Suggestion: Bring back traditional Final Fantasy spell names

[Rongway]

Well, the numbers don't encode any of that information either. Whether it's a number or a suffix, either way things like which ones are AoE have to just be learned by rote. If anything, the numbers suggest a progression that doesn't exist, which leads to more confusion rather than less.

If the suffixes aren't meaningful, then a numbering system is strictly better because, as you said, "either way things like which ones are AoE have to be learned by rote."

With suffixes, you first have to create your own internal association for suffixes to some arbitrary classification system, then associate them to spell effects.
With numbers, your native language has already defined this arbitrary classification system for you.


Example:
Assume you are given the spells Carve, Carvo, Carvito, and Carviro and tasked with learning their effects. Assume the suffixes serve no purpose other than to give each spell a unique name.

1) First you have to learn how to distinguish the four spell names from each other.
2) Then you can associate their effects.

If the spells were simply named Carve, Carve 2, Carve 3, and Carve 4, you would skip (1) because the difference between (nothing), 2, 3, and 4 is already well defined in your language to the point that you don't have to think about it.

[Kurando]

I think one of the ideas to keep it numbered was to make it more easily understood by new players. They would be able to recognise which spell is stronger by the number and not get confused by multiple suffixes. Of course for avid players of the FF series they wouldn't have this issue, but XIV can be a bit more demanding in battle situations when you haven't got the time to check your action page to find out what everything does.

Also going forward it will be interesting how the suffixes will be used when we get spells past the IV/ja tier.

[EmmaVirgin]

if you play in german you dont have fire 1,2,3,4. we have the old ff style.

[Ordoric]

FFX was turn-based and used the suffix system. But you're absolutely right that the two have nothing to do with one another.

FFXI actually used both systems simultaneously.

Fire, Fire II, Fire III, Fira, Fira II, Firaga, Firaga II, Firaga III, etc

if i remeber in FFXI fire was single target aga was targetable aoe ra was aoe based off caster i forget JA

[Callinon]

I think one of the ideas to keep it numbered was to make it more easily understood by new players. They would be able to recognise which spell is stronger by the number and not get confused by multiple suffixes. Of course for avid players of the FF series they wouldn't have this issue, but XIV can be a bit more demanding in battle situations when you haven't got the time to check your action page to find out what everything does.

Eh I don't entirely buy that. By the time battles get complicated enough that you have to determine which button is the most important one to push, you've been sitting on those buttons for several dozen hours.

Also the numbering system carries its own confusion. A friend of mine is leveling his WHM and I had to sit there and explain to him that Cure 3 is not stronger than Cure 2. That's totally unintuitive but it is the case. There's also no reason within the numbering system for Fire 2, Blizzard 2, Thunder 2, and Thunder 4 to be AoEs when the other members of those series are not.

It's all rote memorization any way you slice it. Don't attach extra intention to the naming system.

if i remeber in FFXI fire was single target aga was targetable aoe ra was aoe based off caster i forget JA

-ja spells in FFXI were like super-powered -ga spells. Just beefier AoEs.

[MistakeNot]

It could still be done. The biggest oddball is the Medica series, but actually if we look back to caveman times in FF1, this series of spells was called Heal. Heal, Healra, Healga, and Healja would be perfectly reasonable names within the established pattern.

They would be perfectly ugly abominations of the English language.
I mean 'Heal' is a perfectly good name for a spell that tells you what it does. 'Healja' isn't even a proper word, let alone reasonable.

[Callinon]

They would be perfectly ugly abominations of the English language.
I mean 'Heal' is a perfectly good name for a spell that tells you what it does. 'Healja' isn't even a proper word, let alone reasonable.

Have you ever played an RPG?

[MistakeNot]

Have you ever played an RPG?

Lots. Both pen-and-paper RPGs and computer RPGs. Vast majority of them have comprehensible names for spells. The exceptions mainly being old computer games that for technical reasons used abbreviations of the spell names.

[Callinon]

Lots. Both pen-and-paper RPGs and computer RPGs. Vast majority of them have comprehensible names for spells. The exceptions mainly being old computer games that for technical reasons used abbreviations of the spell names.

It's entirely possible the original use of suffixes was because of the limited space available, but then they carried it forward and it became part of the Final Fantasy series itself. Complaining now that the words aren't "proper English" seems more than a little silly.

[MistakeNot]

It's entirely possible the original use of suffixes was because of the limited space available, but then they carried it forward and it became part of the Final Fantasy series itself. Complaining now that the words aren't "proper English" seems more than a little silly.

I don't care what was done in other Final Fantasy games. I haven't played any of them, and have no plans to play any of them. From what I have heard, the use of suffixes is not universal throughout the FF series anyway.