A question for the BLU peeps

[Stormfur]

My choice isn't on the survey, but I'm going to try it out and see how it plays before I judge.

[Reynhart]

Tell them to use one of the options available to them instead of taking away an option from everyone.

But if a BLU doesn't care that he's a burden, you'll be the one held back if he's randomly placed in your group. So you're also protected with that rule.

Do you know for sure there won't be a level requirement to learning spells?

Nothing in the screenshots we saw tend to say that. It only shows a spellbook, and spells seems to be completely out of order. And even if they had levels, it won't change anything because BLU will still have far more spells than he can equip. Like I already said, imagine the mess if every job could only equip half of its job skills, and you can't know what they have before entering the duty.

And even in the past FF games that didn't require a level to learn, you basically were still level locked away from spells because you had to progress in the story to get to those enemies and be capable of defeating them.

This will be only one example, but since you can do a full run of FFIX at level 1, at least Quina is not restricted by his/her level. Khimari or Quistis also don't need any level to have access to any of their spells. And in every game you could still keep one of your paty member to level 1 and allow him/her to cast any spell at the very end.

[jon041065]

But if a BLU doesn't care that he's a burden, you'll be the one held back if he's randomly placed in your group. So you're also protected with that rule.

Not much different than someone that plays as an "ice mage" or hasn't melded their gear at all or doesn't have their job stone or hasn't done all their job quests or hasn't read what their abilities do so they are just mashing things randomly. I don't need SE to protect me. I'm a big boy and can handle those situations myself.

Nothing in the screenshots we saw tend to say that. It only show a spellbook, and spells seems to be completely out of order. And even if they had levels, it won't change anything because BLU will still have far more spells than he can equip. Like I already said, imagine the mess if every job could only equip half of its job skills, and you can't know what they have before entering the duty.

Yeah, the spells probably won't have a level requirement to USE them but could very well have one to learn them. I'd imagine it be like any other time you use matchmaking and you don't know what type of players you will be in a party with. I don't need SE to protect me from those situations.

It also sounds like you're assuming that a spell set can't be changed while in an instance.

This will be only one example, but since you can do a full run of FFIX at level 1, at least Quina is not restricted by his/her level. Khimari or Quistis also don't need any level to have access to any of their spells. And in every game you could still keep one of your paty member to level 1 and allow him/her to cast any spell at the very end.

Was Quina's chance at eating enemies tied to her level at all? I don't know for sure. Did lancet have a chance to fail on FF9? I don't remember. If it could miss then the chance could have been based on his level. Fair point on Quistis but she would still need to survive long enough to use her limit break.

[Reynhart]

I'm a big boy and can handle those situations myself.

For them, the community can't. Fear of matchmaking being unfair and end in conflict is their excuse for refusing to give depth to the game.

It also sounds like you're assuming that a spell set can't be changed while in an instance.

That's my guess. But I admit it's only a guess.

Was Quina's chance at eating enemies tied to her level at all?

AFAIK, Eat success is only tied to the target's remaining HP.

[Auryan]

Quina's ability to learn blue magic wasn't dependent on his/her lvl. I've recently done a low lvl Excalibur II run and you can learn all of the blue magic at lvl 1. Including Limit Glove, Lvl5 Death, Night, Auto-Life, etc. Lancet never failed in FFX, you just had to find the correct fiend to learn the overdrives.

[MrKimper]

No, the only time BLU has ever been gated by level is in FFXI. For every other game, it's just that later monsters tend to teach more powerful spells, and it has nothing to do with the level you are to learn or use a spell. That's exactly why, in FFV, you only have Blue! instead of Blue1! to Blue6!. More importantly, in FFV, Blue Magic is learned by the party, which means a high level Master Blue Bartz could learn a spell usable by a very low level Blue 0 Krile.

No one cares what the order you're supposed to learn spells. White, Black and Red Mages don't have a choice of learning lower tier before higher ones.

That's wrong though, because you physically cannot enter those areas with those skills with low level BLU's because of boss or story restrictions, and even then a large amount of skills were not usable because they were awful.

[Melichoir]

Snip snips.

Given what we know about BLU currently, its playstyle appears to me to be based around the following:

BLU will be able to solo dungeons (that is dungeons will not change any, but BLU will be able to go in at lvl sync and complete those dungeons). To achieve that, it will be done by having BLU grind open world monsters for their skills. These skills being much more powerful will allow BLU to enter dungeons and solo them. The difficulty will not come from learning a rotation or resource management system, but on HOW you use the skills you have. The focus of the job will to be to use monster skills to overcome challanges that normal classes would not be able to overcome by themselves. You will literally be tank/healer/dps all rolled into one.

Now this doesnt preclude BLU from having a resource management system (doubt itll have a set 'rotation' but rather a "If you are in scenario A, use Skills X, Y, and Z. If you are in scenario B, use skills T, U, and V), but that system will be secondary to the main focus of choosing what skills to use in the situation at hand.

My point was that to balance out those monster skills for party play, SE would have to directly nerf the skills themselves and probably in a substantial manner. In doing so, SE would oversimplify the class, which would then require them to expand on the rotation/resource management formula to add gameplay back in as BLU would no longer be able to solo content. This moves the focus away from learning monster skills (which is what makes BLU unique) and more into the class being in line with all the other casters. If that becomes teh case, BLU then simply is a wierd reskin of pre-existing casters, except rather than doing a job quest every 5 levels, or 2, or etc, youd go out and learn your skills from monsters. Which, btw, would have to be pretty easy simply because you cant RNG learning skills in party play because that would be a hamstring to the class. This was one of hte concerns, from my understanding, the devs were also noting - You could end up with players whos RNG sucks so bad they skip skills and are under skilled for content in comparison to other classes who can get their skills reliably every few levels.

You also cant have it where they allow a "Solo Play" mode and "Party Mode" because that would literally require designing to combat classes that both happen to be named BLU. This is because both would require different play styles to function within their respective content.

Perhaps there is a way to get BLU into party play while keeping Monster Skills at strength, but I cant think of a single way to do that, and I havent seen anyone effectively do that either.

[Hercub]

Given what we know about BLU currently, its playstyle appears to me to be based around the following:
.[/I]

I read your comment.

Doesn't this ennoble the Hunters Log? Maybe Blue could have it's own special Hunter Log that goes to lvl 80 Monsers. Hunters Log is great, but now it is relevant beyond experience.

Sorry I'm drunk right now. I love the game and the community.

[Aylis]

I don't understand you 'wait and see' people.

What are you waiting to see? Their intentions were very clear.

Also to answer the OP's question- I want a BLU playable in all content that every other job can access, full stop, no matter what sacrifices to be made to accomplish that.

As one of the "wait and see" crowd, for me anyway its because SE often takes ideas that sound hopeful based on its presentation they give before the content is released. Only it for it to fall through and turn into something that's either under whelming or a complete turn around from said original presentation when the content is actually released and turns into a big disappointment.They often give these big overviews of things but don't get into tiny details and showcase things in their full. Tiny details and a showcase I'd say are worth more then just a big overview. In other words it's best to stay on the middle fence, it's not worth getting excited anymore for something that may or may not fall apart in the end.

That said, to the OP that's pretty much my answer. I like the concept to how its being released and I'm going to at least play it and give it a fair shot. I'll make up my mind on it after I wait and see it for myself'

[Reynhart]

That's wrong though, because you physically cannot enter those areas with those skills with low level BLU's because of boss or story restrictions

Which still has nothing to do with your character level or doesn't require a specific order at which you learn the spells...as opposed to all other mages except Summoners.
Especially in games with a job system, where you can do the whole story without leveling your BLU anytime, which is - GASP!- exactly how FFXIV works.