SE, the concept of "Limited Jobs" is a really bad idea, turn back now

[Kitfox]

Hello,

Lynn Nuvestrahl, the salty Machinist theorycrafter here. The highlight of yesterday was the Q&A where Machinist and White Mage job issues were recognized, thank you Square-Enix. Our voices were heard. Please hear me out again because the day was all downhill from there.

I wanted to bring attention to the concept of Limited Jobs from yesterday's LLP. TL;DR:

This is an extremely bad idea. Please cut your losses: adjust the new class for group play and never introduce another Limited Job.

Dear Square-Enix, yesterday you announced the concept of Limited Jobs and "the first" limited job Blue Mage. From the slides presented, the concept seems to imply that the job will exists "outside" of the normal jobs used group content, a solo job if you will, because it would break the balance or somehow not fit into the normal gameplay. The notion of "first" gives me the chills because that would imply there's others on the way.

The reasoning was that Blue Mage has many game breaking abilities that wouldn't work in an MMO and you couldn't have the class without those abilities in order for it to be fun. This is absolutely false. Many jobs have been greatly adjusted to fit into the FFXIV system, such as Summoner, which is nothing like its offline counterparts. You can absolutely balance Blue Mage for group play if you wanted to. Look at all the CC effects that don't work on bosses, for example.

Furthermore, just as you can't have balance breaking abilities in an MMO, you also can't have a solo-only class in an MMO, because it's literally pointless if you can't play the rest of game with it. The initial response from the raiding community has been overwhelmingly negative. While I'm sure a solo-oriented player here and there might be happy, personally I wasn't even looking forward to this class and I was still let down, because instead of fixing current job and balance issues, a massive amount of resources was spent on this elaborate... mini-game. FFXIV is an MMO, not a solo-player game. People want more options and aesthetics to challenge the content in game with. Making a job unable to participate in said content basically makes it dead-on-arrival for most people.

It also sets a dangerous precedent where great job concepts might get shoved into the Limited category, a category that nobody wanted. What about Puppetmaster? Beastmaster? Dancer? Suddenly we don't know if we'll ever get a working FFXIV version of interesting jobs from previous games. If you want to have unique leveling experience and skill acquiring mechanics, that sounds like a great idea, but please make sure all the jobs can be used in regular battle content.

Limited Jobs are a terrible concept. Please, reconsider. I'm saying this now so that we don't have another disaster like the current White Mage Lily system, a problem that was called out before Stormblood launch but has remained an issue with no solutions throughout the whole expansion.

This is that call out. Don't repeat history.

[Valdegarde]

Please consider incorporating this feedback prior to Shadowbringers release. Trust in your playerbase, if there needs to be a certain amount of skills and levels necessary to use Blue Mage in parties normally, then let that be something for Blue Mage fans to look forward to achieving, and have the unbalanced extra abilities be something to play with in the Masked Carnival. This way you can incorporate what the development team considers to be integral to the Blue Mage ability learning experience while respecting it as an actual job for players to play in FFXIV.

[Elerus]

I wanted to make a post summarizing how I felt on Blue Mage, then I read yours and realized you said everything I thought about the class and system in a nutshell.

The current implementation of Blue Mage is like getting half a product. Nothing in the word "limited" implies fun or fulfillment. I could go on but Kitfox, you said it best.

[EusisLandale]

Solo focused, not solo only. It still needs groups to get some of its stuff. You're getting things wrong right off the bat, and you repeatedly get that point wrong.
You also argue that because it's not what raiders would want it's a waste of resources that should've gone into making them happy. Not everything in an MMO is raiding, so no not all content needs to be for them.
The only "dangerous precedent" would be caving to this kind of tantrum.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Solo focused, not solo only. It still needs groups to get some of its stuff. You're getting things wrong right off the bat, and you repeatedly get that point wrong.
You also argue that because it's not what raiders would want it's a waste of resources that should've gone into making them happy. Not everything in an MMO is raiding, so no not all content needs to be for them.
The only "dangerous precedent" would be caving to this kind of tantrum.

And it can only group in pre-mades, thereby forcing people to rely on randoms in PF or hoping their friends are both online and able to help. Regardless, this will likely be treated akin to Wondrous Tales where you unsync everything—a scenario where BLU is utterly worthless since a level 80 WAR can pull every single mob and go AFK. No matter how you spin this, the emphasise is on solo, which isn't going to work well in a MMO setting.

[EusisLandale]

And it can only group in pre-mades, thereby forcing people to rely on randoms in PF or hoping their friends are both online and able to help. Regardless, this will likely be treated akin to Wondrous Tales where you unsync everything—a scenario where BLU is utterly worthless since a level 80 WAR can pull every single mob and go AFK. No matter how you spin this, the emphasise is on solo, which isn't going to work well in a MMO setting.

So because it would require actual interaction, because it can rely on people stronger than it if people don't want to fully do it at level, it's not MMO like? Human interaction? THE HORROR!

[Valdegarde]

So because it would require actual interaction, because it can rely on people stronger than it if people don't want to fully do it at level, it's not MMO like? Human interaction? THE HORROR!

This doesn't feel too different than other players carrying a crafting class into primal fights to get their rare drop to use for furniture or glamour or whatever. I don't think this is inventing some amazing new avenue of player interaction. At worst, it is an annoyance for all involved.

[EusisLandale]

This doesn't feel too different than other players carrying a crafting class into primal fights to get their rare drop to use for furniture or glamour or whatever. I don't think this is inventing some amazing new avenue of player interaction. At worst, it is an annoyance for all involved.

A level 50 Blue Mage, assuming they haven't slacked off on picking up abilities, should be able to contribute to primal fights perfectly fine. A crafter would never be able to pull any weight period.
And if it's already a mindless task that could be AFKed through as some insist, why would the 70/80 players care if a Blue Mage is there to learn something or not?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

So because it would require actual interaction, because it can rely on people stronger than it if people don't want to fully do it at level, it's not MMO like? Human interaction? THE HORROR!

Does it justify spending what is likely a lot of time and resources on a job relegated to little more than a tag-a-log when "real" jobs do all the work? Think about it. You wouldn't be playing Blue Mage in a dungeon because that level 80 Warrior would be doing all the work. You're 100% useless.

Strictly speaking the Trust system might offset this if implemented for older content. God knows the lvl 50 MSQ dungeon issues could be greatly mitigated with that system.

That said, there does seem to be somewhat a lack of things to actually do with a BLU.

Unfortunately, the Trust system is currently regulated to Shadowbringer content only. Regardless, this still makes Blue Mage a solo only job. So... I'd rather they put their resources to content that actually matters. Perhaps I'll be proven wrong, but I fully expect Blue Mage to be Hildebrand-esque, where they update it every seven months with a couple quests and one or two new abilities. That just doesn't scream excitement to me.

A level 50 Blue Mage, assuming they haven't slacked off on picking up abilities, should be able to contribute to primal fights perfectly fine. A crafter would never be able to pull any weight period.
And if it's already a mindless task that could be AFKed through as some insist, why would the 70/80 players care if a Blue Mage is there to learn something or not?

I can currently solo every ARR Primal on any job. By level 80, this will be even easier. Therefore, Blue Mage isn't contributing to jack shit. They're standing there doing nothing. Go into Titan EX with a friend right now except you're a level 50 Dragoon and they're a level 70 Warrior. Now pretend you're a Blue Mage because it'll be about the same experience.

[SDaemon]

Unfortunately, the Trust system is currently regulated to Shadowbringer content only. Regardless, this still makes Blue Mage a solo only job. So... I'd rather they put their resources to content that actually matters. Perhaps I'll be proven wrong, but I fully expect Blue Mage to be Hildebrand-esque, where they update it every seven months with a couple quests and one or two new abilities. That just doesn't scream excitement to me.

Yoshi in an interview mentioned; "With the Trust system, these players can experience the story of Final Fantasy XIV and learn party dynamics by playing with their favorite NPCs. Then, once they feel ready, they can shift into playing with other people. The challenge level of content using Trusts will steadily rise, and so it will not always be the easiest option to play with them exclusively."

Seems odd if they restrict it to Shadowbringer content if part of the purpose is to expose players to party dynamics. By the time a player gets to Shadowbringer content if they haven't been exposed to and learned party dynamics something has functionally gone awry.