Fix the Elemental Wheel

[Wolfie]

So what are you saying...? That there's a satisfying sense of structure, consistent with itself and discernible in other manifestations of the world, that somehow explains the rather ambiguous current elemental structure? Are you saying that criticism of the current system is uncalled for?

Yes, I'm exactly saying that the criticism is uncalled for and baseless. There already is structure to it, and it's not satisfying to the people complaining about it because it doesn't conform to the structure that they've already convinced themselves is the "best" structure. These things are completely arbitrary and subjective, and the Final Fantasy series as a whole doesn't adhere to any specific elemental wheel. It's complaining for the sake of complaining; or more accurately, complaining because this game doesn't directly rip from FFXI.

By the way, to those that say that Earth, Fire, Air, Water, etc. are not real elements, allow me to respond that--at least at some point of human development--they totally were. Greek philosophers identified the four mentioned above as the building bricks of all matter. They also included a fifth element (in Latin, quinta essentia or quintessence, which the Greeks called Aether, a prophetic forerunner of modern-day consmologists' Dark Matter. More to the point, Aether is a definite reference pointing to the inspiration for SE's elements and the current game's cosmogony.)

If later science found the Classical Elements to be a rather simplistic model, the beauty of this simplicity and structural elegance, guided later scientists and the scientific mind in the search of the fundamental materials of the world. So let's treat the simple elemental scheme with pride, and honor it as a forerunner of the hyper-complex building-block theories in today's Nuclear Physic's and Cosmology.

Many centuries of scientific development later we have compiled a somewhat more complicated elemental table, which is now beyond doubt, thanks to the scientific method and its experimental demonstrations. And yet, the initial, fundamental concept of the "elements" was advanced by the classical philosophers all those centuries ago, in classical antiquity. They, the inventors of our systems of thought, who named these basic substances as Water, Air, Fire, and Earth, would have recognized the patterns in these games. Adding a few more elements to make it more practical for gaming purposes doesn't sound that out of bounds.

R

The similarities between FFXIV's elements and the elements that the Greeks proposed is superficial at best, and it's a completely irrelevant point because this game is not set in Ancient Greece and is not based on their mythological (and then scientific) writings. The Greeks didn't have an 'elemental wheel', and people didn't possess an inherent 'element', causing them to be weak to another element. The only parallel you can draw between FFXIV's elements and the Greek elements are names and maybe in concept; but all that Greek science and philosophy goes out the window when you throw in your own elements.

[Rutelor]

Yes, I'm exactly saying that the criticism is uncalled for and baseless. There already is structure to it, and it's not satisfying to the people complaining about it because it doesn't conform to the structure that they've already convinced themselves is the "best" structure. These things are completely arbitrary and subjective, and the Final Fantasy series as a whole doesn't adhere to any specific elemental wheel. It's complaining for the sake of complaining; or more accurately, complaining because this game doesn't directly rip from FFXI.

It seems to me that, either you didn't read what I wrote, or you failed to comprehend it. I am not calling for an elemental wheel... the developers did And not one, but two! So, don't blame me. But if they do, I'd rather see it reflected in the world at large with consistency and logic. Otherwise it feels arbitrary.

Go back, reread my reply to your post and please notice that I'm not calling for FFXI's elemental wheel, or for any wheel at all.

The similarities between FFXIV's elements and the elements that the Greeks proposed is superficial at best, and it's a completely irrelevant point because this game is not set in Ancient Greece and is not based on their mythological (and then scientific) writings. The Greeks didn't have an 'elemental wheel', and people didn't possess an inherent 'element', causing them to be weak to another element. The only parallel you can draw between FFXIV's elements and the Greek elements are names and maybe in concept; but all that Greek science and philosophy goes out the window when you throw in your own elements.

Perhaps you failed to notice, Dear Wolfie, that in this respect at least, Greek science had already gone out of the window by the time of the advent of Dalton and modern Atomic Theory.

Other than that, I never said that the Greeks a) had an elemental wheel, b) or that their people possessed an 'inherent element', or weaknesses to some other. I only pointed at the elegant historical sources for the cosmogony in many modern role-playing and adventure video games. By the way, the structure of the four or five elements was not restricted to Greek civilization. Indian, Persian, Chinese, and Japanese classical cultures all had similar systems, arguably descendants of the Greek model. (Or perhaps its forerunners, I'm not sure of the chronology.) Some of these, like some Asian systems, had additional elements and a wheel-like organization of strengths and weaknesses, called, if I recall correctly, the creation and the destruction cycles.

But I'm not arguing that these ancient theories and cycles are what makes the elemental structures in XIV and XI good or bad. I was not addressing the mention of these historical precedents to you. Read my post again.

R

[Wolfie]

It seems to me that, either you didn't read what I wrote, or you failed to comprehend it. I am not calling for an elemental wheel... the developers did And not one, but two! So, don't blame me. But if they do, I'd rather see it reflected in the world at large with consistency and logic. Otherwise it feels arbitrary.

Go back, reread my reply to your post and please notice that I'm not calling for FFXI's elemental wheel, or for any wheel at all.

Should I pull the "you can't read" card too? I will, except I'm not going to be so passive-aggressive about it. I was talking about the people complaining that there are two elemental wheels/triangles now, and that there is no ambiguity. There is structure now.

Perhaps you failed to notice, Dear Wolfie, that in this respect at least, Greek science had already gone out of the window by the time of the advent of Dalton and modern Atomic Theory.

Other than that, I never said that the Greeks a) had an elemental wheel, b) or that their people possessed an 'inherent element', or weaknesses to some other. I only pointed at the elegant historical sources for the cosmogony in many modern role-playing and adventure video games. By the way, the structure of the four or five elements was not restricted to Greek civilization. Indian, Persian, Chinese, and Japanese classical cultures all had similar systems, arguably descendants of the Greek model. (Or perhaps its forerunners, I'm not sure of the chronology.) Some of these, like some Asian systems, had additional elements and a wheel-like organization of strengths and weaknesses, called, if I recall correctly, the creation and the destruction cycles.

But I'm not arguing that these ancient theories and cycles are what makes the elemental structures in XIV and XI good or bad. I was not addressing the mention of these historical precedents to you. Read my post again.

R

See, now I get to pull the "you're illiterate" card twice, because I clearly said that whatever it is you were trying to pull with this point is irrelevant. That means you get to drop it and not continue lecturing me in history, because whatever you're trying to say here is at best tangentially important to this discussion.

[Soukyuu]

You do realize that almost every FF game has had different element rules than the last, right? And that element weakness wasn't determined on an Element > Element basis, but Element > Creature Type basis, right?

I played ffviii, ffix and ffx, so I am basing my opinion on those 3 games. And from what I remember, they all had the same elemental system.

It's complaining for the sake of complaining; or more accurately, complaining because this game doesn't directly rip from FFXI.

No, it's not. It might surprise you, but not everyone has played ffxi. I never touched it. Still, the elemental wheel(s) of ffxiv do not make sense to me, while in the 3 ff games I played, it did.

No, I don't see fire taking damage from wind, there are more chances of water quenching the fire than wind doing so. Else we'd use fans to quench fire, not water.

And even if you pull the "it's magic" card, it's not about realism, it's about intuition. The first thing to come into mind when fighting fire is water, it's elemental opposite being ice. The first thing coming in mind as opposite of earth is air (=wind) not... whatever it is now.

A well designed system is intuitive - you do not have to waste time trying to figure out how the system works, which should be the goal of any software developer.

[Wolfie]

I played ffviii, ffix and ffx, so I am basing my opinion on those 3 games. And from what I remember, they all had the same elemental system.

No, it's not. It might surprise you, but not everyone has played ffxi. I never touched it. Still, the elemental wheel(s) of ffxiv do not make sense to me, while in the 3 ff games I played, it did.

No, I don't see fire taking damage from wind, there are more chances of water quenching the fire than wind doing so. Else we'd use fans to quench fire, not water.

And even if you pull the "it's magic" card, it's not about realism, it's about intuition. The first thing to come into mind when fighting fire is water, it's elemental opposite being ice. The first thing coming in mind as opposite of earth is air (=wind) not... whatever it is now.

A well designed system is intuitive - you do not have to waste time trying to figure out how the system works, which should be the goal of any software developer.

Again, its only "intuitive" to you because you've already come with preconceived notions of which element beats which, based on... who knows what. All the FF games you listed had different elemental rules for the most part. None of this is realistic, therefore "intuition" means very little.

In the Pokemon world, water beats both earth and fire; and it's "intuitive" there if you've played those games. Otherwise, it doesn't feel "intuitive", because the concept of an elemental type does not exist outside of the game. The same is true for the FFXI/FFXIV elemental wheel. Fire is extinguished by water, wind and earth; water is buried by earth, boiled by fire, and evaporated by wind; etc. There is no "wheel" of anything in real life.

If you play FFXIV long enough and stop trying to compare it to other games, the two elemental triangles we have now become "intuitive." They have for me, it will happen to you too.

[Lux_Rayna]

If you play FFXIV long enough and stop trying to compare it to other games, the two elemental triangles we have now become "intuitive." They have for me, it will happen to you too.

I can't believe you're still trying to reason with this thread >_> you lost from the moment it was created. The minute the OP laid that post down, he said: "this is what it is and to hell with anything else". More or less your efforts are in vain. You gotta give it to em straight like this:

Two small wheels is no more confusing than one big wheel; if you can't see this you should try pulling your head out of your rear. Period. End of discussion. Its fantasy so there is no "supposed to be this way". Disagree you can stfu cuz its not your world, your lore, or any of that. Think im trolling? Every FF game has had a different elemental wheel. Thats right. And what is this? A different FF game. What does that mean? You're so intelligent, I'm sure you can put your big boy pants on and think it through. I'll give you a hint: It means FFXIV will have a different elemental wheel. Get it? Got it? Good.

On to the next one!

[Wolfie]

I can't believe you're still trying to reason with this thread >_> you lost from the moment it was created. The minute the OP laid that post down, he said: "this is what it is and to hell with anything else". More or less your efforts are in vain. You gotta give it to em straight like this:

Two small wheels is no more confusing than one big wheel; if you can't see this you should try pulling your head out of your rear. Period. End of discussion. Its fantasy so there is no "supposed to be this way". Disagree you can stfu cuz its not your world, your lore, or any of that. Think im trolling? Every FF game has had a different elemental wheel. Thats right. And what is this? A different FF game. What does that mean? You're so intelligent, I'm sure you can put your big boy pants on and think it through. I'll give you a hint: It means FFXIV will have a different elemental wheel. Get it? Got it? Good.

On to the next one!

It's f**king killing me. This topic feels like the electrolytes sketch from Idiocracy. It's like people don't understand that there's no traditional definition of intuition in play here, there is no standard, the reason and logic behind strengths and weaknesses is highly ambiguous, and that they don't understand their own reasons for wanting this changed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vw2CrY9Igs

[Lux_Rayna]

It's f**king killing me. This topic feels like the electrolytes sketch from Idiocracy. It's like people don't understand that there's no traditional definition of intuition in play here, there is no standard, the reason and logic behind strengths and weaknesses is highly ambiguous, and that they don't understand their own reasons for wanting this changed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vw2CrY9Igs

It has electrolytes D:<

[Enfarious]

Well this was a fun change of pace from the war <> pld arguments. Kinda wish I had read it all from day 1 but eh.

The real problem is, they were using a reasonable element system throughout nearly all previous FF titles, with fire <-> ice / earth <-> wind / water <-> lightning, but decided to change it for ffxiv. why? because...

A thought on the basis of things in general: ALL fiction is rooted in some fact, a fantasy world, ignoring the fact that it's one carrying the FF torch and all that goes along with that, has to have rules, and for the sake of making it easily accessible and enjoyable to the majority of people drawing on laws found in our own reality is how it tends to work.
Yes those laws can be modified, but to toss them all into the marble bag and pull shit out at random and see what happens will make people put away your book/game/movie.

Ask yourself, honestly now, when is the last time you read/played/watched a movie, a work of pure fiction that strayed from our own realities natural laws so wildly as to say that the majority of the time wind is detrimental to fire or that dark and light can occupy the same space at the same time. The last time that people walked on space and breathed stone, swam in fire and were burned by air? These things feel horribly wrong, you can tell me all about how they don't but deep down you just know it's wrong. The suspension of reality in a fictional work is more a matter of allowing a person to easily transition into a fantastical world than it is about creating a world that has wildly unique laws of physics. The more a person has to "learn" to accept the fiction and understand it, the less enjoyable it will be, and this leads to it being placed on a shelf behind that 1992 copy of CompTIA Server+ in a nutshell.

Ok on the wheels:
I won't say that one shape of wheel or number of wheels is better than the next, just that having them rooted in something that people can already easily relate to simply makes sense.

I can memorize the wheel/s no matter which way they run or what effects what, wrote memorization does not mean intuitive, it's actually quite the opposite, if I had to study and memorize this thing it was rather unintuitive.

If you feel the current wheels are intuitive "now" ask yourself, again honestly, how long was it before you had memorized what spell to use against what mobs? Do the mob families make sense having the elemental alignment they do? I have no clue, I don't even care that much about the wheel/s, again I can memorize it no matter what it ends up, but more importantly until(less) they add elementally aligned weapons I'll go right on stabbing things merrily.

[Soukyuu]

Again, its only "intuitive" to you because you've already come with preconceived notions of which element beats which, based on... who knows what.

Based on the majority of the games out there.
edit: also, this. Water being opposite of Fire makes more sense than Wind anyway.

All the FF games you listed had different elemental rules for the most part. None of this is realistic, therefore "intuition" means very little.

They might have had different rules, but base element relationships were never twisted as they are in FFXIV - I'd remember that.
I don't care if it was fire <-> ice | lightning <-> water or fire -> ice -> lightning -> water -> fire
But going wind -> fire is ridiculous. Speaking of realism: why do you think we fear the wind when there are fires around?

If you play FFXIV long enough and stop trying to compare it to other games, the two elemental triangles we have now become "intuitive." They have for me, it will happen to you too.

No, it won't. I played this game since alpha and I still have to keep the elemental wheel chart open. They tried to be different for the sake of being different, and you see where it got them. They're fixing the things with 2.0, so they might as well fix this too.