Red Mage is Range Combat? (Discussion)

[Hyrist]

I speak for myself, and always aim to. Others who want certain things out of RDM are free and should disagree with me if they feel the need to.

I do, respectfully of course. Because I think this differs from the initial visions you and I talked about years ago when Red Mage was still something we thought might come with a Realm Reborn. We both agreed that Front line should be an integral part of the class.

Again, we have to keep in mind that nearly every iteration of RDM was in games built around turn-based combat. That's an entirely different animal from MMORPG/live-action combat in terms of design and application. Yes, in turn-based RPGs 9 times out of 10 the best way to use a RDM's turn was to have them cast magic.

This is both true, and not. We have to consider the archetypal deviants that existed in non-job orientated titles. Celes, Terra, towards the beginning of their games and virtually every open ability meld system works closely with the archetype. In reality, the ATB system isn't much different than the MMO's internal timer system always set to 'active' rather than 'wait', and often it is wise to think that way when you think of things like rotations and timers.

I'll disagree. The demo emphasizes range while seemingly treating melee as a thing you do because mechanics rather than uniting both to flow into each other. If we had seen something like, say, melee combo going into insta-cast nuke followed by a hard cast spell followed by repelling shot followed by another spell or Lunge, that paints an entirely different picture (since it'd show that you'll be hitting things with a sword, it somehow allowing you to instacast spells while also having mobility built into the job).

I think the demo emphasizes nothing of the sort. Honestly. Whether you cast at a range or up close is irrelevant in this case. The range mainly was shown to give a good showcase and give light to the two positional skills they were highlighting. It shows that these spells CAN be cast at a range, people are simply inferring that they have to.

Based on the demo, I suspect what's going to happen is some aspect of the gameplay will require you to temporarily get in melee range to either empower future spells or make them cast instantly, then getting out of range to do so.
I like to think I'm allowed to develop an opinion based on what info we have available. I can still change my mind if something else surfaces or if I were to see the ability list along with what mechanics are part of the job. I did say that so far I was not impressed, and I'm sticking to that.

It seems to me that you're taking a bit of flavor footage in isolation to other information we were provided. "Rapid Positioning" was the term used. Which seems to indicate we will be both front and back lining rather frequently. Ranged DPS is the general label I see they have to apply when considering where on the Queue they place Red Mage. This essentially means we're sharing space with Black Mage, Mechanist, and Bard in optimal Queue conditions.

Simply put, the ranged/melee hybrid thing is needlessly convoluted. It's like they were reaching for something to make up, because a guy in melee range blasting fire into enemies' faces at point blank range in between sword swings was apparently not original enough for them.

This is where we can disagree again. The ability to cast at range was part of what makes Red Mage a versatile machine. Unless they implement a forced penalty for casting at point blank, I don't think your vision is going to be a problem, thematically. What I do suspect is that, depending on the impact of Auto Attacks and frequency of gap closer usage/enemy AoEs, is that positioning within the fight during casting will be a subject debated as situational between each fight.

However, for me, that would be a boon for the Job, not a deterrent. I am with you on wanting to see the full ability list, to see just how many melee-range skills we get in comparisons to range and how they compare. But what we got was a small showcase, likely not a full rotation.

As I've said, we'll see how this turns out, but I'd be lying if I claimed excitement about what has been shown so far. I still really want to see that ability list.
To be fair, this discussion wouldn't be happening if we had specializations per job (instead we'd all be arguing to ensure both caster RDM and melee RDM are balanced with each other). Since we don't, we're obviously going to lean towards our preferences.

I don't agree with the aspect of specializations within a Final Fantasy context. It served little purpose in Final Fantasy XI for what little you could do there. Having a clear and defined role and method does save a lot of convolution I'd prefer to be avoided. Here, even within the argument of Red Mage, which we both know used to be an eternal argument within FFXI - we're limited to the equivalent of "I don't like Bowmage" type arguments here. And that, honestly, I feel is welcome.

I recognize that no matter what happens, Red Mage is going to be divisive - that's sort of become second nature to the class since XI. However, here, the argument is likely to peter out regardless of our opinions.

For me, it will boil down to how frequently we switch into front and back. Whether or not one supports the other more is irrelevant to me so long as I get enough time in the front to make it feel like a true hybrid.

It's peculiar that SE would decide to do that with RDM when a ton of concessions have already been made for other jobs. BRD was turned from a song-spamming non-fighter into an archer with songs. WHM was turned from "Holy only" to "sort of like an elementalist but still heals". DRK was turned from "knight that hurts themselves to deal high damage" to tank. And unlike some people here, I'm okay with concessions as long as there's a general precedent or it "just works".

You see, I don't view it mainly as a concession so much as an agreement of vision thus far. I make no mistake that this is 'their' vision of Red mage fitting their idea of how it should work.

Anyways, sorry for the huge post, wanting to give a full respectful reply. I do hope you are ultimately satisfied with the end-result Duelle. You and I have been waiting for this for a very, very long time. I'd hate for you to ultimately be disappointed.