Blue Mage and Summoner responses worry me

[Dotsusama]

With classes, there is little depth to playing them and their responses are they have no desire to add any for any class.

I see it as streamlining. I raided for years elsewhere. When it came time to prepare for an encounter there were so many details to hash out in advance. Did tanks have off-tank gear and skill to "stance dance"? Do healers and DPS have differing specs so that no two player's buffs are 100% the same?

In my observation, adding more layers to the mechanics of classes and inviting complexity invites the kind of end-game min-maxing attitude that I'm not fond of -- I had enough of it in WoW and FFXI and I don't think it belongs in XIV.

That environment has the attitude that you must be 100% dedicated to playing a certain way to benefit the group. There is no flexibility or place to improvise.

That will turn a lot of people off from running content with anything short of the most accepting FC, so you can forget about DF or PF.

[Fendred]

For Blue Mage, think about it: the abilities you learned in FFXI made it to where you could, in theory, play just about any role in a party... but you were still a Blue Mage.

Apply this to queuing up for duties, and I'm sure the dilemma is obvious. You would get a BLU in a party, but perhaps they don't have all the skills needed to fill a support slot. Or they only have mitigation/tanking abilities active. Or maybe they hate healing, etc. .

Yeah, we get that, but the objective should be to make the combat system work around the way Final Fantasy jobs traditionally worked, not shoehorn them into roles they were never meant to exclusively fill. The jobs are already suffering as a result of this. Paladin's can't heal effectively when that is part of what a paladin does, warriors can't do the kind of damage a fan would expect them to do in their intended gear, and black mages have lost a great deal of their original arsenal.

Does it break the game? No, but it does cheapen the whole experience. Most of the players that left fairly early often reported "not being able to play the way they wanted," which probably has a lot to do with the way he's doing the game's classes/jobs.

Perfectly balancing a game makes it sterile. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is not something Final Fantasy games were known for.

[Dotsusama]

snip

Opinion time: healing as a Paladin to generate enmity was the STUPIDEST THING about tanking as a Paladin in FFXI and I'm honestly glad it does not exist in this game.

/ahem

Also, since Flash has all but outlived its usefulness at endgame, I often find myself using Stoneskin on myself and allies with low health pools (looking at you, healers) when I'm not being punched in the face or running around, and it has saved many lives. Isn't that the whole mantra of the classic FF Paladin? Take the big hits, protect the weak, all that jazz. I don't think it's a cheap experience at all.

[Dyvid]

Does it break the game? No, but it does cheapen the whole experience. Most of the players that left fairly early often reported "not being able to play the way they wanted," which probably has a lot to do with the way he's doing the game's classes/jobs.

Then you look at the other side of the coin were players from v1.0xxx hated the open ended class development and wanted more rigid defined roles. PLD are tanks not healers. WAR are tanks not dps. BLM did lose spells like stone and aero but did get a unique play style that requires you to switch up spells instead of just casting one over and over.

[Fayto]

Paladin's can't heal effectively when that is part of what a paladin does

Paladin is only a Paladin in English name only, it is called Knight in Japanese.

Also, just because they don't want to add complexity in 3.0 does not mean complexity is not gonna be added. You don't build a roof to a house right off the bat, you build the foundation first which this game still lacks.

[Garlyle]

Paladin is only a Paladin in English name only, it is called Knight in Japanese.

It's important to note, this is basically the old FF1 Knight class. It was primarily a physical attacker, but on promotion it got the ability to use the first three levels of white magic. For the most part, that magic was already obsolete by the time you got it, and was usually used for treating minor wounds and ailments outside of battle rather than inside.

That's basically what XIV's Paladin/Knight is - it has white magic for minor uses of such when it can afford the time (eg Stoneskinning itself while the boss targets the rest of the party with cast times), but isn't and probably won't ever be a dedicated healer.


Anyway, here's the thing about Blue Mage: Primarily and traditionally, Blue Mage has been defined by two things: The ability to learn from enemies, and a long-term spell selection that is both very versatile and occasionally quite gimmicky ("Heals everyone based on the user's HP", "Kill self to deal damage", "Kill self to full restore party", "Casts this effect on all enemies with a level that's a multiplier of x", "Deals damage based on steps taken", etc.). While the ability learning structure could easily be replicated via a focus on class quests and learning major abilities there, the problem is "what does Blue Mage become for us".

I could maybe, maybe see Blue Mage being transformed into a melee-range caster, with a focus on bufs/debuffs/side effects on those AoEs (including effects that might heal allies in range on cast for instance). But that's just one possible route - and there's a lot. Maybe they do decide to go with "here's this base skill set but here's a spell that amplifies DoT damage on something for when you've got arcanists, and here's one that acts as a cure but its potency is limited by how healthy the user is, while this one does damage getting stronger as the user loses HP", etc.

There's a lot of roads that could be explored for Blue Mage, and just settling on a gameplay concept - beyond just the DPS/Healer/Tank trinity, but also into what makes it genuinely unique gameplay wise, what strengths it brings to the table compared to others, etc. - is the hard part. WAR/PLD, WHM/SCH, BLM/SMN, MNK/DRG - even though these are similar things on the surface - tanks, healers, casters, melee - they are actually drastically different to play from each other. Figuring out what niche/variant fits Blue Mage is important for XIV - and for any other class they want to introduce.

[Fayto]

It's important to note, this is basically the old FF1 Knight class. It was primarily a physical attacker, but on promotion it got the ability to use the first three levels of white magic. For the most part, that magic was already obsolete by the time you got it, and was usually used for treating minor wounds and ailments outside of battle rather than inside.

That's basically what XIV's Paladin/Knight is - it has white magic for minor uses of such when it can afford the time (eg Stoneskinning itself while the boss targets the rest of the party with cast times), but isn't and probably won't ever be a dedicated healer.

Also wanna add that Cecil, which all Paladins are based off of usually, also had weak magical stats. "As the first named Paladin, Cecil came to define the specifics of the job as Final Fantasy's first true dedicated "tank" class"

[Prototype909]

Also, just because they don't want to add complexity in 3.0 does not mean complexity is not gonna be added. You don't build a roof to a house right off the bat, you build the foundation first which this game still lacks.

It's been a year, how much longer are people who are expecting some major changes supposed to wait? Until 4.0? It's not that this game doesn't have a foundation, it has one, they just don't have a big enough foundation to actually build much of anything off of due to the way party structure and the armory system were handled. I understand that it takes time to decide what changes need to be made, let alone time to go through with them but right now it seems like the status quo isn't changing. Seeing as anything like changing the armory system or job mechanics would probably be a gradual process rather than some sweeping instant change it's almost better if they start sooner rather than later because the progress of the changes would likely be staggered.

[Alberel]

For Blue Mage, think about it: the abilities you learned in FFXI made it to where you could, in theory, play just about any role in a party... but you were still a Blue Mage.

Apply this to queuing up for duties, and I'm sure the dilemma is obvious. You would get a BLU in a party, but perhaps they don't have all the skills needed to fill a support slot. Or they only have mitigation/tanking abilities active. Or maybe they hate healing, etc.

If you get a WHM that doesn't want to heal, you... kick them for a healer that is there to heal. Same thing for Warriors that want to DPS, but they have to queue as tanks because of the strict system.

So they would have to adjust EVERYTHING and break the whole system currently in place, just for BLU. Given they have already delayed 2.4 for NIN, I can't imagine how long it would take for them to even get close to having BLU. But I, like others, will wait and hope for that day.

Rift solved this problem with their hybrid classes by evaluating which skills and passives you had slotted (or unlocked on the skill tree in Rift's case) and determined your role based on that when queuing. Assuming that BLU would work similarly to XI (they unlock many monster skills but can only have a limited number slotted for use at a time) I see no reason why BLUs couldn't have access to all roles and just be forced to lock themselves into one when queuing for content based on skill selection.

[Rex]

OP,

Yoshi-P wants to create a simple game at first, and over time add to the complexity. We can't say for sure what we'll see in the future.

As of right now, he wants all classes and jobs to have a fighting chance. Meaning, if you want to play a certain job, that job has a chance to be included in content, instead of people saying "that job is useless" and never being invited into content. Everything is in a "balance" right now. Mostly.

I guarantee you years from now, the game will be so different, we'll look back at these days and say "wow there was like nothing going on."