Blue Mage Development Theory

[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.