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

[Duelle]

You're absolutely right in that current caster classes lack a "theme" as it applies to combat gameplay. However, I don't think that can be solved in a system like this alone. I also have a huge amount of respect for solo combos. And having also played a WoW mage (other favorite classes being warrior, hunter, and death knight) I know exactly what you mean there.

I was a Prot Warrior, Ret Paladin, and transmogrification facilitated my playing a Mage. Funny how being able to swap out those weird robes for something a little more modest can encourage one to play a class they would normally not play.

Though, that might only be true for setting oneself up in preparation for a fight. [Additionally, it's very doable without ability cooldowns, using a more analog system of gliding strength per ability and sets of abilities instead.] Either way though, it needs to stem off something larger, more intricate. WotLK's talent systems were a good example of this. Whether you like the idea of the areas of choice being identical for every player or not (I personally don't), they had sufficient complexity and enough unpredictable uses to make some truly unique playstyles. FFXIV would first need something similar. That in turn requires a new layer of depth in leveling, where FFXIV again falls short.

I disagree here. You don't need a talent system to get something similar. What you'd need is further emphasis on job traits, especially when playing as a job rather than a class.

That said, I would never try to copy WoW's system. WoW's talents system (paired with its abilities) worked for WoW because it was WoW, not just because it's a universally powerful system.

I wouldn't copy it, but take a look at how it achieved balance in the form of involved gameplay on a level that did not have you losing to the latency boss (which screwed over skillchains in FFXI for anything more complicated than "Open WS and Close WS" with nothing in between), balanced raid comps that could have class stacking but very rarely encouraged it, and paced progression that didn't involve our current 0.000000001% drop rates. Draw inspiration, borrow what works, tweak it to fit your setting and move on.

What I'd make for FFXIV would stem from Final Fantasy instead, the more fundamental or thematic the connection the better. Mechanics are made to serve a story and to serve play. Not the other way around.

I understand this, but it also brings up something I've been mentioning for the last two years: certains parts of Final Fantasy do not work in the context of an MMORPG. Tanaka tried to stick to "Final Fantasy" when designing XI's mechanics, and what we got was a botched resource system, some jobs being more useful than others, the "I spent 50% of my time AFK resting my health and the other 50% AFK auto attacking" joke, and Refresh-botting. Lore and job-wise I have every bit of confidence in the Final Fantasy IP. Mechanics-wise...not so much; not after seeing two of the more popular jobs in the series treated the way they were in XI (Red Mages and Summoners).

[Shurrikhan]

Haha, yeah I probably should have mentioned that I wouldn't copy FFXI either. I wouldn't make any combo that requires another player's action as a dependent factor with an exact difference on your next cast. I'd just make a difference based on the proximity of their landing. You can still achieve things similar to skill-chaining by using a party-loading (mantle) system, but it requires sub-targeting. I.e. I load "ability A" onto you, aimed at X. Your next "ability D" has additional effect Z. His "ability D" could likewise cause something in return for me, but I don't have to wait for it to have my ability gain that additional effect. It's set immediately, to be used at will (within reasonable time limits) by the other. You could say it's still partly time-sequence dependent, but you're not waiting for that variable to come back. You're free to do whatever you like in the meantime. "Combos" won't be cancelled by doing *anything but "ability D"*, etc. You just could potentially do something contradictory to your earlier intentions, but that's possible with or without "combos" anyways.

(I probably should be more careful to use this term loosely, as "combos" usually do mean that each step is directly related to and only possible to an exact ability, rather than the execution of a purpose using whatever ability as a means to do that most precisely.)

To the latter half, I think something distinctly FF could be made without those problems. I honestly think it was done wrongly. I know that sounds arrogant before knowing how exactly I'd do it. I guess it's just a gut feeling where it seems logically ridiculous to believe that there's no better way.

And goddamn I'd love to see Red Mages especially done right...

And yeah, it is hard to beat WoW in terms of balanced intricacy, though I'd love to do exactly that. And it really is a shame the last two expansions (Cata and upcoming) seem so hell-bent on simplification. But, that's irrelevant. Sorry for digressing.

[Duelle]

Haha, yeah I probably should have mentioned that I wouldn't copy FFXI either.

I wouldn't be so worried about them copying XI if the battle designer from XI had stayed there instead of him being moved to work on XIV.

I wouldn't make any combo that requires another player's action as a dependent factor with an exact difference on your next cast. I'd just make a difference based on the proximity of their landing. You can still achieve things similar to skill-chaining by using a party-loading (mantle) system, but it requires sub-targeting.

You could also take the approach Dragon Age took to combined spells, but you'd need to design spells in a way that they had a lingering effect.

To the latter half, I think something distinctly FF could be made without those problems. I honestly think it was done wrongly. I know that sounds arrogant before knowing how exactly I'd do it. I guess it's just a gut feeling where it seems logically ridiculous to believe that there's no better way.

You're a better man than I for having more patience. I have something of a threshold for experimentation and innovation, and once that thershold is surpassed I start saying "stop horsing around and just use something that works". Granted, I'm being lenient with this game so far because up until Yoshida took over I haven't seen SE so much as try different things to see what sticks and what doesn't.

And goddamn I'd love to see Red Mages especially done right...

Indeed. Hopefully locking RDM to a rapier if they implement Fencer will solve half of the job's problems.

*Ahem*
Trying to get back into the topic, if you want to add complexity to magic then yes, spells should build on each other in some way. My original suggestion a while back was build up mechanics per element (back then, I was under the assumption BLM would get all elements like they normally do). Something like opening with Burn on a mob to give them a DoT effect, then having all fire spells gain bonus damage from Burn being on the target mob. On ocassion you get a proc that makes, say, Flare instant-cast and reduces the MP cost of Flare by 25% (assuming Flare would be a very expensive spell that will quickly drain you of MP if used outside of procs). Add a mechanic where you get MP back (either by a proc that can be consummed instead of using it on the instant-cast Flare). Add Meltdown as a modified spell that decreases physical and magic defense by 5%.

Thus, BLM's gameplay if they like Fire would be using Fire spells comboing into each other (Fire => Fira => Firaga => Firaja), keeping Burn up on the target to up personal DPS, keep Meltdown up on the target to increase raid DPS, if they get their proc they can throw in Flare, if short on MP they can consume their proc to get MP back instead of using it on Flare.

Problem is, this is just one element out of six. Playing to the elemental wheel is very risky because then you make things very complicated with little reward in return.

I guess we could try to change things to make the elements interact with each other, though. Open with Frost (increases ice resistance but decreasing fire resistance) for the DoT effect but the effect has charges. Like say, Frost when afflicting a mob has 4 charges, thus boosts incoming fire damage 4 times before the effect has to be applied again. Can still have stuff like Meltdown as a debuff to be applied by the BLM.

Of course, if left as an open debuff, that means a BLM can use Frost, then 4 BLMs can volley Firaja on the mob to consume the debuff and do a ton of damage at the same time. By the same token, if Regise the BLM is setting up his fire combo to consume all 4 Frost charges, but Duelle the Red Mage comes in and uses the Fencer-derived Flame Thrust in the middle of Regise's casting, Duelle ends up denying Regise part of his potential damage. I'd still like to see the ancient magic-type spells as spells that should realistically be used within procs but can be used outside of procs for a higher resource cost.

[Shurrikhan]

I think I got something!

Btw, just to clarify, things like Burn already covered a lot of that function. Somehow I assumed that people would get that off the technical details (i.e. plasma medium, Burn flame potency, etc), because I'm dense.

Take this for an example: the more fire damage you use at one time (treating dps as an actual live number; the derivative is as important as the damage itself), the more heat is produced in that moment, dissipating thereafter (with the dissipation reduced by adding more heat [both by slightly resetting timers and by the obvious fact that heat is added]. I could rack up heat so that each application of heat is improving the next in a steady barrage before heat is lost. I could have the full party blast one, then sustain the lingering damage of the cast with Bio--Aeroga with all that damage over time being dealt at high burn and without escaping the Bio.

Lengthier example:
When attacking 5 enemies with 5 casters [4 Conj, 1 Thaum] I could soak the middle one first, blast him with lightning for high heat enough to evaporate the water into steam, set him on fire while the heat's still up, Aeroga at different overlapping fields across mobs at high heat to distribute burning to the others, Dia the one in the middle, turning the overlapping fields into a larger, sustained whirlwind, use the basic fire spell into the AoE system periodically to conserve stamina, then Thundara the outside 4 with one cast on each, to bring them up to a heat enough to hit the plasma medium, swapping all heat to the middle through Thunder paired with the Dia, swapping to Bio during the cast, literally blowing up the first target for disintegrated armor damage and leaving blood.

From there, something like...
Cast Reflect on the system (designated by Bio), then blast Thunder from near the remaining 4 enemies to rebound the lightning damage + heat onto the other 4 enemies (who's heat will have only been at plasma medium for a split second or two). Finish them off, mostly doable by the damage over time over the next two seconds...

Or, taking advantage of the blood:
Target the other 4 from within the Bio, cast Water at them, extracting the full heat under water medium (heat will cause it to change mediums on next interaction [Bio delayed that]), getting heat through that way for increased fire damage and the damage over time until heat dissipates.

A lot of random shit thrown in there, including a returned stamina measurement (more like FFXIII alpha ATB than anything FFXIV's used), Reflect, and that Dia acts as a drawing center for nearby spells in addition to dealing damage over time based on Light and Bio holds a system in place while dealing damage over time based on lack of Light. But, that's just an example of gameplay.

Things like Meltdown would come from melting enemy armor, more literally. Plasma and very hot water, especially with solid mass in it (prior earth spells melted), would do well for that.

As for MP returns... I think that would come from something like elements within the caster's mind as well. Kind of like... Mindsets fulfilled by TP, that could be extracted for some purpose. I'll keep going when I get back, hopefully with this more clear to me. Sorry I only have a few minutes to write this. I'm sure it shows in the quality. : (

(Other members put off departure for a bit.)
**Yes, this is by now departing from the original idea, separate. I'm trying to create the place it fits in a larger picture that's still vague to me, and this came up when writing what I saw. This won't come up in any serious posts until I've at least mostly completed that "full picture".

My only point here was that at least a WoW-equivalent level of intricacy can be achieved from use of the smaller factors. Paired with angles, and enemy AI responses to derivative damage-dealing (the intensity over time), elements, and patterns of attack, it can be more than WoW-level.

If I also add in mechanics that have each member of the team trying to fulfill their own production of power as well, rather than being identical in both group (large-scale) and individual (small-scale) purpose, it can go way beyond that even. However, I wouldn't gun for that except coincidentally. I'm looking for aspects of the game to fit every part of it, such that each piece fits the whole as to be greater than the sum, etc, etc.