Fix the Elemental Wheel

[Wolfie]

I played ffviii, ffix and ffx, so I am basing my opinion on those 3 games. And from what I remember, they all had the same elemental system.

No, it's not. It might surprise you, but not everyone has played ffxi. I never touched it. Still, the elemental wheel(s) of ffxiv do not make sense to me, while in the 3 ff games I played, it did.

No, I don't see fire taking damage from wind, there are more chances of water quenching the fire than wind doing so. Else we'd use fans to quench fire, not water.

And even if you pull the "it's magic" card, it's not about realism, it's about intuition. The first thing to come into mind when fighting fire is water, it's elemental opposite being ice. The first thing coming in mind as opposite of earth is air (=wind) not... whatever it is now.

A well designed system is intuitive - you do not have to waste time trying to figure out how the system works, which should be the goal of any software developer.

Again, its only "intuitive" to you because you've already come with preconceived notions of which element beats which, based on... who knows what. All the FF games you listed had different elemental rules for the most part. None of this is realistic, therefore "intuition" means very little.

In the Pokemon world, water beats both earth and fire; and it's "intuitive" there if you've played those games. Otherwise, it doesn't feel "intuitive", because the concept of an elemental type does not exist outside of the game. The same is true for the FFXI/FFXIV elemental wheel. Fire is extinguished by water, wind and earth; water is buried by earth, boiled by fire, and evaporated by wind; etc. There is no "wheel" of anything in real life.

If you play FFXIV long enough and stop trying to compare it to other games, the two elemental triangles we have now become "intuitive." They have for me, it will happen to you too.

[Lux_Rayna]

If you play FFXIV long enough and stop trying to compare it to other games, the two elemental triangles we have now become "intuitive." They have for me, it will happen to you too.

I can't believe you're still trying to reason with this thread >_> you lost from the moment it was created. The minute the OP laid that post down, he said: "this is what it is and to hell with anything else". More or less your efforts are in vain. You gotta give it to em straight like this:

Two small wheels is no more confusing than one big wheel; if you can't see this you should try pulling your head out of your rear. Period. End of discussion. Its fantasy so there is no "supposed to be this way". Disagree you can stfu cuz its not your world, your lore, or any of that. Think im trolling? Every FF game has had a different elemental wheel. Thats right. And what is this? A different FF game. What does that mean? You're so intelligent, I'm sure you can put your big boy pants on and think it through. I'll give you a hint: It means FFXIV will have a different elemental wheel. Get it? Got it? Good.

On to the next one!

[Wolfie]

I can't believe you're still trying to reason with this thread >_> you lost from the moment it was created. The minute the OP laid that post down, he said: "this is what it is and to hell with anything else". More or less your efforts are in vain. You gotta give it to em straight like this:

Two small wheels is no more confusing than one big wheel; if you can't see this you should try pulling your head out of your rear. Period. End of discussion. Its fantasy so there is no "supposed to be this way". Disagree you can stfu cuz its not your world, your lore, or any of that. Think im trolling? Every FF game has had a different elemental wheel. Thats right. And what is this? A different FF game. What does that mean? You're so intelligent, I'm sure you can put your big boy pants on and think it through. I'll give you a hint: It means FFXIV will have a different elemental wheel. Get it? Got it? Good.

On to the next one!

It's f**king killing me. This topic feels like the electrolytes sketch from Idiocracy. It's like people don't understand that there's no traditional definition of intuition in play here, there is no standard, the reason and logic behind strengths and weaknesses is highly ambiguous, and that they don't understand their own reasons for wanting this changed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vw2CrY9Igs

[Lux_Rayna]

It's f**king killing me. This topic feels like the electrolytes sketch from Idiocracy. It's like people don't understand that there's no traditional definition of intuition in play here, there is no standard, the reason and logic behind strengths and weaknesses is highly ambiguous, and that they don't understand their own reasons for wanting this changed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vw2CrY9Igs

It has electrolytes D:<

[Enfarious]

Well this was a fun change of pace from the war <> pld arguments. Kinda wish I had read it all from day 1 but eh.

The real problem is, they were using a reasonable element system throughout nearly all previous FF titles, with fire <-> ice / earth <-> wind / water <-> lightning, but decided to change it for ffxiv. why? because...

A thought on the basis of things in general: ALL fiction is rooted in some fact, a fantasy world, ignoring the fact that it's one carrying the FF torch and all that goes along with that, has to have rules, and for the sake of making it easily accessible and enjoyable to the majority of people drawing on laws found in our own reality is how it tends to work.
Yes those laws can be modified, but to toss them all into the marble bag and pull shit out at random and see what happens will make people put away your book/game/movie.

Ask yourself, honestly now, when is the last time you read/played/watched a movie, a work of pure fiction that strayed from our own realities natural laws so wildly as to say that the majority of the time wind is detrimental to fire or that dark and light can occupy the same space at the same time. The last time that people walked on space and breathed stone, swam in fire and were burned by air? These things feel horribly wrong, you can tell me all about how they don't but deep down you just know it's wrong. The suspension of reality in a fictional work is more a matter of allowing a person to easily transition into a fantastical world than it is about creating a world that has wildly unique laws of physics. The more a person has to "learn" to accept the fiction and understand it, the less enjoyable it will be, and this leads to it being placed on a shelf behind that 1992 copy of CompTIA Server+ in a nutshell.

Ok on the wheels:
I won't say that one shape of wheel or number of wheels is better than the next, just that having them rooted in something that people can already easily relate to simply makes sense.

I can memorize the wheel/s no matter which way they run or what effects what, wrote memorization does not mean intuitive, it's actually quite the opposite, if I had to study and memorize this thing it was rather unintuitive.

If you feel the current wheels are intuitive "now" ask yourself, again honestly, how long was it before you had memorized what spell to use against what mobs? Do the mob families make sense having the elemental alignment they do? I have no clue, I don't even care that much about the wheel/s, again I can memorize it no matter what it ends up, but more importantly until(less) they add elementally aligned weapons I'll go right on stabbing things merrily.

[Soukyuu]

Again, its only "intuitive" to you because you've already come with preconceived notions of which element beats which, based on... who knows what.

Based on the majority of the games out there.
edit: also, this. Water being opposite of Fire makes more sense than Wind anyway.

All the FF games you listed had different elemental rules for the most part. None of this is realistic, therefore "intuition" means very little.

They might have had different rules, but base element relationships were never twisted as they are in FFXIV - I'd remember that.
I don't care if it was fire <-> ice | lightning <-> water or fire -> ice -> lightning -> water -> fire
But going wind -> fire is ridiculous. Speaking of realism: why do you think we fear the wind when there are fires around?

If you play FFXIV long enough and stop trying to compare it to other games, the two elemental triangles we have now become "intuitive." They have for me, it will happen to you too.

No, it won't. I played this game since alpha and I still have to keep the elemental wheel chart open. They tried to be different for the sake of being different, and you see where it got them. They're fixing the things with 2.0, so they might as well fix this too.

[Lux_Rayna]

They're fixing the things with 2.0, so they might as well fix this too.

Except for the fact that its not broken, so there's nothing to fix. It works as intended.

And every FF game in creation has been different for the sake of being different. Good lord.

Need I remind you of FFX's elemental system??? Please explain how that is any less ridiculous than wind->fire. Please do. You are telling me: "I don't mind if lightning is weak to water, but wind blowing out fire is ludicrous!" Do you hear yourself lol? How is it any less ridiculous? Because it has electrolytes?

If you want to talk realism, any wind will blow out a fire *if* it is strong enough. Tell me if your campfire is still going strong when a tornado rolls through. Seriously. And "wind" is such a vague point anyway. You know what wind is comprised of? Gases. Are all gases kind to fire? No. And then there's heat! You have cold air and warm air. You think a fire is gonna like blizzard? Nope. Its gonna go bye bye. Why? Cuz if you cool off fire faster than it can produce heat, the fire goes away.

Wind -> Fire makes sense under the right conditions. Now please tell me how Water -> Lightning makes sense in all of your infinite wisdom, because you don't seem to mind that.

[Zyph]

Now please tell me how Water -> Lightning makes sense in all of your infinite wisdom, because you don't seem to mind that.

The receiving end of the spell in all of these games is not another spell, it's a creature aligned to or comprised of the weak element. In Water -> Lightning's case, a creature that produces/is comprised of electricity would be shorted out by water.

You wanna talk ridiculous, Ice and Water are the same thing, one is just colder. I'm assuming the "Ice" element is just a manifestation of cold, though.

[Lux_Rayna]

The receiving end of the spell in all of these games is not another spell, it's a creature aligned to or comprised of the weak element. In Water -> Lightning's case, a creature that produces/is comprised of electricity would be shorted out by water.

You wanna talk ridiculous, Ice and Water are the same thing, one is just colder. I'm assuming the "Ice" element is just a manifestation of cold, though.

Thus is the point, they are all ridiculous so what point is there in arguing over them. There is no logical elemental wheel, because an elemental wheel itself is entirely illogical

[Firon]

Thus is the point, they are all ridiculous so what point is there in arguing over them. There is no logical elemental wheel, because an elemental wheel itself is entirely illogical

No don't you know it's only logic if it's like FF:XI cause that's the only Ff ever made they skipped 11 and then skipped to 14.