The real problem is, they were using a reasonable element system throughout nearly all previous FF titles, with fire <-> ice / earth <-> wind / water <-> lightning, but decided to change it for ffxiv. why? because...
Printable View
The real problem is, they were using a reasonable element system throughout nearly all previous FF titles, with fire <-> ice / earth <-> wind / water <-> lightning, but decided to change it for ffxiv. why? because...
I disagree. Wind makes fire ablaze even stronger (ever heard of a fire storm?). Both Water and Earth should be stronger than fire.. since both can literally put them out. Unless you want to get technical and start talking chemical fires.. then sure water would only help the fire become stronger.
But anyways.
it's magic, we should'nt explain shit !
That's one of the things that were 100% fine in FFXI, but they haven't brought it into FFXIV because they tried to do everything different - which we all know failed horribly.
Why does this matter?
How can one argue that the rules someone made up for how magic operates in their fictional world are wrong? Just accept it for what it is, a concept made up in someone's imagination, and let it go.
So what are you saying...? That there's a satisfying sense of structure, consistent with itself and discernible in other manifestations of the world, that somehow explains the rather ambiguous current elemental structure? Are you saying that criticism of the current system is uncalled for?
By the way, to those that say that Earth, Fire, Air, Water, etc. are not real elements, allow me to respond that--at least at some point of human development--they totally were. Greek philosophers identified the four mentioned above as the building bricks of all matter. They also included a fifth element (in Latin, quinta essentia or quintessence, which the Greeks called Aether, a prophetic forerunner of modern-day consmologists' Dark Matter. More to the point, Aether is a definite reference pointing to the inspiration for SE's elements and the current game's cosmogony.)
If later science found the Classical Elements to be a rather simplistic model, the beauty of this simplicity and structural elegance, guided later scientists and the scientific mind in the search of the fundamental materials of the world. So let's treat the simple elemental scheme with pride, and honor it as a forerunner of the hyper-complex building-block theories in today's Nuclear Physic's and Cosmology.
Many centuries of scientific development later we have compiled a somewhat more complicated elemental table, which is now beyond doubt, thanks to the scientific method and its experimental demonstrations. And yet, the initial, fundamental concept of the "elements" was advanced by the classical philosophers all those centuries ago, in classical antiquity. They, the inventors of our systems of thought, who named these basic substances as Water, Air, Fire, and Earth, would have recognized the patterns in these games. Adding a few more elements to make it more practical for gaming purposes doesn't sound that out of bounds.
R