Elemental Affinity Levels - A New Approach to Leveling

[Veritas-Ancora]

Here's the idea to replace our linear leveling progression.

Similar to Eureka, an elemental affinity wheel is how we level. Instead of 10 levels each expansion, we have 3-5 levels per elemental affinity.

- Fire
- Ice
- Water
- Wind
- Earth
Etc.

Leveling will come naturally with the bosses we encounter. So we learn fire elemental levels from fire bosses. We learn water from water, etc.

At the end of the MSQ, we utilize our brains to adjust to the elemental bosses for Extreme, Savage, Exploratory Missions, etc.

So if there's a fire boss, the DPS will swap to water, and the tanks will remain fire to reduce the amount of damage done. Before the boss releases their raid wipe, everyone moves to water to take down the boss.

There's so much more strategy involved with this, and it's simple enough that even the most casual of players could learn it.

Plus elemental affinity levels would be easier to grind and less of a hassle than the gear slug of standard level progression.

Any thoughts? Improvements, criticisms, etc.?

[Jeeqbit]

That would be alright.

I've also thought of bosses having elemental types but instead them being weak to specific attacks that we have, or different jobs having different elemental party offense/defense buffs they can cast to help the party overcome certain elemental strengths/weaknesses.

[Veritas-Ancora]

That gets an automatic "no thanks" from me. I'm not a fan of Field Operations, so I'd rather not borrow anything from them in the greater part of the game, leaving it instead as side content I can choose to ignore.

So basically anything that you refuse to play is immediately dismissed as garbage?

Okay.

[DPZ2]

So basically anything that you refuse to play is immediately dismissed as garbage?

Okay.

I wouldn't say that. It's more like "what you're requesting is part of side content already. I prefer it remain as side content." The word "garbage" appears nowhere except your interpretation.

[Selsix]

Here's the idea to replace our linear leveling progression.

Similar to Eureka, an elemental affinity wheel is how we level. Instead of 10 levels each expansion, we have 3-5 levels per elemental affinity.

- Fire
- Ice
- Water
- Wind
- Earth
Etc.

Leveling will come naturally with the bosses we encounter. So we learn fire elemental levels from fire bosses. We learn water from water, etc.

At the end of the MSQ, we utilize our brains to adjust to the elemental bosses for Extreme, Savage, Exploratory Missions, etc.

So if there's a fire boss, the DPS will swap to water, and the tanks will remain fire to reduce the amount of damage done. Before the boss releases their raid wipe, everyone moves to water to take down the boss.

There's so much more strategy involved with this, and it's simple enough that even the most casual of players could learn it.

Plus elemental affinity levels would be easier to grind and less of a hassle than the gear slug of standard level progression.

Any thoughts? Improvements, criticisms, etc.?

I can already foresee an issue with this and that's that it is independent of job level. Meaning providing all your jobs are already at 100 you play through the MSQ and now have nothing else to level, all the work is already done. You COULD mitigate this by binding elemental level to jobs rather than being separate but at that point it's effectively just a raised level cap with a fresh coat of paint.

There is a modest intrigue in how it could affect boss fights, but unless bosses have you swapping elements on the fly very regularly (which will be very annoying with controller as is without making a quick swap binding) it's going to just be kinda useless since once everyone knows what a boss is weak to they'll just swap to that element on it forever which just adds an extra couple clicks to the start of every fight. Plus you'll run the risk of people raging in chat for stuff like alliances when people have the wrong elements on which could promote some toxic behavior.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against a unique leveling system but I'm not sure this is it. Eureka wasn't exactly praised for the elemental wheel after all. I like where your head is going, but if they want to go outside the box like this I think we need something new built to work with the game rather than trying to repurpose an existing system.

[AmiableApkallu]

When I first picked up FFXIV (when post-ShB was current), I was expecting damage types to be relevant noticeable — elemental, piercing, slashing, etc.

As a sprout CNJ, I was concerned with how I'd be able to fair against earth or wind enemies.

Why isn't that simply how combat works in FFXIV?

[Veritas-Ancora]

Yeah they never explain this. It's even more confusing that Black Mages uses fire against bosses made of literal fire to kill them.

I do miss the elemental strategies of the offline Final Fantasy games. I realize that the game relies heavily on rotations that need to be mastered and making elemental affinity would cause the game to become a lot more stressful.

Still, I think something along the lines of elemental levels would be a lot of fun to customize your character without affecting the rotations.

[Mikey_R]

When I first picked up FFXIV (when post-ShB was current), I was expecting damage types to be relevant noticeable — elemental, piercing, slashing, etc.

As a sprout CNJ, I was concerned with how I'd be able to fair against earth or wind enemies.

Why isn't that simply how combat works in FFXIV?

Slashing/piercing/blunt used to be in the game, however, they created more favourable parties which would perform far and above another group. Fr example, Dragoon applied Piercing and, at the time, only Dragoon, Bard and Machinist benefitted from it. Bard and Machinist could not apply Piercing, so having a Dragoon in the party automatically increased their damage by 10%. Monk was the only non caster that done Blunt damage and was the only job that could apply Blunt down, so it wasn't a benefit to the group. Ninja and Warrior could apply Slashing, in HW, Warrior would be the one to apply slashing whilst Ninja could forgo that combo and get more damage by virtue of being able to use more Aeolian Edges. In SB, these debuffs were changed so that they were applied as part of your optimal rotation (which is what Samurai's 3rd combo used to apply). Bard and Machinist still couldn't apply piercing, so they got free damage just from having a Dragoon (though it was 5% in SB). Considering there was a massive issue with debuffs, removing them seemed a good way to reduce the clutter and avoid any party disparities.

As for elemental damage, it too would run into issues. Elemental damage has never been a thing to consider in FFXIV, at least from 2.0 onwards (do not know about 1.0), but, just taking Black Mage for example, how would you want it to play? You could have a button that changes the elements of everything it has, but then you necessarily have to lose buttons from elsewhere to accommodate this. How about Red Mage? Would you forgo using Verfire and reduce your damage? How about not using Verthunder 3? and even bigger damage loss. With elements being much more varied in Red Mage's kit, it would be even more of a headache. At least, in my opinion, it just wouldn't add anything interesting to the combat.

As for the topic itself, it is just eureka done outside a separate zone. I don't think it really adds anything, especially if you can gain 3-5 levels on each one, you would just max each one out and not have to think about it at all. It would also destroy any semblance of challenge from dungeon bosses as I assume there is no sync, so, as you gain elemental levels, you just get stronger and stronger relative to the boss. I just don't think it would be a good system.