Thank you for (job changes): Thank them!

[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.

[ErryK]

Its likely for RDM they focused more on the magic side simply because it was likely to be more visually readable and entertaining.

That isn't just it though, there's also the lore behind the Job. Two mage tribes/groups put their powers to make the Red Mage. Which I believe is also the reason why we have the Focus.

token use of a sword

Its burst is "token use"?

Ok then.

[OcieKo]

That isn't just it though, there's also the lore behind the Job. Two mage tribes/groups put their powers to make the Red Mage. Which I believe is also the reason why we have the Focus.

Kindof working more the active play angle, and RDM has been a mix of WHM and BLM lore wise for pretty much since their inception into the Final Fantasy series.
Im referring to the job spell reveal videos simply opting to show more visually stunning options rather than a comprehensive or exhaustive list of skills and spells or even a proper rotation, just focusing on flashy skills and showing the new job gauges working.

[ErryK]

Kindof working more the active play angle, and RDM has been a mix of WHM and BLM lore wise for pretty much since their inception into the Final Fantasy series.
Im referring to the job spell reveal videos simply opting to show more visually stunning options rather than a comprehensive or exhaustive list of skills and spells or even a proper rotation, just focusing on flashy skills and showing the new job gauges working.

Yeah, I'm mostly referencing and putting stress on the word "Mage" for Mr. Why-Isn't-It-A-Melee-Job over there.

[OcieKo]

Yeah, I'm mostly referencing and putting stress on the word "Mage" for Mr. Why-Isn't-It-A-Melee-Job over there.

Fair enough, when you look at it that way the name itself really doesn't scream hey I'm a melee, nor does the general origins. Not like say some games calling a similar idea a Magic Swordsman or Arcane Warrior and such things where the name itself kindof screams I stab you with magic added. And I'm pretty sure its confirmed to be a pure Int job, so that should be a little telling, a Rapier is kindof a Dex type weapon. But alas, wait and see how it turns out when the inevitable flood of info happens on the 15th and myself and every other sorry sap cries the day away while reading the multi page patch notes, just wishing time moved a little bit faster.