So...About Blue Mage

[aveyond-dreams]

It was mentioned to be updated sometime during EW. Not being given a specific date of release =/= dumped to the wayside. If so, I guess the anticipated updates to the Golden Saucer should also be considered as an afterthought. Because it's either 6.4 or 6.5 for that.
The barrier entry is relatively low? I mean, all you need is to complete 2.0 and with the most recent update, you can very easily solo most of the spells and level to max in no time. Other goals require more time and effort, go figure.

Male Viera and BLU are completely different topics. Are you for real? One is a race made for purely aesthetic reasons and BLU is a piece of side content. Next you'll compare Hrothgar hairstyles with the addition of a 2nd Ultimate or something.

Viera and Hrothgar hairs were never given specific release timeframes. Logic follows that Blue Mage falling in line with this will not bode well for the future of limited job content. Gold Saucer, unlike Blue Mage, doesn't have an absurd barrier to entry and just recently got updated with new rewards. People are "ok" with it and Gold Saucer content isn't nearly as controversial as this situation is.

Blue Mage's levelling meta has always been getting power-leveled by another player to max, the "solo" experience for Blue Mage by comparison is little more than a lengthy boring grind. It isn't fun. Not an overworld that has no danger like this one does. This isn't FFXI where you can get away with this sort of thing. Other goals in this game aren't as boring to do and thus you see more of the playerbase doing those instead of wasting time on Blue Mage.

I bring up the male Viera thing specifically because it shows that continued community efforts over time result in tangible change. Perhaps if we didn't have so many people willing to rush to SE's defense on Blue Mage, it would have been a full job half-way into Shadowbringers instead of being pushed down to one of the lowest priorities. Now Blue Mages will have to wait for the Hrothgar hair person to find time in their schedule to work on something for Blue Mage.

As a form of content, limited jobs feel like they would be taxing to work on and try to keep innovating for. Blue Mages to my knowledge got less and less carnival fights per patch, that and less spells. Either resources are strained, or the people who work on this would rather be working on something else given the chance. That is the impression that I am getting, and why I want to see this job become a full job. And yeah, at this point I'd much rather see Hrothgar hairs be worked on or get an extra Ultimate than see updates to content that seems to be going nowhere.

I think it's odd to talk about BLU becoming a full job. It already is. It stands on its own and does everything and more than other jobs. Pushing for it to fit into all the typical daily activities and content is pushing it to a more plain and nerfed status. All the fun spells would surely be stripped in that situation: Ultravibration, Death, Missile, Doom, etc. Primal spells would likely get cut for stepping on SMN toes. Be careful what you wish for.

So be it. As it stands now having all the overpowered spells in the world and nothing to use them in makes the job completely useless outside of grinding for Allied Seals. Blue Mage should not have ever had those primal spells-they should have been Summoner abilities from the start but thanks to 8 years of trying to twist SMN into a warlock it allowed Blue Mage to temporarily fill that niche until the 6.0 rework brought Summoner back to reality. I'm good with wishing for full job BLU. Better than whatever this is.

[Auryan]

-snip-

A lot of content work like that. Staple content like MSQ, dungeons, etc are all predictable, but other contents like deep dungeon, Hildebrand, post-expansion side quests are left for a later, unknown date. They were still unsure when to release the Omega follow-up story literally days before 6.1's release. BLU getting a vague "sometime during the expansion" probably means 6.2.5 or 6.3.5.
And it's the 2nd time you've mentioned a high barrier of entry, but haven't describe said barrier. What are you referring to? You can unlock it after completing 2.0 and it's easy to level and gather most of the spells on your own. This is no Eureka/Bozja/Ultimates with 24 mans and savage raids to clear to get access.

Leveling isn't particularly fun, that isn't unique to BLU. You can just do it quicker with BLU than any other job. Whether it's spamming dungeons, grinding FATES, leveling Trusts, it all gets a bit tiresome. PvP might be an engaging alternative with the recent changes though.
You have a simplistic view of things. One moment you're mocking people for "defending" the limited job concept and the next you're blaming the same people for not making your dream job a reality. Maybe it didn't dawn on you that people can simply like content and not have it negatively affect you? I like BLU because I enjoy the content and not to spite the people that rage on it. Likewise, a lot of people didn't a give a single fuck about Viera and Hrothgar but were fine with the recent additions after people requested it.

Making content is taxing, but comparing BLU, that is essentially Wondrous Tails on a stick, to say Criterion dungeons and Ultimate, is just not at all comparable. And neither is the comparison between hairstyles and side content, they do not affect each other. You can have your newest Karen do and new self-harming spells all within the same patch.

[aveyond-dreams]

Blue Mage's barrier to entry to me is as follows:

I do not feel like having a max level player carry me through 70 levels is a fun levelling experience. Levelling any full job by any other means is a step up no how you choose to do it.

FFXIV's overworld is such a joke that I refuse to level solo in it.

Most of FFXIV's Blue Mage skills are useless outside the ones locked behind trials and dungeons.

I do not have 10 hours to wait in party finder to hunt down other Blue Mages to clear content with or learn spells after the 2 week period after their update patch ends. Because at that point no one will play Blue Mage.

Not even unlocking Bozja on my alts was this annoying. And all this for content that isn't even new, these are all old fights released years ago. What they needed to do was make whatever compromises they decided to do for jobs like Red Mage/Dark Knight etc in order to fit them into FFXIV instead of releasing one-off half-baked products like current Blue Mage. If you cannot see the links between what happened with people defending BLU and then going on to defend the state of Viera/Hrothgar until even their patience was exhausted, then I do not know what to tell you.

Limited time events in mobile games have more longevity than the bursts of activity Blue Mage gets in FFXIV, and at least I can carry those rewards into the rest of the game and have them mean something for the most part. Of all the controversial decisions made during that period of troubles in late 2018/early 2019, Blue Mage is the last of those still standing after they started learning their lessons regarding the races and how to handle exploration content. I look forward to the day that they hopefully figure out what to do with Blue Mage instead of wasting time copy-pasting more animations for abilities that have 0 functional difference between them.

[Auryan]

-snip-

Luckily you don't have to have a friend carry you to max level, hell you don't even have to do it period. And that's fine. Some people don't like fishing or Triple Triad and it's okay not to catch fish or collect cards. Not one of BLU spells are useless, they all have their niche and can fit in plenty of scenario's (except Transfusion, that one is admittedly bad but flavorful). This also goes against your comment about the spells being copy-pasted where in the last updates have gotten more and more interesting spells.

Fortunately you don't have to wait 10 hours to get most of the spells to complete most of the book. Get to max level, learn Basic Instinct and go through the list of spells one by one. The only problems being the handful of spells behind SB trails. This also depends which data center you're in. On Aether it's a different story than say Crystal, I imagine.

The link between the races and BLU is tenuous at best. A race having less customization options is not the same as content you not personally liking being seen by developers as fine. BLU is not considered as broken by the devs, only to the people here that like to moan about it.

[aveyond-dreams]

...

"Gender-locked races are not considered as broken by the devs, only to the people here that like to moan about it."

"Hrothgar having to pay $10 change their hair is not considered as broken by the devs, only to the people here that like to moan about it."

"1-button healer design is not considered as broken by the devs, only to the people here that like to moan about it."

"Baldesional Arsenal Entry method and requirements are not considered as broken by the devs, only to the people here that like to moan about it."

"Removing Samura's signature ability is not considered as broken by the devs, only to the people here that like to moan about it."

I've seen this same old song and dance over and over again. You have players like me who demand accountability when the quality bar drops, and then you have people who either passively or enthusiastically excuse it. Errors in design need to be called out or else they persist and then we have a situation like with Hrothgar where a decent chunk of those players who are upset now were the same ones telling everyone to just be patient when it came to the unfinished state of both races. When Blue Mage ends up receiving less and less updates if not completely stopping to receive them, I imagine there will be a similar situation.

[Auryan]

"Gender-locked races are not considered as broken by the devs, only to the people here that like to moan about it."

"Hrothgar having to pay $10 change their hair is not considered as broken by the devs, only to the people here that like to moan about it."

"1-button healer design is not considered as broken by the devs, only to the people here that like to moan about it."

"Baldesional Arsenal Entry method and requirements are not considered as broken by the devs, only to the people here that like to moan about it."

"Removing Samura's signature ability is not considered as broken by the devs, only to the people here that like to moan about it."

I've seen this same old song and dance over and over again. You have players like me who demand accountability when the quality bar drops, and then you have people who either passively or enthusiastically excuse it. Errors in design need to be called out or else they persist and then we have a situation like with Hrothgar where a decent chunk of those players who are upset now were the same ones telling everyone to just be patient when it came to the unfinished state of both races. When Blue Mage ends up receiving less and less updates if not completely stopping to receive them, I imagine there will be a similar situation.

It's a little thing called nuance and subjectivity. I don't personally care about certain decisions like the races or healers, but do care about topics like exploratory content and certain job changes.
What might be annoying for you is not the same for others, something that shouldn't be said but here we are. And I am not suggesting that people that do have issues with certain topics that I personally don't, have no right to complain. Feel free to fill the board with as many redundant complaint threads as you wish.

I am not one of those people telling you to be patient, do whatever you want. What I am saying is that you can give feedback to topics like BLU, but you equating the issues with the newest races created solely for aesthetic purposes to a piece of content is not alike. Not on a reception, conceptional or design level.

[aveyond-dreams]

I am not one of those people telling you to be patient, do whatever you want. What I am saying is that you can give feedback to topics like BLU, but you equating the issues with the newest races created solely for aesthetic purposes to a piece of content is not alike. Not on a reception, conceptional or design level.

FFXIV players have consistently placed a high value on aesthetic features as much as they do gameplay. Why else on earth would they have created a 1000 page megathread asking for male Viera? For an enormous amount of people, character customisations = content. Unfortunately Blue Mages never had such organization and thus here we are today.

It's been the same story each and every time. Broken content is released, we have players who speak against it and those of us who do are shouted down by ardent defenders of things like at-launch Blue Mage and the limited races. I've seen where these paths end up.

Can't wait for them to finally wake up and realize that Blue Mage and limited jobs in general were the wrong way to go about things, and subsequently issue a fix. Let's just hope it doesn't take them until the end of FFXIV's second season to get it done like how they procrastinated with Summoner right up until Endwalker.