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

[Atelier-Bagur]

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...?

SE has us fighting like dogs over scraps. Some people fight for balance, some people fight for fun jobs. You do realize that we can have both if they just put more resources into this game?

I 100% agree with this sentiment, but we have to be realistic here. For this to happen, there needs to be a full overhaul of the combat system and re-do EVERYTHING in order to give us a more satisfying job and encounter design. The truth of the matter is, the issue of combat and jobs being boring is sadly, not as an emergency as you and many others would like to believe. Its so easy to be blinded by your own wants or needs and pretend like this should be a major issue when the reality is that most other players dont really give two shits about it.

You say it shouldnt be us vs us but us vs them, but this is also wrong and childish. There shouldnt be a vs anything. We just need to provide solutions one step at a time. And one of the biggest hurdles at the moment is the balance. This game is so streamlined in its combat that it becomes extremely noticable when they change a variable or two in classes and the balance ruins everything.

So right now....we need to get rid of the 2-minute meta. Not only is it unfun, stupid and really not accessible for hardcore raiding but it also was the cause for the job homogenization. If they can get past of trying to appeal to the syngery of the hard core by getting rid of this philosophy, then maybe we can also finally get back classes that all play different and dont need to be in synced with buffs windows.

[ForsakenRoe]

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

And the argument that I'm putting forward is that it's actually not at all 'not at all balanced', to an alarming degree, outside of the couple of 'haha funny meme' things like Ultravibration on packs of trash. I still recall there being a bug or issue of some kind that meant that the first pack in Temple of the Fist was immune to freeze for a couple of days, so that reason also holds very little water to me (it's fixed now). Besides the 'its OP cos it can delete dungeon mobs' once every 2 minutes though, please read:

Blue mage has been adjusted as follows:
The following blue mage actions have been adjusted:

Water Cannon Potency has been increased from 120 to 200.

Flame Thrower Potency has been increased from 130 to 220.
Potency will now be reduced by 50% after the first enemy.

Aqua Breath Potency has been increased from 90 to 140.
Potency will now be reduced by 50% after the first enemy.
Damage over time potency has been increased from 10 to 20.

Flying Frenzy Potency has been increased from 80 to 150.
Potency will now be reduced by 50% after the first enemy.

Drill Cannons Potency has been increased from 120 to 200.
Potency when target is afflicted with Petrification has been increased from 420 to 600.
Potency will now be reduced by 50% after the first enemy.

High Voltage Potency has been increased from 90 to 180.
Potency when target is afflicted with Dropsy has been increased from 130 to 220.
Potency will now be reduced by 50% after the first enemy.

Final Sting Potency has been increased from 1,500 to 2,000.
Player will now be inflicted with the Brush with Death status after use.
This action cannot be executed when under the effect of Brush with Death.

Song of Torment Damage over time potency has been increased from 25 to 50.

Glower Potency has been increased from 130 to 220.
Potency will now be reduced by 50% after the first enemy.

Plaincracker Potency has been increased from 130 to 220.
Potency will now be reduced by 50% after the first enemy.

Sharpened Knife Potency has been increased from 120 to 220.
Potency when target is stunned has been increased from 250 to 450.

Ice Spikes Potency has been increased from 25 to 40.

Blood Drain Potency has been increased from 20 to 50.

Bomb Toss Potency has been increased from 110 to 200.
Potency will now be reduced by 50% after the first enemy.

Off-guard The effects of this action have been revamped.
Off-guard now functions as follows:
Increases target's damage taken by 5%.
Recast time has been increased from 25 to 60 seconds.
Now shares a recast timer with Peculiar Light.
Duration has been reduced from 30 to 15 seconds.

Self-destruct Potency has been increased from 900 to 1,500.
Potency when you are under the effect of Toad Oil has been increased from 1,200 to 1,800.
Player will now be inflicted with the Brush with Death status after use.
This action cannot be executed when under the effect of Brush with Death.

Transfusion Player will now be inflicted with the Brush with Death status after use.
This action cannot be executed when under the effect of Brush with Death.

4-tonze Weight Potency has been increased from 110 to 200.
Potency will now be reduced by 50% after the first enemy.

The Look Potency has been increased from 110 to 220.
Potency will now be reduced by 50% after the first enemy.

Bad Breath Damage over time potency has been increased from 10 to 20.

The Ram's Voice Potency has been increased from 130 to 220.
Potency will now be reduced by 50% after the first enemy.

The Dragon's Voice Potency has been increased from 110 to 200.
Potency when target is afflicted with Deep Freeze has been increased from 310 to 400.
Potency will now be reduced by 50% after the first enemy.

Ink Jet Potency has been increased from 120 to 200.
Potency will now be reduced by 50% after the first enemy.

Fire Angon Potency has been increased from 120 to 200.
Potency will now be reduced by 50% after the first enemy.

Mind Blast Potency has been increased from 100 to 200.
Potency will now be reduced by 50% after the first enemy.

Peculiar Light Effect potency has been reduced from 30% to 5%.
Duration has been increased from 10 to 15 seconds.
Now shares a recast timer with Off-guard.

Feather Rain Potency has been increased from 180 to 220.
Damage over time potency has been increased from 20 to 40.

Eruption Potency has been increased from 220 to 300.

Mountain Buster Potency has been increased from 310 to 400.
Potency reduction after the first enemy is now fixed at 50%.

Shock Strike Potency has been increased from 310 to 400.
Potency reduction after the first enemy is now fixed at 50%.

Glass Dance Potency has been increased from 290 to 350.
Potency reduction after the first enemy is now fixed at 50%.

(source: patch 5.1 patchnotes)

Why did a class, supposedly 'too overpowered to exist in the normal constraints of FFXIV's battle design', need so many buffs? And why did they choose to limit the 'overpowered' side of the class, that being 'you can constantly run in and buffed-SelfDestruct to delete packs of trash'?

So I'd argue that, no, the class is not 'overpowered'. Not even close. A theoretical White Wind that can restore everyone to full HP on a 5min CD (assuming the BLU is full HP at time of use) wouldn't break things any more than SMN having access to a 700p AOE regen every 2min, and 1400p of singletarget healing on the same 2min point. Or DNC's 'technically 600p if you stack' every 60s, plus 500p from Improv, plus up to 10% of max HP as a shield (this is even more egregious than regular healing, because shielding can save you from overkill oneshots where flat healing cannot). And even if it WERE overpowered for whatever reason, as Zebraoracle said, have it scale to a max potency like Essential Dignity does, but based on the caster's HP rather than the target's. And then append to the 'additional effect when unsynced' an extra bit that changes how high the maximum potency can be. eg:

White Wind - Cast 2.5s, Recast 300s
Restores HP to all nearby allies. Potency increases as caster's HP increases, with a minimum potency of 300, up to a maximum potency of 1000.
Additional Effect: While Unsynced or participating in the Masked Carnivale, potency is removed. Instead, restores amount equal to caster's Current HP.
Additional Effect: While Unsynced or participating in the Masked Carnivale, Recast time is reduced to 2.5s

And you'd have to be giving up a DPS slot in that 'zero healer TOP run' to get that White Wind. Who are you swapping out, the SMN? The DNC? The RPR and their 250p every 30s from Arcane Crest? Or how about the Monk, so you don't have Mantra? Even then, by my design choices, BLU would be super support heavy, and thus it's RDPS would be comparable to a RDM or SMN, but more slanted towards it's raid contribution. So while I personally would see the MNK as the 'smallest loss' from a HPS perspective, the question then becomes 'do you still have the DPS to clear, with one missing Melee LB, and all those weakness stacks on people?' And considering how close the enrage was in that video, I'm gonna go with 'no, absolutely not because this is Meleewalker'. You need the DNC for the ranged LB, so it's the SMN and RDM. RDM was needed for the raise spam, so it's only the SMN that could possibly be swapped out. And I imagine that an AOE regen every 2m is gonna be a lot more use to the group than a 'fully heal everyone' every 5 min

edit because rereading things:

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.

This part stands out. If we went with Zebraoracle's version of White Wind, that of 'scaling potency' rather than 'exact 1:1 HP restore based on current HP of BLU', then you wouldn't be able to 0heal P3S with a BLU. Life's Agonies applied a pretty nasty Healing Received Down debuff, making it harder to heal to full. Macrocosmos was able to instantly resolve the mechanic, because the damage that took you to 1HP was a blast of 999999 damage. A theoretical White Wind that scales up to 1000p, at full BLU HP, would require you to have multiple GCDs sacrificed on Clemency and Vercure, not just one, probably like 2-3 of each, and then because this White Wind is a potency heal, it too is affected by the debuff, meaning it'd heal for less as well, nowhere near enough to 'fully heal the team'. I don't remember exactly what % reduction the debuff applied, but even if it's as low as 20% (anything lower and you probably wouldn't even feel the impact of it), that puts the heal at 800. Quick check ingame on my 656 WHM (still stuck with Golbez weapon, healer life), my max HP is 73k, and a non-crit Cure 2 (800p) is 23k to 24k. You'd have the party at 30% HP when they die to the doom.

edit2: if a PLD Clemency'd a RDM to full (getting half of the effect to themselves as per Clemency's bonus effect), and a WAR used Bloodwhetting to do the rest of the PLD's HP (plus themselves, with Equilibrium and Thrill for extra healing), then the PLD covers the RDM for the raidwide after, I assume those 3 would survive. After that, it's a case of machinegun ressing the team, and beating the enrage because you have zero healers, and therefore 2 more DPS/tanks to work with for more damage (so the boss should be lower by then, or you skip entirely). So yeh, I don't think Life's Agonies would actually be the thing that prevents a 0heal run in that fight. Might be the add phase if anything, those birds got some sharp beaks

[Lunalepsy]

It shows how lazy these developers are.

[Zebraoracle]

snip

*Clap*

/10char

[ForsakenRoe]

It shows how lazy these developers are.

IDK if I'd call it 'lazy', just 'too profit motivated' probably. If it could be proven, with evidence, that making BLU unlimited as per a suggestion like mine (skill glamours) or other people's, would generate SE additional revenue, they'd be on it in a flash. Everything they say 'cannot be done', turns out to be very possible to do if there's sufficient motivation to do so. They told us that we couldn't have a thingy that checks if we already own an Orch roll or minion... Until a random plugin dev showed them up and made it work. Suddenly, because they had egg on their face, whatever issues they faced that meant it wasn't feasible magically cleared up and it was done. Same with timers on party frames debuff icons. 'Can't do it', and then some dev shows SE up, and then it's added. Not before SE slaps a streamer with a ban though.

Still waiting for Chat Bubbles SE. Plugins got it working already, what's taking y'all so long?

[Bobby66]

This is less about what they can do and mire so what they are willing to do. SE could do numerous things with BLU to please both camps, but without knowing now resources and responsibilities are divided up within the team all we can do is speculate. That being said BLU seems to largely be divided so my best guess instead of s rework for BLU the concept of linited jobs gets put on the backburner. Shsme for those thst enjoyed the content.

End of the day these ideas to make it work are not grounfbreaking a child coukd have came up with them, so that leaves me to assume for whatever reason the dev tram is either not wlljng or able to accommodate the community. Going at each other does not change the fact we are largly helpless. Unless an exodus occurs they really hsve no reason to expect change.

[IkaraGreydancer]

IDK if I'd call it 'lazy', just 'too profit motivated' probably. If it could be proven, with evidence, that making BLU unlimited as per a suggestion like mine (skill glamours) or other people's, would generate SE additional revenue, they'd be on it in a flash. Everything they say 'cannot be done', turns out to be very possible to do if there's sufficient motivation to do so. They told us that we couldn't have a thingy that checks if we already own an Orch roll or minion... Until a random plugin dev showed them up and made it work. Suddenly, because they had egg on their face, whatever issues they faced that meant it wasn't feasible magically cleared up and it was done. Same with timers on party frames debuff icons. 'Can't do it', and then some dev shows SE up, and then it's added. Not before SE slaps a streamer with a ban though.

Still waiting for Chat Bubbles SE. Plugins got it working already, what's taking y'all so long?

I think folks don't understand the possible notion that certain things aren't possible for them to do at a particular time. Funding/resources can probably make these things possible. Also SE slapped a streamer with a ban because they broke the rules. That's on them being stupid.

Also find it interesting people use the "well mods can do so you can" reasoning. While not fully flawed these mod makers have one thing to focus on, not an entire team of folks with multiple responsibilities. If these things are needed so much use mods if you really must.

I'd say perception around BLU is to divided to day this or that is the "fix" for the class. Plus as many players are changes or not most care about burning through whatever is present. BLU is no stranger to this

[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.

————————————————————

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.

————————————————————

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.

————————————————————

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.

———————————

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.

———————————

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)

————————————————————

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.

————————————————————

...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.

[RitsukoSonoda]

TBH. I just want the following changes to BLU
Make it have the same lvl cap as every other job
Let it queue for things with no set role requirements like Eureka, Bozja, maybe even deep dungeons. Bozja especially because I want to see a horde of BLU's spamming Chocometeor on Red Comet.
Weapon slot used for more than pointless glamour. BLU weapons don't need to be a stat stick like every other job's. However they could at least let us craft new sticks with the crafting materials dropped from trials and raids and have those crafted sticks provide specific spell bonuses based on the boss that could boost spells of a specific element, spell family, or the actual spell learned from the boss if it had one.

It doesn't need to be homogenized for Duty Finder IMO.