Blue mage shouldnt be "Limited"

[Irenia]

While more horizontal variety is nice, I think even with the current framework jobs can be opened up more.

On the other hand, having "unlimited" normal jobs would be pretty cool for casual content. Raid content is too much of a player skill check to involve too much character customization, it seems.

[Raikai]

Ideally, yes. If you had one job that uniquely carried a massive arsenal from which to choose skills and interesting acquisition processes for horizontal progression leveraging a high ceiling for versatility, that would be your "unlimited" job (or the rest would be comparatively "limited").

Sadly, though, the current BLU doesn't really offer horizontal progression or tremendous versatility so much as just a series of mini-game mechanics that quickly devolve to painfully basic, highly linear skill progression that takes more grindy for an overall less nuanced or cohesive gameplay loop.

I think that's what a lot of this attempts to get to the heart of -- not to necessarily reduce BLU to a normal job, but simply to polish its skills so that its unique affordances are more than a pretense worsened by problematic tuning.

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For my part, I probably would indeed have preferred if all jobs were a bit more "unlimited", such as if

• Cross-class skills were still a thing (but acquired as if through hidden unique exp paths, thereby fitting what benefits what you do to what you've done, each acquisition slightly dynamic with the acquiring job), and we'd actually have to pick and choose somewhat as to what skills to take and had the options for further horizontal progression by which to step outside our more typical roles, sub-roles, or playstyles;
• we actually had meaningful choices in primary stats, and impact from them on our playstyle (Monk, for instance, having supportive tools that could benefit notably from Mind or its elements-derived versatility being noticeably stimulated with more Intelligence, and able to wear Maiming, Scouting, or even Fending gear, etc., if willing to take the hit to relative attack power from lugging around heavier armor or the faintly less ideal influx in more quickly soft-capping Dexterity over Strength);
• we had unique flavor components noticeable even in the open-world, such as Dragoons being able to leap up cliffs, Conjurer's being able to accelerate airships in actual flight (a distant pipedream, I realize), etc., etc.;
• each had some unique means of skill acquisition, such as Bards actually learning various songs along their travels, or Monks practicing particular kata, and Dragoons taking their Dragon skills from defeating or befriending wyrmkin;
• we had toolkits that, even within a particular (especially if more hybrid-aimed) build, offered more diverse or branching possibilities for ways to play;
• etc., etc.

But alas...

As much as those ideas are interesting, sadly Yoshi-P and his team seems to be very fond of keeping job playstyles under tight leashes.

It both a blessing in which balancing issues are very mild in this game, but also a curse as there is no horizontal depth to job complexity.

[Shurrikhan]

As much as those ideas are interesting, sadly Yoshi-P and his team seems to be very fond of keeping job playstyles under tight leashes.

It both a blessing in which balancing issues are very mild in this game, but also a curse as there is no horizontal depth to job complexity.

I get that, and it certainly wouldn't be a very efficient use of development resources. I meant the list more as the prospects I think a truly "unlimited" BLU would point out for the other jobs.

Personally, I'm fine with BLU being an outlier in terms of skill acquisition and versatility. If anything, it's the impact a un-limited BLU would have on matchmaking, and the universal design improvements it would force, that most appeal to me. (Imo, such could be tremendous for the health of the game and in opening up pathways even under the current job frameworks.)

For BLU itself, I just want it to have (a) polished, reasonably deep gameplay loop(s) available to it, instead of its current jank, without removing its unique skill acquisition systems. The added time necessary to maintain that job over its leveling process seems already due compensation for its potential versatility.