Thank you for (job changes): Thank them!

[Kosmos992k]

Oh, well i think we both missed the point. I meant SMN are waiting for Shiva, Leviathan, and Ramuh Egi to glamour over summon 1, 2, 3. Sure some want new pets but I just don't see it happening.

I don't disagree with you. I would rather Summoner and Sch had more pets, or pet appearances. Either way, more is better.

[Duelle]

Let's not lose sight of the fact that this is in effect the first draft of RDM *and* SAM in FFXIV, there will be balancing and perhaps some changes to come as there has been with others.

Changing RDM into something different from what has been shown would require a revamp that's even bigger than the WAR revamp from ARR, requiring a lot of damage reshuffling and mechanic changes (right down to the core White and Black mana systems). And I personally do not believe the devs would do something like that again.

I worry sometimes that many players dispassionately analyze the theorycraft underlying jobs/classes/roles, and ignore the passion of the player who wants to be a Red Mage, Samurai, Paladin, White Mage, Black Mage, Warrior, etc...

This is terribly misguided, since by your logic I can design a class that throws concentrated poo at enemies from range, but as long as I give it a red hat with a plume and a popping-collar-like-a-douchebag emote, it should happily be accepted as a Red Mage.

[Kosmos992k]

This is terribly misguided, since by your logic I can design a class that throws concentrated poo at enemies from range, but as long as I give it a red hat with a plume and a popping-collar-like-a-douchebag emote, it should happily be accepted as a Red Mage.

That's not what was being said in my post at all. So much anger over nothing.

[Saito_S]

Big THANK YOU from my corner!

Sweet Shiva, I was already pretty hyped for Stormblood in terms of what I knew I could count on to be good based on past experience - amazing music, a good storyline, and gorgeous new locales to experience. But I was a little cautious about class and battle system changes, until I saw this unprecedented gigantic Live Letter presentation. Now I'm going to have even more trouble deciding which class(es) to main, since so many of them look amazing! And I'm really impressed with things like adding an actual Summon to SMN, abolishing BowMage, etc.

This is terribly misguided, since by your logic I can design a class that throws concentrated poo at enemies from range, but as long as I give it a red hat with a plume and a popping-collar-like-a-douchebag emote, it should happily be accepted as a Red Mage.

No you couldn't. That's a ridiculous misreading of what Kosmos was saying. I don't know if you're doing that intentionally or not but that's silly. "Flinging poo" would be so far removed from what would make any kind of sense for ANY class to be doing that it's obviously nonsense. The point she is making isn't "you can just throw ANY old idea at the wall for how a class plays, slap the right look on it, and give it the right name, and boom, you're done!"

The point she IS making is that it's sometimes a bit much how people get caught up in specific details. "Red Mage must do specifically X/Y/Z or it's not a TRUE Red Mage" - this mindset precludes the devs from putting their own spin on a classic class. I mean, they're not making a new game and designing it around RDM, they have to fit the class into the existing FFXIV framework. This is its own game. It has a set of rules that all classes must abide by. Expecting Red Mage or any class to play a specific way based on previous games in the series is just setting yourself up for disappointment, and as I said, it disallows the devs from taking the IDEA of an old class, putting it in the game, and putting a new spin on it.

"Red Mage" is a class that uses both magic and melee attacks (check), mixes multiple types of magic in some way (check), and has an incredibly sharp sense of style (check). That's what it is to me. As such, I'm stoked to try it out, and so are a lot of other people. The particulars of HOW it accomplishes all of that don't matter, as long as they are fun to play.

Now, I'm not saying you HAVE to like it. You're free to not agree, you can dislike the look of RDM, but your posts have an air of condescension suggesting that SE somehow got Red Mage "wrong" and that people shouldn't enjoy it, or that they should see exactly what you see in the class from its section of the Job Actions video.

[Duelle]

That's not what was being said in my post at all. So much anger over nothing.

You brought up something that has nothing to do with the discussion (theorycrafting had nothing to do with what I was talking about). Or if your comment was not made at me, separating that into a new paragraph would have been more than enough. Wording it differently would have helped, because I read that as "it doesn't matter how it plays because it's called <inset class name> and that's good enough for me".

The point she IS making is that it's sometimes a bit much how people get caught up in specific details.

This isn't so much about specific things (skills, spell lists, mechanics), and more the fact that the job has been turned into a back row caster with token use of a sword.

I mean, they're not making a new game and designing it around RDM, they have to fit the class into the existing FFXIV framework. This is its own game. It has a set of rules that all classes must abide by.

I'm not contesting that, as the devs can do whatever they want. By the same token, I reserve the right to criticize them when they do things I don't agree with (even if avenues for feedback are limited).

Expecting Red Mage or any class to play a specific way based on previous games in the series is just setting yourself up for disappointment, and as I said, it disallows the devs from taking the IDEA of an old class, putting it in the game, and putting a new spin on it.

Who's saying anything about other games in the FF series? Nearly every other representation of the job has been purposely designed to be mediocre, and that's something I know would not fly at all in an MMO setting. As such, I would never even dream of pointing to any of the console FFs as anything more than a minor point of reference. XI's was a disservice to anyone that liked the job (again, love child of a Time Mage and Oracle), so we can't look there either.

The particulars of HOW it accomplishes all of that don't matter, as long as they are fun to play.

That's where we differ. Gameplay and the mechanics of the job outweigh pretty much everything else to me. How they interact with the concept also matters a lot to me. The console FFs had the excuse of turn-based combat not working with hybrids without forcing the player the waste turns combined with a lack of procs and other mechanics to support hybrids. FFXI had the excuse of "well, someone has to be the refresh bot, and we gave the good mechanics to BLU and SCH".

Considering that FFXIV looked at modern MMOs for inspiration (which have developed ways to make hybrids work without needing to bait and switch the player), there's almost no excuse for the direction the job was taken. Even the white/black mana systems reek of being designed for a class that is a caster. Hence why I said that you could remove the token sword use, replace it with a big nuke (Ultima, perhaps?), and you'd see little to no difference in the gameplay. Instead of using your sword to dump white/black mana, you'd use it to make the mob go kaboom.

Now, I'm not saying you HAVE to like it. You're free to not agree, you can dislike the look of RDM, but your posts have an air of condescension suggesting that SE somehow got Red Mage "wrong" and that people shouldn't enjoy it, or that they should see exactly what you see in the class from its section of the Job Actions video.

People are free to play what they want, and I'm not here to order others to like or dislike what we've been shown. That being said, I am free to voice my displeasure over what the devs do. And after the numerous discussions and suggestion threads (the 1.0 "Red Mage: I'm not a back row class" thread and several more during ARR's beta) on this, it's reasonable for me to be annoyed at how this has turned out.

[SendohJin]

i knew RDM was going to be like that when it was a DPS using INT and not a tank.

RDM is getting the same thing SMN and BRD got, you just expect too much.

maybe they finally got around to fixing BRD this time, SMN looks like it's improved a little bit too but definitely won't be enough to satisfy anyone.

[Mature]

i knew RDM was going to be like that when it was a DPS using INT and not a tank.

RDM is getting the same thing SMN and BRD got, you just expect too much.

maybe they finally got around to fixing BRD this time, SMN looks like it's improved a little bit too but definitely won't be enough to satisfy anyone.

Sorry but you don't talk for the whole community. I am really pleased about SMN and I cannot wait to get my hands on it. And about RDM we ALL expected.

RDM feels like a DRK DPS.looks and feels dope

[OcieKo]

Its likely for RDM they focused more on the magic side simply because it was likely to be more visually readable and entertaining. As a melee weapon Rapiers arent exactly the most versatile in use, and much of what their good for dislike heavy handed movements. So id like to think its quite possible their melee is more robust than we initially thought, its just... Would it really look as awesome as spam casting spells on a somewhat low rez video?

Hell all of the jobs seemed to focus pretty heavily on visually impressive spells rather than whats generally a good chunk of your kit thats actually quite dull or simple. I mean comon that PLD Group Block skill looks (visually) awesome, while they may have gotten a aoe sword swipe or a shield stab... Would really go "ooh aah" over the latter two before being able to read the details about em? Many skills and spells are more impressive on the tooltip than in a flavor video, so we still have a lot to look forward to in that regard.

[RaizeGraymalkin]

As a smn honestly it's just another Deathflare, that's all he does, sure it looks cool but the shine will wear off rather quickly.

Instead of 1 deathflare you get 2, that's all I seen from the video. still not enough to main it.

Yeah the SMN hype is all due to Bahamut, but everyone was pretty much "meh" on the video until that happened. Take it out and suddenly SMN doesn't look so cool and shiny anymore.

[Duelle]

Its likely for RDM they focused more on the magic side simply because it was likely to be more visually readable and entertaining. So id like to think its quite possible their melee is more robust than we initially thought, its just... Would it really look as awesome as spam casting spells on a somewhat low rez video?

Which would leave the question of mechanics. The skill spread treats melee abilities as a mana dump. On top of that, using melee skills while Chainspell is up consumes the buff, so you can't even weave melee skills with spells the way an actual sword & spell hybrid would.

Combine this with the fact that you're using spells to build up black/white mana and the overt emphasis on casting from range. This means you're spending the bulk of your time spamming spells from range to build mana, then dash in for a little bit to dump it using sword skills, then jumping back out. That's assuming not-Flare and and its white mana equivalent don't deal more damage.

As a melee weapon Rapiers arent exactly the most versatile in use, and much of what their good for dislike heavy handed movements.

This depends on the school of fencing. While some focus entirely on thrusts, others utilize cuts. Even acknowledging that cuts aren't as effective on their own, there's nothing stopping a RDM from quickly covering their blade in flame or lightning before delivering a cut and either comboing that into a thrust attack or casting a quick offensive spell as a follow up. If we want to get really fancy and unrealistic, acrobatics can also be thrown in (see: the Maria boss fight from Nioh's DLC).

I'll grant you that we don't have the full list of 28 skills plus the lv61-70 skills. I will, however, say that SE has had plenty of opportunity to prove me wrong, and so far, they haven't.