Elementality – Fundamentals to Involve Chain/Sequential Elemental Casting; Complexity

[Enfarious]

You failed to read between the lines when I mentioned benefits of not being fully committed to an element or school of magic. Having too many spells around makes the system feel disjointed. Even with options people still gravitate towards what gets them more bang for their buck, which is why every Black Mage in FFXI merited Thunder Pontency and went 5/5 Burst II. Likewise why every Red Mage that was not me went full 5/5 Ice Accuracy (whereas I went 3/5 Fire and 2/5 Ice, as I like Fire).

That will happen in this too, but it's very avoidable, all they have to do is make the base dmg for each spell equal, keep the added effects, that's an interesting idea and helps keep them all useful. The reason XI ended up all Ice was because of the base dmg scaling, and then abyssea buffs, that was flawed mechanics, and a lesson that should be learned from.

Not really. It encourages a DPS rotation. In the case of PLD it creates part of the priority system for tanking. Still far from what I would call complete, though.
Yes, this is what I was referring to.

I assume you mean 1>2>3; 4 > 5 > 6; 1>2>3; 7 > 8> 9; 1>2>3 when you say rotation. Mind numbing when it's down on paper. Not very engaging as a game mechanic either, unless your a fan of very simple, but if you played XI to the point of having full merits on any job pre abyssea then simple wasn't your cup of tea.

It encourages each person to play their "individual" role, they don't work "together" a tank spams hate control, DDs spam WSs, we don't coordinate attacks for any form of "added effectiveness".
Battle Regimens were what was supposed to cover that, but they didn't work out well. I just hope they come back in a functional form, or that some other type of interconnection of WSs Spells and Abils to encourage actually playing in a coordinated way.
Yeah standing in the right place blah blah blah, so you don't get hit but again that's just individuals doing their thing, not interacting with one another for any actual effect.
The saddest thing I watched happen in XI was the failing of Skillchains and Magic Bursts, outside of static groups that were used to working together. Then the introduction of every job being able to solo skillchain, but it's been said Abyssea was the testing ground for the party/combat system for this.

[Shurrikhan]

I assume you mean 1>2>3; 4 > 5 > 6; 1>2>3; 7 > 8> 9; 1>2>3 when you say rotation. Mind numbing when it's down on paper.

The current combo system for certain is not engaging. He only said it was a step in the right direction. I personally see no difference between the first and second; both can be macro'ed to one or two damage-dealing buttons. There is no doubt however that solo-rotations can be engaging and intricate. It just takes a lot of factors, a lot of programming, in more than just the combat system itself. When I figure out a way to make that happen, I'll post it. I guess I've just been under a bit of a block lately.

[Enfarious]

yeah, having to communicate what your doing and when is like practicing team work, we wouldn't want to encourage that too much more than we do now. . .
It's what macros were made for though, ensuring effective sharing of pertinent information like when your casting what. So others can adjust and work together effectively.

[Shurrikhan]

yeah, having to communicate what your doing and when is like practicing team work, we wouldn't want to encourage that too much more than we do now. . .
It's what macros were made for though, ensuring effective sharing of pertinent information like when your casting what. So others can adjust and work together effectively.

I think easier would be to just use a cast-bars tracking your allies' spell casts, paired with a mantle system. They're not hard to program after all. There's no way I'm going to be hitting macros in a fight if the fight can live up to my expectations of intensity (though those are high standards, lol).

My point is though, as long as you're willing to change something, often further changes will come naturally, and hint each time at a final, complete product. People just need to be less afraid of the programming work. : P
^ probably the best advice I've gotten from computer science friends.

[Enfarious]

I think easier would be to just use a cast-bars tracking your allies' spell casts, paired with a mantle system. They're not hard to program after all. There's no way I'm going to be hitting macros in a fight if the fight can live up to my expectations of intensity (though those are high standards, lol).

My point is though, as long as you're willing to change something, often further changes will come naturally, and hint each time at a final, complete product. People just need to be less afraid of the programming work. : P
^ probably the best advice I've gotten from computer science friends.

I won't get into writing code, or what can/should go into that.
If hitting a macro is too much then something is wrong, it's a matter of pressing alt/ctrl along w/ 0...9 instead of just 0...9 if a system is implemented that makes that not work that's moving toward a button mash fest.
Macros, if written well can convey messages about the actions your going to take while allowing you to reduce the overall number of keystrokes needed to complete the actions, not to mention adding timing precision.
So again creating a system that makes macros not good/useful would be making a system that is more just strafe and hold "x" that's an FPS.

I really did like where the OP seemed to be headed, but this direction doesn't seem to keep in an RPG environment but more along the lines of platform/FPS

[Enfarious]

What you, unless I'm mistaken, describe is the battle regimen system, someone would:
Open/Start a regimen
Add a skill/spell
then others, who wanted to, would add their skills/spells
Person who initiated would then execute

Order mattered for the sake of achieving different effects, and different skills/spells in different orders achieved different effects. There was a time limit imposed on adding commands to the regimen queue so you couldn't just leave it open from the start of a fight and use it when ever. It had the potential to be a great system. Sadly the execution of regimens didn't work right, there was no AA, and once you started/added to the regimen you were unable to act until it was executed. It failed ...

In the longer fights where damage mounts mages couldn't add spells because it stopped them from healing, it slowed DPS with melee just standing still, tanks couldn't get involved because they needed to spam skills to hold hate.

Assuming they "fix" those things and return it in 2.0, which has been mentioned in a few places, by the dev notes. It still has the potential, as long as it doesn't lock us out of being able to act in other ways, and now with AA it wouldn't completely ruin DPS anymore.

[Shurrikhan]

What you, unless I'm mistaken, describe is the battle regimen system

Sadly the execution of regimens didn't work right, there was no AA, and once you started/added to the regimen you were unable to act until it was executed.

Then this is not a battle regimen system, as I never meant for it to be. I just said I wouldn't make dependency locks. At no point will you be forced to wait.

Edit: if I were to implement anything that I'd call a Battle Regimens system, it'd be different in niche. It'd kind of be like cross-talents with a certain other member of your team, that's quickly and easily set up, but with potentially great depth for their use. Something like "Shatter lines" that causes Ice to shatter for particle damage with relatively little melted when a single count of heat is added by Lightning.

More on edit when I get back.

[Deltara]

I would be happy with a simple system.

Say, any Tier 1 spell can combo into any Tier 2 spell, providing different debuffs/effects depending on the combos.

So maybe fire >> fira would be for maximum fire damage and no debuff on the mob.

But fire >> blizzara would be low damage with a powerful paralyze debuff on the target.

Or fire >> thundara would be moderate damage with a short stun effect on the target.

Something simple enough for everyone to understand, but complex enough that you don't get bored with thunder combo's all the time.