RDM: You only have yourself to blame, if you expected something else

[Duelle]

do people like yourself and Duelle give other classes this level of third degree treatment?

Depends on the class. I've been harping that WAR should drop the drains and focus on mini-stoneskins (to simulate the WAR shrugging off hits because they're manly and stuff) so that DRK can get their drains gimmick back since halfway through HW. I've also argued that Enochian was wasted on BLM when that could have been the foundation for a brand new job. I've also said that ARC could be split into Ranger (like some people have wanted), but would require BRD design to focus more on songs on some level ('lo and behold, BRDs got a design that focuses more on songs). I've also said that job crystals were implemented in a terrible way. I've also said that tanks should drop the "pretend to be a DPS" mentality and focus on tanking, but that's half class design and half battle mechanics and thus a very complex issue. And I've said more than my piece on the direction the devs have taken SMN.

Auricelia and Hyrist are right. YOU linked the video that was originally shown at FanFest when RDM was first revealed. That video guts your whole premise, because it showed exactly what we now have - a class that chains several spells in a row, jumps in, does one melee combo, then jumps back out for a nuke.

Just want to comment that when I called this back in December, people like Hyrist were telling me that I was jumping the gun and that we didn't know anything about the job and thus we should just sit and wait instead of giving opinions, criticism and feedback. Unsurprisingly, the job turned out exactly as I said it would. I wasn't impressed back then, and I am not now.

The other thing that's fueling all the RDM drama, of course, is your own personal sense of what RDM "should be", based on this oft-stated, but always nebulous, concept that it needs to be "true" to the class' series roots. Nevermind that said concept cannot be compartmentalized with any one game - e.g. it's not "FF1's RDM", or "FFXI's RDM". Because it's different in every game, but now that it is, yet again, different than other incarnations in THIS game, suddenly that's inexcusable.

Do we really need to go down the rabbit hole of console RPG vs MMO again? Yes, the job was used a certain way in the console FFs, but as I've constantly been saying, stuff changes when you cross the threshold into any other genre.

I can grab and put RDM in a musou style game, and it would be very unlike the console FF RDM (ranged nukes that deal area damage, melee skills that cleave or run through lines of enemies). I could put it in a fighting game and it would not be anything like that, either (weak zoning, decent knockbacks, supers would involve the RDM casting Haste on themselves and zoom all over the place; sort of like Wesker in MvC3 or Ciel in Melty Blood). I could put it an adventure-style game and the same would happen (though I admit it would be closer to the FF1 RDM if the game engine involved was something like what FROM Software uses for Dark Souls and Bloodborne). Same if I were to put them in a shoot'em up (colored danmaku for the 6 elements, flying swords that lock on to you). And likewise, if I put the job in an MMO, there's going to be things that don't reflect the console FF RDM (melee mage with some ranged options that combos spells and sword techniques).

This is aimed at the people who keep going on about how it has to be a ranged caster because that's how it was in the console FFs. And my answer to that will always be "no, it doesnt".

Over in the other thread, people have said much the same. It's tiresome. If you don't like the class, that's fine. You don't have to. But the degree to which some people are hammering it as being WRONG WRONG WRONG, as if the devs somehow objectively made a bad class, is way over the top.

If RDM had come out of the ether with no discussions on it at any time since the game's launch, I would consider this a fair point. That's not the case, however. Suggestions, feedback, and discussions have been presented since the beta to ARR (not just by me, either), and as someone who has been around since that time (I was also in the beta for 1.0, so I've been here a while) I feel I'm justified in feeling disappointment and voicing my displeasure at 5 years of feedback and suggestions being ignored.

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Just so that we can clear some things up, I'm not here to convince anyone. If you agree with me on the matter, great. If you don't, that is also your right. If you read what comes out of my mouth and find yourself agreeing with parts of it, that's fine. I speak for myself and welcome all counterarguments. Even ones like "you only have yourself to blame" and "lol it has mage in the job name" (though I swear I'll find a way to make a "Welcome to Final Fantasy, bitch!" gif of a RDM enchanting their sword with fire if I keep seeing the latter being used).

Edit:

There isn't really a justified complaint to be made. Every complaint for Red Mage right now is literally about the aesthetic.

Aesthetic would be complaining about the look of the AF, or that the job has a floating crystal, or that the stance looks ridiculous because there's two items involved instead of the rapier by itself.

Speaking for myself, my complaints are about gameplay.