BST Discussion Proofread

Hey everyone! Just wanted to run this BST script by you all to see how well it reads and if I left anything important out. I'd also like to know what parts seem confusing since just because it makes sense to me, doesn't mean it's clear to most people. For now, keep feedback to whether or not the ideas are communicated. We'll do feedback on the ideas themselves in the video comments.

Hello and welcome, everyone, to another discussion video. This time, I wanna talk about the potential of Beastmaster in FFXIV, how I imagine it could be done, and what methods the dev team could consider to make it easier on themselves while also appeasing the general fanbase. I’m gonna call this a “preliminary” or “part 1” video because it’s my firm belief that while I’m making this video because I think my ideas have merit, they are usually vastly improved upon in ways I couldn’t predict when I open them up to scrutiny and other’s input. I’d greatly appreciate your input, though please adhere to constructive comments so discussion can move forward. That is “this is a bad idea, BECAUSE…” or “I liked this take, BECAUSE…”. Constructive doesn’t mean compliments, just that you should provide enough information to respond effectively to. Most of you get that by now, but there’s always one…

I also want to be clear that I appreciate our dev team in FFXIV. Even when they make mistakes, they’re ready to remedy and are still willing to try new things. I tend to take a more disgruntled approach with these vids for the entertainment factor, but I’ll try to avoid that this time. As this channel has grown, I’ve come in contact with people that get a little too familiar too quickly and make our rude jokes to me and… even though the intention is all well and good, it’s irritating to be on the other end of. If BST was ever even slotted for 6.0, this video is FAR too late to make a difference, but regardless, I want the ideas to be heard in a respectful tone.

Now then, I’m gonna try and keep this one simpler visually so I can spend more time focusing on the ideas and get it out in a timely manner. We’ve got a lot of time until the next patch cycle, but still. Best to be efficient. Now then, let’s get to it.

A big motivator behind this video was the comment Yoshi-P had made at the last fanfest regrading limited jobs and how BST might make it’s way onto that list. I don’t think the limited system is a bad one necessarily, and it needs some diversity in there for sure. I just don’t see BST benefitting from it. To start, having pets doesn’t make classes too strong like it did in, say FFXI where dungeons didn’t exist. Even in dungeons, SMN having a tanky pet doesn’t break the system at all. If anything, pets have been a bane of the development process and I believe we’d be better of implementing them in a more FFXIV way. Let me explain by talking about SMN a little bit more and how I’d change that, and it should hopefully give more context for how I think BST could work as well. It’s worth a video on its own but let’s just knock them both out here for now.

For SMN, I’ve never been a fan of the egis. Carbuncles are cute, though. The way around this would be more work on the devs, but would ultimately result in a much more interesting class that doesn’t rely on AI. The way I envision this happening is by SMN not actually summoning pets, but being a conduit or medium for the summoned creatures and having their abilities change based on which one they’re channeling. Instead of the egis or carbuncles, a feature of the primal would be taken and an aethereal version could appear on the summoner. Since they’ve already implemented this in a way with the prism wings item, it SHOULDN’T be a huge hassle. I say it shouldn’t be, but my development, modeling, rigging, and programming knowledge is limited at best, so I’m more hoping it WOULDN’T be. For instance, horns for ifrit, wings for garuda, a topknot for titan. Maybe the ears and tail for carbuncle as a glamour. And the same goes for Bahamut and Phoenix. Speaking of Phoenix, the abilities would essentially change in that same way respective to the channeled summon. Same base abilities that transform into new animations and effects. Of course, you’d also adjust the potencies to make up for no pet damage too.

So, in summary, remove the pets as individual entities and add different effects to the summoners base kit depending on which one is “summoned” through them.

Now, I don’t think we should remove pets from BST outright, but they still shouldn’t be individual AI entities. Essentially, the idea would be to have pets come out, abilities would change their effects depending on which pet was out, and the pets would do some animations in tandem with the abilities and attacks being made while they’re out. The only difference to current SMN is that the pets would just be flavor. There wouldn’t actually be any AI to them, just animations and effects. It may defeat the purpose of a “pet class” to many of you, but pets seem to have just been a struggle to manage for the team and this is a way to have the best of both worlds.

So how would BST look as a class? Personally, I’ve always envisioned it to be a mid-close ranged DPS utilizing dual axes. The AF gear would be something similar to WAR, only leather instead of plate, with fur accents here and there with some markings or tattoos on the parts where bare skin is shown. Now that I’m thinking about it, we could just call this class barbarian and channel animal spirits the way SMN would channel primals like that monk from Overlord. I’d honestly be ok with either, but let’s continue on with BST for now…

Through the quest lines, you’d go out and commune with nature and the creatures out there, ultimately ending up with a couple animal types to assist you in combat. I don’t mind keeping with the rule of three, but the only types that currently make sense to me are flying like falcons and quadrupeds like wolves or tigers. Flying types would result in your mid-ranged combat where you throw your axes in tandem with your feathered friend diving at the enemy, whereas a wolf or tiger would gouge or pin your opponent as you deliver flurry attacks like Dual Blades in Monster Hunter. The pets could either be an equivalent of “Stances” or simply come and go as a part of the rotation. For a limit break, I actually have no idea. Let me know what you think it should be in the comments!

Now don’t worry, fellow collectors, because I haven’t forgotten you. Each monster type is separated into categories in FFXIV: Beastkin, vilekin, etc. My far-reaching hope would be that, similar to how BLU has their spell book, we could have a bestiary of creatures we could “tame”. Then, once tamed, they could be set to take the spot of the base pet type but accomplish the same tasks. Preferably for the dev team’s sanity, we could keep it to models that have similar rigging so animations can translate well. Or, just have a set type initially and add rare versions to acquire into the world that we can tame or get as rewards from dungeons, raids, or FATEs. For instance, instead of a wolf, you’d have the kamui model and instead of a falcon you’d have a lanner. Nothing of substance would change, but it would allow for some awesome factor.

Regarding utility, a shout or roar as an AOE party buff could work, though it’s not exactly inspired. They might also be able to “send” their pet to another player to give them a slight health boost and do a set amount of potency in attacks similar to Fray on DRK. This isn’t an aspect I focused on since I mainly wanted to work through how BST could even simply exist in the game, but I wanted to throw something out there at least.

And that’s about it for this preliminary video. That was a lot easier to get through than I anticipated…