Some love for Blue Mage

[BioDio]

I don't usually post in these forums, but, I just want to share my view on Blue Mage (because that's what the forums are for! yay)

I've played a bunch of MMO's since WoW vanilla (yeah, I'm not an Everquest / Ultima ancient, sorry). Every MMO always try to focus on endgame content only and farm resources every single day, or farm PVP gear. Basically, in every MMO I played you either farm for PVE or PVP endgame. Even if some have some side content, it's not that fun.

That is true for FF14 (aside from the PVP gear part), HOWEVER, FF14 does have extra content that is not directly linked to the endgame, and it's actually fun. Triple Triad comes to mind, along with the Hildibrand questline.

So, sometimes I want to login in FF14, but, don't want to do raids or farm dungeons, it's a game, everyone needs to do what they find fun. I usually ended up doing beast tribes dailies or something. Today I tried Blue Mage, and I just loved it. It's a class you can play casually, do some experimentation with builds, and enjoy the ride of playing it. Did a dungeon run with 4 Blue Mages, and had a blast, since you can spec up different spells, so, no one was the same. We had tank / healer / DPS from just 1 class. (of course in high level and raids it will be DPS only).

I heard some people say it's useless. No, I'm sorry, but no. If you are having fun with something, it's not useless.

WoW had archeology, a profession that is "useless", however, it had a lot of lore content, and exploring the world was something that was kind of fun doing, and by the end of it, you got rewarded for it.

Not everything needs to be a competition and elitist. I loved what they did with Blue Mage, and hope in the future he gets implemented in the roulettes, but as of right now, it reminds me of a cross between Pokemon and Guild Wars 2.

Good job, love FF, best MMO ever. Blue Mage is tons of fun.

GG WP

[Saefinn]

I'm with you on this. Whilst I don't have a problem with raid focused endgame content (I like it), but something I think doesn't get enough attention is alternative endgame content, and along the lines of things I enjoyed of older MMORPG's - I think more varied content is positive thing, of course, if the content works. It's what I hoped Eureka would bring after Diadem was just...bad, but that ended up being something with lost potential, but they had good ideas for - what lost it for me was it was not engaging enough to be as slow as it was to gain progress, at least without relying on FATE trains. And I give kudos to SE for trying.

I think if they do more with it and do it right then Limited Jobs could open other doors for enjoyment in the game. The fact SE has tripped up before has made me very skeptical about their attempts to add alternative content but from time-to-time they do things right, so it's a bit of gamble when they announce anything on whether it'll be good. But thus far I've gotten a good impression on Blue Mage and I like they've gone for this approach with the job as I've wanted Blue Mage forever and hoped they'd give me the Blue Mage I enjoy and not something too watered down and it looks like they might have delivered on that, even if with some caveats. But it's one of those things that you can know better with time whether it's going to fall flat, once the initial novelty has worn off and there's fewer people on the bandwagon, we can see whether it'll be sustained.

[GrenGarm]

My enjoyment of the BLU content is limited by the limited job design. I would main it if I could. It's that fun. But I can't, and for no good reason. So I won't play it at all.

There's nothing wrong with adding non-endgame content to an MMO. Taking a job that so many people love and hamstringing it with a boatload of restrictions seems like the worst possible way to do this. I would rather have a watered-down BLU that I can play as a real job than this "faithful" version, where dungeon bosses are immune to half the BLU abilities anyway.

I'm also disappointed that the reward for the Carnival is just seals that we can get in other ways. I was hoping for unique stuff that makes it worthwhile to level the job.

They took one of the most beloved jobs in Final Fantasy and made it a way to grind for seals once a week. If that doesn't depress you, you aren't really a BLU fan.

[BioDio]

I'm with you on this. Whilst I don't have a problem with raid focused endgame content (I like it), but something I think doesn't get enough attention is alternative endgame content,

Yeah, Blue Mage kind of reminds me an epic quest chain adventure. Of course, on day one, everyone will be camping mob spawning... so, we should just ignore this, since it's inevitable (and I can say that mob spawning times are NOT that bad here).

It's pure fun as a side activity, and very well implemented. Happy to see content that is not tied to endgame progression, something I wish WoW had done in its prime, but that service got so awful after Lich King.
Anyway, happy FF14 has something for everyone. I never knew I wanted Blue Mage, but now I do!!

[BioDio]

They took one of the most beloved jobs in Final Fantasy and made it a way to grind for seals once a week. If that doesn't depress you, you aren't really a BLU fan.

Ah, sorry, forgot to say, I'm not an FF fan, the only one I enjoyed was FF12 because of its gameplay design. I'm a fan of MMO's.

Played a bunch of FF, but none interested me, I'm more of a Dragon Quest fan when it comes to JRPG's, love that series being DQ8 my favorite JRPG. If you ask me which FF is the best one, it's FF14, and at the same time, it's the best MMO I played. So yeah, I have no emotional attachment to any primals or jobs, just see them in a pure gameplay perspective.

[Leowilde]

Agreed to all of it! Loving BLU so far.

[GrenGarm]

It's kind of amazing how they give us a job with dozens of spells and we use only one 99% of the time after acquiring it (1000 Needles). Square did not think this through very well.

[Maero]

I am really liking it and it feels like having started fresh in 2.0
It sure is nice to see the old zones filled with players once more and new players should surely benefit.

[Daniolaut]

I’ve been playing Final Fantasy for many many of years.

Blue Mage is a lot of fun and a nice change of pace, I agree with original post.

Great job Square-Enix!!

Edit: If I had to pretend I needed to complain, my only complaint is Blue Mages movement animations. They are a bit awkward. Other than that is absolutely a blast, its always been my motto, of you arent having fun, you're doing something wrong.

[BioDio]

It's kind of amazing how they give us a job with dozens of spells and we use only one 99% of the time after acquiring it (1000 Needles). Square did not think this through very well.

The job just got out, it's an MMO, I'm sure that once next expansion comes out, everything will be more balanced and polished =)

Happens every time with any MMO online based game, if this is your first game of this kind, well, don't worry, there is always balance to be done. If you compare the launch of 2.0 (not even talking about 1.0), to the current state of FF14, you'll see that the game changed, so, just give it time.