I Thought BLU Was Made For Solo Players

[Hazama999]

I don't think it's strange to wonder about consistency.

If a job is sold as being "designed for solo play", why is a non-insignificant amount of its content tied to being in a party?

[Fatch38]

It's strange though. I see a lot of people complaining about FFXIV needing to feel like a MMO and needing to have multiplayer activities, but then you see people wanting BLU to be mostly solo.

funny takes because the whole game is marketed as a MMO and tend to be more and more solo (i'm here since 2013 so i know that msq was always solo don't worry about it), and the BLU was annonced and marketed as a fully solo content and yet it isn't.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

funny takes because the whole game is marketed as a MMO and tend to be more and more solo (i'm here since 2013 so i know that msq was always solo don't worry about it), and the BLU was annonced and marketed as a fully solo content and yet it isn't.

Feel free to show us the slide from Liveletter 4.5 that says BLU as a whole was supposed to be exclusively a solo experience.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Highlighted the key points and I love everything about this post.

The claim that they couldn't make it like XI confused the absolute kupo out of me because almost every single instance of Blue Magic existing in the FF franchise had a different method of spell learning. Kimahri had Lancet for Ronso Overdrive, Quistis and Quinna used Devour, some Blue Mages simply had to be active in a fight and not suffering from Blind, Berserk, Confuse or Charmed, another had to get hit by that skill (hello FFX-2 Gun Mage, worst nightmare). They could have done a FFXIV lore friendly version to design it into a normal caster job with its own quips and quirks.

Which you perfectly described in that second thing I highlighted, literally what I said many years ago but I got treated like a Pariah back then.

Again the problem people keep ignoring with this argument is that Blue Magic is meant to be an unorthodox experimental job. Spells have to be interesting to be fun and with this game's simplicity in combat compared to say FFXI that had more depth and lack of attention to balance, blue mage wouldve need to be severly simplified and downgraded in its effectiviness to keep the job balance.

Why bring any healer into a raid if I could just have a Blue Mage White Wind damage?

So yes, they couldve made Blue Mage into a full job, but it wouldnt be as fun as people believe it to be. It just be yet another boring job with lack of uniquness and diversity to keep up with the current games everlasting war in balancinh everything.

[Mayhemmer]

Again the problem people keep ignoring with this argument is that Blue Magic is meant to be an unorthodox experimental job. Spells have to be interesting to be fun and with this game's simplicity in combat compared to say FFXI that had more depth and lack of attention to balance, blue mage wouldve need to be severly simplified and downgraded in its effectiviness to keep the job balance.

Why bring any healer into a raid if I could just have a Blue Mage White Wind damage?

So yes, they couldve made Blue Mage into a full job, but it wouldnt be as fun as people believe it to be. It just be yet another boring job with lack of uniquness and diversity to keep up with the current games everlasting war in balancinh everything.

At least I would have leveled BLU if it were a full job. I might have even liked it. Might still be playing it. I haven't bothered with the latest update to it. I tried to spell hunt for about 30 minutes before I was literally falling asleep at my desk, and just went back to other content I enjoyed more. If BLU were a full job, there's more than a good chance I'd still be playing it.

It'd only have been "downgraded" in the context of comparing it to [Insert desired past iteration of Blue Mage here]. If it were a full job in XIV from the start, we'd never have called it a downgrade, because there would have been no other iteration in XIV to compare it to. it'd just have been a full job.

[DPZ2]

I can pretty much guarantee there would have been weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth if Blue Mage had become a "Real Job(tm)" in this game. No, you wouldn't obtain spells by experiencing monster methods, you would learn spells the way every other caster in game does ... (1) reach level X (2) ding! you now have a new icon on your bar for spell Y!

Congratulations. At level 90 you now have 25 to 40 different spells and actions. Just like every other Blue Mage in the game, because a "Real Job(tm)" has to play the same for every player.

No, you can't be a Healer or a Tank. You're a caster ... go do some DPS.

[Atelier-Bagur]

At least I would have leveled BLU if it were a full job. I might have even liked it. Might still be playing it. I haven't bothered with the latest update to it. I tried to spell hunt for about 30 minutes before I was literally falling asleep at my desk, and just went back to other content I enjoyed more. If BLU were a full job, there's more than a good chance I'd still be playing it.

It'd only have been "downgraded" in the context of comparing it to [Insert desired past iteration of Blue Mage here]. If it were a full job in XIV from the start, we'd never have called it a downgrade, because there would have been no other iteration in XIV to compare it to. it'd just have been a full job.

Problem isnt Blue Mage. Problem is there isnt any dedicated endgame content to do Blue Mage with.

The fact that they only included one new trial in Masked Carnivale which was just story relatrd rather than a new slew of challenges bothers the heck out of me. Granted that one new trial was fun but they dont make any more.

Also I dont they made any new tangible rewards for doing Eden Savage on Blue Mage like a mount right? Yet another screw up.

You know what would be fun? If they made a Blue Mage Deep Dungeon where you go from floor to floor obtaininh spells and surviving or have a seasonal event where they make hard versions of older content to do for rewards or literally anything.

Thats the main issue here, they dont provide any meaningful endgame content for the job. Sure half of the fun of Blue Mage is the leveling journey and acquiring the spells but we lack that other half to make us give a shit about playing Blue Mage.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I can pretty much guarantee there would have been weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth if Blue Mage had become a "Real Job(tm)" in this game. No, you wouldn't obtain spells by experiencing monster methods, you would learn spells the way every other caster in game does ... (1) reach level X (2) ding! you now have a new icon on your bar for spell Y!

Congratulations. At level 90 you now have 25 to 40 different spells and actions. Just like every other Blue Mage in the game, because a "Real Job(tm)" has to play the same for every player.

No, you can't be a Healer or a Tank. You're a caster ... go do some DPS.

You hit the nail on the head with how exactly Full Blue Mage wouldve gone if they did it. People would be even more frustrated with it.

What we need is more frequent endgame updates for Blue Mage not this once in a blue moon update patch per expansion nonsense that does the barest of minimums.

Lack of any new Masked Carnivale trial tiers, lack of endgame rewards for doing savage raids, lack of a new piece of content to keep the job fresh or have seasonal blue mage events where they remix older trials and raids for unique rewards. Limited jobs should be its own little game that is as relevant as the main MMO. Do we really not have a dedicated blue mage developer team in CBU3? I wish that was a thing because this is the reason why people feel so inclined in making Blue into a full job (despite the major downsides this would bring to it) because theres nothing else to do the job with.

Lack of relevancy.

[Mayhemmer]

Problem isnt Blue Mage. Problem is there isnt any dedicated endgame content to do Blue Mage with.

The fact that they only included one new trial in Masked Carnivale which was just story relatrd rather than a new slew of challenges bothers the heck out of me. Granted that one new trial was fun but they dont make any more.

Also I dont they made any new tangible rewards for doing Eden Savage on Blue Mage like a mount right? Yet another screw up.

You know what would be fun? If they made a Blue Mage Deep Dungeon where you go from floor to floor obtaininh spells and surviving or have a seasonal event where they make hard versions of older content to do for rewards or literally anything.

Thats the main issue here, they dont provide any meaningful endgame content for the job. Sure half of the fun of Blue Mage is the leveling journey and acquiring the spells but we lack that other half to make us give a shit about playing Blue Mage.

I do agree with that. Nothing is incentivizing me to play BLU currently. Outside of... a mount? A few titles...? It feels like the reward for doing BLU content is the fact that you've now done BLU content. Yipee, I guess.

[Poporito_Popoto]

Blu is a tool. Use it as one. Destroy content for glam, achievements, orchestrion rolls, minions, etc.