Suggestion: Bring back traditional Final Fantasy spell names

[DrMaverick]

One of my minor gripes with FFXIV is the lack of elements that feel uniquely Final Fantasy, or well, unique in general. It feels too generic, and one thing contributing to that is the lack of elements unique to the Final Fantasy franchise. For one, the spell names.

Even back in the original FFXIV, spell names from the rest of the franchise were used. Fira, Firaga, Curaga, Thundaja, so on, so forth. Re-adding these would not be difficult at all, and add back a little bit of Final Fantasy charm to the game that in my opinion, is currently missing.

[Hestzhyen]

One of my minor gripes with FFXIV is the lack of elements that feel uniquely Final Fantasy, or well, unique in general. It feels too generic, and one thing contributing to that is the lack of elements unique to the Final Fantasy franchise. For one, the spell names.

Even back in the original FFXIV, spell names from the rest of the franchise were used. Fira, Firaga, Curaga, Thundaja, so on, so forth. Re-adding these would not be difficult at all, and add back a little bit of Final Fantasy charm to the game that in my opinion, is currently missing.

I agree with you but the translation team won't do it for some reason. The names are Fire, Fira, Firaga, etc. in the Japanese version but we get Fire I, Fire II, Fire III even though the implied logical sequence doesn't exist. I mean, Fire I and Fire II have completely different use cases and you never chain them, you're not supposed to cast I in order to cast II... for all the liberties they take with the translation and translating the rather standard Japanese script of the original into the unique version we have, why be so sterile and boring with our elemental spell names when there's precedence to make them unique?

I think the localization team made a mistake and it's too late to change it now, so they pretend it's cool and totally what they meant all along. I kind of hope someone makes a mod that changes the text but it's not a huge deal in the long run.

[Rongway]

This is mostly a localization topic rather than a UI topic, but here are some points from the several times we've discussed this topic in the past.

In most of Final Fantasy history, spell names have used suffixes xor spell names have used numbers, with a bigger suffix or a bigger number designating a stronger spell. This works largely because in most of FF history, AoE spells have simply been single target spells dispersed over all targets. The notable exception is XI, which because of its MMO-sized spell set, needed ways to differentiate between spells with different effects and so introduced suffixes as targeting indicators (the naming system actually became an interface feature) used concurrently with numbers to designate relative strength.

While it sounds like a simple thing just to rename all the spells using some sort of suffix system, it's not so straightforward.

Consider BLM and WHM which are pretty much the only jobs that would be affected by this.

If we just changed the numbers to suffixes, we'd get this:

Spell            I        II       III        IV

Fire          Fire      Fira    Firaga    Firaja
Blizzard  Blizzard  Blizzara  Blizzaga  Blizzaja
Thunder    Thunder  Thundara  Thundaga  Thundaja

Cure          Cure     Cur??     Cur??        --
Medica       Cur??     Cur??        --        --
Stone        Stone    Stonra    Stonga    Stonja
Aero          Aero  Aera/ora    Aeroga        --

Besides the obvious question of how to allocate the Cur- names between Cure and Medica, we have a naming scheme where the suffixes don't really have any meaning other than to sound cool. Since the suffix system doesn't have any mechanical purpose over the number system, the consideration comes down to, "Will a typical player be able to make the correct association between a spell and its effect?" While it may be easy for some, and certainly comfortable for a Final Fantasy fan, some players are playing XIV as their first Final Fantasy. The number system means those players don't have to accustom themselves to set of suffixes that don't encode any information. Is Fira the AoE spell or is Firaga? What about Aerora or Aeroga? Stonra or Stonga?


If we map the spells to a suffix system based on effect, we get something like this:

Spell            I        II          III            IV

Fire          Fire    Firaga      Fire II      Fire III
Blizzard  Blizzard  Blizzara  Blizzard II  Blizzard III
Thunder    Thunder  Thundaga   Thunder II   Thundaga II

Cure          Cure   Cure II       Curaga            --
Medica        Cura   Cura II           --            --
Stone        Stone  Stone II    Stone III      Stone IV
Aero          Aero   Aero II       Aeroga            --

(I've struck out the spell names that wouldn't change.)

This could have worked well had we used this system from the beginning. It's too late for that now, though. Changing the system would cause all sorts of trouble. Of the spells that would be renamed, almost half of them would be names that we've already been using for other spells for the last four years. Discussions of rotations and tactics between veterans, newbies, and returners would be prone to misunderstanding. And anyone who looks up one of the many out-of-date guides online would just end up even more lost.

In short, the ship has sailed. We have what we have.

[Callinon]

It could still be done. The biggest oddball is the Medica series, but actually if we look back to caveman times in FF1, this series of spells was called Heal. Heal, Healra, Healga, and Healja would be perfectly reasonable names within the established pattern.

I agree that changing them now causes a lot more problems than it solves, but it could still theoretically have been done this way to begin with.

[NephthysVasudan]

This kinda bugged me too..but at least fire 1 2 and 3 are easily understood ignoring the differences.

Medica should stay medica...give the fancy cure names to cure....simple. Easy.

Just my 2 cents.

[ObsidianFire]

The original spells in the Final Fantasy series used numbers instead of suffixes from the original Final Fantasy until Final Fantasy VII. Suffixes weren't used until Final Fantasy VIII. So technically, FFXIV is following the older Final Fantasy tradition by using numbers. It also makes it easier to translate as the localization team doesn't have to figure out how to translate a bunch of made-up suffixes.

[Callinon]

The original spells in the Final Fantasy series used numbers instead of suffixes from the original Final Fantasy until Final Fantasy VII. Suffixes weren't used until Final Fantasy VIII. So technically, FFXIV is following the older Final Fantasy tradition by using numbers. It also makes it easier to translate as the localization team doesn't have to figure out how to translate a bunch of made-up suffixes.

Welllll... yes and no.

The English releases for Final Fantasy games used numbered spells up until 8.

See before that (with the exception of 7), the localization team was dealing with strict character limits on spell names. Final Fantasy 1 only allowed 4 character names. This is fine for Japanese because you can put a lot in 4 characters (Thundaga -サンダガ is only 4 characters), but with English you couldn't do that so they had to have a different way of handling it. In the Playstation era they could ease up on the space limits that spell names took up. Not sure what they were doing with FF7, maybe they thought that the game numbering would be confusing enough for our poor feeble American brains and didn't want to change too much on us.

[ManuelBravo]

It would not make sense to bring them back being that it's not a turn based system anymore. So it makes more sense for it to change into actions based on level. Besides even in old FF games it's best just to re organize them to get them in order rather than look for them. this game leads more into activation based on steps so you still get them, just not in individual icons for each step.

[Niwashi]

The number system means those players don't have to accustom themselves to set of suffixes that don't encode any information. Is Fira the AoE spell or is Firaga? What about Aerora or Aeroga? Stonra or Stonga?

Well, the numbers don't encode any of that information either. Whether it's a number or a suffix, either way things like which ones are AoE have to just be learned by rote. If anything, the numbers suggest a progression that doesn't exist, which leads to more confusion rather than less.

But the other point, that it's too late to go back now, I (somewhat regretfully) agree with. I would have preferred for them to use the standard suffixes from the outset, but not for them to try and change it now.

It would not make sense to bring them back being that it's not a turn based system anymore.

What would being turn based have to do with the names of spells? (And besides, the games that used the suffixes in English translation weren't turn based anyway. Only the first three games in the series were turn based. After that they moved into their active time battle system and then assorted variations on it, including FFXIV's.)

[Callinon]

What would being turn based have to do with the names of spells? (And besides, the games that used the suffixes in English translation weren't turn based anyway. Only the first three games in the series were turn based. After that they moved into their active time battle system and then assorted variations on it, including FFXIV's.)

FFX was turn-based and used the suffix system. But you're absolutely right that the two have nothing to do with one another.

FFXI actually used both systems simultaneously.

Fire, Fire II, Fire III, Fira, Fira II, Firaga, Firaga II, Firaga III, etc