So...About Blue Mage

[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.

[Auryan]

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.

A lot of players, sure, but all of them? Nope. In that hundreds page long thread where people constantly squabble about things, there where thousands of players not giving a rat's ass about the entire thing. Don't let an echo chamber paint the whole picture.
BLU didn't get the same reaction, because people just played and enjoyed it for what it is. It's funny when you stated that BLU didn't get the same backlash as Viera as a sort of a communal failure to raise a committed protest, when actually there just wasn't enough anger there in the first place.

I can't for the life of me think of any broken content being released. Buggy? Sure. But broken? Not even Diadem 1.0 would be considered as broken, just very unpopular. I guess my definition is different to yours.

Dare to dream, it's free after all. Just don't be disappointed when you wake up.

[aveyond-dreams]

Don't let an echo chamber paint the whole picture.

There are legitimate issues that need addressing. The fact that anyone got it in their heads to remove Samurai's signature ability is something people struggle to believe. The fact that Blue Mage released in the state that it did and they were "ok!" with how limited Hrothgar were at launch speaks to either: complete mismanagement of the individual project, or a lack of necessary resources to complete the project. A lot of their concerns are valid ones and need addressing. Ignoring and shouting down other people's concerns when they began to notice cracks in the foundation was a major factor leading up to WoW's downfall.

BLU didn't get the same reaction, because people just played and enjoyed it for what it is. It's funny when you stated that BLU didn't get the same backlash as Viera as a sort of a communal failure to raise a committed protest, when actually there just wasn't enough anger there in the first place.

I was here when Blue Mage was announced and launched. The reaction was divisive, with people somehow trying to justify why it was ok for Shiva's ice bow attack to take 200 runs of EX to obtain. The outrage was there all right but it was scattered across 300 different threads, not a megathread. The failure to organize is why Blue Mage is still in this useless state, with nothing long-lasting or worth pursuing being added to it. Less longevity than a Dissidia Opera Omnia event.

Again, it's a conflict between those of us who have a high standard for what we receive here and those who are ok with...whatever that was supposed to be, and still is.

I can't for the life of me think of any broken content being released. Buggy? Sure. But broken? Not even Diadem 1.0 would be considered as broken, just very unpopular. I guess my definition is different to yours.

Dare to dream, it's free after all. Just don't be disappointed when you wake up.

We clearly have a different definition of what constitutes broken because the fact that this new mode of PVP released with a bug that renders Bard in permanent walking mode is something that I find completely unacceptable, which is to say nothing of whatever went wrong with the lottery system. Yeah, that is *broken* and so is having a job permanently locked 20 levels behind cap and locked into old, outdated content with lackluster rewards no one at max level seems to take interest in beyond 2 weeks.