Reconvene the Magic Council Please - Spell names in 5.0 please fix. [Request]

[Rongway]

Not clear if a spell is a single target or AOE?
That's what tooltips are for.

If that's what tooltips are for, then the naming scheme doesn't matter. Which brings us back to if the names don't matter, then switching to a suffix system is unnecessary work, from both the development perspective and the perspective of considering the users' cognitive processes.

[LeoLupinos]

I was kind of disapointed when I knew that FFXIV didn't have the names with ra/ga/ja at the end.
It is also very strange when we see a boss basting Fire IV, with it being very different and wide AoE, when BLM Fire IV is single target.

I think that BLM's Fire IV should be Fire III, Fire II should be Fira, and Boss's Fire IV should be Firaja.

I mean, every other FF that I played was with ra/ga/ja to represent a different tier, They didn't need to change it.

[Delmontyb]

Why not go down a different route and call them as they are in French? Fire, Extra Fire (in a way, the Extra can imply it's hitting additional mobs), Mega Fire, Giga Fire!

Unrelated, but since renaming is mentioned, I personally would like to see Thunder renamed to Lightning or Bolt. Never understood why those spells were called Thunder...

I preferred bolt too... I also hope we see "Burst" return to the BLM at some point.

[Vidu]

I was kind of disapointed when I knew that FFXIV didn't have the names with ra/ga/ja at the end.
It is also very strange when we see a boss basting Fire IV, with it being very different and wide AoE, when BLM Fire IV is single target.

I think that BLM's Fire IV should be Fire III, Fire II should be Fira, and Boss's Fire IV should be Firaja.

I mean, every other FF that I played was with ra/ga/ja to represent a different tier, They didn't need to change it.

Just play the game in german and you get your ra/ga/ka back!

I never quite understood why the english translation went for numbers while the german one kept the "normal" naming conventions with Feuer (Fire), Feura (Fire II), Feuga (Fire III) and Feuka (Fire IV) - same for Blizzard and Thunder. Really weird. Apparently the french version works with some sort of prefix like "Extra" or "Mega" instead of numbers aswell...

[Talraen]

I would very much like to see II/III/IV replaced with -ra/-ga/-ja, but I don't think there's any need to have different naming systems based on which are AOE or not. This isn't FFXI. The fact that all four fire spells are fundamentally different from one another makes the suffixes more logical than numbered levels anyway, in my view.

[Freyt]

This topic is clearly not about what is necessary, but would be convenient to the player.

[JunseiKei]

~snip~

This has been addressed multiple times across a few live letters and the response was something along the lines of:

'The names of the spells simply signify this is the next level of the spell. We chose to not use another games' interpretation to better fit with what we wanted and how we wanted to implemented things in the future.'

[LineageRazor]

Nah, we should go TRUE classic, and take it back to when spells had four-letter limits!

LOK2, SLEP, RUB, XXXX, AFIR, FADE - kudos to folks who never played the original Final Fantasy, if you can figure out what these spells did! (Heck, I'll even give you kudos if you still remember after nearly thirty years...)

Let's turn the magic system into a cryptological nightmare!

[Freyt]

Nah, we should go TRUE classic, and take it back to when spells had four-letter limits!

LOK2, SLEP, RUB, XXXX, AFIR, FADE - kudos to folks who never played the original Final Fantasy, if you can figure out what these spells did! (Heck, I'll even give you kudos if you still remember after nearly thirty years...)

Let's turn the magic system into a cryptological nightmare!

Or we could utilize a system that is more functional and also relevant to the franchise. You know, like the topic suggested in the first place.

[KisaiTenshi]

Not clear if a spell is a single target or AOE?

That's what tooltips are for. Also striking dummies.

That's completely missing the point.

The spells need to have a logical localization to them, and if we call them <spell> 1, 2,3,4 to denote power, and -ka,-ja, etc to denote effect, those need to be consistent in all languages.

The way things should be fixed, is by having a toggle in the game to switch a spell between single target 100% potency and multi-target divided across all targets potency, vs multi-target with increased casting cost. Take Cure, Cure II, Medica, Medica II and Cure III as an example of this naming scheme making no sense.
Cure and Cure II - single target, Medica is multi target caster centered,but medica II is multi target caster centered and adds a regen effect, while Cure III is target-centered AOE. For all intents Medica and Cure III are exactly the same, so why is it Cure III instead Medica II, and Medica II not Regen II.

That's the problem, the names are not consistent because the casts are not consistent.

And to someone, especially a new player, who believes that the power increase is 1, 2, 3, will make the mistake of using Cure III where they should be using Cure I.

Now, the a better fix however, would require a combo system. Where you start all cast with the same spell (a la monk) eg Cure, followed by "Group Hug", which turns it into Medica, and followed by "Regen" which turns it into Medica II. Unfortunately this is too hard to pull off in a game where bad players just want to maximize DPS over healing. Now, there is another option...

Reverse the way combos work. Make the Player-center/Target-center, Party and Regen effects be like the Ninja Mudra's, and they increase the cast time or cast mp cost, and that allows it to be extended to things like Aero and Holy as well. Imagine being able to throw Aero III and Holy where the tank is positioned.
If you screw up a combo, the worst that happens is you heal the target.