Pokemon isn't mainstream? That is basicly what Pokemon is.
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Huh? I added no gear set just a toggle to toggle off or on elemental stuff, 1/2 of which is already data in the game.
My quote"The gear would just handle caps on all those parameters with higher gear yielding higher caps." Aka still vertical with a toggle for horizontal mumbo jumbo.
This wouldn't really add any depth though. Like Nektulos says, it's unnecessary complexity and clutter for very little gain. Having to carry about very specific sets of equipment and weapons for very specific encounters isn't fun, it's mindless and kind of annoying.
It worked in FFXI because FFXI is completely different gameplay-wise. It does not function like a traditional MMO in that sense. (I never made it to endgame in FFXI, but it seems like you get like 30 dozen different abilities to react to a multitude of situations.)
WoW used to do it too and it was terrible. Sure, as a frost mage in the molten core you'd wreck, but any other spec would usually get turned down.
It didn't work 'beautifully' in XI (though it could have). All that actually happened was for some reason almost all mobs were weak to thunder and/ or blizzard, which worked out well for BLMs because those were the 2 strongest elements anyway (I think in the past few years they normalized things though). Melee just used the water/ ice skillchains while leveling, and then the light or dark skillchains after 75. For skillchains it was a bit more interesting. For casting, and I have played BLM heavily in both games, it was no more interesting. Really XIV is more interesting for BLM endgame because you do a lot more than concentrate madly at the screen waiting for the boss to do something that you need to stun immediately. On the damage side, level 60 BLM is way more interesting than BLM was in XI. Sure you had a ton more spells, but you'd never use most of them and mostly just sat around casting the same spell forever or waiting to stun (or mass sleep things in dynamis).
In any case, they're vastly different games and without some sort of toggle to just change fire spells into whatever other element for the exact same effect (and what would be the point in that?) BLM would be neutered by an elemental resist system. If it wasn't then the system would be too mild to matter (or everything is weak/neutral to fire or extremely weak to ice).
I'm sure someone mentioned this but the key to this is materia guys. Put on a Fire Materia and now my attacks are doing Fire DMG. The Materia system has such wasted potential and could solve a lot of issues. It bugs me everyday the Dev Team doesn't take a gamble and plays it very safe.