If you could create a limited job for each job type, what would you pick?

[Shougun]

This onion knight idea sounds really cool. It reminds me a bit of how in the game remember me you get to construct your own combos. If they really wanted to they could make it the mother of all cross class abilities and only give you the abilities in question if you have unlocked them on that specific job. That would be funny for me having leveled all combat jobs but probably not as funny for everyone who hasnt .

The limited job nature would lend itself to a roguelike game mode aswell. Imagine a deep dungeon where as you go you unlock new abilities that you can throw into combo slots.

Ah yeah haha, I've waffled between "unlocks are based on your current status of jobs" and "by leveling by using the associated gear". On one hand it's pretty thematic in the tactics sense, but on the other it would give it a different style of progression and allow players to have a full onion experience without having to go level a regular job. I'm not sure :/

I think in my old thread I had suggested jobs you've leveled.. lol.

One of the points for Limited Jobs is that they can be something completely different from the other classes... BLU as a regular Job would lose a lot of it's identity as with the way everything is setup, it'd have to learn all it's skills through leveling. And you couldn't have most of it's more unique skills as players aren't exactly intended to have the ability to cause most status effects.
You'd probably be looking at a simplified BLM if they made it into a regular Job.

FF11 and FF14 are very different kinds of games, you can't really use 11 as an example for why it would work in 14's more closed and linear world.


But that being said...

Melee DPS, take the G-Warrior from Werlyt quest line, shrink it down to power armor sized, give it attacks based on the different Weapons and make it into a Limited Job.

Going point by point as I think you'll engage, not because we're in a roasting match .

1) "BLU would lose its identity"

Which part do you think they'd lose? I've heard:

- BLU has more skills than others!
But if you go average the skills from BLU and other jobs in the series it's not substantially greater on average (it is on the larger end, but it's not like 10 to 1). Particularly there is usually other jobs that match.

- BLU obtains skills from monsters.
Agreed, how is that not possible here if SE was willing to try something different? Especially if you hold onto the advanced thought I suggest (and if you could please address that directly as I believe advanced job would have been a BLU done properly, like how FFXI in many ways spent more time with BLU to ensure it would work).

- BLU has overpowered skills
So do the other jobs... I get people did broke things with BLU, but you could do broke things with other jobs (and items). Knowledge of the system gave you power. Knowing you could kill things with healing / raising them, reflecting entire mechanics, certain combinations of buffs making you nearly unkillable. I would agree that BLU has a history of less smooth power level pacing where you could be weak as garbage compared to other jobs and then suddenly king of the hill for a few hours; however, you "instant kill" and then I point out instant kill mechanics built into other jobs. You say "unique and highly varied concepts" and I point at SMN who usually is the same. So the only thing I would really give is that BLU is a bit more inconssitent with it's history of power level where it spikes suddenly-- is that honestly the thing we have to copy for it to be a true BLU?

2) Can't have unique skills
Sort of address above, but most jobs have this truth. Where is the gil toss on Samurai? Where is reflect on WHM? Where is Death on BLM? This is already a truth we face, and clearly have accepted. You might say but BLU has more unique skills, but I would first disagree- all the jobs had many broke skills (though usually paced better than BLU), and also I'd point at SMN who consistently has unique effects.

3) Status effect issue
In one of the million variations I thought of to try and show it could work with whatever weird idea people thought was core to BLU (mostly due to bad breath.. as other jobs also had status impacting spells just not "all the status in one"), was where status effects would turn into a general stacking BLU debuff (status would or would not apply based on situation / monster still, synced content bosses for example might just be tagged with "if it aint interject it don't go brrr") that the BLU could use to empower other BLU spells. So if you were fighting a boss and you hit them with your cooldown based bad breath, you would hit them with a load of status effects which you could then consume for a great damage boost or utility (like if you chose to lose a lot of damage opportunity we could give you a huge cure, like how red mage can). Which shows both status effects could be a thing and also we could keep some unique aspects in high cost alternatives (drop your damage, get huge support). For trash mobs you'd have a lot more CC, but even say bad breath NOW as a limited job- would be fine as long as it was on cooldown. WHM does similar CC to monsters on a normal trash pack (assuming trash pack since they die quickly enough that you can't argue BLU switches to other CC- they'd die before you really need to).

4) BLU would just be another BLM.
People say this, counter point- why add another caster in this game then? Like Pictomancer, Red Mage, Summoner- "simplified BLM". I mean if you believe that already then I'll full stop accept your answer as that's consistent logic at least. But if you don't feel those are all the same job and the deserve to stand on their own, are you honestly saying you do not believe there is any design ideas left that BLU could use to make it fit? That seems hard to believe.

5) FFXI not FFXIV

Okay, sure, but this is where I'd want you to respond to advanced job concept. I actually haven't really said make it exactly like FFXI, though I do think we can reference it (I have suggested bringing something akin to spell alchemy in FFXI into FFXIV, even if just for limited). My preference, before BLU was even announced, was to go advanced job (which is a reference to FFXI and other FF, but only because its cheeky and in name only really). Take the FFXI out for a moment and think of our PvP. It has it's own set for balance and fun right? Do that there. That simple really. Though I have explained it in depth a few times. The short of it being:

Gilded abilities (gold border, specially marked) in the book. These skills have their limited and unlimited variants (I used chained and unchained, where chained is for party and unchained is for limited content- with lore relating to mist from FFIX and FFXII, that your blue magic generates monster mist, and that you don't want to be in an environment that requires so much focus on other tasks that you can't control the exposure to your allies).

In your chained (normal) job they can replace (upgrade) onto each other too, so you can get neat progression at times that make sense. For example we want to give you eruption but how can we do that easily at level 15? Well at first we just give you bomb toss, but then at level 40 you get fire angon, and at level 50 you get eruption. Spiritual mechanics could stack on too, like bomb toss in normal has an AoE interject effect, fire angon adds a charge mechanic, and eruption gives you a sweet damage boost or some sort of buff interaction. Naturally unchained, having unique skills isn't forced to 'upgrade' that skill as they might want eruption and fire angon.

BLU keeps wacky things like ultravibration, but you bet your bottom dollar that ultravibration, if it was gilded, wouldn't do that exactly in chained (normal) content.

Unchained BLU is still limited from current expansion (10 levels), chained BLU can do all content exactly as a normal job can. BLU players will learn their spells by using both systems. If you learn eruption at level 50 you can literally learn it synced, or you can choose to unsync it. BLU cant join content where it has spells unlearned that are lower level than the content (if you missed level 48 gilded skill and you try to join level 50 dungeon, it'll name that spell specifically and open the spell book TO THAT SPELL). On an aside, if you're playing other jobs it does that too and tells you to go do your job quest and opens the map to the job quest npc (so you don't get shroudless reapers, or CNJ instead of WHM).

An element, of many lol, that upset me is if you think SMN. SMN with the logic that BLU should be limited should then ALSO be limited because SMN ticks essentially every single box that people point why BLU MUST be limited or it wont fit. But we both know if SMN went limited people would be up in arms because it's a highly desired job. So essentially if a lot of people want it, we'll make it normal, otherwise we'll turn it into a mini-game. :/

Yes it is definitely more work; however, since we're talking about limited jobs I now want to example WoW's hunter (because beastmaster is around the corner and I fear we're just getting a less useful limited opportunity WoW hunter... which people will clap for):









(There are also hunter related spells that work with your pet).

Source: https://www.wow-petopia.com/index.php

(Stags shown just to show how one category has loads of pets visuals you could tame, each category being like that). You can have 205 pets collected into your stable last I heard (where you save your animals). Fun fact as a beastmaster (in WoW) you can have 2 pets out at the same time, pretty dang cool.

This is for hunter. They did have to balance the pets so you don't have a million different options, but you do get /options/. They did similar extra work to make Druid feel right as well. Also that being said for WoW hunter.. I expect our beastmaster to be that at minimum, and if it's not while I'm not a diehard want to be beastmaster player.. I can say upfront that I will be disappointed in SE's turn out / ability to design, and again (after BLU) ask them to look at what they're doing and see if they could do it better. If each pet has quite a few unique skills, and there are many pets, I would at least be happy knowing they tried- though I would, like BLU, believe they just could have gone advanced instead.

As an aside GW2 Ranger does a very similar system to WoW, just less options in terms of pets / abilities. Still customizes your skills (and those skills definitely do matter), just not as many choices.

If not clear going advanced would not remove the things people like about BLU presently, it would just add a new way for BLU to learn spells (synced in 'current' content) and allow players who want to main the job the ability to main it.

I am asking for SE to go the extra mile on jobs that ask for it. I would agree BLU would be best represented by extra work..ppppllleeassseeee do it. I consider limited jobs, particularly ones that could be designed normal if given extra systems (like BLU would), as the get out of jail / easy way out, where effort doesn't have to be as sincere because "its limited". Limited, in general, to me is not 'respecting the source' it's just a way to check it off a list and say "jobs done". I picked Onion Knight and Magitek Operator on the front page as they are either wildly famous for being useless until you hit max level (Onion Knight, but can use all gear), or not really logical to have mech size job stuck in a normal raid (because the magitek would be larger)... like if you suggested players play as the 'boss' lol. If they go the distance to properly represent the job, then I would be like "wow nice job". Something I do for example for WoW hunter or WoW druid (not all of WoW's jobs have such standout differences like those two though, perhaps I'd point at Warlock next, though that game does add a lot more gameplay roleplay in general.. another topic that I wish SE tried more on).

[EZGIL]

I dont hate anything said here.

Continue.

[CaptainLagbeard]

A few points of clarification I might as well add...

When I say BLU would lose it's identity, I mean that it would lose it's core ability of learning spells from enemies, but rather would just have to learn them by leveling up the same as every other job does. And by removing BLU's way of learning spells, you're effectively just left with another basic caster DPS class.
And since it's unique point is how it learns spells, removing that you are left with just what is essentially BLM expect without the Umbral Ice and Astral Fire mechanic.

[Shougun]

A few points of clarification I might as well add...

When I say BLU would lose it's identity, I mean that it would lose it's core ability of learning spells from enemies, but rather would just have to learn them by leveling up the same as every other job does. And by removing BLU's way of learning spells, you're effectively just left with another basic caster DPS class.
And since it's unique point is how it learns spells, removing that you are left with just what is essentially BLM expect without the Umbral Ice and Astral Fire mechanic.

I suppose that's where I would just say dont do that.. lol. I feel BLU normal should also learn skills from enemies. If you keep it's ability to level more quickly you honestly probably have still saved a BLU more time, especially if you allow them to both unsync and sync content with 100% learn rate (for gilded skills only).

Goes down the whole roleplay comment.. let's add it in. Not every job has to fit perfectly in every dimension (RDM has chain raise, pictomancer will have none, w.e it's flavor we don't need it all 1:1).

I guess I would open it up and say assume we can allow players to learn spells and be normal, what is your concern about letting them do that?

[ForsakenRoe]

This is why I think a system where you get (as BLU) a base kit of spells from levelling, and the 'collect enemy spells' is an optional thing to unlock different VFX for your kit, would be a possible solution. We can currently learn some spells from totems, given at certain level brackets. For example, you get Breath of Magic by hitting level 80. So I don't necessarily subscribe to the idea that 'BLU Identity will be ruined' if we were given a totem at say, levels 5, 10, 15, 20 etc by Martyn as he trains us to be his protégé in the Carnivale. The BLU Identity is wildly inconsistent across most of the games as it is, with the only 'true link' between them being 'you learn enemy skills, and use those skills'. The number you can learn, the number you can bring into combat, the learn method and how high the chance to learn is, all of these things vary between instalments.

I remember we were given two reasons that BLU could not be a true job by Yoshi-P in a Q+A: That 'it wouldn't be fun if the BLU oneshot the raidboss with LVL5 Death', and that 'what if the BLU does not get all of the skills needed for optimal rotation, and that causes friction in the party finder?' Well, Mr P, number 1 is solved by yourselves at SE, since every actual raidboss is conveniently immune to Death moves. I had to do Gavel, or Temporal Stasis, I was not able to 'just LV5 Death' Brute Justice or Alex Prime. And number 2 is A: still an issue when doing BLU raiding, and B: would NOT be an issue, were the 'basic kit learned from levelling, optional cosmetic unlocks via spell-hunting side content' design a thing.

SE made a scuffed implementation of BLU, and then pointed to it being scuffed as the reason it can't be un-scuffed. No, you just did a bad job of adapting it to the game. Doubly annoying when people use 'it'd be just another bland 2min burst job like hte rest of the game', like do people not realize we've been asking for real-BLU since it came out in SB, long before the 2min meta existed? The state of current combat is not a reason to say 'BLU should not be put into it', if anything BLU's inclusion might be the catalyst that finally breaks the combat design out of the rut it's currently in

[LynxDubh]

Weaponmaster for Melee. Could collect copious amounts of different weapons and make interesting loadouts. Do something funky with the combo system and make the most chaotic melee.