Fire I, Fire II, Fire III

[AshlikeSnow]

Dueling square? Dueling circle?

Ever since 2.0 ARR launched the English localization has been puzzling. What makes a Final Fantasy title is in the details of the game. The small little minutiae that has always been carried over from game to game is what made Final Fantasy something to care about. And for whatever reason starting with ARR there have been pointless edits to these details and I wonder why? What reason is there to go from Fire Fira Firaga to Fire I Fire II and Fire III???

I started playing FFXIV in 1.0 back in September 2010 and say what you will about that game but even 1.0 kept to Final Fantasy jargon. Little tidbits that made the game feel FF. Many may think who cares? Dueling circle dueling square? is it important? I do, I care and maybe for those of us who do we can let the Development team know somehow. Maybe they can read this thread and revert to proper FF lingo.

[Texa]

I always just figured they were using FF VII terminology?

[Riardon]

They decided to go with Fire I,II,III because this was the original naming of spells in FF series in the beginning. The first FF titles had this naming scheme for the spells. The -ra, -ga names came later on. They went with this naming for nostalgia reason and to make them seem more simplistic.

[SpookyGhost]

They decided to go with Fire I,II,III because this was the original naming of spells in FF series in the beginning.

Nah, the reason they went with I/II/III/IV is because they literally thought people wouldn't be able to work out -ara, -aga, etc. Now, because of this, instead of everyone realizing that these are all different spells we have some people who think that Fire II is a better version of Fire I and now they no longer need to use Fire I.

[Riardon]

Nah, the reason they went with I/II/III/IV is because they literally thought people wouldn't be able to work out -ara, -aga, etc. Now, because of this, instead of everyone realizing that these are all different spells we have some people who think that Fire II is a better version of Fire I and now they no longer need to use Fire I.

People can still mess it up and confuse the -ra,-ga,-ja naming scheme. It sounds and reads too similar. You can get pretty confused too. This is why skills have descriptions on them. Those who never read they will get confused no matter what. The roman numeric naming scheme is as FF traditional as the Japanese-esque -ra, -ga. There is an old interview somewhere they said they did to make more simple and I agree with them. Both styles are traditional. The roman numeric is the original though as FF goes.
That being said both systems are traditional FF style naming schemes and both are right. It's matter of personal taste for some.

[Ragology]

The first game in the series I played was ff8 and I think they used the suffix based spell system. Some earlier games used numbers though so I'm guessing they flip back and forth? I haven't played every game in the series so I'm not sure.

[Enkidoh]

They decided to go with Fire I,II,III because this was the original naming of spells in FF series in the beginning. The first FF titles had this naming scheme for the spells. The -ra, -ga names came later on. They went with this naming for nostalgia reason and to make them seem more simplistic.

Exactly, it's reverting to the old-school spell naming system which actually makes better sense referring to spells with individual titles or increasing levels of potency, where as the more recent 'ra'/'ga'/'ja' system really more referred to differentiating spells between single target and multiple-target spells (the use of 'ra', 'ga' and 'ja' suffixes on spell names only really started with FFVIII - all English language FF games before then used numeric titles).

And before you pass judgement, FFXI actually used both and there were no complaints (which led to some quite convoluted spell names like Curaga VI). Really, this is not going to be changed, as SE made their choice (to be really honest, I never liked the ra/ga/ja system as it sounded too weird so I am actually happy SE went this way - but that's just personal preference.

[Zojha]

Exactly, it's reverting to the old-school spell naming system which actually makes better sense referring to spells with individual titles[...]

The numbered system makes a whole lot of sense if the spell is simply an upgrade without much mechanical changes. Fire III innately implies it's the same as Fire I, just +2 and thus more powerful. And for thunder, that works great - Thunder I, II and III all work the same way, you just sacrifice cast time for higher potency as you go higher.
Rule of thumb: If you can remove the old spell from your hotbar when you get the new one, the numbered system is suitable.

Looking at the fire spells, tho, Fire II is quite different from Fire I. The numerical system is just confusing there, because Fire II is not just a better Fire I - and the same goes for blizzard, which I had to explain to more than one newbie in the past >_> I'd actually go for a change there. Whether to the suffix system or to something else... /huh. Not my concern, I don't care about nostalgia, I only want clarity there :P

[Nestama]

snip

In any other Final Fantasy, sure. In this game, though, it really just seems like the mages went with a "I learned this spell second, so I'll call it Fire II!"
If FFXIV were to adopt the way FFXI handled spell names (to differentiate), we'd get something like this.
Fire, Firaga (Fire II), Fire II (III) and Fire III (IV)
Blizzard, Blizzara (II), Blizzard II (III) and Blizzard III (IV)
Cure, Cure II, Curaga (III)

-ara being AoE around caster. -aga being AoE around target.

[Karuharu]

If I recall, there is even a lore reason why they had chosen to go by numbers. I think it's in a book in the Hard Mode of Gubal Library. Something on how it was just tedious to change the spell's last pronouncation and would cause brief confusion.