What is RDM all about?

[Daniel_Hatcher]

And here we demonstrate yet another one of Red Mage's biggest forum weaknesses. People like to relate FFXI online mechanics to Old FF single player mechanics and get huffy when the jobs don't play the same way.

If I hear "But Red Mage could do XXX in FF# so it should do it here" one more time, I'm going to slap a ho.

In fairness, if they didn't want people to do that they'd have done like FFXIV and not added the actual jobs names in it (not including that they're now)

[cidbahamut]

In fairness, if they didn't want people to do that they'd have done like FFXIV and not added the actual jobs names in it (not including that they're now)

Bullshit.

Look at Summoner. Now look at Rydia. Now look at Summoner again. Sadly Summoner is not Rydia.

[Greatguardian]

In fairness, if they didn't want people to do that they'd have done like FFXIV and not added the actual jobs names in it (not including that they're now)

Or maybe they just overestimated their playerbase when making the game.

The reason they changed names for XIV in the first place was likely because of all the crap they had to put up with in XI, since players seemed functionally incapable of telling the difference between offline and online games and completely independent titles in the same "series".

This is also fairly well represented by the absolutely massive player misunderstanding of the Job system. The Devs never wanted people to pick "Main" jobs. It's fairly obvious, when looking at game content and the Dev's actions over the past 8 years, that they didn't want people to try and push their "Favorite" job into a situation where it's useless or wasteful. When a situation calls for NIN NIN BLM, they expect players to go to their Mog House and change to NIN NIN BLM.

People who understand that this is "An MMORPG that uses the name Final Fantasy and happens to share somewhat familiar class names" and not "The eleventh Final Fantasy game which derives its elements from the previous ten" are at a significant advantage over their peers.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

This is also fairly well represented by the absolutely massive player misunderstanding of the Job system. The Devs never wanted people to pick "Main" jobs. It's fairly obvious, when looking at game content and the Dev's actions over the past 8 years, that they didn't want people to try and push their "Favorite" job into a situation where it's useless or wasteful. When a situation calls for NIN NIN BLM, they expect players to go to their Mog House and change to NIN NIN BLM.

Which goes out the window when they handle the game like they have FFXI.

Make a game with 20 Jobs - check
Ability to change equipment for every action - check
Make content that requires you to constantly change jobs - check
Give a ridiculously limited amount of storage space to do all of this - check

[Crimson_Slasher]

Or maybe they just overestimated their playerbase when making the game.

The reason they changed names for XIV in the first place was likely because of all the crap they had to put up with in XI, since players seemed functionally incapable of telling the difference between offline and online games and completely independent titles in the same "series".

This is also fairly well represented by the absolutely massive player misunderstanding of the Job system. The Devs never wanted people to pick "Main" jobs. It's fairly obvious, when looking at game content and the Dev's actions over the past 8 years, that they didn't want people to try and push their "Favorite" job into a situation where it's useless or wasteful. When a situation calls for NIN NIN BLM, they expect players to go to their Mog House and change to NIN NIN BLM.

People who understand that this is "An MMORPG that uses the name Final Fantasy and happens to share somewhat familiar class names" and not "The eleventh Final Fantasy game which derives its elements from the previous ten" are at a significant advantage over their peers.

That last statement was just plain ignorant. It very much is the eleventh final fantasy which derives its elements from the others. A white mage is a healer, it wasnt morphed into some abomination. Black mages didnt become melees, monks arent slinging magic, summoners dont enfeeble the monsters only. This game was strongly molded on concepts of old, from airships and chocobos and ferrys used to travel, down to the monsters we love to hate. If the game shared very little with other games, id support that statement, but the game was an experiment at taking the games of old and evolving them into something for online mmo fame. There are far more things this game has in common with older final fantasy games than with just about any other mmo. Most statements you make actually have some merit, and make sense, even if i dissagree, but its not "somewhat familiar class names" its identical class names, and the classes look and behave majorly like they did ancestorally. And hell even if rdm wasnt good at X in old games, or if it indeed was, that doesnt stop players from wanting things to be improved in the current game.

And thats what this forum is for, to let our thoughts be shared and heard. If they dont want to hear them, they wont, but im going to be frank here. We have seen if they like an idea, they will just do it even if most people want it or not. We as players should remind them of the game's roots, and should point out glaring flaws. That said, i am sorry to have attacked you for this, because nothing comes of that, but i just couldnt help but show where i felt you were ignoring too much of the final fantasy fandom that many of us enjoy, we play ffxi to enjoy the game and feel that nostalgia. /end-rant

[saevel]

That last statement was just plain ignorant. It very much is the eleventh final fantasy which derives its elements from the others. A white mage is a healer, it wasnt morphed into some abomination. Black mages didnt become melees, monks arent slinging magic, summoners dont enfeeble the monsters only. This game was strongly molded on concepts of old, from airships and chocobos and ferrys used to travel, down to the monsters we love to hate. If the game shared very little with other games, id support that statement, but the game was an experiment at taking the games of old and evolving them into something for online mmo fame. There are far more things this game has in common with older final fantasy games than with just about any other mmo. Most statements you make actually have some merit, and make sense, even if i dissagree, but its not "somewhat familiar class names" its identical class names, and the classes look and behave majorly like they did ancestorally. And hell even if rdm wasnt good at X in old games, or if it indeed was, that doesnt stop players from wanting things to be improved in the current game.

And thats what this forum is for, to let our thoughts be shared and heard. If they dont want to hear them, they wont, but im going to be frank here. We have seen if they like an idea, they will just do it even if most people want it or not. We as players should remind them of the game's roots, and should point out glaring flaws. That said, i am sorry to have attacked you for this, because nothing comes of that, but i just couldnt help but show where i felt you were ignoring too much of the final fantasy fandom that many of us enjoy, we play ffxi to enjoy the game and feel that nostalgia. /end-rant

+1,

This pretty much. FFXI wouldn't be called "Final Fantasy" without the job system from FFI / III / V / Tactics and sorta-kinda X-2. The job system is what defined game mechanics of Final Fantasy, its the whole reason FFI was able to save SquareSoft and prevent them from going into bankruptcy. People like GG and co don't even know why it was called "Final Fantasy". At the time Square had released several failed games for the Japanese Famicon and was pretty much out of money. As a last ditch effort they decided to make a Role Playing Game, something they were originally hesitant about due to Enix's crushing market share / popularity with Dragon Quest. So in the end they said "screw it" and decided that instead of a pre-made generic fantasy RPG they would instead put ~YOU~ the player as the main character and have you decide the main characters of the story and their unique jobs. They created six different class's yet only four party slots, thus guaranteeing that you'd want to reply it again with a different setup for a different experience. It was named Final Fantasy because it would be their final game and would be a fantasy RPG. It was a smash success and saved the company from default, its sequels are some of the highest selling fantasy RPG's every made. They were so successful that they eventually bought out their main competitor, Enix, and became Square Enix. The six original jobs were Fighter (Warrior), Monk, Thief, Red Mage, White Mage, Black Mage.

To try to ignore those past success's would be ignorant at best, down right dishonest at worst. Just because you have players only playing one member of a group does not invalidate the job system nor the concepts of those jobs. If your thinking this then go back to playing WoW, DAOC, or one of the many MANY fantasy MMO's in the marketplace.

Seriha's right, we don't have Black Mages wielding great axe's and wearing heavy armor. We don't have White Mages wielding swords nor spamming Flare / elemental nukes. We don't have thief's calling pets. Each job has both a theme and a concept, most of them work pretty well, some of them SE messed up during the execution phase (Summoner big time).

[cidbahamut]

They were so successful that they eventually bought out their main competitor, Enix, and became Square Enix.

Wrong. Squaresoft was financially in hole after blowing all their money on Spirits Within and the merge with Enix saved them. Square most definitely did not buy Enix out.

[saevel]

Wrong. Squaresoft was financially in hole after blowing all their money on Spirits Within and the merge with Enix saved them. Square most definitely did not buy Enix out.

Umm ... WTF over?

You realize that Squaresoft was worth many times more then Enix right? And that Enix had been barely floating for years prior to the merger.

And WTH is this crap about "losing all their money...", SWI was SE testing / showcasing new CGI technology. They didn't actually intend to make much money on that movie. FFVII AC on the other hand was intended to make money, and it did. Squaresoft has been swimming in cash for years now, they've several extremely successful IP's with the biggest being the Final Fantasy series. They also have Seiken Densetsu (Secret of Mana) and the Crono series along with various other minor productions. These guys rarely lose money with a RPG, which is why FFXIV was such a shocker to their management.

It's just mind boggling that people thought of Enix as the bigger of the two. Their Dragon Quest series was in decline and the only big seller was the monster raising spin off they did, it cached in on the whole pokemon craze. Enix's biggest issue was that it was mostly a Japanese only company, very few of it's titles were released overseas and usually not for a year+ and often to luke warm reception. Merging with Squaresoft allowed them to rebrand their IP's and successfully market them to international audiences. Dragon Quest IX is a perfect example of this, it's Enix's old DQ line but anyone playing it can easily spot the Squaresoft influence. In the end Squaresoft bought out Enix and merged with them rather then make them a subsidiary.

[cidbahamut]

Umm ... WTF over?

You realize that Squaresoft was worth many times more then Enix right? And that Enix had been barely floating for years prior to the merger.

And WTH is this crap about "losing all their money...", SWI was SE testing / showcasing new CGI technology. They didn't actually intend to make much money on that movie.

The way I've always heard it was that the engine for Spirits Within cost them a fortune and when the movie tanked they came dangerously close to bankruptcy. If you've got some reading material to the contrary I'd be glad to take a look.

[Arcon]

That last statement was just plain ignorant. It very much is the eleventh final fantasy which derives its elements from the others.

This statement is completely ignorant of the actual problem that's being addressed here. It's about which elements are being derived from previous Final Fantasy games. Are the games all the same, just because most of them have Shiva, Ifrit, Chocobos, Airships and Cid? Those elements are all added for nostalgia's sake, as a nod to previous titles (as indicated by the fact that they look/behave differently every time). Same goes for job names. But those are not gameplay elements, SE needed six different classes, so they took one of the few FF games that actually had classes to borrow their names from, that's all there is to it. Again, even they behave differently, which they had to, because online games have inherently different mechanics to implement than offline games. Sure there are still similarities, but that's coincidental. Are you saying DNC is based on WoW priests, because both have the ability to heal a player? There are certain mechanics they just have to implement, if a coincidental similarity arises you can't go around and start making up relations where there are none.

And the funny thing is, even if there were similarities at some point during the design, it's still not the same. You can't make all offline content work in this environment. SE knew that too, they still know it and make the jobs with massively multiplayer content in mind (even when they screw up), not with the roots of their jobs. Do you think any ability at all makes the devs wonder "How was this used in some old game?" instead of "How could this be used now?"? If you do, you're insulting SE by accusing them of shitty game design.

FFXI wouldn't be called "Final Fantasy" without the job system from FFI / III / V / Tactics and sorta-kinda X-2.

Yes, it would. And it doesn't have the job system from any of those. What other "similarities" did you find? That you can increase your character's strengths from getting experience by defeating monsters? Guess it's been stealing from every other RPG in existance then? You do realize that Final Fantasy games strive to be as different as they can from previous games? SE takes this principle to all extremes, even removing good features in upcoming games, just because they want something different (see the Auction House in XIV). Honestly, I'm thinking they're running out of ideas. They even wanted something different than "levels", so they removed them in X and had a different system in place. For XIV, they tried "two different kinds of levels" and hence the physical level was born. SE's compulsive obsession with inventing new gameplay elements should be a major clue that any game mechanic resembling older games in the series is purely coincidental, disregarding the nods to older lore content, as I mentioned before.