MP is becoming an endangered system

Like TP before it in the old days of Stormblood, MP is starting to get less and less meaningful.

MP party resource management has been axed out of the game, which means that the only ones that can still regen their MP are casters on their own with Lucid and Piety. This means that rotations can't be MP negative/neutral anymore, and if they are, some piety melds will be required.

Dying is the only thing that can threaten healing, and raises are still what mostly justifies MP to this day. Even a dead healer can recover pretty easily because healing is mostly located on the OGCD free side of their toolkit, and GCD heals aren't that expensive unless one is literally resorting to pump Cure 3 / Medica again and again. On top of it, we get more and more OGCD heals, and tanks are literally getting immortal while other roles get buffs in mitigation and even faster swiftcast for even more insta raises just in case.

On top of it in content like Criterion, raises have been moved to a Duty Action for everyone to prevent a healer death to lead to an immediate wipe and force people to bring a SMN or a RDM. But this comes at the cost of making MP even less relevant.

In recent days I've gotten to play a bit of Blue Mage in content to get remaining spells and/or fill my log, and it's been an actual shock to go back to a system that predates ShB a little. Why? Because while the basic heals, or tank mitigation spells cost little like most job toolkits in pve right now, the actual big ones like White Wind and Diamondback, which are definitely needed considering how squishy BLU can be, cost actually a steep amount of 1500 or 3000, and diamondback comes with actual heavy constraints as well. Angel's Whisper also has a crazy long cast time and recast. All of this makes you actually consider when to use your biggest resources tactically, for that they come with heavy costs, and therefore create management play.

In comparison, everything in the current pve model is slowly losing MP's significance, and while I don't see SE actually removing MP since it's just a staple of Final Fantasy (although some FFs dont use MP...), I feel like i'ts slowly turning into a glorified resources, except for jobs which still bake it into their mechanics (BLM, DRK).

Game is oversimplified to make the game accessible to everyone of all skill levels. Classes like Blue Mage are all that's really left when it comes to having to think strategically and manage your resources. Someday in the future to streamline further they just make everything cooldown based and just remove MP altogether.

While I do wish for a more inclusive rework fleshing out MP and actual resources in the battle system someday (one can dream), a more immediate suggestion I've seen made somewhere else to make MP more relevant is inspired by Recuperate in pvp, which could potentially be translated into Second Wind for example. Not everybody has Second Wind, but caster DPS could surely see something like this baked behind their self barrier for example (rip RDM).

PLD also uses MP to a degree, although it's only really relevant if you have to resort to healing with Clemency in an emergency. In normal gameplay, your basic rotation + Atonement + Expiacion will restore anything you lose to your Confiteor combo.

I do agree that it would be nice if MP was relevant again, although I will also say that in this stage in FFXIV's development, it would feel like they'd only be doing it out of obligation.

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Originally Posted by NegativeS

PLD also uses MP to a degree, although it's only really relevant if you have to resort to healing with Clemency in an emergency.

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PLD's clemency actually used to be super strict. You had 2 clemencies only at a time in Heavensward. You had 5 in Stormblood but it meant less Holy Spirits under Requiescat.

After that, it just got to where it is now where they have extra MP due to Atonement and Expiacion.

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Originally Posted by Valence

In comparison, everything in the current pve model is slowly losing MP's significance, and while I don't see SE actually removing MP since it's just a staple of Final Fantasy (although some FFs dont use MP...), I feel like i'ts slowly turning into a glorified resources, except for jobs which still bake it into their mechanics (BLM, DRK).

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Actually it isn't. FF1 had fixed cast numbers. CRPG's that came before it often had resources expended (Ultima 3 and later) or restrictions on their use (Wizardry). In early TTRPG/CRPG's, you could only cast a spell once and it was then "Forgotten". Ultima 1 any spell you bought was lost after you cast it, 4 and later you needed spell reagents to cast, making a "combat" magic user extremely slow, 7 still had MP on top to limit how often you could cast.

Most console/computer based RPG games use "MP" to mean "Magic Points" and is otherwise just a way to prevent the player from being able to cast their 9th level Armageddon spell for every fight. In a game like FFXIV you could just remove the MP system entirely and make every cast a oGCD and it would accomplish the same thing. More to the point however, there is no reason to actually have a "MP" at all if it regenerates. You're just going to wait anyway right? If MP didn't regenerate and you had to go to an inn to rest or bring magic pots, then the MP would have a reason to exist. That is how it works in ALL final fantasy games prior to 7 pretty much.

The more modern trend is basically just "instanced combat" like how it worked in Chrono Trigger, where the enemies just fight you without switching to a battle stage, and when the fight ends, everyone around you just continues on like nothing happened (see Yakuza series.) All health, stamina, magic, etc is restored either after the fight or by "Eating food" unless the plot says otherwise. And the reason is pretty obvious, because stopping to heal slows down the game.

In RPG that is meant to be challenging, resource management is supposed to be a thing. The reason TP disappeared was pretty much because it was a hold over from 1.0 that served no purpose for casters. oGCD timers serve the same purpose. All TP did was prevent you from pressing all the buttons at once. The same applies to MP. If all casts were independent oGCD's, then you don't need the MP at all.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Game is oversimplified to make the game accessible to everyone of all skill levels. Classes like Blue Mage are all that's really left when it comes to having to think strategically and manage your resources. Someday in the future to streamline further they just make everything cooldown based and just remove MP altogether.

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I will never understand why the game needs to be oversimplified for everyones skill levels, when we have LEVELS IN GAMES FOR A REASON..

at level 1-50 it should be simple and easy with mana and everything else

60-70 should be avarage skill level not easy

80+ needs to require alot of skill level to do anything... there are levels in games for a reason so people can grow and learn as they progress you dont need oversimplfication for that you just need to stop selling level skip potions and making jobs above level 30 honestly every new job should start at 30 at the max period then there is 0 excuse for people saying its to hard, they can grow and progress over time.

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Originally Posted by Valence

While I do wish for a more inclusive rework fleshing out MP and actual resources in the battle system someday (one can dream), a more immediate suggestion I've seen made somewhere else to make MP more relevant is inspired by Recuperate in pvp, which could potentially be translated into Second Wind for example. Not everybody has Second Wind, but caster DPS could surely see something like this baked behind their self barrier for example (rip RDM).

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mp was actually a conciet , ff1 uses the variant system dnd uses "X casts per day/rest" ,players found it unfun though

changed in rereleases but returned to in the recent remastermakes, but more westeern style c/rpgs that keep cclose to DND inspired roots still use it