Red Mage is Range Combat? (Discussion)

[Aniond]

Another thing to keep in mind they are redoing the combat system. So who really knows what the big picture is.

[Dorander]

Another thing to keep in mind they are redoing the combat system. So who really knows what the big picture is.

This is such a misconception. They aren't 'redoing' the combat system. It's going to be the same in 4.0 as it has been since 2.0. They are just taking a look over the skills. Seeing what works, what doesn't, what isn't used, and either deleting them or reworking them. That's it.

[Teiren]

To be fair, the other part of "combat system overhaul" is remaking Enochian, maybe Greased Lightning, and maybe Darkside. Those could be substantial, but yeah, the game isn't getting anything fundamentally huge like changing the GCD, removing global server tick, removing delay of others' movements on your screen, etc. I was expecting we would be getting an option to collapse the various weaponskill combos into one button each, but it seems like that won't happen, oh well.

Anyway, to stay on-topic: Red Mage will primarily play like Black Mage, in my opinion. That means it'll spend about 80-90% of its time at range but unlike BLM will need to melee for MP or something, probably. I believe the video shown at Fanfest shows 3 different actions before the mini-Flare at the end: An Ability to get into melee (the holy tether at the beginning), a Weaponskill to cause damage with some personal benefit (the rapier barrage), and a second Ability to leap back with a slash (like Elusive Jump with damage). I've also considered the possibility that the backwards leap is actually the same Ability as the holy tether but dynamically changed to a leap after use, starting its recast after 10 seconds or leaping back, or something like that. Keep in mind Ability means off the GCD, Weaponskill/Spell means on the GCD. I very much doubt Red Mage will have any actual weaponskill combos like DRG but instead activated weaponskills like Monk.

The only problem is that, unless they do something hokey like making some spells literally have a minimum range requirement to do full damage or be cast at all (both VERY bad ideas), I don't know how they expect to "force" Red Mage to fight at range. Then again, just the naturally HUGE benefit of being able to attack at range will likely be enough by itself.

[Shurrikhan]

Another thing to keep in mind they are redoing the combat system. So who really knows what the big picture is.

It's a skill by skill re-look that will either (a) buff/modify the skill, or (b) remove the choice entirely, focused only on those skills that are already rarely used, have designs that cause unnecessary contention in reaching what the skill was designed for, or could be better visually integrated for job identity. Little to nothing is be changed about the combat system itself.

[Mhaeric]

The major overhaul will not be to core mechanics or even to specific abilities, although there will still tweaks to those. Enochian was one in particular that was said to be receiving a way to make it less punishing to your dps numbers if you lose it mid-cycle.

The mayor overhaul will be to cross-class skills. Currently each cross-skill is specific to a class, and each job can only draw on two class' cross-skills. This leaves some key abilities missing for certain jobs. E.g. Keen Eye for ninjas. The change will be that jobs will instead pull from an archetype list of cross class skills instead of two classes cross class skills. This means that all melee dps will have invigorate, all dex dps will have keen eye, all casters will have swiftcast, etc regardless of their secondary and tertiary classes. In fact, tertiary class will no longer be a meaningful phrase since only the secondary class will still have impact for those jobs that require level 15 in it to unlock.

[Shurrikhan]

You take that from a 30sec clip that shows like 3 attacks. Calm down there :P

You take a traditionally hybrid class, and then show zero indications of it being a hybrid in the first trailer you release for it. Either you were horribly pressed for time, or you'd rather not point to it being a hybrid. Giving them the benefit of the doubt (competent and on time), it would seem the latter. Limited to three skills or not, it's what you're releasing—not just to the effect that "RDM is happening" (for which the single picture would have sufficed) but also how.

If they're giving the wrong impression here, that's on them. But they probably aren't. The ineffectiveness of feedback is only going to get worse by the day, so why shouldn't people speak up on the subject now, while potentially under-informed, than later, when looking at something concrete (and thereby unchangeable)?

[Teiren]

They said it fills the Caster role. That means being able to attack at range and having high AoE damage. Sorry, but Red Mage isn't going to dramatically change from that. I think Red Mage is cool, I'm highly looking forward to it, but I think it's had a slightly dysfunctional design from the beginning of the series, so something about it will have to be shoehorned in when it's in a game with strictly described gameplay and content.

The idea of hybrid as it's been presented throughout the series absolutely does not work in a modern MMORPG unless every other class has a similar hybrid design. It's just logic when you're talking about a game that's extremely tightly tuned at the highest levels of difficulty (which unfortunately everyone has to suffer for): If a Red Mage was good enough at both damage and healing, then it would probably become possible to do difficult things with one healer if your Red Mage player was good enough. That sounds nice, but the raids would have to be tuned around your party having a Red Mage or else they'd be too easy. Therefore, parties would be FORCED to have a Red Mage, and that is a design FFXIV will never do. Not only is that known to be poor design for an MMO, but also the battle content guy that designed all of the Coils of Bahamut outright said they learned their lesson from Melusine and how Summoners interacted with that fight to never require, or nearly require, a specific job ever again.

So this time "hybrid" is going to mean combining the elements of White and Black Magic offensively. It's still going to be a hybrid in theme, just not in gameplay past a few weaponskills.

[Mhaeric]

The actual quotes from the slideshow in the keynote, grouped by relatedness:

"Role: DPS (Ranged DPS)"

"Ranged attacks using magic"
"Melee attacks using rapier"
"A hybrid ranged/melee style achieved via high-speed positioning"
"Deal massive damage by linking multiple spells with chainspell and following them up with with melee attacks."

"Red magic = Black & white magic hybrid."

There's two ways in which they use the term hybrid.

First is that they're primarily a ranged dps job that casts spells at a distance, however they will hybridize this with melee attacks via 'teleporting' abilities. My guess is that the teleporting abilities will be baked into the massive damage combo. I.e. in order to achieve the burst effect you actually have to use the positional change ability. E.g. each step in this combo has to be successfully completed to reach the end of the combo in which most of the potency is loaded into the final ability: Spell 1 --> Spell 2 --> Spell 3 --> gap closer+damage ---> Melee attack --> leap back+damage --> High potency spell 4. I.e. Effectively a ranged caster that jumps into and out of melee occasionally to be able to unlock their burst damage. Note that the combo I outlined appears to be what the video example shows.

The second way they use the term 'hybrid' is when talking about magic. I suspect this will be a more literal hybridization of white and black rather than saying that they'll use white magic and black magic as separate entities. I.e. they're warlocks who have figured out a way to mix both black and white magical energy into a single spell at a time.

They don't ever use 'hybrid' to mean the traditional MMO definition of being able to fill more than one role in a party. I.e. they're not able to be both a healer and a dps for example.

[Madrone]

This is such a misconception. They aren't 'redoing' the combat system. It's going to be the same in 4.0 as it has been since 2.0. They are just taking a look over the skills. Seeing what works, what doesn't, what isn't used, and either deleting them or reworking them. That's it.

Yeah, the degree of change is probably going to be relatively small. Cross Class skills are being overhauled so that there's more homegenity in what is available (MCN not having Second Wind comes to mind). Meanwhile it seems that these skills may be removed from the classes they came from. The number of choices may increase. Some skills that are underused/under-powered may be removed entirely or fixed. We'll have new skills from level 61-70, but the total number of skills each job has will be about the same as now. Parry and Accuracy are probably going to be removed. New UI job-specific elements will be added making it easier to keep track of your job's main buff. Some abilities may change to reduce the penalty for doing things wrong (Enochian drop was an example). I even suspect they may unify skill speed and spell speed (as that's a problem for a hybrid DoM/DoW like RDM), but there's been no mention of it.

While that's a lot of change. Its not a sweeping adjustment to the GCD/oGCD skills, combos/procs, DoT/buff maintenance, tab-targeted combat we have now.

[Dorander]

Yeah, the degree of change is probably going to be relatively small. Cross Class skills are being overhauled so that there's more homegenity in what is available (MCN not having Second Wind comes to mind). Meanwhile it seems that these skills may be removed from the classes they came from. The number of choices may increase. Some skills that are underused/under-powered may be removed entirely or fixed. We'll have new skills from level 61-70, but the total number of skills each job has will be about the same as now. Parry and Accuracy are probably going to be removed. New UI job-specific elements will be added making it easier to keep track of your job's main buff. Some abilities may change to reduce the penalty for doing things wrong (Enochian drop was an example). I even suspect they may unify skill speed and spell speed (as that's a problem for a hybrid DoM/DoW like RDM), but there's been no mention of it.

While that's a lot of change. Its not a sweeping adjustment to the GCD/oGCD skills, combos/procs, DoT/buff maintenance, tab-targeted combat we have now.

My point exactly.