2.0: New Disciple of Magic or Spell Reform?

[Jinrya-Geki]

Still nothing from Representative's or Developer's side?

Tons of ideas and not one of them is being taken into considerations? Or atleast buffing Fire/Ice spells at the the very least?

[Shurrikhan]

Makes sense that there's no way to email these guys or their translators directly with the finished ideas, but tbh if something was finalized out of this line of thought, on our end, that's the first thing I'd want to do.

Just out of curiosity, Jinrya, if you were looking for an ideal system in general for magics, what sort of checklist would you have for it?

[Jinrya-Geki]

Makes sense that there's no way to email these guys or their translators directly with the finished ideas, but tbh if something was finalized out of this line of thought, on our end, that's the first thing I'd want to do.

Just out of curiosity, Jinrya, if you were looking for an ideal system in general for magics, what sort of checklist would you have for it?

1. Are the games casters Fun to play?
Doesn't matter if you have 1 or 10 or more. If they aren't fun to play then why have them. Black Mage only have 1 good damaging combo line is not fun. Fire and Ice should be effective.

2. Are there alot of casters? The world of magic is limitless. You can make up ANYTHING, and this isn't SEs first rodeo with casters. Why are there only two? For anyone who role-plays or just like playing casters, this game lacks it.

3. Don't limit casters. Makes a developer look lazy when you limit a caster to only a few abilities. Casters should have the most, and all of them should be useful. 15 abilities, for summoner that's gonna be half or more of their abilities just to summon, at least 8 for the elements and light and dark.

4. Make sure they are all good for different situations. Nothing is more annoying that a class that is left out of events because it's useless. Example what will blm/thm be able to do against Ramuh or Titan? Or Against a mob that spams aoes and burns summoners pets and just makes them waste MP?

5. [Are pet casters balanced to regular casters? Pet casters should be equal to or less than casters such as Black Mage considering they don't have a pet to do constant damage. I go by Everquest online adventures for the ps2 as an example. Perfect balance by the end game's life.

That was the beauty of EQOA, it had a ton of caster class. Sure some of the abilities were the same, but most of the abilities were not.

Wizard had 1 sec cast/recast, had all element aoes, and single target spells. They later got Master class of sorcerer that had unresistable aoes so you could use fire on fire mobs.

Necromancer summoned all different kinds of undead. They had fire spells that had some damage of time spells, while having purely damage of time spells that ticked faster and hard. They could charm undead. Their Master class allowed them to have the best pet in game, swarming death. It could keep itself alive, and the necromancer can heal it. The Necromancer was also a good back up healer.

Enchanter could charm any monster, and for a long time. The most was an hour I believe. Their master class allowed them to have a pet till it died. Raging Rhino (second only to the swarming death) made them unstoppable in PVP lol. They could also have enchanted armors which were good tanks when they soloed.

Magician Elemental summoner. They tied with Necromancer, and Enchanter with damage with their Djinn pet. High Melee, and high spell damage.

Shaman and Druid had spells that Cleric didn't have, but Cleric had the highest tick heals and defensive buffs.

Of course none of this wasn't perfect in the beginning. But this only took 2 years to make it this way. I am not doing it justice with how I describe it, it's better. This game is is almost on it's second year and I feel casters suck just as bad as they did when they game first came out. It's not fun to be a caster.

If I were to really go by a checklist, what they did in EQOA would be my reference of what balanced and unique classes are.

[Jinrya-Geki]

In Two years they added Master classes which gave each class in the game 3 Improved classes and 1 Race Master classes.

Not only did the Master Class boost your stats, it raised the cap on them too if you picked the right ones. You also got access to powerful spells. You actually SEE the difference between a Wizard damage from a Sorcerer's damage.

This is why I am angered by SE's Job systems, it adds NOTHING. Thaumaturge can do equal damage or even more in certain situations to black mage. I was expecting something similar and it all that time waiting amounted to nothing. And now 2.0 is the only thing holding me to this game. And no one is saying anything about caster... so maybe waiting another half a year or more to find out, when a game that was out for almost 8 or more years did somethign sooner and better. Are you serious!?

[Shurrikhan]

My personal checklist:

1. Does magic seem to work in a system of its own, that can be realistically taken advantage of?
And here by realistically I kind of mean 'freely'. No excessive or unrealistic lockouts. It should work as physics work for an engineer, or as close to that as can be put in a game.

2. Is that system interesting?
Does it feel like magic? And within that question, does it feel like both an understandable or exact and purely intuitive or humanistic and mysterious force depending on how you look at it? Do the questions within magic, even down into theory crafting, match or feel tangential to the questions one can ask about the world? Is it expansive? Can it be crossed?

3. [More general than magic-specific] Does you understanding of the art make you feel like you have a niche?
And that goes beyond just how you fit into a group...

4. Is it fun to play?
Whether the game uses action-bars or something less conventional, does it feel fun in pairing attention to execution of spells, to noticing your environment, to figuring out what to use? Which leads to --

5. Is there enough complexity in choice?
Even if you have the most complex and vast choice-work in how you gain your abilities, or the sources they come from or their means of output, if they all do the same thing the difference is overwhelmed, blurred, dismal. I think this, especially when preparing for the long run, has more to do with the choices made in creating a magic system than balancing fights. Inversely, the nature of fights have to be complex, but that too should probably come more from a better deep-seated AI and mechanics design than individual fight crafting, aside from specific highlight (memorable or token) encounters.

____________________________________________________________

Additionally, more relevant to FFXIV:

There is still a place for classes even in a game that doesn't lock things out by class. In any world setting, people align with like-minded people, and that will almost certainly create certain schools of thought. These will obviously become classes.

That's the physical realm. But additionally, many, many world setting's system of magic includes a humanistic portion. Classes are commonly the archetypes within that portion, such that a player is walking the path of a past hero or past legacy.

_____________________________________________________________

None of this is exactly usable for FFXIV of course, but it was only meant to be my general checklist. It's true I put a lot of faith in backing design, but I think I've seen enough its potential and its results both to warrant that.

I do however think that the prior section's regards to classes should have been in FFXIV from the start, however, especially given the armory system. One should be able to learn any role or style with time, but things plateau and take a leap of inspiration or new perspective, as much to improve the stuck line of thought as to pursue the new one. I think even the poorly executed Skill Point and Fatigue system pointed to that originally. They just never implemented a way to replicate true learning, which honestly is incredibly hard.

_____________________________________________________________

* A clearer example of what I mean above: let's say you pick up a sword, you can learn to swing at varying speeds and strength, to parry, even to feint. In a command scheme this would be like adding abilities as you go that hold the tactical points in combat. You have your Heavy Swing, your Light Swing, etc. A Light Swing too far away can serve to keep an enemy back, a Heavy Swing cut short can serve to intimidate while conserving energy or avoiding a bait-and-sink counter. If that level of mechanics don't exist there's still rhythm, timing to interrupt or be at ready for a parry.

(Think of the command scheme as being a means of execution for what exists, rather than existing to limit or be the parameters for what you can do. Both apply eventually, but the methodology for construction is vastly difference.)

Maybe after many fights you could eventually learn how to time ducking with your dodging with your slicing. But that's an improvement on the player's part. What about character "learning"? Well, things need to get more complicated. But that means the character needs to note complexity--it already exists after all. However, it's not really something that can be evaluated on the field. There's no check we can do to see whether the player, let alone his character, has learned a difference of mindsets.

But a Gladiator guild, for instance, would have that. And it would allow tailored trademark encounters that could more or less force learning to be successful in those encounters. Through this, the player (and character) become more aware of what's backing a fight beyond the obvious. From that they can tailor themselves further. Mindsets become projections of magic. A Gladiator becomes a Paladin, or a Samurai or a Blackguard or what have you. And the options for taking learning from other classes and their styles, domains, and methodologies are always available to you for cross-classing.

A Thaumaturge might learn how to enfeeble someone through multiple methods -- be it projection (of intent), marking (fulfilling the enemy's position in a rite), or calling (divine will), or whatever else. The same kind who would use projection for cursing might also use it for conjuring heat, whether fire alone or on a spectrum between Flame and Frost. Add that to a Gladiator's mindset of keeping a cool head, a Gladiator's control of adrenaline, and training with a Rapier, and you have your Red Mage.

And, what's funny is that to keep a pure class, development only needs to include a large enough humanistic/archetypal source of magic that donning the hat, so to speak, of the Red Mage, using purely Red Mage abilities, carries a large enough bonus through whatever extra power comes from playing on its legacy to warrant skipping other spells.

[Duelle]

1. Are the games casters Fun to play?
Doesn't matter if you have 1 or 10 or more. If they aren't fun to play then why have them. Black Mage only have 1 good damaging combo line is not fun. Fire and Ice should be effective.

They took the Suikoden route of magic design, whcih means each element has a specific use. It's pretty clever if you want to condense stuff and not have clutter when it comes to abilities. Clutter happens to be something native to Final Fantasy's magic, so I wasn't so bothered by the decision.

2. Are there alot of casters? The world of magic is limitless. You can make up ANYTHING, and this isn't SEs first rodeo with casters. Why are there only two? For anyone who role-plays or just like playing casters, this game lacks it.

Black Magic, White Magic. That's it. Final Fantasy's magic was pretty much divided by these two schools, and they have been the real constants in the series, Sure, Blue Magic does exist, but is nigh uncontrollable and real hard to balance. Then comes the fact that you have to implement it in a way that makes sense. There's nothing in XIV that would make sense for Blue Magic, requiring the developers to re-imagine Blue Magic again and then implement a class for it to be built on and then actually release Blue Mage.

Personally, I think you're confusing schools of magic with fancy titles that we refer to as job names.

3. Don't limit casters. Makes a developer look lazy when you limit a caster to only a few abilities. Casters should have the most, and all of them should be useful. 15 abilities, for summoner that's gonna be half or more of their abilities just to summon, at least 8 for the elements and light and dark.

I expect Summoner to have individual action bars per avatar that's out.

4. Make sure they are all good for different situations. Nothing is more annoying that a class that is left out of events because it's useless. Example what will blm/thm be able to do against Ramuh or Titan? Or Against a mob that spams aoes and burns summoners pets and just makes them waste MP?

Situational play sucks and will regardless exclude someone. The answer is to make gameplay and encounters inclusive rather than exclusive.

5. [Are pet casters balanced to regular casters? Pet casters should be equal to or less than casters such as Black Mage considering they don't have a pet to do constant damage. I go by Everquest online adventures for the ps2 as an example. Perfect balance by the end game's life.

Balance should be between master and pet. If you want to do SMN vs BLM, I'd say both should be doing about the same DPS, but both bringing some form of utility that makes them nice to have around but not make either mandatory. Along of the lines of WoW, where you could bring a Warlock and a Mage and not have them overlap because despite both doing the same DPS, the Warlock would bring Blood Pact (+Stamina to the whole party) and Curse of the Elements (+Spell Damage taken on the mob) while the Mage could bring Amplify Magic (+Magic effects on a party member) and Time Warp (think Haste, but on steroids).

[Denmo]

Jinrya wants to be Red Mage again so badly.

[Jinrya-Geki]

Resonance makes the Aoe range bigger So Flare hits bosses you dont have to get close to them and you can add the dot to them to slow down bosses rgen which is better than aero and, Blizzara isn't just for raids and spamming AoE, its a utility spell that if you get to much aggro you on you can blizzara and run then sleep. Just cause you cant find more than once for the spell does not mean its not good. Learn your job.

Bumping cause I don't want to interrupt Reinhart's awesome thread. So I'll bring it here.

Congratulations you showed me what a moron you are. You obviously know nothing of black mage.

First off, Flare is a shotgun effect as I stated earlier. It's full potential damage is on you, if the mob is literally on the line between getting hit or not, the damage is gonna be crap. The DoT isn't even good. Against a boss, unless it's Mistress Mizer, is the worst spell to use. The DoT won't do jack to the boss regen because it's a boss! Enfeebles absolutely are 99.99% of the time useless. Even if it lands it will hardly to anything, the 2nd time you're just wasting time. Resonance doesn't help enough on this spell.

Blizzara, what are you not getting about how uesless this spell is? If any, and I say any damage the falls on the mob, the bind effect is removed. What does everyone do in a raid against trash mobs, hhhhhhhhhmmmm I think it's spam aoes. So the bind effect is once again, useless. The damage on Blizzara is the same as flare pitiful and not worth using in a regular fight, in a boss fight it doesn't even exist. The only time I ever used it is in the black mage AF fight.

Sleepga is exactly the same situation as Blizzara, with everyone spamming aoe on trash mobs. It's slightly more useful because of sleeping toads.

[Skies]

Jinrya I am just going to point out that I am very, very goddamn thankful for Blizzarra. I can't count the amount of times that sucker saved my life when doing leves.

[yukikaze_yanagi]

i think you should be more open to news, instead to force your classic blm point of view to all costs