Thread: Reconvene the Magic Council Please - Spell names in 5.0 please fix. [Request]

Not clear if a spell is a single target or AOE?

That's what tooltips are for. Also striking dummies.

Originally Posted by FeliAiko

Not clear if a spell is a single target or AOE?

That's what tooltips are for. Also striking dummies.

That's completely missing the point.

The spells need to have a logical localization to them, and if we call them <spell> 1, 2,3,4 to denote power, and -ka,-ja, etc to denote effect, those need to be consistent in all languages.

The way things should be fixed, is by having a toggle in the game to switch a spell between single target 100% potency and multi-target divided across all targets potency, vs multi-target with increased casting cost. Take Cure, Cure II, Medica, Medica II and Cure III as an example of this naming scheme making no sense.
Cure and Cure II - single target, Medica is multi target caster centered,but medica II is multi target caster centered and adds a regen effect, while Cure III is target-centered AOE. For all intents Medica and Cure III are exactly the same, so why is it Cure III instead Medica II, and Medica II not Regen II.

That's the problem, the names are not consistent because the casts are not consistent.

And to someone, especially a new player, who believes that the power increase is 1, 2, 3, will make the mistake of using Cure III where they should be using Cure I.

Now, the a better fix however, would require a combo system. Where you start all cast with the same spell (a la monk) eg Cure, followed by "Group Hug", which turns it into Medica, and followed by "Regen" which turns it into Medica II. Unfortunately this is too hard to pull off in a game where bad players just want to maximize DPS over healing. Now, there is another option...

Reverse the way combos work. Make the Player-center/Target-center, Party and Regen effects be like the Ninja Mudra's, and they increase the cast time or cast mp cost, and that allows it to be extended to things like Aero and Holy as well. Imagine being able to throw Aero III and Holy where the tank is positioned.
If you screw up a combo, the worst that happens is you heal the target.

No thanks. I've always hated that -aja -ara crap. Probably biased because old school Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest was my jam.

I really dislike the added suffixes to spells. I think the number system is simple and gets the point across. At a glance you know that Cure 2 is stronger than Cure 1.

Originally Posted by Rubiss

No thanks. I've always hated that -aja -ara crap. Probably biased because old school Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest was my jam.

I really dislike the added suffixes to spells. I think the number system is simple and gets the point across. At a glance you know that Cure 2 is stronger than Cure 1.

But Cure 3 is not stronger than Cure 2. Your argument falls flat immediately. Medica 2 is not a straight upgrade from Medica. Thunder 1/3 is superior to Thunder 2/4 in single target situations. Fire 2 is not better than Fire 1 and so on and so forth.

Originally Posted by Ultima

But Cure 3 is not stronger than Cure 2. Your argument falls flat immediately. Medica 2 is not a straight upgrade from Medica. Thunder 1/3 is superior to Thunder 2/4 in single target situations. Fire 2 is not better than Fire 1 and so on and so forth.

You understand, at a glance, which spell is higher tier. Cure 3 certainly is stronger than Cure 2, given that there is more than one target. Medica 2 is more potency than Medica 1 for the same GCD. You could perhaps make a case for moving AoE spells away but I personally like the number system. It's more clear and I prefer the old school naming scheme.

I really dislike when they did it to Dragon Quest too. Like between Blaze, Blazemore and Blazemost and Frizz, Frizzle and Kafrizz and then later Kafrizzle, like what am I even seeing?

Originally Posted by Delmontyb

What I'm saying is that there could be a curaga 2, and that the numbers system would still be there. But the name would also communicate if it's AOE or not AOE.

So Fire 1 = single target
Fire 2 single target

Firaga 1 = multiple target
Firaga 2 = multiple target

This way they can make stronger versions for the AOE spells as well.

Compromise:
-a AOE (Caster centered)
-aga Targeted centered AOE

Numbers for power increase.
In Japanese 'ga' is the topic marker in a sentence. In English there is no equivalent.

In the console games, you'd use the shoulder button to turn a single target cast into an AOE, so there was never a "aoe" version unless the default for that spell was AOE (eg holy, meteor, ultima)

The name confusion is probably worse for BLM than WHM, with only Cure III being the nonsensical. In other FF games "Cure 3" would be the third or fourth tier healing spell that is single-target, but can be toggled to multi target. Thus it's intended effect is in fact correct, but it's expected effect is what Medica does.

With the Black magic casts, same idea, the shoulder button in the games after the NES versions would make them AOE. Otherwise Fire, Fira(Fire II), Firaga (Fire III), Firaja (Fire IV) would still be single target spells.

And to be fair, Fire 1 2 3 4 for BLM are all different, unlike Cure I II III, which the first two are the same, and the AOE versions are different.

Even without stomping on the classical FF naming scheme, the best option would be to rename all the AOE casts since those don't exist in previous games other than FFXI. XI uses -ga and -ra and -ja for the AOE targetable spells. The single target spells are just Fire I-VI. As far as I can tell (because I've never touched FFXI other than the benchmark) there is no range limit to those spells, or they all have the same range.

The XIV Range limits is what makes Cure III and Medica different. Because if I use Medica I need to be near the party for maximum effect, where as Cure III would normally be casted on the tank and may or may not get the melee party members. Tetra and Benediction for all intents are Cure IV and Cure V. As they behave the same as Cure but are relegated to being actions, since the game doesn't necessarily need a "cure" 4,5,6 when the game scales all magic by level.