Our second limited job in Final Fantasy XIV is not here yet; indeed, we have not yet begun to see previews of it, really, since it’s coming in 7.5 (along with, presumably, the next Blue Mage bump) and right now we’re much more focused on 7.4. But I am still thinking about Beastmaster just the same, and in specific I am thinking about the kind of gameplay loop that it is going to lend itself to, particularly since that seems like an obvious and salient question insofar as it needs to be notably different from Blue Mage.
I don’t just mean that it needs to be different from Blue Mage insofar as it needs to learn and process abilities differently, although that’s also true; I mean that it needs to provide a different sort of gameplay loop. But defining that also means talking a bit about Blue Mage’s loop, because I think there’s some space there that is specifically hinted at by what Blue Mage has been. So let’s start with that. What is Blue Mage in terms of gameplay? Because the obvious answer – a limited job that is meant for solo play – is actually wrong.
People who answer that aren’t doing so disingenuously, of course. When Blue Mage was first announced, one of the major points was that the job was designed to level solo. This is what we were told as players, and numerous people – myself included – extrapolated quite naturally from that point to the logical point that Blue Mage was a job for solo play. But that isn’t actually the same thing, nor is it how the job was ever promised to work. Blue Mage is not a job designed for solo play; Blue Mage is a job designed for solo leveling. There is a notable difference.
Consider the fact that the vast majority of Blue Mage abilities can be acquired only in dungeons, trials, and raids. Several challenges for Blue Mage are explicitly focused on running in a group of Blue Mages and having someone designated as tank and someone as a healer. As much as the job is capable of accomplishing solo, the fact of the matter is that Blue Mage is not a job about solo play. The solo leveling is mostly so that you aren’t crippled with the fact that Blue Mage cannot use the duty finder.
To be clear, this is not a failure of design, just an important hair to split insofar as what the job is actually meant to do. I think playing the job as it is actually meant to be played is a lot of fun. But it is not for solo play; it is for group play in a different sort of dynamic. The Masked Carnivale is for solo play, which is connected, but not quite the same thing.
So what about Beastmaster? How is that job going to be any different? Because we’re assuming that it’s going to have a similar set of restrictions to Blue Mage as a new limited job, but it’s also important to be aware as I’ve said many times that it cannot just work like Blue Mage does or there’s no point to it.
In this, I think it’s worth considering that Blue Mage’s focus actually does seem to have changed over time. Oh, obviously, the job has always been about a different sort of playstyle within groups, but it’s worth acknowledging that the job was more solo-focused earlier in its lifespan. Over time, as the abilities available have expanded and Blue Mage has gotten to the point when it can reliably group up with healers and DPS and tanks, it has refined its gameplay into that format. But Beastmaster has a bit of a different pedigree, especially when you consider how it worked back in Final Fantasy XI specifically.
Beastmaster was not useless in parties in FFXI, but it was very much the solo-capable job in a time when the game as a whole did not support soloing as a playstyle. A big part of the reason BST/WHM tended to be used was how the job supported its unusual leveling structure, even though looking at it objectively the combination was kind of terrible. In fact, this led to a lot of Beastmaster changes as FFXI as a whole became more accessible solo, moving from the job taming local wildlife into being more about summoning specific pets.
Obviously, FFXIV does not need a job that can level and accomplish things solo. But I think there’s a distinct possibility that much more of the gameplay is going to be focused around doing duties solo because you’ll actually have a cadre of companions you can bring along with you into dungeons and raids.
You may remember that for a long time, chocobo companions were treated as additional party members. That’s no longer the case, but I can absolutely imagine a system wherein you capture and customize the rest of your group based on the creatures you’ve captured and specializations you’ve unlocked. The main reason to change how chocobos worked was that having them be party members made it impossible to queue up for content, but if you’re only going to go with a pre-made group, that restriction isn’t really necessary any more. You couldn’t do roulettes anyway!
One of the things that I remember people discussing in conjunction with Masterminds when they first got added to City of Heroes was that it felt like getting to play an RTS game in the middle of the MMORPG. Obviously, that particular archetype always needed to be balanced around the fact that you will be adventuring with a full group at times, so a Mastermind is not inherently stronger with all companions summoned than another character. But Beastmaster? Beastmaster can do that.
This is purely speculative at this point, to be clear. I don’t know that Beastmaster is going to be a turbo-soloing engine that lets you pull through dungeons all by your lonesome like a party of customized Trust partners. But it would be a different gameplay experience, and it would allow players to face new challenges without trying to devise a different set of puzzle mechanics for a Masked Carnivale-style set of fights. Customizing your party to make use of advanced abilities on different critters would allow for a lot of different setups and could potentially be a lot of fun.
As you can probably tell, I’m still very excited for this particular addition however it works out, but I also am happy because it represents another step in the ongoing process of giving players different ways to engage with what would otherwise be familiar content. That’s part of the fun. Sure, the next expansion will include new jobs that play differently, but limited jobs are a chance to turn existing mechanics on their ear. I’m perhaps overly hopeful that this one is going to go further than that for providing something different.
Feedback, as always, is welcome via mail to eliot@massivelyop.com or in the comments down below. Next week, I want to talk about how Dawntrail has been structuring its patches in contrast to Endwalker and what that means for the game moving forward, both the next expansion and beyond.
The Nymian civilization hosted an immense amount of knowledge and learning, but so much of it has been lost to the people of Eorzea. That doesn’t stop Eliot Lefebvre from scrutinizing Final Fantasy XIV each week in Wisdom of Nym, hosting guides, discussion, and opinions without so much as a trace of rancor.
