It's kind of interesting to note that BST was, in a way, FFXI's equivalent to a Limited Job. It wasn't ACTUALLY Limited - there was nothing stopping you from bringing a BST into any activity - but it was widely considered by the playerbase to be a solo job. Folks rarely took it into endgame content, and since it could kill regular enemies so efficiently on its own it had little interest in exp parties either.

BLU was pretty much a Limited Job in that game for similar reasons - though a big reason that it stayed out of endgame (usually) was the horrific amounts of TP feed its attacks caused. Enemies in that game had special abilities that required they charge up an internal TP meter, and being hit by player attacks was the primary way for that meter to fill. BLUs' most powerful attacks were multi-hit attacks that charged that internal meter very quickly, causing those enemies to spam their special abilities quickly - and in the case of many boss mobs, those TP abilities were devastating enough that healers needed time to recover the party after each use.

Even if those jobs turned out to be Limited in practice in FFXI (and quite enjoyable in spite of it!), I don't like the idea of ENFORCING Limits, as is the case with BLU in this game. I don't want to see it happen to BST either - but I have to concede that if BST is added at all, it will likely be Limited. Its job concept is exotic, compared to the mainstream jobs, and while I can think of ways to make Beastmaster work as a full job, I doubt the devs will have the patience to work it out.

(Charm would be the first thing to go, I'm certain, so if that's core to your concept of BST, good luck in ever seeing it as a full job. It would more likely end up similar to SMN, with a couple of different monster pets to summon and use in combat.)

Quote Originally Posted by He-Saiyan View Post
Limited or not, just don't mess it up like Matsui is doing BST in FFXI. Make it a good job. If it is good, people will play it regardless.
It's been a while since I last played FFXI (I quit shortly after completing Rhapsody of Vanadiel), but BST was pretty much the same as ever at level 99. Has it gone through some major changes, recently? How did Matsui mess it up?