Two Months of BLU: Discuss!

[Shougun]

Interesting points, but I think we have to keep two things in mind with regards to BLU and limited jobs.

The first being that it's nice to come up with a standard job idea to go along with the limited part, but that kind of ignores why BLU is a limited job in the first place. After theorycrafting ways to bring BLU into XIV and scrapping all of those ideas, they kind of gave up on the idea of adding BLU. Until the limited job idea popped up. Feel free to disagree with that being the only option for jobs like BLU, I know many do, but that's how the devs see it. Adding a regular job to BLU would kind of make the need for the limited job system moot.

The second being that we focus too much on just BLU. It is the first job used for this system and it's not planned to be the only one. The other potential candidates that will come up will also need to go through the advanced treatment. And that takes more and more time and energy. At that point, these advanced jobs are becoming such a drain on resource. And then, why bother?

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea. For starters, it certainly will lower the chances of seeing yet another BLU hate thread. I just don't see how adding two separate experiences to one job is going to be more attractive for the devs than just adding one or the other. Sure, standard jobs, besides their own stories, don't have a lot of content attached to them. They are more tools to do content, but they do require attention in other areas. Like balance, ability creation/refining, stat adjustment, etc. I imagine creating standard jobs takes a lot more work than coming up with ideas for a flashy rotation. Which somehow circles back to my first point.

First point - I think you might be able to argue it works quite well to have this sort of dual system. Obviously one of the concerns was if they limit the skills learned to a small selection (which creates the best balance and ability to make a tight gameplay mechanic) that it wouldn't feel blue mage-y. Well, what if I told you that you could learn hundreds of skills and use them but you also were able to compete in normal content in a balanced way? Does that sound pointless? So by being Advanced Blue Mage is both a job and to the fullest extent possible also "Blue Mage". Obviously a response to that would be "yeah well I can't use all of them in that balanced content now can I? hmmm?" lol but I'll get to why it'll still have a point and be helpful to the community~!

To add because there is a sort of "what's the point?" I'd argue the current point of blue mage is very weak .. and while we weren't discussing it I'd like to slide the point I want to "inject" into blue mage while I make suggestions like this (which hopefully makes the argument for Advanced Job stronger and more poignant than being limited in it's current state).

That is Blue Mage, obviously, would come in two parts - the first part would be unchained and rather unbalanced. Gameplay mechanics for this would revolve around trying to make a great solo experience and enjoyment of the open world, specifically old content (BLU "sort of" does this now, but imo not nearly well enough). With some suggestions I've picked up over multiple threads I'd suggest this unchained (limited side of blue) doesn't use gear score at all but rather ranks your blue mage based on # skills learned and their power - such that blue mage's power comes from it's skill specifically and ANY PLAYER can enjoy the side content of blue mage to it's fullest without spending a single tomestone on Blue Mage (this is for the limited side only, the main side will require you to gear up - of course). This allows Blue Mage side content not to be locked behind playing blue mage as if it was your main, this is really nice and helpful for the community (I think). If people are worried about gear sales you could always make it so there is a vague relation to gear and blue "ilvl" such that if your gear is for level 50s you can have a max ilevel of 150 (so the quality of the gear doesn't matter, only the minimum level requirement - meaning again you don't need to "main blue" to use side content blue).

Second part would be the main job, obviously a job as one would expect but using the spell book and learning gilded spells (spells in the book that have two variants, one balanced one not). Flipping the job stone would dictate whether you have gilded variants (and are locked out of non-gilded spells), as well as your ability hot bar and equipment (almost but not quite like "two jobs"). Blue Mages would obviously level easier than other jobs but they'd spend more time going to get spells, to counter balance the ease of leveling. I do suggest some changes to how skill chance works to prevent terrible luck but I don't want to rewrite my timeline thread lol.

So now you have current version:
Get seals, collect some stuff for the sake of collecting, doesn't really solo content better than anything you already have.

VS

Side content everyone can partake in (like before, but smoother even), destroys OLD content (solo) which can help people who missed out on stuff - even like Eureka (is not allowed into current tier!), & behaves as a different style job where in the focus is not leveling but gathering skills, but as it is a main job it is a job that will carry forward forever (like other jobs). That also comes with the peace of mind that it wont be forgotten :3.

I feel the point of existence is much stronger with the later as it allows people to hit that old content hard even if they're leveling jobs that normally don't do well solo but also allows a job that uses similar resources making it more cost effective than designing an entirely new job. At least personally I'd find far more use out of Blue Mage if it was like that.

As for the second point you made, you're right that we're focusing tightly on blue mage and I know some don't care about the future but actually in my timeline thread I detailed Beastmaster and Puppetmaster following the same Advanced Job route that I want Blue Mage to follow. In that these advanced jobs bring new content to everyone, as a form of side content/mini-game, but they also bring a new job to the table that some players will really want to play (some players play all jobs, good for them, and some players want a different style of job to "main" - higher chance they'll find their home then).

I do admit there are some jobs I have a harder time imagining them to be Advanced successfully, but Blue Mage, Puppet Master, and Beast Master are not jobs I think have that issue. Given that you go "Advanced" at least, using the limited side of advance to fully narrate the job in a way that might be unbalanced but fair because everyone can take part fairly easily and then the main side to make it a job as one might see a job.

Together it, hopefully, would be a much more detailed picture that satisfies more than just something like "beastmaster, it's pokemon but worse".

I understand your hesitance because obviously I'm not asking for a simple change, it's a whole freaking job to design lol, but hopefully at least it could be like "I wont hate that if it happened, even if I'm not sure they'll do it". Although to be fair you've already sort of said that haha - so I guess I'm just trying to sell you more on it .

Even if we disagree thanks for reading .

[Kalise]

I feel that this idea of "Advanced" Jobs wherein it's ending up creating a proper job (Not really, you're just advocating copy/paste BLM/DRG/SMN but with different spell effects) and then also creating a second Job that is a glorified Limited Job we have now seems a little silly.

Given that there's a myriad of ways to make a proper job out of BLU whilst still retaining its ability to have unique stuff such as learning new skills and accessing "OP" skills that can only be used in old content. All of which would merely require creating a single job, not 2 (Especially with additional Soul Crystals... We only have 4 slots left in the Armory chest, 2 of which will be taken up by Gunbreaker and Dancer in ShB... Adding jobs that will now need 2 different Crystals is going to be a pain).

An example for BLU would being having a "Duty Skill Set" that is automatically enabled when entering a duty that is sync'd, that has limited customization (I.e. You can swap out for different flavour of the same skills. So you can pick whichever 130 potency filler skill to use in the slot it takes but you can't remove said 130 potency spell from your spellbook entirely) so it can be balanced around while maintaining some customization. While for unsync'd content you can have all your other skill sets completely open to what you feel like using.

Essentially, acting as this "Advanced Job" dual jobs, but working within a single job. Using a framework that already exists (Being able to save skill sets for BLU) and so reducing the need to dump resources into creating and maintaining 2 jobs where one of them just won't end up being functional in a way that actually makes it feel like the job it's supposed to be.

In addition, putting in the systems to enable "Limited Jobs" to act as normal jobs also will work going into the future.

For example, if you make it so that "Limited Jobs" have to "Unlock" access to the Duty Finder. So they need to do a quest at level 50 which requires them to have spells X, Y, Z (BLU), beasts X, Y, Z (BST), mammets X, Y, Z (PUP) etc. Then they unlock level 1-50 DF. Same at level 60 and 70 and 80 etc.

Thus they're "Limited" in that they don't automatically access everything the same as a normal job, they have to meet certain requirements due to their different progression system. As opposed to being "Limited" in that they just can't participate in 90% of the content within the game and rely entirely on individually created content.

[Shougun]

I feel that this idea of "Advanced" Jobs wherein it's ending up creating a proper job (Not really, you're just advocating copy/paste BLM/DRG/SMN but with different spell effects) and then also creating a second Job that is a glorified Limited Job we have now seems a little silly.

I feel like the idea that SE can't design a new job is silly. So I guess this silly feeling is mutual :P. I really dislike the arguments of "but it'll just be BLM/SMN" like SE is incapable of designing something unique beyond what they've already done :/. SE can design a new mage, I'm certain of this.

Given that there's a myriad of ways to make a proper job out of BLU whilst still retaining its ability to have unique stuff such as learning new skills and accessing "OP" skills that can only be used in old content. All of which would merely require creating a single job, not 2 (Especially with additional Soul Crystals... We only have 4 slots left in the Armory chest, 2 of which will be taken up by Gunbreaker and Dancer in ShB... Adding jobs that will now need 2 different Crystals is going to be a pain).

An example for BLU would being having a "Duty Skill Set" that is automatically enabled when entering a duty that is sync'd, that has limited customization (I.e. You can swap out for different flavour of the same skills. So you can pick whichever 130 potency filler skill to use in the slot it takes but you can't remove said 130 potency spell from your spellbook entirely) so it can be balanced around while maintaining some customization. While for unsync'd content you can have all your other skill sets completely open to what you feel like using.

Essentially, acting as this "Advanced Job" dual jobs, but working within a single job. Using a framework that already exists (Being able to save skill sets for BLU) and so reducing the need to dump resources into creating and maintaining 2 jobs where one of them just won't end up being functional in a way that actually makes it feel like the job it's supposed to be.

In addition, putting in the systems to enable "Limited Jobs" to act as normal jobs also will work going into the future.

For example, if you make it so that "Limited Jobs" have to "Unlock" access to the Duty Finder. So they need to do a quest at level 50 which requires them to have spells X, Y, Z (BLU), beasts X, Y, Z (BST), mammets X, Y, Z (PUP) etc. Then they unlock level 1-50 DF. Same at level 60 and 70 and 80 etc.

Thus they're "Limited" in that they don't automatically access everything the same as a normal job, they have to meet certain requirements due to their different progression system. As opposed to being "Limited" in that they just can't participate in 90% of the content within the game and rely entirely on individually created content.

I find that if they took the current setup of insert color of 130 potency skill that Blue Mage would be boring, so I'd also rather have a two job system where the limited side is unbalanced and true (or at least "exaggerated") to the original spell and the "main job" side is balanced and follows it's own rules for gameplay mechanical fun. I'm not a fan of the heavy amount of Blue's duplicate potency different color issue and I wouldn't want to see it become a core feature of the job to make it work.

So while your idea is certainly straight forward (massively so, blue mage a normal job by next week sort of levels lol) I guess we'll diverge there as I think Blue Mage isn't in a good place to take the simple route (nor can it be, imo, because "130 potency of X color" feels bad now and I think will feel bad in the future too).

[Kalise]

I feel like the idea that SE can't design a new job is silly. So I guess this silly feeling is mutual :P. I really dislike the arguments of "but it'll just be BLM/SMN" like SE is incapable of designing something unique beyond what they've already done :/. SE can design a new mage, I'm certain of this.

Well, the issue is that you're advocating siphoning off most of the "Interesting" job design to make the fluff "Limited" version of the job.

So, instead of creating 1 coherent class with an interesting set of mechanics you're making 1 Limited Job with an interesting set of mechanics and one "Standard" class.

Which is difficult to do properly, especially if you're trying to make the "2" jobs unique rather than effectively just making 1 job that can adapt to "Fun" content or "Balanced" content.

I find that if they took the current setup of insert color of 130 potency skill that Blue Mage would be boring, so I'd also rather have a two job system where the limited side is unbalanced and true (or at least "exaggerated") to the original spell and the "main job" side is balanced and follows it's own rules for gameplay mechanical fun. I'm not a fan of the heavy amount of Blue's duplicate potency different color issue and I wouldn't want to see it become a core feature of the job to make it work.

It would only be boring when they're doing this half measure of designing BLU where they want to have many spells but don't want to make clear favourites.

To say nothing about the incredible flexibility this would give for adding spells into the "Fun" category as everything that isn't a "Recolour" of the "Balanced" kit can be OP as it would inherently be unusable in any content where balance matters.

Also, just calling them "Recolour" skills is not quite accurate, since there's plenty of room for significant differences between skills - More than the current "Everything is a 130 potency skill just with different AoE's"

Such as more combo interaction (Rebalanced with some form of non-CC based element synergy akin to something I've suggested previously)

Or creating some differences between skills that are situational (Such as a skill like Drill Cannon being a 125 potency skill that is better than a 130 potency skill when there's a DRG for Piercing debuff)

There's a lot that can be done while still keeping within a more focused design of a "Balanced Skill Set" with potential skill swaps that are limited to certain skills and action types (I.e. 130ish potency filler skill. DoT skill. 30s oGCD, 60s oGCD, 90s oGCD etc)

So while your idea is certainly straight forward (massively so, blue mage a normal job by next week sort of levels lol) I guess we'll diverge there as I think Blue Mage isn't in a good place to take the simple route (nor can it be, imo, because "130 potency of X color" feels bad now and I think will feel bad in the future too).

Simple is good. Simple costs less time and resources. Simple makes sense.

I also don't think that BLU is so out of whack that it needs to be recreated from scratch. Twice.

I think that the existing framework for can be easily moulded into a job that has both the aspects of being a fun side-job to mess around with in old content using silly abilities as well as being a functional job that can be balanced in regular content.

[Shougun]

Well, the issue is that you're advocating siphoning off most of the "Interesting" job design to make the fluff "Limited" version of the job.

So, instead of creating 1 coherent class with an interesting set of mechanics you're making 1 Limited Job with an interesting set of mechanics and one "Standard" class.

Which is difficult to do properly, especially if you're trying to make the "2" jobs unique rather than effectively just making 1 job that can adapt to "Fun" content or "Balanced" content.

Well in part because I don't think limited job is currently interesting, it's also why I'm not a huge fan of the simple solution you've put forward - because I don't find Blue Mage interesting as it is (at least for simple changes to be enough, imo :3).

So I do think it's bad enough that it needs to be looked at sincerely and deeply. Well, besides the short time of casting thousand needle before that got old it hasn't been fun (imo), and this is coming from someone who loved FFXI's and dearly wanted to main a re-spin of Blue Mage.

Obviously it just might be simply (lol) that I haven't let your idea marinate long enough in my head, but it'd be why I'm not like "yes, let's do that!". I do appreciate you're trying to suggest changes too though, we just see how good or bad things are differently.

Also I'd say you're not stealing much in terms of ideas because limited side isn't designed with some sort of balance in mind, it's not requiring a tightly bound ship just a fun ship. That still might steal ideas as you suggest but it could also "take" ideas that would normally be imbalanced so that's fine (things that just don't work normally). Mostly I think in type of diablo 3 and how items and skills work where you might get one spell that does one effect and gear that does another thing but together they create a whole new concept, besides for like two spells right now that doesn't really exist in blue mage in any sort of fun compelling manner - I'd just suggest going to interaction town and letting the pieces lie how they may. It's not important to balance things as tightly as even Diablo 3 in that this job is meant (imo) to destroy old content so if you've found how to trigger Fire Angon 8 times in a row with a few tricks then.. cool, keep breaking the job its meant to be (imo) a "break the game" playground. When SE adds new spells they could be things that mix up the "OP" meta and require whole rebuilds of your job. I see your example of a debuff means you might use physical spell instead for an extra 5% damage but personally sounds like planning my consumables in levels of excitement lol (good stuff for those that like to parsers and make rotations from that though).

I've read your suggestion, I think it'd make Blue Mage better than it is now but.. even with the changes blue mage still doesn't sound "fun" to me, ESPECIALLY as a limited job. Limited job, imo, should either never exist or be /fun/ insanity because the in-between limbo is just bad feeling (imo, obviously - perhaps to some people casting doom 6 times in a row is fun, not really to me though).

Your idea might have been warmer feeling to me if that was introduced first before Blue Mage came out but at this point with the idea of more limited jobs possibly coming and the purpose of making something limited, meh I think it's a mistake if it's too balanced and imo the limited side should be unbound and chaotic. Part of a problem I have with the spells blending like you've suggested with some skills being Op and some being spells you use (such that you're not designing "two jobs") is that then it's just a flash in the pan here or there when in limited mode - "..normal normal normal ooooo- normal normal". Imo it should be like a Yugioh cut scene with each spell having an introduction of how you've fallen for their blue eye triple white platinum busty dragon trap card. .

Go big or don't go limited, that's where I'm at with this at this time.. maybe it'll change.

Like to me Blue Mage has the Carnival and solo king (for old content explicitly), Beast Master would gain Shepard DoL like content (could probably solo well too but that's not it's point of limited portion), Puppet Master would gain heavy minion customization options (emotes, personality, minion crafting), each offering a new limited systems/ways to approach the game that wasn't possible before. Having an in for each player who doesn't want to main them either. Like bard brought music or dancer may bring choreography, in that they can be easily accessed by even those who don't main the job (not in how deep or shallow one might view those two content pieces - I was looking for "limited" to be more like "everyone's gift").

I'm still willing to have my mind changed but I might need to hear more from SE first on their plans and sit on this simple solution longer. Mostly because I don't think Blue Mage is fun enough that a simple solution makes it interesting as I hope it would be.

So while I find difficulty seeing the simple suggestions as interesting you think my idea is "silly" and requires too much work (certainly it's more work than yours so that's actually a fair statement lol), but at this point I'd just say we'll have to disagree and that's that.

Fun to get the ideas out there though and see where people differ on the same job with what they want changed .

[Physic]

when they say its unbalanced or breaks the system, they arent just talking huge dps. They are talking about being a lot less role dominant, Having powerful situational abilities, more control than other jobs, etc.

also the concept that blue has tons of skills that serve the same purpose is overstated. there are very few abilities that serve no purpose.

[Nariel]

when they say its unbalanced or breaks the system, they arent just talking huge dps. They are talking about being a lot less role dominant, Having powerful situational abilities, more control than other jobs, etc.

also the concept that blue has tons of skills that serve the same purpose is overstated. there are very few abilities that serve no purpose.

Situation they most likely only encounter inside the masked carnival because anything else is or too weak to matter or totaly imunised. But its the whole point of the carnival after all, special situation for the blue mage to show of skill existing only for this stage of the carnival.

BLU only exist for Carnival and Carnival only exist for BLU to have a purpose in game just like LoV only exist to show minion skills that exist only to be used inside LoV, outside of it they're just cute little thing just like blue mage is just a cute little wanna-be-a-job to kill trash mob with.

You're okay with that, great for you, but it seems like people expect one of the most iconic job of the Final Fantasy franchise to be more than an underwhelming mini-game.

[Derio]

Honestly I was excited at first. But then the solo aspect changed greatly to be not very solo oriented with alot of the later spells. To the point where you need to find 7 other ppl via party finder to try at a chance to learn a spell. I am going to wait until the lvl cap goes up to 70 to try it again.

But in all honesty they should have made it a full job or not made it at all.

[Auryan]

While I don't personally care for your (Shougun) version, I do prefer it to Kalise's, which feels more like downplaying and slowly removing the limited aspects from BLU in order to make it into a standard job.

My main gripe with your version is that you're reducing the limited aspect to bard's music playing. As some small and quite insignificant feature. And to me, the limited side is what captures my attention. I would likely just lvl a standard BLU to max and then ignore it. Like I did with RDM.

I have little interest in the fan creations of standard BLU. If it means I can keep limited BLU and other people can main it, great. However, if the standard part is too dominant and the limited some half forgotten after thought, I'm less likely to support it.

This also counts for the other jobs.

[Shougun]

While I don't personally care for your (Shougun) version, I do prefer it to Kalise's, which feels more like downplaying and slowly removing the limited aspects from BLU in order to make it into a standard job.

My main gripe with your version is that you're reducing the limited aspect to bard's music playing. As some small and quite insignificant feature. And to me, the limited side is what captures my attention. I would likely just lvl a standard BLU to max and then ignore it. Like I did with RDM.

I have little interest in the fan creations of standard BLU. If it means I can keep limited BLU and other people can main it, great. However, if the standard part is too dominant and the limited some half forgotten after thought, I'm less likely to support it.

This also counts for the other jobs.

I think you misunderstood me then, if you believe limited is down played. In my version limited would be it's own creation of combo ing different abilities to create wild combos like one might see with legendary sets in diablo 3. It would allow people to join in without having to gear it up like a standard job (power level through ability collection).


I mean it's fine to not like it but literally the idea up plays limited concept not down, so there must be some miscommunication. Like significant levels lol.