Why we have to rethink the way we allow Limited jobs

[TeraTyrantShadic]

Okie to make my last post simple to understand.

Limited Job is the photo frame for the picture,
Blue Mage and its exclusive content is the photo within the frame,
If you replace that photo frame,
Almost nothing will change and it will be exactly the same.

This is to clarify what I meant on #44

[tyranical69]

I think we get it, and I agree Make Blue Mage Great again!!!

[Raikai]

TBH The only limited jobs I can see in the future are pet related jobs like Beastmaster or Puppeteer...

Mainly because of the whole pokemon aspect of it. But to be honest, the idea should be executed much better than Blue Mage ever was to be marginally worthy.

[kaynide]

Honestly, I rather like the concept of limited jobs, in that they can be things that aren't...normal? They need not follow any particular patterns and can be used as a way to offer solo-friendly/fun-with-friends "things to do".

This means, as an example, a pokemon-like Beastmaster, or more off the wall stuff like Archaeologist (studies/examines/collects lore/history in a way that can be read/enjoyed in game; possibly building/stocking a museum).

That said, I think Blue Mage was executed about as well as it could be considering what it is. I think the only thing I would have done differently it's levels dependent on completion of the masked carnival (so can't spam anything, complete one of the battles first time = gain xp) AND abilities gained. To get level 50 would require acquiring 100% of abilities and maybe 100% of the 1-50 carnival. (too much?) As is, I was able to cheat my way to 60 by spamming mobs way over my level and have a friend kill them. I have max level, but maybe only a handful of abilities.

...and that I think should be the common thread for limited jobs. DoW/M gain xp by..adventuring, DoL by gathering, DoH by crafting. Limited jobs should gain XP doing..well, whatever it is they are designed to "be". Sure, they should still be able to fight/kill monsters, but levels should be gained engaging with their unique content and not by spamming high level mobs in the desert for an hour with a powerleveling friend.

Point being, max level should represent a certain degree of engaging the unique content.

[TeraTyrantShadic]

Those are nice ideas and all but again, you can still have all of those exclusive Blue Mage Content without the Limited Job system. I mean at this point Normal and Limited Jobs are labels with one of them having a far more restrictive idea. As I have stated Limited Job doesn't allow the free for all design idea for a job and not just that but you can still have the collecting part of it in a normal job system. Blue Mage is fine as a whole, but can be improved and tweaked to make it into a normal job. As it stands not many are willing to participate in Blue Mage content after the hype, short term yes it stays but long term it doesn't and I rather much prefer the class to be playable in the long run rather than have it be reduced to something to that of a mini game.

Limited Job XP gain should be brought over to the normal job, though I doubt em doing that in the forseeable future. Let's be real most of the time people want to power level it because they know the hype will die in 1/2 weeks, which says a lot. The fact that people power level just to reach max cap for Blue Mage just goes to show the system isn't beneficial to the job/class rather it just make it harder especially if they were to power level they can learn the max level spells asap which are found in raids and trials like Brute Justice and Ravana and Sophia all of them which are mechanic heavy but not soloable.

If they are planning on Blue Mage spells then its better to be learned from over world spells, however since some of the spells are dungeon/trial/raid exclusive its better to let them into the game normally as they can participate normally in normal party composition.

[Xatsh]

Blue mage is a really fun class to play, especially in a group. Problem is it is 100% pointless to level up and play. I think the only thing it was sorta good at was Yokai Fate farming.

Rewards are bad(example outdated tomes)/achievement/glamour only. No one touches the job once they complete the carnival and get all the spells. No Connection to endgame at all, in fact the job is multiple expansions behind atm which is also beyond stupid.

Honestly I say they need to be reworked to be usable at current endgame or needs to be 100% removed from the game and development time and focus shifted back into developing content they removed in this expansion compared to prior expansions that is actually relevant to current tier endgame. Things like 2 dungeon per major patch, multiple primals, ect. Same goes for all future LImited jobs. IF there is no purpose besides a short time killer to get vanity and glamour time would be better spent on something that actually is meaningful for the rest of the jobs.

As for bst. I loved bst in ffxi was one of my favorite classes, killing things in my all bst and smn linkshell. But it was only fun because we were doing things most ppl used a traditional party for with only an army of bucket crabs and carbuncles.

[Reinha]

I'd kinda recommend a new option in the Duty Finder that would run two checks and if both pass, then a BLU could find themselves in the party.
1) Have all members beaten the dungeon before on a normal class?
2) Do they wish to allow a BLU, if one is found, to join?

I would have this DF option ticked at all times because I really want BLU to be included in the same things every other job gets to enjoy. It would work fine as a dps in normal raids, dungeons and trials. BLU gets spells and quick queue times, I get a team member in my roulette.

Currently there is no reason for me to go help others get skills for this broken job in the PF, and no joy in trying to farm those skills myself when I can't use the job for anything I like doing.

Blue mage is a really fun class to play, especially in a group. Problem is it is 100% pointless to level up and play. I think the only thing it was sorta good at was Yokai Fate farming.

It was great for chocobo xp farming (even without job swapping). Then it got nerfed. It became useful when Yokai started, but players wanted it nerfed again. What's with these nerfs, wasn't this job meant to be an overpowered job that could dominate open world content?

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

Blue mage is a really fun class to play, especially in a group. Problem is it is 100% pointless to level up and play. I think the only thing it was sorta good at was Yokai Fate farming.

Rewards are bad(example outdated tomes)/achievement/glamour only. No one touches the job once they complete the carnival and get all the spells. No Connection to endgame at all, in fact the job is multiple expansions behind atm which is also beyond stupid.

Honestly I say they need to be reworked to be usable at current endgame or needs to be 100% removed from the game and development time and focus shifted back into developing content they removed in this expansion compared to prior expansions that is actually relevant to current tier endgame. Things like 2 dungeon per major patch, multiple primals, ect. Same goes for all future LImited jobs. IF there is no purpose besides a short time killer to get vanity and glamour time would be better spent on something that actually is meaningful for the rest of the jobs.

As for bst. I loved bst in ffxi was one of my favorite classes, killing things in my all bst and smn linkshell. But it was only fun because we were doing things most ppl used a traditional party for with only an army of bucket crabs and carbuncles.

While I don't think the job should be jettisoned, I do agree that what we're getting from Blue Mage feels a little lacking, even if I enjoy the overall package.

For starters, there's the fact that we seem to be only getting Blue Mage updates in X.1 patches, which is about a year and change for any kind of updated content. Based on Shadowbringers, it seems like that will hold true for any spell potency increases or tweaks, which is equally concerning. There are any number of spells that exist right now, such as Veil of the Whorl or Ice Spikes, that feel as though they could use touching up. Those two spells, for example, seem like they're designed to be used by Tanks, but are functionally useless due slowing the cast of spells in the field for general Blue Mages and suffering from a harsh damage drop from Mighty Guard for Tank Blue Mages. The latter is even worse in the case of Ice Spikes, since Slow won't even proc on bosses. Tank Blue Mages also have no mitigation options besides Diamondback either, which costs an obscene amount of MP. There's nothing to protect yourself with while restoring the MP required to maintain the spell, which is very fatal with Caster stats. It seems like we can only hope that particular issue gets addressed in 6.1, because nothing has come of it since 5.1.

On the topic of BLU updates, the recent one felt rather sparse to me. Only five Carnivale stages when this was advertised as Blue Mage's special content? A log book that basically said "Play old content for seals that can buy you everything you want in a couple weeks"? No Level 60 Artifact Gear, with the closest thing being the Level 50 BLU hat minus the actual hat? No passive ability from 50 - 60 at all? There could've been something to preserve status effects in combos longer, or maybe something to reduce the drop-off in AOE damage considering how strong BLU is supposed to be, but there's just a whole lot of nothing. The new spells are nice, sure, but not the kind of thing that's going to keep the Job alive for more than a month or two before people gravitate back to content that isn't limited.

Speaking of spells, it feels like the biggest stand-out (aside from Surpanakha) is Aetherial Mimicry. I feel like this was supposed to be the main feature of 50 - 60, as Martyn even states in the Heavensward BLU story that "Blue Mages can do everything!" at one point, alluding to this spell's role. Personally, I feel like its existence as a spell is the most damning thing for what is otherwise a good feature. I would say that, ideally, this should have been an ability that gets unlocked at Level 60 (or, better still, a Role Action) that can be used independent of your spellbook (so that it's not an otherwise unused spell slot once actual content gets started), given that it's rather random for Martyn to bring this up when the dungeon it's related to is wholly unrelated to the present situation. And even that would feel awkwardly implemented to me. Even if they level up very quickly, I still feel it's kind of a hard sell to say "Wow, the Job can start fulfilling the all Blue Mage group play we promised at Level 60, so just wait until that point if you really want to have fun with it."

There's also the Limit Break bar being completely inaccessible, unable to be used for any purpose, let alone Caster LB1 or LB2. Maybe this will have something done with it as well in 6.1, but it just feels baffling right now.

I really just wish BLU got frequent touch-ups in response to feedback. Maybe once every three patches or something. I'm not necessarily asking to be able to hop into Shadowbringers content and break the game over my knee, but if I have to be stuck back in Heavensward, I'd at least like some newly updated incentives/rewards to encourage me to continue engaging this content rather than it being more or less dead (Discord groups aside) after the first few weeks of launch.

[ADVSS]

While I don't think BLU should be jettisoned, I do agree that it has a very VERY serious problem where we get one update for about a year or more with the only content to complete being rather sparse. Notably, the last update, while it made Blue Mage more fun to play, only added five new stages to the Carnivale and otherwise just told us to use the Log Book. Which was nice, at first, but not the kind of thing that's going to keep the Job alive for more than a month or two before people gravitate back to content that isn't limited. The lack of AF Gear was also disappointing and there wasn't even a passive ability from 50 - 60. It felt like a budget update where most of the thought was put into Mimicry, but not much else.

I wish BLU got frequent touch-ups in response to feedback. Tank BLU, for example, is absolutely miserable to play. Why do Ice Spikes and Veil of the Whorl not work more like Tank mitigation options? Instead, both spells are functionally useless due to the harsh damage drop from Mighty Guard, especially since Slow won't even proc on bosses. Tank BLU has the very real problem of just spamming MP Regen options and Diamondback the whole fight, making it feel incredibly punishing rather than fun. But it'll be well into the Garlemald expac before we see any kind of update to it, undoubtedly.

add on top of it, they could have been given 1 attack combo at close range, maybe sharpend knife into kalzberger or something more instant like a weaponskill to use besides spamming frog legs at close range.

[TeraTyrantShadic]

Same goes for all future LImited jobs. IF there is no purpose besides a short time killer to get vanity and glamour time would be better spent on something that actually is meaningful for the rest of the jobs.

Let's be real here as it really serves no purpose. Looking deeper into it, all it is and ever was is a copy of the Normal Job System and it isn’t worth investing money into it. Mainly all they do is add the coding from Normal Job to it to be at a specific cap and restrict it. That is all it ever was. It is also a short time killer cause look at Blue Mage after 1 or 2 weeks after the initial release. It dies, Yoshida says it is a success but I disagree. On a short term it is a success as it generates hype, but on a longer term it is a failure and really to them it is more like ‘Finally hopefully this will keep the criticism and complaints about Blue Mage away’. That is all it does, just to keep us happy and really this is a horrible business practice as it just shows the devs are not willing to put effort into creating new content specifically to make the spectrum of jobs more interesting, but it also shows they don’t want to listen to us about Jobs.

They are doing a Monk rework, great! Now do one for Blue Mage. As at this point they claim 2 new jobs for 6.0 and really with Limited Jobs in the game we can assume both of those 2 new jobs can and could be limited jobs. Possibly Chemist can be a limited job because it just shows the devs are not willing to bring Blue Mage to the Job Spectrum. Even then you still need to balance it and it isn’t an easy task which I get but the thing is that it can be done. Will it be difficult? Yes, but again that doesn’t mean it is impossible. It can work, the only problem is that not only do you have to balance it for normal content but you also have to do it for exclusive content. I am all for the idea of blue mage being a normal job. People can suggest constructive or simplistic ideas, but the root of the problem is that we have to make sure the kit that Blue Mage is given can be viable for both normal content and its exclusive content. Many complain that if we were to make it a normal job we would be given only a set of spells, which I disagree because Spell collecting and using the spells you collected is a core aspect of Blue Mage. Plus in FFXI they had useless spells, take for example Pollen, useful at lower levels but useless in higher levels in which case Magic Fruit replaces it. FFXIV could have adopted it as well, it has already happened. Water cannon, that has been replaced with Sonic Boom because Sonic Boom allows you to weave in OGCDs.

It was great for chocobo xp farming (even without job swapping). Then it got nerfed. It became useful when Yokai started, but players wanted it nerfed again. What's with these nerfs, wasn't this job meant to be an overpowered job that could dominate open world content?

'In the other FF games we can one shot bosses but we wanna do that here too!' No, you can't, this is an MMO not just that but masked carnival still has bosses that won't get one shotted. How would you like it if someone just instantly killed a hunt and you came late to even get credit for, that is why they made hunts have more HP (even then we still are able to zerg it to death XD) and immune to these one shot spells. Plus if the Yokai Watch event taught us anything is that everyone will try to abuse the toolkit given to them just to quickly deal with the FATES only for themselves to be inconsiderate to others. The only other solution would be to ask the Blue Mages to party with them and rarely they ever party with other people so it is better to outright just make bosses immune to these one shot spells.
In raids why would you want to one shot bosses? It just removes the purpose of a raid, the point of raiding is to stay dedicated to the tier and learn the mechanics and when you cleared it once you keep farming it. Like ultimate, you're supposed to stay dedicated to it for at least a month or 2 or until you can clear it and farm it. If you just made it easily killed by Level 5 Death, now what? Look if you really want the glamour, you can party up with friends and do it unsynced that is far faster than just trying to rely on RNG that may or may not work half the time or less.

I'll bring it back to this point as well, this is an MMO. Yes FFXI can allow you to easily beat bosses on your own, but that would be an instance plus you have to be extremely geared for the content. If we're gonna bring in merit fights, no way you cannot solo Very Hard, max level (99) content no matter how many times you tell me (Even though it is possible with a certain jobs with certain gear build). ESO? Soloable hell the game was designed to have both group play and solo players in mind (You still need optimal gear to have an easier time, but again it is soloable especially with a Templar). PSO2, again it goes 2 ways emergency quests may not be included (I mean you can... but it is faster with a group). WoW? Group most of the time as you can't even solo things unless you're really good (But that is only applied to some overworld content). It just won't happen, you cannot and will not one shot bosses no matter the content. So it is better off to make it a normal job if you're just going to do that. I mean I can see the use with them with trash mobs but we have already been mass pulling even without a WHM in the party (Meaning we can still mass pull with SCH or AST), and relying on one class because of their instant death mechanic and not just that but with a low chance of success? It is to have them do constant damage rather than a random chance to instantly kill trash mobs, even if they managed to kill most of the trash you still need to kill the remaining that are alive.

Here is another job gauge idea as Blue Mage’s Job gauge can and will make it or break it for Blue Mage to become a normal job. Take inspiration from Quistis Trepe from FF8, her limit break is blue magic and there are 4 levels of limit break. What they could have done is taken inspiration from that and created a job gauge where OGCD spells get charged with GCD spells that generate the job gauge's resource points and not just that but we could have a new type of job gauge, one that simply changes the intensity of the bar's brightness and the power of certain spells like a mini limit break but on a single party member level. Level 1 gauge being normal, level 2 is sparkling, level 3 is shining, level 4 is bright and sparkling and level 5 having a blue flame effect while the bar is glowing intensely. This can potentially be very different from how all the other mages play. SMN is just a countdown/timer bar with a counter for dreadwyrm stack (Even though at Level 80 you can just immediately get 2 stacks with 1 press now). BLM is just a 30 secs bar (As long as Enochain is active) for 1 point and a counting timer for Astral fire and Umbral ice status. RDM is a balancing act of white and black magic. Blue Mage can bring this new idea in, where the more you build up you'll be rewarded highly, which can still keep that feeling of Blue Mage is op but is balanced because you can only cast the strongest OGCD spells when the Blue Mage job gauge bar is full.

snip

All they ever wanted to do is to quell people’s anger about Blue Mage. Hence why they only need to add new spells, Blue Mage Log, Masked Carnival Stages and that is it. Everyone will be satisfied for a week or two and everyone will forget about it. What you have just mentioned, doesn’t justify the need to keep a Limited Job System. Meaning at this point in time the devs has no excuse whatsoever to keep it away from Blue Mage being a normal job (Other than not to pull another Ninja Stunt where it disrupted the raiding scene back in ARR). Plus they can keep working on Blue Mage no problem, but it would be better for Blue Mage to be a normal job considering the one shot spells cannot be used most of the time including Masked Carnival and may I need to remind that it has a low chance of success. Hence the reasoning and excuses for keeping it as a Limited Job or keeping the Limited Job system has already run dry and really I’d say it is just about time for it to be released as a Normal Job.