Blue Mage: Are you kidding me!?

[Hierro]

FFXIV is an MMORPG. So why is BLU being restricted from joining mainstream content and pushed as "solo-content" orientated? If I wanted to play an extensive solo-player experience with collecting blue magic, the previous offline titles exist for that purpose.

"BLU has to have certain skills, and it'd be no fun if they didn't work against raid bosses!"

You know what's even less fun? Not being able to participate in said raids to begin with. It isn't worth having those skills if those skills are the reason we are being "limited." No one in their right mind had the expectation that we needed lvl5 death, and that we had to make it work on the latest raid bosses.

"But if BLU is accepted and doesn't have the skills they're expected to have, they'll be kicked "

Is it so hard to implement a requirement for number of skills BLU must have in order to enter an instance? A rebuttal to this suggestion would entail that perhaps a certain BLU might only have buff/support spells, and not enough DPS skills. To that I say "classify spells for their function and specify a number of DPS-oriented spells needed to enter roulette."

People who care enough to go into Savage are the same ones who will care enough to get their "core skills" to perform correctly. Why are we killing the opportunity for your consumer base in order to appease a strawman argument of a bad player?

People wanted BLU in this game. People, like myself, would have been more than happy with simple job quests making us go on some silly hunt to "learn" skills if it meant being streamlined into the general population.

I can even accept grinding in the overworld like we're in some cheap pay-to-win Korean MMO, I can even accept being forced to learn skills on an RNG basis and hunting monsters for them, but allow us the option to play with everyone else in the content everyone is doing! Because after all, this is not a solo game-- This is an MMORPG.

SE, I implore you to reconsider.

[leonskey]

I've never posted on the forum before, in all my years of playing since 2.0. I've never felt strongly about something to finally speak up here, or atleast ramble a bit.

I'm very heartbroken over a lot of design features they've decided to go with in reference to Blue mage.
It's a job I've waited for a long time to see in the game, and it's lore and setting fit right in with what I'm interested in, from the bits we've seen.
I understand that a lot of people feel like BLU can't be done without this Solo-focused mode, though I feel like a happy middle ground could have been found.

I want to play this game with my friends. I want to experience the world going forward as a blue mage. I waited for the moment I would feel like a bunch of my Samurai friends when they got their dream job announced. With the way it is, I can't even do the MSQ for the expansion when it drops.
Do I ask friends to simply run Aurum vale and Cutter's with me over and over instead of doing the wonderful new things Shadowbringers has to offer?
Square, You're at the helm with what you can decide to do and not do with this job. Finding the jobs, obtaining them? That's not the only thing the blue mage is about. What happens to your abilities after you stockpile them? What can we do? The last time I checked, the Blue mages of the past always functioned with their team, their friends.The Carnival that's been announced doesn't have anything seemingly more than it's 3 phases, and what happens to the blue mage after that? Will you keep developing content for JUST blue mages? What about when other limited jobs come? Will blue mage suffer with lack of new things down the road?

I don't know what to feel more than just incredible disappointment in the class I wanted the most from this game. I suppose I'll just sit out in east thanalan to farm moves while my friends become Warriors of Darkness.

[Kabooa]

1. Yeah it sucks.

2. Blue Mage is available in 4.5 and does not require Shadowbringers. baseline ARR has it.

3. You can dick around with your friends with Blue Mage.

4. Information is unclear. It sounds as if you both can't use Duty Finder, but can with pre-formed parties.

[Glaceon10]

You know, people asked for Blue Mage, I honestly thought that it was implied that we meant that we wanted it to be in a Final Fantasy XIV-balanced context, much like Red Mage, and that we wanted it as a fully fledged Job like any other to be used in any content, and not a damn minigame.

I guess that it really wasn't, huh? It's apparently too hard to make Level 5 Death not able to be used on bosses or to implement any of its abilities into its own full, cohesive kit, it apparently just has to fully abide to old Blue Mage.

[Tempest222]

Blue mage is solo content and you can’t queue with it.... except for when you have to party play to get into fights you need to unlock new moves? So blue mage is in fact much less solo oriented than every other job since it’ll require groups to gain skills, and will be forced to do it through party finder? But then you can’t level quickly in parties, you have todo it in the over World? Mmm this all sounds odd to me. I like real jobs. I’m interested to see how blu plays out though. Maybe it’ll be fun.

[Oreos]

I made a long rant over in the "BLU for duty finder and raids" thread, but I'll try to sum up my feelings here.

This Blue Mage is not a job. It's Triple Triad for battle content.

You don't need to follow previous iterations to the exact detail. You didn't do that for any of the other jobs, why is this one required? I have played Blue Mage in every FF game that has had Blue Mage. I know the history of utility and versatility that makes it difficult to implement in a Holy Trinity system. But Red Mage isn't the exact same as older versions. Nor is Summoner. Or Samurai. Or any other current job.

Implementing BLU as a slow burn could have worked. Cap the level and skills available in order to test for balance issues and gather feedback from the community. You would have my utmost respect for doing so. But you relegated it to side content.

You could have made BLU work in group play. Tone down potencies and additional effects on bosses. Require certain skills to be learned before people can queue for high level content. Instead, you gave up and said it was too complicated. You insulted your fans who have been desperate for this job for years.

I have been a lifelong fan of FF, and this design choice has made me sadder and more disappointed than anything I've experienced in a game. I beg you to reconsider.

[Lyden]

First of all , i was shocked too.
But guys and gals relax pls, BLU hasnt finally arrived FF14... and BLU is one of the first "Limited" Jobs ... we cant say any relatable until this new system of this game is live.
I think, BLU is a great chance to give this original Final Fantasy feeling back, almost all jobs are kinda similiar and BLU can make up some new points in this game, also its the first of this type of gameplay; we dont know how this will evolve in patches.
After this short shock moment im super excited and currious how it feels to play this job and what yoshida has prepared for us to have a unique mmorpg experience which is made in style of FF and make this MMORPG different from other MMORPG titels on the marked !

Edited: I played BlueMage in almost all titels and i was hungry for this Job come up in this game , dont get me wrong.
But i trust in the Dev to give us a good time with BLU in FF14

[Saefinn]

I'm gonna say let's wait and see. It sounds like the trade-off is "no duty finder", if it allows us to use party finder or team up with friends and still do actual content, then whilst not ideal, it's a compromise. If they plan on doing this with future jobs, it may well be the plan on giving this system attention. Hopefully this early release prior to Shadowbringers will end up giving the SE the feedback they need going forward and perhaps make adjustments for release, though that's 'hopefully' not anything based on SE's track record.

I was disappointed at first, but I am seeing how it -could- work, but whether it does or doesn't is going to depend on SE's delivery. I am going to judge once I get my hands on it and then maybe I'll join the people complaining or say "hang on, this is not as bad as you guys think". I think too much focus is on the 'solo', it seems to be designed for solo play, yet is permissable in groups. For me the extent of which is the deal breaker, removing the duty finder for BLU is not the end of the world for me even if largely inconvenient, because I expect we'll see more Party Finder groups made by Blue Mages and I generally do stuff with friends.

[Glaceon10]

I'm gonna say let's wait and see. It sounds like the trade-off is "no duty finder", if it allows us to use party finder or team up with friends and still do actual content, then whilst not ideal, it's a compromise. If they plan on doing this with future jobs, it may well be the plan on giving this system attention. Hopefully this early release prior to Shadowbringers will end up giving the SE the feedback they need going forward and perhaps make adjustments for release, though that's 'hopefully' not anything based on SE's track record.

I was disappointed at first, but I am seeing how it -could- work, but whether it does or doesn't is going to depend on SE's delivery. I am going to judge once I get my hands on it and then maybe I'll join the people complaining or say "hang on, this is not as bad as you guys think". I think too much focus is on the 'solo', it seems to be designed for solo play, yet is permissable in groups. For me the extent of which is the deal breaker, removing the duty finder for BLU is not the end of the world for me even if largely inconvenient, because I expect we'll see more Party Finder groups made by Blue Mages and I generally do stuff with friends.

The thing is, it's not necessarily how they do the content - it's the fact that they condemned Blue Mage to it. They basically took Blue Mage, which many people, including myself, have wanted for a very long time, and relegated it to side content.

The Carnivale and the like could all be pretty fun as solo content in general, but the various actions that you'd need to succeed in it could have very well just been in a Logos-like way instead of relegating one of the most desired and potentially interesting Jobs in the game and putting it in completely irrelevant content exclusively.

And yeah, there's the "compromise" of being able to use it in Party Finder, but that compromise shouldn't have to exist to begin with.

[Lyden]

And yeah, there's the "compromise" of being able to use it in Party Finder, but that compromise shouldn't have to exist to begin with.

tbh better to begin with, as it ruins at the start for all other ppl which has to play with a BLU without there wish for.
I think it is much more worse to have a BLU which dont feel like a real BLU and no one said side content we all dont know how this carnivale will take place in the endcontent world ... maybe its just a another way to archive the endcontent ... maybe its a shining star for all DoL and DoH only ppl which have problems with random groups...

Time will see, be patience i bet yoshida is a good Dev and has the numbers of this game well analiced.
We will get well made content unusual /inovative but well made content.