Elemental Weakness and ResistanceFollow

Or, you know, you could also just agree that the ele wheel is a tired and boring concept. I mean we agree on that, right? So why is SE getting bashed? because their reasons weren't good enough? I'm happy to see it go in lieu of interesting spell mechanics.

First they took away the multiple tiers of each spell to add depth. Now they are taking away elemental weaknesses to add depth. God forbid one mage be more proficient at casting a certain spell versus another mage provided they built their character towards that strength. With the endless choices of potency and wide selection of spells BLM has now. There will never be cases of spamming certain hotkeys.

***** lore, ***** hard to balance(it's their job to balance), ***** the laws of physics. When it comes down to actual combat, I want depth. If this new system can provide that and not dumb things down. I can roll with it. But on the surface it's not looking good.

Edited in this:
The problem they are foreseeing is blm being the go to gunner for certain content. The real problem they need to fix so blm doesn't become that. Is to balance enemy weaknesses. There is always a go to job that edges out others in other areas.

Problem:
Melee get hurt more often by AoE because they need to be close to enemy.
Solution:
Give buffing jobs stronger protective buffs to cast on melees.

Problem:
Certain enemies are weaker to thunder than weapon damage or other spells.
Solution:
Balance those enemies so that even if one blm spell does more damage than other blm spells. The damage from other types of damage on other jobs is equally effective depending on what skills they use.

Problem:
Melee are shunned from certain content due to an enemy tearing their hit points to shreds versus barely touching ranged melee and magic users.
Solution:
Stop making enemies one dimensional. There should be no safe zone if your in the line of fire or top of the hate threshold. That gives purpose to the tanks and support to keep your *** alive. And it gives your ranged damage purpose to stay even keel.

Edited, May 31st 2013 9:18am by sandpark

Exactly.. White mage is supposed to be bad at soloing. Otherwise classes will be downplayed and ignored. Jobs supposed to kick *** in party but lack at soloing. And classes supposed to kick *** at soloing but lack in defined party play.

Sure I don't see an issue with white mage getting Holy spells or some offensive capability though.

There's much more to say on this topic but I can't help but feel it's moot. We're arguing over things that are far beyond our capacity to change at this point regardless of the continuation of the conversation or not. If this issue is a game-breaker for you, I'm sorry.

However, I can see the virtues in what they are doing, especially given the lore and mechanical paths they've taken. If they were to implement the elemental wheel with the current skill distribution - Black and White Mages would become opposing party slots, with White Mage having a significant advantage due to being a healer on top of having half the elemental wheel to themselves. And taking it from them destroys the job in canon, while at the same time makes Black Mage even more overpowered than it was in 1.0's version.

You'd have to do more than redesign the classes. You'd practically have to redesign the game's history and at that point it's not about recreating the game so much as the entire world, past present and future. Ignoring the fact that I'm personally not ok with that, it's just not feasible or practical.

We can butt our heads against each other and the wall on this all we like, but it won't do much of anything.

Rather than argue over each specific point, I'd rather encourage changes that add depth and richness without flat out going 'doitoveragain!' to SE.

What I would like to see as developments with the current elemental system:

Instead of elemental strength/weakness tabs being the control over which spell to use. I'd like to see more versatility in how the Disciples of Magic can be played. When we look back at 1.0, we can see that in Melee there were builds that emphasized critical hits, and some builds that just pushed for base stats and attack.

For example, Fire could be a raw DPS element that favors dependable DPS off of base stats and not much variance to damage, where Lightning can be high-risk, high-reward with heavy modifications on critical attack, but lower base damage. Then, as players start off, they can chose whether or not they want to build a specific path to help their entry level performances, or simply have one preferred style for that class/job combination.

There is more depth to be had than the simple rock-paper-scissors method of elements that again, seems to be quite overused in RPGs and I'm glad the concept is being challenged here. I was leery at first but I'm slowly getting more excited as to how all this is going to play out.

I'd love to see some kind of elemental affinity stance for all casting jobs. When you toggle it on, you gain the pluses and minuses of normal resistances: for instance Ifrit becomes extra susceptible to Ice and absorbs Fire, but none of the additional effects activate (burns for fire, freeze or slow for ice, etc). When you toggle it off, the affinities reset and you get normal damage from spells plus the added effects. This way, no job is outcast by having only certain elemental spells, but in certain circumstances can click it on or off and excel based on the content being fought.

It adds a layer of depth to combat for mage classes, as well as some strategy. You could even have it set up so that if more than 1 person in a party activates the affinity mode, you only get an 80% effectiveness, and so on down the line (3=50%, 4=25%, 5=10%) so that you don't just get a party full of blms in elemental mode spamming fire spells against Shiva.

I'm sure there are some holes in this idea, but I think it would be an interesting way to still incorporate resistances without breaking the game.

Black mages are opposing party slots in every FF. They even are named by opposite colors. The overpowering of spells by sub class can be overcome by granting specific traits to native jobs or classes only. Black mages are overpowered due to enemy design not the job itself.


Well the thing is, all of these improvements can be added in harmony with the elemental weakness traits. There is nothing to prevent this.

Initially I had included it with melee also, for weapons with elemental properties on them. I suppose it would work almost the same way as with mages, and you could even add in stuff to the weapons like if its toggled off, the weapons gain "Additional Effect: Burn" etc with a % based chance of proc. I think something like this would add a great deal of strategy to the game.

A class that has access to the entirety of the flavor of the month weaponskill is overpowered because it is always left with an avenue to exploit. If the exploitation is ineffectual then the use of that weaponskill itself is moot.


Even a very small exploit in a certain element is not moot if you built your character in that particular element. If the only aspect was damage then you might have a point. Make those spells have additional properties such as Bartel and you yourself suggested. Monotony is having single tiers of spells and hitting the same button over and over. If you have to select from multiple choices depending on the situation, there in lies depth. A decayable rate alleviates the need to spam as well.

Enemy design is the driving force behind what is overpowered or not, not the class design. If someone puts all their eggs in one basket for say Thunder. And every enemy is not weak to thunder or some absorb it. The thunder which was your strength in the last encounter becomes nulled in the current encounter. Just do not make the difference in power so grandiose between each element. That would lead to parties excluding or including you based off that. Create a balanced global enemy design where weaknesses differ and it balances the rest of the world.

My fear (along with Kachi) is that I don't think SE is challenging this notion as much as they are omitting it; taking the path of least resistance.

I hope I'm wrong and in the end if a non-elemental system works I'm not going to keep crying about this.

But, like Bartelx stated a FF game has things like elements and tiered spells and these are things that are almost as important as moogles and chocobo.

Also its probably been stated but this is the (obvious) key factor why RDM isn't around.

In the end although I am slightly surprised and somewhat disappointed, I also think that this could be a great opportunity to create something new; put a new spin on RDM, and other classes if and when they do come out. I just hope Yoshi seizes this and is challenging this system rather than doing nothing.

I think your suggestions are great and would leave the spirit of an elemental system but change things up a bit.

I'm actually interested in what a RDM would look like without En-spells.

Gah, I am going to get sucked into do it, aren't I? Awell...



You say it sarcastically, but you're catching on at least. First Order Operators, is the term. The elemental system creates FAR more opportunities for them than a weapon-skill system, however, though it's just as suspect.




The damage curve isn't needed in this circumstance, however, and all it does is fight against the very mechanics suggested in terms of priority. Again all your 'small exploit' at that point serves is to needlessly expand your spell list. For an elemental damage system to be a matter of relevance, it has to be significant. Otherwise it simply dosen't need to exist. There are better ways at that point to make the elements stand out, as been suggested.



You keep mentioning enemy design and class design as if they are relevant components to the discussion as a separation. We're talking system design. The moment you really separate the two you lose ground on the argument.

When you design an enemy, you are effectively designing with or against the core system mechanics you designed.

Elemental wheels create a very regimented set of exploits within the core system itself. No matter how many times you design mechanics create gateways, the elemental system always boils it down to your base damage equations, and the fact that they have a capitalizing modifier. You would have to design mechanics specifically against the very exploit you designed in the system to begin with, every time, without fail. To balance that out with encounter design.

That's a lot of unnecessary work for the illusion of combat depth, and your player base is going to see right through it and pick the first order operators anyways. In the case of a class with the full of the elemental wheel, they are now a shoe-in against any class that does not, especially when their core design, such as Black Mage, is built purely to deal damage, and lots of it - they become that first order operator at a much higher percentage than someone who does not have the same number of short cuts through the gated system.

The best idea in encounter design (Monster design as you call it) as far as creating a dynamic and open combat idea is essentially objective based encounters. Less about meeting out the best DPS, more about meeting the side requirements in the fight that distract from and/or threaten your success or level of it. At this point, default elemental weaknesses are essentially pointless, because you can create a checklist that composes multiple options. You can instead create more global vulnerabilities for meeting the objective efficiently.

SE has already begun to display methods of combat that is dynamic and thrilling without the need of specific elemental weaknesses. Given the construct of the game's lore and how the skills are distributed between jobs, there's no real sound way of implementing elemental weaknesses without it harming other parts of its mechanics, lore, or both.

First, figure out the elemental weakness of the monsters you're fighting. Then take note of what elemental day it is. Also take note if any weather effects are taking place. Then take into account whether your gear enhances the spells you're planning on using. Then cast Thunder on it anyway.

Late to the party so this is kind of @Hyrist and @Louis

Personally, for me, the elemental wheel won't be missed. I've said many times before that it's a lazy way to promote "strategy." It's a tired mechanic that hasn't been novel since shortly after the release of Pokemon (who did much more with it than FF ever did).

Having said that, it does not create all the design problems that you're attributing to it (Hyrist). It's a perfectly legitimate strategic systems mechanic when used as intended, and is perfectly capable of working well within XIV. So yes, my beef is with the why of the decision rather than the what of it. I even agree that objective-based mechanics provide far more interesting options. But that is a matter of encounter design, and I just don't expect that we'll be getting a lot of that. At the end of the day, I don't see this as anything but dumbing down the system, even if only by a few IQ points.

So for me, I say it wouldn't be missed in lieu of a more interesting and engaging mechanism. But I don't expect to see one, nor can I see any way in which removing this mechanic is a boon to some other mechanic. Overall, I find the decision to be mostly ineffectual, but more negative than positive, and I find the reason for its removal to be yet another indication that whoever is in charge of these things is making it up as they go. Which is pretty par the course for game designers, mind you.

tl;dr: I won't miss the elemental wheel, but the reasons for its removal don't invoke much confidence in the design team's ability.