Thread: Blue mage at patch 4.5

Originally Posted by Stanelis

Here are quick easy fixes to the issues you raise

I don't need em. I wrote out thrice or so how it could be fixed with minimum work, without actually changing Blue Mage from what it is. I won't bother writing it down again.

Originally Posted by Stanelis

1) just make it so monsters abilities aren't the only spells of the class (like in FFVIII with quistis),

Blue mages have only Blue Magic. As far as "artistic freedom" doesn't stop them from having some other skills, they will simply not be numerous enough to make a serious difference. Even if we'll assume they'll get ten of them, it's still way too many skills lacking. And if you'll add more then you may as well make another job entirely.

Originally Posted by Stanelis

2) just make it so you must have X spells learned to join a duty finder group, a damage dealing spell will be a damage dealing spell, no matter what it is, with how the battle system is designed, what will change will mostly be the skin's spell,

If that was the case then all this stuff about limiting wouldn't even be necessary. The spells of Blue Mage will most likely contain some unusual spells. Ones that ignore resistances of boss monsters (the video did show Shiva stunned, which is impossible normally), for example. The moment you start banning individual skills, you end up with tons of work. And what's stopping players from stacking the high-cooldown, high-damage spells for a massive burst, either? With twenty skills and ~2,5sec cooldown, that's 50sec of casting massive spells one after another. By that time at least some of them will come off cooldown and the party starts again.

Originally Posted by Stanelis

3) just make it so you need a level X0 job before you can play blu, so you need to have a basic grasp of the game before you can play blu (blu would then be thought as an "advanced" job).

It's already in there. You need lvl50 job and have finished 2.0 main story quest line.

Besides, it doesn't change anything. I've come across people leveling their alt job, with several lvl70 jobs, that didn't show basic understanding of the game or lacking respect for the time of others. I have no faith that these people would go way out of their way to get numerous skills for leveling if they think that others can carry them.

Originally Posted by Stanelis

Also I don't get this mentality where the game should be designed around players who don't want to progress.

Progress means various things. It doesn't only mean getting to the end-game content and rushing through the Raids and Savage. It means being every time you log in further in something than you were. For certain people it may mean getting a new minion, for another defeating a different NPC in Triple Triad. The purpose of a game is first and foremost to have fun, the means of doing that don't matter...unless you cause grief, that is. I don't get how cooking can be fun, or doing house chores, or eating. I do em cause I need to. There are people that relax by cooking, cleaning or eating. Should I dismiss their way of life just cause it's different than me?!

Originally Posted by Stanelis

In a mmorpg, a bad player will be a bad player no matter the job/system.

But every current job allows a bad player to finish any dungeon in the game...almost. So long as they are trying, that is. Blue Mage does not. If you are a bad Blue Mage player, you literally are useless, therefore you're going to be bashed more often and harder than if you came in with any other job.

Originally Posted by Stanelis

Also, LoL is an incredibly complex game, it doesn't prevent it to be one of the most played game of the decade.

That's completely out of the left field. This discussion is not about complexity of a game. Personally I abhor the dumbing down of everything that Square Enix seems to enjoy. But, again, that have nothing to do with this discussion. If every class had some sort of quirk like that, sure. I'd love that. The bad apples that don't want to learn doing a thing wouldn't be able to go past first two or three dungeons and only the average+ players would be seen in later stages of the game. But as it is, they'd only change from Blue Mage into another class and continue being detrimental to the community for the rest of the game.

Originally Posted by kikix12

*Snip*

It's worth pointing out that pretty much ALL of your observations about BLU depend on design decisions that do not actually need to be made.

All of BLU's abilities are Blue Magic? They don't have to be. Give them utility abilities as well, like an ability that ensures the next Blue Magic spell cast is a guaranteed critical/direct hit, or an Incite ability which forces the target (unless it's immune) to immediately use a special ability (this is useful both for learning Blue Magic, and in general by forcing a critter to waste time charging up a predictable and avoidable aoe rather than auto-attacking). There are all sorts of BLU-appropriate abilities folks could come up with, with a little imagination. Actual Blue Magic should be limited to ten to fifteen spells, with another two or three being added every time the level cap increases. There's no need to have scores of spells with only a certain number equipped at a time; only FFXI ever did that, and 80% of Blue Magic spells in that game were trash (and about half of the remainder were only good because they enabled certain job traits, like Auto-refresh).

BLUs don't have all their spells? Kick them, and deservedly so, just as you would any other job that doesn't have all their job abilities. This situation should be no more common than it would be for any other job, so long as acquiring Blue Magic spells was made no more difficult than acquiring job abilities. "Random chance to learn" can die in a fire; it wasn't fun in FFXI, and it won't be here, either. Make 'em one-and-done, and any BLU that doesn't have their spells clearly doesn't care about their job or gameplay whatsoever, and has no place in difficult content.

Some Blue Magic spells affect even scripted bosses (like stunned Shiva), and therefore will throw off endgame? Don't do that! Seriously, this is the easiest thing to address. Lots of jobs have CC abilities that are nerfed against bosses; BLU should be no different. Just as Sleep is pointless to use on Omega, so should be Bad Breath.

Honestly, it boggles the mind. There's any number of ways that BLU COULD have been added to the game as a fully-fledged job without breaking the game. YoshiP, though, was apparently stuck in this mental vision of what BLU MUST be, which was pretty much incompatible with the game, and rather than tailor his image of the job to fit the game (which is what was done for pretty much every job we DO have, and most notably changed were BRD, DRK, and SMN), he created this bizarre minigame just to make folks shut up.

Originally Posted by LineageRazor

It's worth pointing out that pretty much ALL of your observations about BLU depend on design decisions that do not actually need to be made.

Again, read previous posts I made on explaining how we can both have a unique, broken job and use it while balanced in Duty Finder/current content. You can try to push for crippling Blue Mages all you want, but that's just stupid when the world is not just black and white and there are many shades of gray in-between. Telling a person that knows how to "fix" the problem without mutilating the job that it is possible to mutilate it to make it work is as effective as telling a doctor that can a stomach cancer that he can just cut out the stomach and be done with it.

Originally Posted by LineageRazor

YoshiP, though, was apparently stuck in this mental vision of what BLU MUST be, which was pretty much incompatible with the game, and rather than tailor his image of the job to fit the game(...)

So...what gives you the right to complain about how he did it when you are doing the same thing?! You are stuck in this mental vision that this is how Blue Mage is and that they won't even bother looking at making it playable. Then you try to "tailor" the job to fit what you want, completely ignoring the wishes of the thousands of people that will enjoy it as it is planned now, but would be "meh" at best if it was changed as you want. And it wasn't even released yet.

The developers at least tried, put work into it. They listened to the other side. You are completely ignoring everything that does not fit your agenda, disrespecting their work and by extension disrespecting other players that like it. And all you do in turn is think of the most basic ways to cripple it completely ignoring everything and everyone else. Anyone can make a crap game with crap skills and crap mechanics. But a good game, good skills and good mechanics require compromises. Instead of trying to turn a Blue Mage into Black/Red Mage V2 with a different skin, at least put in that extra effort to think of something that will not just shift the "victims" of this decision to the ones that LIKE this Blue Mage.

Originally Posted by kikix12

disrespecting their work and by extension disrespecting other players that like it.

Square and I are not partners. We are, in so far as I'm aware, not even friends. I pay them for a product and if there are elements of that product I do not like it is in my best interest to let the company know. That's not disrespect, that's customer feedback.

I've worked in marketing and public relations. I would MUCH rather an irate client tell me when they have a problem rather than simply taking their business elsewhere in silence. One approach lets me keep their patronage (which means their money, good PR, and word of mouth) the other just leaves me down in profits with not even the faintest hint on how to amend things.

disrespecting their work and by extension disrespecting other players that like it

I'm getting FFXIV 1.0 vibes so strong here, because it was typically something that could be read back then, even though the game was utter unplayable rubbish.

Originally Posted by Elerus

I pay them for a product and if there are elements of that product I do not like it is in my best interest to let the company know. That's not disrespect, that's customer feedback.

I've worked in marketing and public relations. I would MUCH rather an irate client tell me when they have a problem rather than simply taking their business elsewhere in silence.

There is a difference between disrespectful criticism and a constructive one. If you worked in marketing and public relations then you should know that.

A person that is criticized may very well learn some lesson from that. But that lesson may not necessarily be the one the irked person wanted to "teach" and it comes at the expense of negativity breeding.

The fact of the matter is this. Dismissing this idea before it even hits serves no purpose. History should have taught humanity that what is "different" from initially desired needs not be inferior. It is a lesson worth learning.

Feel free to give your opinion, you and others. But "opinion", not "statements". Fact of the matter is that this is worthwhile content for some, not worthwhile for others. It is not "rubbish", not a "waste of resources" and not a "slap in the face". It is an ongoing experiment that was meant to provide players with what was asked for that is promised to be worked on to a point.

It would be made differently, there still would be tons of negative responses, at that time from a different crowd. And I'd still be, on that part, defending Square Enix for the same reason. Because the content didn't yet hit the servers, players didn't play it yet and Square Enix didn't even have a chance of doing anything with it. It's like yelling at a baker that you won't pay for a burnt bread before they even bring you one, just because you smell something burning in the background.