The Blue Mage Reward/Content Structure Is Broken

[Liam_Galt]

Today with patch 6.51 the Exquisite Gentlemage's Umbrella was added as a possible reward for completing Another Aloalo Island (Savage). Without even talking about past stuff yet, this decision is just foolish because Blue Mage cannot enter the duty required for earning this reward. Disregarding that we're only level 80, the V&C Duty Finder explicitly mentions that limited jobs are excluded. How silly would it be if Manderville Weapons required completing Masked Carnivale stages?

Now let's talk about past rewards and content.

Level 60 gave us:

• Lots of new spells, including game-changers like Aetheric Mimicry.
• Five new Carnivale stages; four puzzle/regular stages and one boss stage.
• Achievement titles.
• Morbol mount.

Level 70 gave us:

• 24 new spells, with some great ones like Angel's Snack, Dragon Force, and a bunch of damage spells.
• One new Carnivale stage. It's admittedly a good one, but it's only the one.
• An achievement title.
• Cool cane glams.

Folks were disappointed that we didn't get a mount, but I wasn't expecting it too much since the last one required two sets of raids to earn it.

Level 80 gave us:

• 20 new spells, mostly just damage and Goblin Punch as a good spell.
• One new Carnivale stage. It is not fun and takes too long.
• An achievement title.

We didn't get a mount for completing Omega & Eden the way we did for Bahamut & Alexander. In fact we didn't get anything for completing Omega & Eden. We could have just lazily had a Purbol mount added without much extra work and that would have been cool. But now there is a cool BLU glam locked behind Criterion (Savage), when really that should have been something connected to BLU content. Even if just the glam was the reward for Omega & Eden I would have been okay with that.

This whole structure is really bad because BLU has a ton of casual players who would have loved something to work towards while being able to play BLU, and BLU has a ton of more serious players who do a lot of raiding and would love to have some kind of tangible reward for the achievements. The Blue Academy Discord server has 37,000 people. It is one of the largest FFXIV servers, and is the largest niche server. There are a lot of players who enjoy BLU and wish we had more incentive to keep playing it. Everything now is just one-and-done, and we don't even get rewards for the "one" part of that.

Don't get me wrong, I will be getting the glowy umbrella, anyway. It doesn't change the fact that the reward structure for BLU is awful right now and only gets worse each patch. I'm extremely worried that the next Limited Job will go down the same route and just get left behind as soon as it's released.

[SynGrell]

Putting a BLU weapon behind Criterion is like putting a weaver tool behind clearing P12s, it makes absolutely zero sense and I'm genuinely confused why they did this? Literally any other method would have been preferable; just give it to us for allied seals since we already had to get All That Glitters to even get the base umbrella. Attach it to a BLU raid achievement. Hell, make it something you craft using a material acquired by doing BLU log.

[McQuibbly]

I still remember how disappointed the discord was when it set in for everyone what we actually got with the lvl 80 patch. "That's it?". All they had to do was keep the quality going for each BLU patch and it's been getting increasingly worse with each patch.

[SeamusOrynne]

Liam covered this pretty well, and I agree with him on every point.

Blue Mage is one of the things I looked forward to most after completing the main scenario, as it's one of my favorite jobs in the series, and the core design does not disappoint. While I would liken BLU in XIV to an alternate game mode rather than another job, it is still my favorite job to play, and I reach for my cane and spellbook at every possible opportunity.

It's been disappointing to see the 6.x patch series add further arbitrary restrictions to where BLU can be used, such as with Memoria Miseria EX, V&C dungeons, and with no effort made to support the job in Seat of Sacrifice. Blue Mage is my favorite way to replay content I've cleared before. I hope with 7.0 we can see more side content that supports limited jobs, including opening up more existing side content to limited jobs, as well as a reward structure that better encourages repeat play.

[DrWho2010]

i'm fine with there not being another mount for blu. Getting the Morbol was painful enough. I would not go for another grind like that again.

[Wasabi_23]

I sincerely don’t understand why a weapon for Blue Mage is locked behind content that BLUs cannot have access to? Is this futureproofing the eventuality that BLUs can enter Variants, Criterions, and Criterion Savage? And given the fact that Variant and Criterion is item level locked whereas Criterion Savage is registered only under premade circumstances to bypass item level AND is encouraged to enter when you’re at capped item level from the present content’s Savage raids… The only conclusion I have here is that “These weapons won the Weapon Design Contest, might as well tack them all in one place, leave the masses work toward them and forget about it.” The Exquisite Gentlemage’s Umbrella, a ilvl530 weapon with glowy particle effects, is locked behind content that is achievable from gearing at ilvl665 and setting a premade group to work towards that goal.

Permission to express criticism, this feels lazy. Why couldn’t this weapon be presented within the same achievement constructs for the BLU playerbase (Masked Carnivale, BLU raiding, etc.). Every BLU patch cycle has felt like less and less attention has been made for BLU content and to make it more appealing to play in. The lack of a mount for the Omega and Eden raids was the primary sign of this, but the lv80 update showed that we’re only going to see a pattern of 1 Masked Carnivale stage per BLU update, a Masked Carnivale achievement to earn a weapon via Allied Seals, and the typical batch of spells to learn and Extreme/Savage raids to earn titles.

The Morbol mount isn’t just another achievement mount, but a precedent for players that enjoy BLU to work towards in obtaining. We saw a lack of this standard with the Omega and Eden raids, and The Exquisite Gentlemage’s Umbrella could have been something to work towards as a BLU player and work to obtain it instead of another mount. However, we haven’t seen proper acknowledgment to a return of playing standards for BLU and placing this new weapon behind a content structure where BLUs cannot have access to and only regular jobs that have reached the near pinnacle item level can hope to clear is a slap to the face.

This is very disappointing.

[ProbablyOrg]

So this umbrella update is something I have wanted to see for some time. I have always felt that more glam options for blue should be added to content so we blue mages can go and get them for our characters. The problem is I expected that to be in content I could well... do as a blue mage. Like if this was a reward for doing the savages that would at least be a nice tangible reward I achieved on blue. If I earned the upgrade mat by doing prime targets or purchasing with seals that would be great. I want to see more blue mage options appear in content. I want boss weapons and savage weapons for blue. I want ult and criterion sets for blue. I want content and thing to do as blue. So if you add those things I want but you make me require a non blue job to get them then it feels like the monkey paw has curled rather than the great reward it should feel like.
It really all feeds into the supreme lack of care the 80 blue update seems to have. We are a class so neglected and mistreated that the fanbase was willing and even excited at the thought of receiving a mount every OTHER expansion. We already get the least amount options for content and glam, and we only receive a content once an expansion and we were so starved that every alternating expansion update a mount seemed like an exciting prospect. Whereas something like Island Sanctuary got how many since its been introduced? One less there for one for blue just wasn't feasible? Really?
And while the lack of a mount killed so much interest in the 80 update for new potential blues the thing that hurt me the most was Seat of Sacrifice. This was a major MSQ trial and it was deemed acceptable to release without a log entry and extreme achievement. That was so not ok. First of all the future implications for that are abysmal. Now anytime there is a cinematic moment where we break our limits I can't think how the neat the spectacle is I can only think well this is another thing they won't bother to make blue be able to do. Second the reason we blue mages except being the second class citizens in XIV is because of how fun it is. A big reason for that fun comes in the form of the role mechanics being completely random. It changes the fights into remixed versions for no extra dev time. It is so fun and satisfying even on content that is years old. And we don't get to have that experience with one of the biggest fan favorite trials. Like if nothing else blue mages should be able to do all the msq instances and while I suppose we can still queue into the instance the biggest part of the blue mage experience, the xenolocking, we can't enjoy for this trial. I mean you can't be bothered to put a diamond back check for lb3? Is it any wonder blue mages feel this update is a huge disappointment when even the bare minimum for a blue update can't be met?
And if that wasn't bad enough still we are fully locked out of Memoria? Why? The connection to Bozja? If so that's exceedingly dumb. Even if you didn't give us an achievement to keep it in line with Odin and Rathalos the option for those who wanted to tackle it for fun could have still been on the table. You didn't even let us have the option. There was no need. The lack of achievement would have killed 95% of the interest for blue mages to go into the instance anyways. It just further makes us feel we are unwanted by the development staff.
Man I love this class I really do. Whether by accident or miracle the XIV team stumbled on to a recipe that works and made for the most fun class in the game with blue mage. And I wanted another banger update like we got with HW and SB content. But instead it just feels like the class is an obligation the dev team wants to be rid of. In the future am I still going to be told that my class shouldn't have access to Ultimates. Am I going to be excluded from V&C dungeons? It is going to be further tossed aside to focus on the new limited job? Are the devs going to keep putting the least amount of effort into the one update an expansion I look forward to the most? I don't know. I hope not. I hope the class I have invested so much time into starts seeing some improvements in the way its updated. And the first step is let me earn the cool blue mage staff on my freaking blue mage.

[Flana]

It is going to be further tossed aside to focus on the new limited job?

Yep.

The idea of a 'limited job' was a mistake, full stop. They locked it out of so much content on the promise of... something, that never really manifests outside of the 1 update every 2 years. No story in a story-based game. No playing with your friends unless they similarly gimp themselves. No access to evergreen content. Less and less investment into BLU-only content. So many restrictions that never needed to exist in the first place.

And in 2 or 3 expansions we'll go through this entire song and dance again when the new limited job is thrown in a ditch to focus on the newer limited meme.

[ProbablyOrg]

Yep.

The idea of a 'limited job' was a mistake, full stop. They locked it out of so much content on the promise of... something, that never really manifests outside of the 1 update every 2 years. No story in a story-based game. No playing with your friends unless they similarly gimp themselves. No access to evergreen content. Less and less investment into BLU-only content. So many restrictions that never needed to exist in the first place.

And in 2 or 3 expansions we'll go through this entire song and dance again when the new limited job is thrown in a ditch to focus on the newer limited meme.

Well no. A lot of the best aspects on blue are because its limited not in spite of it. They have a winning formula with blue mage now. They just need to actually support it.

[Flana]

Well no. A lot of the best aspects on blue are because its limited not in spite of it. They have a winning formula with blue mage now. They just need to actually support it.

They won't, because that is by design. If they supported it then it wouldn't be a 'limited job' anymore. This is all the concept will ever be, and stuck on a sliding scale of progressively less content as the old is chucked out to make way for the new.