Make FFXIV more like FFXI and less like WoW!

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Elemental wheel will never come back for reasons stated countless times since 2.0.

[Blackcanary]

Elemental wheel will never come back for reasons stated countless times since 2.0.

I do believe once they have figured a way to do it it will be back, never say never. Only person who really fully know whats the future of this game will be is Yoshi P. In side that brain of his.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

I do believe once they have figured a way to do it it will be back, never say never. Only person who really fully know whats the future of this game will be is Yoshi P. In side that brain of his.

Until then, I'm gonna say never ever, for I don't need my BLM to be even more boring by spamming ice on enemies weak to it.

[bass9020]

Until then, I'm gonna say never ever, for I don't need my BLM to be even more boring by spamming ice on enemies weak to it.

Spamming fire all day everyday is any better?

[Blackcanary]

Spamming fire all day everyday is any better?

So true. I'm sure they will find a way to rework the elemental reel since a lot of red mages attacks are about buffing spells and adding elemental effects on ur sword. What's the point of doing that if s mob isn't weak against it. Might as well rework the whole job.

[Claymore65]

I do believe once they have figured a way to do it it will be back, never say never. Only person who really fully know whats the future of this game will be is Yoshi P. In side that brain of his.

They had an option to do it, in fact, they used to have it. They already have elemental resistances and weaknesses present in the game. The tools are there. If they wanted an Elemental Wheel, they would have one.

But to be frank, there are plenty of reasons why they have chosen to remove it. It causes numerous problems such as:

• Skill Bloat: The Elemental Wheel (and elemental damage focus in general) causes Skill bloat. It creates a definite need for similar spells of differing elements, or other problems occur. This adds more skills to a class without actually making it more interesting to play. For example, Black Mage would need 2-3 identical versions of Fire I, to handle different enemies. Alternatively, they could have each elemental spell be unique, but that leads to a different problem...
• "Useless" Skills: It also causes a large number to become completely useless depending on the fight. For example, if an enemy was strongly resistant (or immune / drains) Wind element attacks, than a White Mage can no longer use Aero attacks on it. It doesn't so much add to the "Strategy" of the fight, it just makes skills unusable randomly. It restricts your toolbox more than it adds to it. Which leads to...
• Excluding Classes: The elemental wheel can cause certain jobs to be sub-par (if not useless) depending on the fight. This is a significant drawback to any who like playing those classes. Imagine if you can't enter a particular dungeon, raid, or fight simply because you're a Black Mage, and your spells are ineffective. While this is somewhat mitigated by the armory system allowing you to switch classes, it then changes to a requirement so that you can participate in the game. Right now, every job is useful in every raid, trial, dungeon etc. The elemental wheel doesn't add much to that. Now excluding certain classes is fine in a Single-player game, but in a multiplayer game it's significantly worse. You might have to exclude a player now, which is disheartening.
• Gear Bloat: Similar to skill bloat above, you now also have "gear bloat". For some fights, you would need elemental resistance gear for various fights. Or you might need an array of elemental weapons instead. It adds a lot of gear to an already strained inventory. If the effect of those items isn't necessary to complete the fight, or at the very least very significant, then there is no reason to include them. It doesn't add much depth in this kind of game. It also leads to the exclusion problem above, as players might "require" certain items to participate in content. Keep in mind that even if an item isn't actually necessary to complete a fight, fellow players can still treat it as such. This either adds grinding (to get gear you might not care about) or, once again, prevents players from participating without a good reason.

While the Elemental Wheel is an iconic part of Final Fantasy, it's not well suited when it comes to MMOs, at least in my opinion. The benefits it brings are outweighed by its downsides. Speaking of which, what benefits does it really bring to the table, besides making it "feel more like a Final Fantasy game"? Most unique boss mechanics relating to it can already be replicated. We already have bosses that require you to have elements interact (Lost City of Ampador hard mode has a boss that make you weak to an element, and require you to step in the opposite element to take less damage). They can get most of the gameplay benefits without the downsides currently, so I don't see what it would add to the game.

Back on topic, there are certainly features from FFXI that could return (I wouldn't mind some slightly more complicated gear sub-stats or character build customization), but right now I think the game is an overall good place. It's built to be played a little more casually, which suits me just fine, but I can understand the complaints. There are certainly game modes and content that could be added as well (an upgraded Diadem could fulfill the "Difficult Open World" niche really well).