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

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 Rubiss

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?

I understood at a glance which spell was higher tier when we had the Cure/Cura/Curaga system and I'd rather use that because that's what I grew up with and it caused an interesting shift in naming. The difference between 1/2/3 and Cure/Cura/Curaga is minimal because nobody reads their tooltips anyway and nobody wants to play the game properly to begin with.

Cure 3 is a meme skill that is only used in that scenario where you can get everyone clustered together, but on an individual cast it is weaker than Cure 2. You'd have an argument if Cure 3 healed more if it only had a single target, but someone will see "Cure 3" and think that it's better to use this over Cure 1 or Cure 2. They'd be wrong, but there's no reason to use Cure 1 in 99% of scenarios because you have the mana to spare for Cure 2. If Cure 2 is outright superior to Cure 1 and costs twice as much mana as Cure 1. Then you give them Cure 3 and, oh... this isn't superior to Cure 2 and it doesn't cost twice as much mana.

Medica 2 is not more potency IMMEDIATELY, Medica 2 is weaker but has a HoT that will heal for more total potency at the end.

I like that DQ magic system because it gives personality to the game.

By the way, the Cure/Cura/Curaga naming scheme exists in pretty much every other language's version of XIV, just not NA because they think we're stupid. The very lore that started this thread, I think in Japanese says they switched from numbers to the spell suffix system.

Originally Posted by Rubiss

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?

Cure III and cure II are not based on the same spell at all. Cure III is a TINY, rarely used aoe spell, while cure II is a stronger heal on one target, they should not be in the same naming line because cure III is NOT an upgrade to cure II, its a completely different spell.

I agree with changing the naming. It is not necessary per say but at the same time the current naming structure makes no sense. Also changing the name of cure III can prevent the few new people here and there that fall for that "noob trap" It does happen, do not deny it never does.

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.