3.0: Elemental Weakness/Resistance?

[hallena]

Simple solution for BLMs, give us a lv55 or 60 skill that flips the attunement of our spells. All traits would remain the same except Fire and Ice would flip. We'd spam B1 instead of F1, and use F3 to regen MP.

And what kind of depth would that add?
It seems like people want elemental wheels just for the sake of having it

[Kisshu]

Re-introducing elemental wheel for 6 base elements would only do something for BLM, egis and a bit for WHM. It would be a lot of work for something that only affected a few jobs.
The reason it worked in FFXI was because you had more factors to play with: if your elemental magic skill allowed it you used Thunder IV in full MAB/INT gear for max damage followed by Blizzard IV. If monsters resisted your spells you used Blizzard IV with HQ ice staff in Elemental magic gear. Same thing applied to enfeebling magic like sleep and dark magic which had stun. It only had a few exeptions like Kirin, an earth affinity endgame boss so thunder didn't work well so you had to use Blizzard or Aero(wind)
FFXI also had a lot more classes that could do elemental damage: BLM/SCH/BLU/NIN/DRK/RDM/SMN/PUP, furthermore some weapon skills did elemental damage. FFXI was build around elements, FFXIV is not.

Compared to this in FFXIV with only a few classes and perhaps NIN mudras, re-introducing it now would be a lot of work for little gain. If we get more magic users dealing elemental damage later it could be relevant.

[Tupsi]

It seems like people want elemental wheels just for the sake of having it

People who never experienced MMOs with actual resistances feel this way and it's pretty obvious. It's not "for the sake of it" because a TON of changes that came with ARR was "for the sake of it" - Hell even the changes prior to 1.22 were "for the sake of it" because people complained about having "too many skills to choose from."

@Kisshu - Not really, it affects everyone if Yoshida does decide to reimplement actual gear, rather than stat pieces. Many gear had additional fire/wind/ice/etc damage tagged onto them as well as many skills that were an elemental property, for example in XI and 1.x Paralyze was "Ice" element and Blind "Dark/Umbral." Removing it was a lot more work than reintroducing, because they also gutted a lt of depth in general with the battle system

[hallena]

People who never experienced MMOs with actual resistances feel this way and it's pretty obvious. It's not "for the sake of it" because a TON of changes that came with ARR was "for the sake of it" - Hell even the changes prior to 1.22 were "for the sake of it" because people complained about having "too many skills to choose from."

The change to ARR was to make it more accessible. Not "for the sake of it" Not everyone want to reroll a new job for a specific encounter or farm 50million different weapons and i'm pretty sure SE understood balancing your combat around a system only 24 people like isn't a good business decision.

[Tupsi]

The change to ARR was to make it more accessible. Not "for the sake of it"

Removing shell and combining it into protect (only if you're a white mage of course!) was a change "for the sake of it", because he felt it would "stress" players to have to cast more than one spell for protection.
Changing the cross class selection too was for the sake of it, as it wasn't even unbalanced in 1.x, it was just a remnant of the previous (more open) system.
If you've already forgotten, he removed a lot of things that would "confuse new players", which is his whole design philosophy for the Expansion: To make sure no one gets "confused" or "stressed", which is why they got rid of gear with additional effects.

Not everyone want to reroll a new job for a specific encounter or farm 50million different weapons

Yeah...just like people only farmed 1 weapon in ARR and never once touched any alternatives.

[madolyn]

i really miss the astral / umbral spells, enfeebles, and drains that THM had before jobs . that was a fun class to play.

[Dhex]

I don't look back on the days of "Grab X BLM and have them all cast X spell simultaneously" and feel in awe of the complexity of that strategy.

I think the game would benefit more from an expansion of it's Materia system; Example: Rare & Uniques http://torchlight.wikia.com/wiki/Gems_(T2)

I also believe gear could begin to show a bit more diversity; I also think they should consider adding end-game equipment with worthwhile Set Bonus attributes.



I would also like to see an expansion to the Stat Allotment available in the game; something that allows us to invest points to upgrade PvE abilities similar to how we upgrade PvP abilities.

Elemental wheels and resistances just limit what you can do - in my opinion it's better to remove restrictions than to reincorporate old ones.

[Lemuria]

You're better to dedicate that design effort to coming up with new jobs with their own rotations and usage instead of trying to give 3-4 separate, interesting and balanced rotations to the BLM just so they can cast different color spells against different enemies.

Yeah, why would we possibly want EXISTING jobs to be remotely interesting when we can waste time building new jobs which have the SAME dull rotation and do the SAME thing on EVERY enemy?

The point I was making is that enemies are boring as sin. If they're not going to make the mob mechanics fun, then they could at least make the combat mechanics more involved. Whether that's through utilizing elemental weaknesses, forcing players to adopt different spells and skills on different mob types I care not. However, it's the most obvious choice and a glaring omission in the Final Fantasy series.

Look at your attributes tab. Go ahead. Notice the 'elemental resistances' portion. Also note that it's about as useless as a broken saber. Why does this even exist if they're going to make elements so utterly worthless? Why does elemental materia even exist if it's solely to add points to a stat which has zero impact?

If this game can make people stop and think for 2 seconds before choosing an attack, it will have succeeded in making a combat system which is engaging. Until then, it'll be the relentless spam-a-thon it has always been since being reinvented.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Removing shell and combining it into protect (only if you're a white mage of course!) was a change "for the sake of it", because he felt it would "stress" players to have to cast more than one spell for protection.

The Protection/Shell merger was likely done for a combination of ability compression and role protection purposes. Shell as a trait for Protect means one less ability taking up space on ability bars or one less "must have" macro. If Paladins and Scholars got Proshell that would be one less reason to run a Whitemage instead of a Scholar.

Changing the cross class selection too was for the sake of it, as it wasn't even unbalanced in 1.x, it was just a remnant of the previous (more open) system.
If you've already forgotten, he removed a lot of things that would "confuse new players", which is his whole design philosophy for the Expansion: To make sure no one gets "confused" or "stressed", which is why they got rid of gear with additional effects.

New and old Paladins regularly get confused and have arguments about which among the Buckler(high Block Rate/Low Block Strength), Kite Shield (Average Block Rate/Average Block Strength) or Tower Shield (Low Block Rate/High Block Strength) line is the better shield type at an ilevel. Add in abilities such a increased potency for Shield Swipe/Bash, buff/debuff increase or infliction, Enmity modifiers, and Elemental Resistance/Absorption/Weakness things will just get crazier and harder for both new and old players.

Yeah...just like people only farmed 1 weapon in ARR and never once touched any alternatives.

There is a difference between farming for necessity, farming for vanity and farming for completion. Having to farm 7+ weapons for one class in order to stay competitive is different from having to farm only 1 of 3 to stay competitive.

[Coatl]

snip

No offense but those bonus stats those armors get sound really sucky. Were they all equally bad or was there that one BiS armor bonus that every tank who didn't have couldn't get into a good party without having it first?

Because that's what we're really talking about here. Diversity, to an extent, is an illusion. In a system that includes bonus stats and set bonuses, there will always be one weapon or armor that people consider staple and if you don't have it on your class then you're doing it wrong. Imagine if the Curtana gave 5% MP every five second and the soldiery sword gave you 10% more to your max hp. Curtana is useless and soldiery weapon is the sword all tanks should have or they suck.

Real diverse.