Renaming Abilities?

[Hycinthus]

FFXI had it bang on with spell naming for those cases.

Single target spells: Fire, Fire II, Fire III, etc
AoE spells: Firaga, Firaga II, Firaga III

Simple. Easy to understand.

I totally prefer this one. It makes complete sense.

[lolicon09]

Aren't skill icons also usable for macros? if so, just make a macro called "Firaga" with the instruction to execute Fire III, and use the Fire III icon

[kaynide]

That wouldn't be any less confusing considering if you play any of the Final Fantasies that use that naming system

It was mentioned above, but FF11 was really good about this in that you had a line of spells for Fire (fire I, II, III, etc) and a completely different line for Firaga (also I, II, etc). All base spells were stronger, single target. All -aga were AoE, but weaker.

It was weird for the first -aga spell obtained, but really intuitive later.

[Fynlar]

The naming scheme isn't to blame for the confusion here; it's simply the way this particular game works.

In most other games "Fire 3" or "Firaga" would both be understood as a more powerful (and probably rarer or higher cost) variant of Fire, but this game doesn't use it that way; it simply has different utility than Fire does.

I'm not sure renaming the abilities is particularly warranted (for everyone who would welcome the change there is someone who would abhor it), but it would be spiffy if they somehow made it so that people could type "Fire III", "Fire 3", or "Firaga" into a /ac macro and the game would recognize any of them as the same action, kind of like how some emotes can be called using several different slash commands. As long as the actual ability name isn't changed I doubt having the option would ruffle any feathers.

[Eclipse12187]

I personally prefer the numbering system, could you imagine the naming convention for malefic II or Broil ||? Also to my knowledge in games with the Ruin spell it’s only had 2 variants, Ruin and Ruinga, no ruinra or however else. Even if we go based on previous games, FF1 fire and firaga were single target whereas fira and firaja/za were aoe, same deal with the cure spells and we currently have cure III being the aoe variant (where’s my cure IV SE) and fire IV being single target. For me I like the numbering system from a nostalgia standpoint, but reading your tooltip should always be done when you get a new skill so you understand how it works. If the skill was intended to be a direct augment they would have given us traits to augment them as opposed to a brand new skill.

[ShariusTC]

SCH "art of war" that name doesn't fit for an active spell, it's more fit for a passive spell

[Stepjam]

Aren't skill icons also usable for macros? if so, just make a macro called "Firaga" with the instruction to execute Fire III, and use the Fire III icon

Except for the part where using macros causes you to clip your GCDs every single time. I guess if you don't care about your damage, it's fine, but if you do, that's a critical thing to avoid doing.

[Aleytia]

I do this anyway. Lol half the time I don't even know the real names. Used and still is very hard talking to an fc mate about scholar and referring Thier heals as fairy hot, your shield and aether heal. Or I would be oh ummmm that's R followed by 2,3 then shift T.

[Eloah]

the skills are numbered as they are because there is no consistency between them. Not all of the spells that would end in -ra are AoE spells. Fire II, Blizzard II, Thunder II (now but it wasn't always), Miasma II (when we had it), Fan Dance II, Veraero II, and Verthunder II are all AoE spells. But Stone II, Aero II, Ruin II, Broil II, Bio II, Malefic II, Combist II, Cure II, and Benefic II are all single target.

A good comparison is how the materia names are. In English, each tier is just a number higher. Bit in Japanese they used the ra, ga, ja, system, and now you have grade 8's being named Mega Materija, or something to that effect. So each system has their strengths and weaknesses. While the ra, ga, ja system is more "iconic" what happens when you go beyond the system? Number can always be added upon, but ever wonder why we haven't gotten a Stone V, or Fire V? There is nothing beyond the ja suffix, so they would have to create a new one.

[Iscah]

I feel like numbers should only indicate spell strength, not group multiple effects under (say) the label "Fire" when some are single, some AoE, etc.

As for renaming spells, I'd love to be able to do that so I can rename all the cryptically named ones to things that remind me what they do.