Blue Mage Development Theory

[DamianFatale]

I theorize that with XV not meeting Square Enix’s expectations, Square Enix is pressuring Yoshi P to implement more solo content in XIV. The Final Fantasy VIIRM and XVI game are clearly a long way off. XIV is also well received, and quite successful in the Final Fantasy series. The company doesn’t need to invest in anything beyond expansions, and patches for the game to keep going. That makes it easy to focus on. This could lead to XIV getting more attention, which could be a good or bad thing.

New game +, blue mage, squadrons, the trust system, and mentions of the common criticism for FFXIV being an mmo, and not a Final Fantasy that fans of the other games are interested in supports that. I also know from experience with talking to other fans, that this is the most common reason people who enjoy the series do not play XIV. Often people just don’t feel like this game is a “real” Final Fantasy.

I wonder how this will effect the game in the long run. Will we get more single player features? Will XIV be torn in the middle between solo, and mmo content? I don’t think it will go that far, but it does send a dangerous precedent.

My suggestion is to make Blue Mage usable in all content, but have certain overly powerful spells banned, or limited in the number of them that can be used. I.e. only one primals abilities can be used at a time while using duty finder.

On the other hand, with the large amount of skills available, they could brand Blue Mage as an “expert job”, make it viable during highly difficult content, and keep it banned from duty finder. If that’s the case, and it could only be used out of duty finder, it might end up pretty cool. I would still prefer if they were useable in all content however. Thoughts?

[Valdegarde]

I prefer that they respect those who wish to use Blue Mage as their main class in the game by setting requirements to meet, with the understanding that Blue Mage requires a lot of extra work put in to reach a certain amount of skills (maybe all) to be usable at 70/80 alongside other jobs. Create many skills to be integral for use in winning Masked Carnival bouts, but make a system using a basic loadout of skills that can be usable alongside other classes in a typical instanced fight. Once Blue Mage learns a number of these skills by certain levels they are allowed to queue with other players.

This puts an extra burden on players that wish to play Blue Mage as a normal job, but trust that players will enjoy keeping up on skill acquisition with the hope they may rejoin content and also enjoy having further abilities to work towards in their free time that may be used outside of duties.

[Elerus]

I theorize that with XV not meeting Square Enix’s expectations, Square Enix is pressuring Yoshi P to implement more solo content in XIV. The Final Fantasy VIIRM and XVI game are clearly a long way off. XIV is also well received, and quite successful in the Final Fantasy series. The company doesn’t need to invest in anything beyond expansions, and patches for the game to keep going. That makes it easy to focus on. This could lead to XIV getting more attention, which could be a good or bad thing.

New game +, blue mage, squadrons, the trust system, and mentions of the common criticism for FFXIV being an mmo, and not a Final Fantasy that fans of the other games are interested in supports that. I also know from experience with talking to other fans, that this is the most common reason people who enjoy the series do not play XIV. Often people just don’t feel like this game is a “real” Final Fantasy.

I wonder how this will effect the game in the long run. Will we get more single player features? Will XIV be torn in the middle between solo, and mmo content? I don’t think it will go that far, but it does send a dangerous precedent.

My suggestion is to make Blue Mage usable in all content, but have certain overly powerful spells banned, or limited in the number of them that can be used. I.e. only one primals abilities can be used at a time while using duty finder.

On the other hand, with the large amount of skills available, they could brand Blue Mage as an “expert job”, make it viable during highly difficult content, and keep it banned from duty finder. If that’s the case, and it could only be used out of duty finder, it might end up pretty cool. I would still prefer if they were useable in all content however. Thoughts?

Haha, while this is a bit "tin foil hat" theory (and I say that with respect and love) you DO make an interesting point. Obviously there's no way of knowing if what you say is true, but it is undeniable that SquareEnix posted loses of what was it . . . 33 million? They cancelled 75% (all but one) of the upcoming XV DLCs. I imagine they're probably looking for ways to usher any additional revenue into their coffers that they can. As a company, any company, you don't want your idle customers to go to competitors when they're bored or have an appetite you want them to go to another one of your products. It would be a shame if FFXIV design suffers because of that.

Man, I can only imagine the pressure that's gotta be on the Kingdom Hearts team right now.

[DamianFatale]

Haha, while this is a bit "tin foil hat" theory (and I say that with respect and love) you DO make an interesting point. Obviously there's no way of knowing if what you say is true, but it is undeniable that SquareEnix posted loses of what was it . . . 33 million? They cancelled 75% (all but one) of the upcoming XV DLCs. I imagine they're probably looking for ways to usher any additional revenue into their coffers that they can. As a company, any company, you don't want your idle customers to go to competitors when they're bored or have an appetite you want them to go to another one of your products. It would be a shame if FFXIV design suffers because of that.

Man, I can only imagine the pressure that's gotta be on the Kingdom Hearts team right now.

Pretty much. Even though Dragon Quest sold quite well, we know they’ll most likely never bank on it.

[Stormfur]

I can't help but shake the impression that XIV is going down two very divergent paths -- one for people who enjoy MMOs, teamwork and community, and the other for people who prefer solo gaming -- and never the two shall meet.

[Iscah]

I can't help but shake the impression that XIV is going down two very divergent paths -- one for people who enjoy MMOs, teamwork and community, and the other for people who prefer solo gaming -- and never the two shall meet.

Does that matter in the end though? As long as the community players have a community to play in, and the solo players are enjoying the game by themselves?

I get a lot of enjoyment out of the solo aspects of the game, but it's still nice to have the community around, and my FC to chat to or run special events with.

[Seraphor]

I can't help but shake the impression that XIV is going down two very divergent paths -- one for people who enjoy MMOs, teamwork and community, and the other for people who prefer solo gaming -- and never the two shall meet.

It already does this to an extent.
Crafting and gathering are solo content. There are those who only craft and gather, and there are those who do both, crafting in downtime between raids or patches.
Blue Mage is new content to appeal to those. The causal crafter gatherer types who dont want to raid, those who want sonething to do and work towards when theyre not raiding, etc.

There's also no reason blue has to be purely solo. Theyve made it so thats possible, but i expect blue mages parties to run ibstance content or chain mobs like Eureka, to grpup together and increase their odds of learning a new skill, will be a big thing.
This type of gameplay will actually be more social, because you dont just plop into a preset role slot, do your job, then leave. Each blue mage will have different skills, you'll have to communicate in order to coordinate.

[Stormfur]

Yep - I'm going to try it out for sure. I've always liked going out into the world and learning/finding things. I'm also an omnicrafter and gatherer. It just seems like, especially since BLU is capped at 50 starting out, that it will always be one step behind, which relegates it more to being like a minigame, and minigames tend to go the way of LoV.