Elemental damages

[CaptainLagbeard]

There's a very simple reason why they can't really do elemental damages and resistances... Black Mage. Any boss that would resist fire, BLM is entirely useless. And anything that could be weak to fire, 4 BLM meta.

Blue Mage's elements are a part of the mini-game that is kind of the main feature of the Job.

[kaynide]

Game design has gone a long way since older MMOs where elemental resistance was a major component. Even in Guildwars 2 it’s largely used to give different secondary buff/debuffs, or to offer more variety of play style rather than as a rock-paper-scissors gimmick.

Personally, I’m fine with that…as is gives opportunities for new kinds of characters which don’t do predefined damage types, and eliminates the need for new damage types (eg. “Gravity damage” wouldn’t need to be created for a time mage).

[ReynTime]

MMOs that want to be mainstream cater to people who roll their eyes if they have to micro manage anything other than job gauges for specific fights. They have less prep than an actual console hack 'n slash. Preparing your kit for specific elements goes against that.

Something something "daaw that would feel like a job" something.

[SeverianLyonesse]

Even in Guildwars 2 it’s largely used to give different secondary buff/debuffs, or to offer more variety of play style rather than as a rock-paper-scissors gimmick.

Well even the boons/condis in GW2 have resulted in certain professions/builds being preferred over others. So I wouldn't necessarily advocate for "elements-but-statuses" as a system, either, except inasmuch as we have in the jobs as they currently exist. Where each job has a limited kit of buffs/debuffs that do not substantially break their kits compared to other jobs, and the elemental affinities are mostly for spectacle/flavor.

The problem is that rock-paper-scissors is universally a power increase in any situation with elemental weakness, and so giving any job access to less than the full range of elements creates job tiers. And buffs/debuffs can functionally result in the same problem, if said buffs/debuffs are made strong enough as to be near-universally better to have than not.

I think an elemental system for attack damage is a lost cause for FF XIV. On the one hand, if it were implemented back into job abilities, you would have de facto job tiers. And, on the other hand, if you made it in any way independent of job abilities/weapons, now you have this massive flavor fail where the visuals of many jobs' attacks communicate one elemental type even if they may have other unseen elements attached to them. It dilutes many job fantasies (off the top of my head, BLM, RDM, NIN, SAM, MNK, and to some extent SMN, WHM, and maybe GLD, DRK, RPR would all have diluted elemental identities).

An elemental system for defense resistence could still work though. Being able to ward against elements doesn't affect visuals or flavor nearly as much as imbuing attacks. It would complement XIV's gameplay well, where oftentimes the limiting factor for duty and raid groups is survivability, not DPS, so it would keep sprouts alive more. It would offer players more opportunities and options with *how* they might build a survivable character (making it a lot easier and cheaper overall for players to intentionally or even accidentally meet other players' baseline expectations of gearing). And, if it were materia-based, it would encourage an overhaul of the materia system (which is generally useless outside of high-level raiding because of how slow/clunky/expensive melding is), where players would be encouraged to be swapping materia in and out from a very early level.

The plus side is that if we had a modular elemental defense system to boost player survivability, we could also incorporate status effects without breaking the game. A fire materia could have a secondary effect of reducing burn status hit%/duration, and ice freeze status hit%/duration, etc. It would add a degree of prep strategy to gaming that would reward players for participating in specific game mechanics, while being completely job-indifferent.

[kaynide]

...

I wasn't necessarily advocating so much as saying the elemental part of the damage has been rendered largely irrelevant.

Final fantasy does pretty good with this, as BLM for example has a "This is the main DPS line of abilities", "This is the downtime abilities that also recharges MP", and "This does DoT". It could have been fireballs, or turtle shells, or chucking hammers... but because obviously Black Mage, they went with the traditionally used Fire, Ice and Lightning famous in past FF games.

For me this is good, as the mechanics themselves are the focus, with the elemental bit being more about aesthetics and ease of use.

Samurai does something similar where the three Sen are based on the major traditional seasons in Japanese poetry (Winter, Fall, and Spring; or more literally Snow, Moon, and Flowers). They really just needed something to work into a 3-part rotation that was also Japanese and poetic to match the image of the Samurai. It's much easier to do this and then make it look like and ice-attack or flower petals than to actually have to tie to a specific element. (Like what would "Flower damage" even be..?)

Even for defensive purposes, while it could allow for horizontal progression and/or interesting choices, it just becomes confusing to someone who wants to "just play the game". It boils down to the game just being one you're meant to jump in and just play. Prepping can be fun, but then that's a different game. If I want to prep for 10-15 before getting into something, I'd play THAT game (like Monster Hunter).

This is coming from a person who played in old 2.0 days, who remembers having to get specific tank rings and use Vitality materia -on any job- just to survive Titan EX's limit break. It was tedious.

[PlushyprincessMusa]

reading through this honestly it makes me think when a game goes towards MMO style it does casters wrong the reason being is how games treat casters

having a rotation is fine for mele, range and tanks.


However when it comes to casters they shouldn't have a rotation instead they should have a large number of spells and have a knowledge requirement to know what spell is better in certain scenarios. Using the classical fire demon for example to me in games in general it doesn't make sense just because its a mmo that you would cast fire on something that would obviously be immune to it, the solution to this is having other elements water-ice-thunder-earth-air-darkness etc. The reason why this self balances in games that have it (single players) is yes it does more damage however you can also come across enemy's that can change types and non magical jobs have combos that can do almost the same damage.

My point being is honestly (all games) should stop doing casters the same as mele, range, tanks and other job types. Instead give them an as needed type then throw in a half rotation for each typing for example Fire-fira-firage =burn status for some bit on things it makes sense on.


edit:

The other off set is mele moves are basically free to use, same for tanks and rangers. Casters require a source such as MP, Aura and so forth.

[LordTimmy]

Gotta say that is quite sad we don't have elemental resistance/weakness

But as many people said, because of the actual *cough*boring*cough* elemental spells BLMs have (fire and ice) that's currently impossible without making the job useless.

Back in FFXI, BLM had all the elements in their repertory, but the fight system wasn't a must-do-this-button-smash-order-or-gtfo dps rotation -.- ...

Was it a little overwhelming to have all those spells? Hmmm... maybe...

(Fire 1 to 5, Firaga 1 to 4
Blizzard 1 to 5 Blizzaga 1 to 4
Thunder 1 to 5 Thundaga 1 to 4
Water 1 to 5 Waterga 1 to 4
Aero 1 to 5 Aeroga 1 to 4
Then Ancient spells
Flare I and II
Flood I and II
Freeze I and II
Quake I and II
Tornado I and II
Death
Meteor
and all the elemental debuffs to make your spells more effective and many other spells as well...)

Even to choose in what weather or day of the week you had better chances to win (Iceday, Waterday, Thunderday, etc...)

Damn it was fun... But then again, we were all in the same server, that won't work when many players in FFXIV depend on Duty Finder to load Dungeons or any other content.

When you relied on BLM to use Escape spell to bail from a Dungeon when sh*t hit the fan, those were the days xD

It would be awesome to have it, but unlikely with the current DPS system... *sad panda*

Oh well...

[SeverianLyonesse]

Samurai does something similar where the three Sen are based on the major traditional seasons in Japanese poetry (Winter, Fall, and Spring; or more literally Snow, Moon, and Flowers). They really just needed something to work into a 3-part rotation that was also Japanese and poetic to match the image of the Samurai. It's much easier to do this and then make it look like and ice-attack or flower petals than to actually have to tie to a specific element. (Like what would "Flower damage" even be..?)

Flower element is clearly the most arcane element. Between Red Mage's chaos spells and White Mage's blood lily...

It started as a joke, and then the more I thought about it the more I accepted it as canon.

[Hanayumi]

Devs throughly dislike it when certain jobs have massive weaknesses or advantages over other jobs, so its just never going to happen with base game which elements woukd certainly create. Its why blue mage is limited, weakness - has to learn skills vs a normal job obtaining by level while advantage - can burn through or survive certain content/mechanics normal jobs cant.