU updates, AND BST updates, AND any other updates to LJs that they add later, along with all the usual stuff. The dev-hours strain limited jobs would add, would get out of control too fast, I think. We're already waiting 4 years to get the second half of a race they added for SHB, I don't think they can afford to add another Limited Job, just from a 'this takes time to develop for' perspective

I think SE has seen how divisive BLU was. Whether it's a success or failure in SE's eyes, or data, doesn't matter, I think. It could be a roaring success, from a data perspective, but that's not important, because SE is a company. A brand, with PR and optics to consider. And I think it's the optics, of 'this job can never play with everyone else at endgame', that means that the term Limited Job is now just a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths, and SE doesn't feel it's worth it to risk trying another one. The optics of it would be catastrophic. So BLU remains on lifesupport, getting VERY occasional updates, but behind the curtain, the idea of Limited Jobs is dead, not worth the backlash it'd cause. Ofc, they could announce BST or something at Fanfest to prove me wrong, but I'd bet money there'd be at least one person (with a red shirt possibly) asking if it's an April Fools joke. If I was at Fanfest (no ticket, thanks lottery) and I saw the reveal, it'd be me. Not in a red shirt, though, contrary to my character's name, I'm not that big into red. At the very least, there'd be booing from the audience at the reveal, and that'd be terrible for PR. I can see the Kotaku headlines already

Again, I don't see why anyone would want PUP locked to a LOV themed questline. Or BST locked to Island. Or BLU to be locked to the Carnivale. Have those as side content for those jobs if you want, like how Performance is technically side content of BRD, but don't lock me in Outland when everyone else is playing Northrend content. Don't lock me in the Source, when everyone's not only been to the First, but has also now come back and done more Source things, it just doesn't make sense from a business perspective, especially with, possibly, THE fanfavorite job of the series

[Renathras]

...

This is my point, though. FFXIV's combat system is stupidly rigid. It doesn't allow for (or incorporate) stuff like that. So if one Job - but only one - gets that special treatment of "difference", then it becomes unbalanced. It's either overpowered and meta and everyone demands one, or it's underpowered and anti-meta and gets blacklisted.

I didn't prove your point - I pointed out how BLU wouldn't need a WHM or Bene for it. With a PLD and RDM, it would allow for 0 Healer clears. Something I know you oppose.

Recall that the 0 Healer clear of TOP only relied on a single brief time period of pulling off insanity where they cast the Raise on the SMN or RDM (I forget which), then had a PLD Cover the other while it cast a Raise, then power raising everyone else after that. This was roughly 30 seconds of the fight, not the entire thing. P3S actually had more healing requirements, but again, that specific mechanic required _A_ Healer Job for either LB or for AST to use Macrocosmos. It's why the encounter couldn't be 0 Healer cleared. But with this setup, you'd be able to 0 Healer clear it with a BLU. PLD or WAR (or both) and RDM or DNC (or both) could pump healing into it, then White Wind, then GG.

Angel Whisper CAN'T have a unique property. That's the point. Not and fit into the general meta. In practice, it would either be the same and thus not matter, the distinction wouldn't be relevant and wouldn't matter, or it wouldn't be worth it in the first place.

Consider SMN vs RDM. SMN can only instant cast one Raise per minute, RDM can do several (provided it doesn't OOM, roughly 4-5?). In practice, if your team isn't dying left and right, they're identical. Maybe a rare Healer death gets addressed and that's it. When it matters and you need a bunch of Riases, SMN's is vastly inferior, as would be BLU's. And due to this specific distinction...RDM's damage is lower than all other Casters and almost all other DPSers to the point it's the first Job swapped out once a party is no longer on Prog. BLU would probably end up like a worse SMN in this case with your version. And, again, I'll point out the 0 Healer TOP clear was due to a SMN and RDM tandem Raising at a specific, key moment in the encounter. Something, again, that you oppose being doable in the game...

Why do people keep laboring under the illusion that if BLU or jobs as complex as BLU aren't limited and are endgame-ready, the devs will not prune or balance its skills so that it's not overpowered...?

What are you talking about?

This is literally the argument people are making - that part of what makes BLU fun is that it's not at all balanced, so to make it work with the other 19, it would have to be balanced, and that likely means not overpowered and not fun. People have fun on BLU gathering up massive trash packs, freezing them, then shattering them, for example.

EDIT:

This is why a lot of people, myself included, point to Stormblood as a sort of compromise. It's far from perfect but the most jobs stood out a lot better back then compared to now.

I've come to MOSTLY agree with this.

There are some pretty important caveats. For example, ShB and especially EW WHM is way better than the garbage SB one. SB was the single worst expansion for WHM.

So a hybrid approach would be in order, I think. One that restores a lot of Jobs to SB state, but not all of them, noting some are better in EW than they were in SB. Further, there are some entirely new Jobs, so obviously they wouldn't be changed. Even further still, there are some changed Jobs that are basically entirely new Jobs - MNK to a point, MCH, and SMN - where both versions could and probably should exist. So in that sense, we'd want to add them as new Jobs so that both could exist simultaneously.

[Eorzean_username]

This is literally the argument people are making - that part of what makes BLU fun is that it's not at all balanced, so to make it work with the other 19, it would have to be balanced, and that likely means not overpowered and not fun. People have fun on BLU gathering up massive trash packs, freezing them, then shattering them, for example.

Look, I was on a bit of a tear in my last posts because I'm someone who "mained" BLU in every single FF game it was ever possible to do, and had been patiently waiting for it in FFXIV since ARR.

So Yoshida basically poked me directly in the eye with a very sharp stick with his "Oh, we just couldn't do it, it was impossible, instead you get a Limited Job", and yeah, I'm still bitter about it.

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So I am definitely not an unbiased perspective, and in turn, I've overexaggerated the weakness of BLU — a little.

I still maintain that XIV's version of BLU is ~90% crap — largely due to a constant slew of terrible design decisions — and feels like a bizarre "Emperor's New Clothes" kind of thing when I hear players insist that XIV BLU is fun and powerful and amazing.

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However, there's content like Ultimates where BLU's utility would prrrrrrrobably legit be valued higher than its clunk or raw DPS contribution... if you left it in its current state with zero effort to adjust for that.

Because let's be real, taking an action like Diamondback into content where some of the most dangerous mechanics happen when the boss isn't targetable anyway could legit become something exploitable.

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But.

Acting like this is "unsolvable"... honestly drives me straight up a wall.

a) Only a tiny portion of BLU's actions actually have any serious potential to become "overpowered" in some niche situation or other.

Most of the rest of BLU's kit ranges from a slew of mechanically-redundant garbage, to pointless gimmicks used for trolling your friends, to potency-busted and otherwise completely-uncreative filler that's used as a design kickstand to prop-up BLU's wobbly, rusting bicycle from tipping over completely.

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b) Other actions from other Jobs have also been historically overpowered in content, and/or had the potential to become so.

In response, the game implemented flags to start specifically-ignoring and bypassing certain actions with certain mechanics.

This is why there are attacks that mysteriously penetrate Hallowed Ground, or refuse to transfer through Cover, or ignore Arm's Length/Surecast, or... (etc)

So if BLU is ever breaking something specific by existing, the same system can be used to tag-and-flag it back down to earth.

This ties directly into "c" below.

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c) Right now, BLU is "overpowered" (let's just set the semantic debate aside for a second, and allow this hypothetical premise) in... level 80 content (because we're < 2 days from 6.45), and spends most of each expansion only being "overpowered" in content –20 Levels (ie, BLU has been stuck at Level 70 until ~18 months into Endwalker).

...So (Man Ray Meme goes here):

• You claim you love BLU because it's "overpowered", right?

• And you don't want BLU to lose its "overpoweredness" if it's allowed to actually play the rest of the game, right?

• And you're currently only "overpowered" in content that's 10-20 levels lower than current content — ie, Unsyncable content, right?

• So if BLU's actions were given the Crafter "Trained Eye" treatment, and automatically nerfed in content that isn't at least 10 levels below your current level... nothing would change, right?

But BLU can't be level 90 because it would be too overpowered

(screams)

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I personally just don't see the issue with BLU having a split-personality — "Hello my name is Blue Mage, I behave more like a normal Job in Level 81-90 content, and I have various gimmicks and side content available for me in Level 1-80 content".

Honestly, I think more Jobs should have extra flavor like that — side content that they can explore to layer more [design buzzwords like "texture" and "flavor" go here] on top of their baseline experience.

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...Also this is kind of tangential and, definitely, highly-personal and subjective, but I just don't see where people are coming from praising BLU for having unique or interesting gameplay compared to "homogenised" normal Jobs:

Are you honestly impressed by your burst phase consisting of 15s of fragile Potency vomit every 2 minutes (why does this... sound so... familiar...) followed by 15s of literally doing nothing except fidgeting around with your movement keys because you've been chocoblocked worse than even the old Warrior post-Berserk refractory-period Pacify?

And then your "filler" being spamming Glare Sonic Boom (or equivalent) over and over and over again, while... smacking OGCDs as they light up, and... refreshing... Dia Song of Torment... every 30s... (why does this sound... so... familiar) ?

I'm just... really not seeing it, personally — BLU seems depressingly mid from nearly every angle, with the only thing propping it up being the desperate illusion of having some kind of choice in building your character and loadout compared to "real" Jobs.

But it's really not much better than the old Cross-Class Actions everyone had in ARR/HW, or the implementation of Role Actions in SB — and just like those, you end up using a fixed/recommended formula the vast majority of the time, and swapping around a few wildcards to address niche situations... because the value of "more burst / DPS" still overwhelms nearly any other consideration outside literally not dying/wiping.

[Zebraoracle]

...Also this is kind of tangential and, definitely, highly-personal and subjective, but I just don't see where people are coming from praising BLU for having unique or interesting gameplay compared to "homogenised" normal Jobs:

Are you honestly impressed by your burst phase consisting of 15s of fragile Potency vomit every 2 minutes (why does this... sound so... familiar...) followed by 15s of literally doing nothing except fidgeting around with your movement keys because you've been chocoblocked worse than even the old Warrior post-Berserk refractory-period Pacify?

And then your "filler" being spamming Glare Sonic Boom (or equivalent) over and over and over again, while... smacking OGCDs as they light up, and... refreshing... Dia Song of Torment... every 30s... (why does this sound... so... familiar) ?

I'm just... really not seeing it, personally — BLU seems depressingly mid from nearly every angle, with the only thing propping it up being the desperate illusion of having some kind of choice in building your character and loadout compared to "real" Jobs.

But it's really not much better than the old Cross-Class Actions everyone had in ARR/HW, or the implementation of Role Actions in SB — and just like those, you end up using a fixed/recommended formula the vast majority of the time, and swapping around a few wildcards to address niche situations... because the value of "more burst / DPS" still overwhelms nearly any other consideration outside literally not dying/wiping.

Every time you post it makes me even more frustrated with the situation we're in, but gosh damn this part hit hard. I forgot about this - they literally gave BLU the healer treatment of spamming 1, they don't even really have a rotation outside of using oGCDs. And yeah, the 15 seconds of nothing because you moon fluted, such engaging content. Augh.

[Zebraoracle]

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?

Thank you for your posts. Our side is accused of not thinking when evidence supporting our arguments is pretty blatant...

Also regarding White Wind, I mentioned this earlier. You can keep the theme of the spell and adjust it for working in 14. A flat potency that increases as the caster's hp increases. It has not been "heal equal to the caster's health" in every game, and acting like it and other spells have to strictly adhere to some specific version of them makes zero sense to me when we have other stuff that isn't 100% accurate to historical appearances.