Famitsu Interview with FF developers

[Blackbrock]

when will they realize the only reason people cast thunder on shit is because it's the highest tiered nuke and their elemental magic system is extremely unbalanced?

Making more mobs that resist thunder = stupid
Making all elements of magic equal and then applying strength/weakness according to mob type = winrar.

Would you say as soon as you get Stone II, It's strength is equal to when you get Thunder II 20 levels later? Sure, All elemetal magic of the same tier being the same strength looks great when you're at endgame, but it would mess up the leveling scheme.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that equal-strength magic would be the best way to make mages diversify instead of everybody casting the same thing, however it would affect Johnny McZam who is leveling his 42BLM, and SE is scared to do that because it still thinks that people leveling lower level jobs matter for some reason.

AM2 all being equal strength is a great start though, I'm not sure what else they'll do though.

So fix it so that all tier spells are received the same level. Works fine for smn at 10, 60, 70.

[Delekii]

Contrary to popular belief, not everything is weak to ice/thunder BRP. It's true for XP mobs, certainly, but if you look at the overall list of weaknesses, a lot of the stuff you never fight have varied elemental resistances.

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:b67 ... =clnk&cd=1

lol@elemental resistance.

unless you are fighting a HNM, resistance means positively shit. i forget who's sig it is, but it goes something like
1. Look at my oponent
2. Work out elemental weakness and strength
3. Cast thunder4

Im assuming you are talking about things which flat out reduce damage to certain elements like gigas, undead, etc, but they are very few and far between. Everything else is "weak" to thunder and ice because blms have so much gear available that resists can be kept to negligable levels, and with the base damage differences, it isnt worth casting on elemental weakness, as the ratio of resist vs the damage difference makes it so.

I would _love_ it if they overhauled the system as people are saying to:
-Even out the element strengths (give nukes in tiers, tier1-1 ga1-10 2-20 ga2-30 3-40 ancient-50 ga3-60 4-70 ancient2-merit)
-Make every mob in the game have NOTICABLE elemental strengths and weaknesses, so that casting the correct element/s gives a considerable boost, and casting the incorrect element/s gives a considerable detriment, while leaving the other element/s usuable but not strong.

This would mean that BLM's would have to think a lot harder to get the most out of their abilities, but still leave them as useful as they are now provided they can do so. It would also mean that merits would actually leave BLM's being different, and equally useful in different situations (a wind/water blm would be great on kirin and suzaku, but useless on the other gods.. etc).

[BRP]

Contrary to popular belief, not everything is weak to ice/thunder BRP. It's true for XP mobs, certainly, but if you look at the overall list of weaknesses, a lot of the stuff you never fight have varied elemental resistances.

[[removed]]

lol@elemental resistance.

unless you are fighting a HNM, resistance means positively shit. i forget who's sig it is, but it goes something like
1. Look at my oponent
2. Work out elemental weakness and strength
3. Cast thunder4

Im assuming you are talking about things which flat out reduce damage to certain elements like gigas, undead, etc, but they are very few and far between. Everything else is "weak" to thunder and ice because blms have so much gear available that resists can be kept to negligable levels, and with the base damage differences, it isnt worth casting on elemental weakness, as the ratio of resist vs the damage difference makes it so.

I do believe he was being sarcastic.

[Ferien]

Contrary to popular belief, not everything is weak to ice/thunder BRP. It's true for XP mobs, certainly, but if you look at the overall list of weaknesses, a lot of the stuff you never fight have varied elemental resistances.

[[[removed]]]

lol@elemental resistance.

unless you are fighting a HNM, resistance means positively shit. i forget who's sig it is, but it goes something like
1. Look at my oponent
2. Work out elemental weakness and strength
3. Cast thunder4

Im assuming you are talking about things which flat out reduce damage to certain elements like gigas, undead, etc, but they are very few and far between. Everything else is "weak" to thunder and ice because blms have so much gear available that resists can be kept to negligable levels, and with the base damage differences, it isnt worth casting on elemental weakness, as the ratio of resist vs the damage difference makes it so.

Our point being that it shouldn't work that way. The elemental weaknesses that all mobs have should be more important than they are right now, because the way it works right now, all that matters is what you just said:

1. Look at my oponent
2. Work out elemental weakness and strength
3. Cast thunder4

The argument here is not that BLMs are stupid for doing that, but that SE is stupid for making the system such that all weaknesses are negated by the fact that the next spell's base damage more than makes up for the extra damage you get by exploiting a weakness.

[Charla]

It was geno's sig, although someone else said it. And it was 4 lines and a bit funnier, but that's the gist of it.

edit- here it was, right on the first page

Coephoros wrote:
Steps for my BLM:

1. Determine the mob's weakness.
2. Gauge the mob's resist levels.
3. Examine the weather.
4. Cast Thunder IV.

[NynJa]

Remember when casting Fire on a fire based mob in previous Final Fantasy games not only neglected to deal damage, but it actually healed the mob ? Remember when casting Thunder on a water based mob, it would fuck shit up realllllllllly bad ?

Why get rid of that, it actually made elemental weakness something to keep an eye out for.

[Rocl]

You gave them so much pleasure it killed them, obviously.

[Khamsin]

- will find ways to encourage WAR not to subjob NIN. (Sucks to be WAR with full axe merit.)

They didn't say nerf /NIN. They said encourage WARs not to subjob NIN.

They did that with the SAM adjustments. It's an encouragement to use other subs (such as /SAM with g.axe). /NIN and dual axe is still as good as ever, and will continue to be so.

As far as nukes, they could simply buff mob resistance levels so that casting Thunder on something not weak to thunder will resist half the time to a fully meritted BLM with full skill gear. Casting something it is strong to will resist all the time, and casting something it is weak to will never resist.

[Shezard]

Well all suggestions were good, but there is one thing that would make it just simple and wouldn't change really much in general.

As we all know some mobs got a weakness against a special element. But due to the fact that the higher the Tier spell+Thunder>Bliz>Fire>Wind...it won't change anything unless the mob resists Thunder and bliz and w/e.
But there is one little thing that would change every BLMs mind NOT to cast Thunder at all times. What does Ele skill+ Gear really do? It lowers the chance of the mob to resist your spell. But in fact an unresisted Spell always deals a fix amount of DMG. But what if you just give Spells, which the Mob is weak too, a base DMG Bonus, like it would be a Magic Burst? Plus giving even more Bonus DMG on a Magic Burst itself. Like Thunder IV doing 1200 DMG on Fafnir, with MB doing 1500 on Fafnir. While Water IV only deals around 900 DMG and 1100 on MB. So what if you get an extra Bonus because you used Water? Like Water IV itself dealing 1100 DMG plus Magic Burst dealing 1450~ DMG. Well...sure it would now deal same DMG as Thunder IV...but with the difference...you use less MP, for same DMG, and can effectively switch between spells now, w/o losing DMG. This wouldn't change that much for BLMs in general, but it would give BLMs a REASON to use lower Ele Spells instead of just using Thunder and Bliz everytime.

Ok...we are switching between Spells on HNMs anyway...no matter if DMG sucks or not. Only for the purpose to not let the HNM built too much Resistance on one Element. So we switch between Thunder and Water all the time on Fafhogg, or Blizzard and Thunder on KB. Only Aspi gets Bliz spells only, but hes lolGenbusbrother...so...

My Advice...just let Spells deal bonus DMG if the mob is weak to the element. Thats basically it and would be enough.

[LD]

I agree that adjustments to the potency of elemental affiliations would not only force BLM to devirsify, but enrich the game, cuz those elemental WSs might actually be worth a damn.

In all seriousness, this game does need a bit more old-school, FF-style nazi resists, immunities, Supaa-Mega Weaknesses, and absorbs.
The Puk suggests that they're at least considering it on a larger scale; Puk are currently the only exp mob that absorb elemental damage (wind), so this machanic might soon express itself more often (Avatars don't count. >:p )

[Toth]

Am I the only FF vet who occasionally and absentmindedly casts Blizzard on Bombs or Fire on Ice Elementals because that's what worked from FF1-X? So many of the mobs in this game ignore established RPG weakness patterns and if you are playing another RPG at the same time, you are going to really screw up your strategies lol

[Chupunpupun]

Am I the only FF vet who occasionally and absentmindedly casts Blizzard on Bombs or Fire on Ice Elementals because that's what worked from FF1-X? So many of the mobs in this game ignore established RPG weakness patterns and if you are playing another RPG at the same time, you are going to really screw up your strategies lol

Bombs are weak to fire and even if it follows the standard pattern RPG weakness, bombs would be weak to water.

[Ferien]

Am I the only FF vet who occasionally and absentmindedly casts Blizzard on Bombs or Fire on Ice Elementals because that's what worked from FF1-X? So many of the mobs in this game ignore established RPG weakness patterns and if you are playing another RPG at the same time, you are going to really screw up your strategies lol

Bombs are weak to fire and even if it follows the standard pattern RPG weakness, bombs would be weak to water.

But FF vets would know that there's usually only one or two water-based spells in a given FF, and that in 1-X, if you're casting Fire on a Bomb, you're either going to heal it or smack yourself for what you just did.

[FFXIFlux]

If they do that in an addition to them giving mobs +/- dmg taken when using certain spells, I'm all for it.

Otherwise, hi2u casting thunder on all mobs because it does the most dmg.

In otherwords you want every spell to be exactly the fucking same except the animation? FFXI has a relativly generic magic system as it is, make all the elemental nukes the same then whats the point of even having them?

Yes, make mob resistance mean a bit more than it does now, but make all nukes the same, dumbest idea ever.

This horse is dead, but just to reiterate: making players weaker is not a way of balancing shit.

Because stronger players are needed to kill 3 year old content even faster.

Whatever they do I hope they don't go back to their brilliant idea of job balancing with new mobs like Cerberus and Hydra and besieged with the 80% magic damage reduction.

[Toth]

Bombs were such fun in FFIV. Since there was no Water, you had to cast Blizzard for the best damage. I still to this day do not understand why Bombs have a weakness to fire. They're made of it!

[LD]

Uh, yea this has been botherin' me for a while..


Flux, what job do youy play?

[Gasgul]

cast aero or do a detonation on a puk, same thing,

edit: mh what LD said,

[Lordwafik]

In otherwords you want every spell to be exactly the fucking same except the animation? FFXI has a relativly generic magic system as it is, make all the elemental nukes the same then whats the point of even having them?

Read my whole quote.

On a neutral mob, yes, have them all the same.

Example : Fire Based mob

Takes 380 dmg from each t2 nuke for example,

Water (mob is weak to) will damage it for 418
Casting Fire on it will heal it for 380
Ice (mob is strong to) will dmg for only 342

+10%, -10%

I find this statement Ironic :

In otherwords you want every spell to be exactly the fucking same except the animation?

Because right now, we have the same spell, period. I'd be more than welcome to have someone casting stone and it doing good dmg.

[Palom]

Am I the only FF vet who occasionally and absentmindedly casts Blizzard on Bombs or Fire on Ice Elementals because that's what worked from FF1-X? So many of the mobs in this game ignore established RPG weakness patterns and if you are playing another RPG at the same time, you are going to really screw up your strategies lol

hehe. I got a chuckle out of that. I spent my first few trips up to Ru'Aun Gardens casting nothing but Water IV, Flood, and Water III on Fire Elementals before I realized that Thunder IV was better (still have never cast Blizzard on one).

But with regard to the elemental properties, when the first "nerf BLM" shouts started really cropping up (right after the RNG nerf), I was hoping Square would have been smart about it by making elemental weaknesses actually prominent. Instead, they now give us this retarded NM resistance crap.

However, as I was thinking up about elemental resistances and spells, you have to take into consideration weaponskills and skillchain properties. THF is doomed to Distortion until Shark Bite. Let's take crabs for example at Kuftal-level. I'll give them make-believe resistances. 1.5x damage Thunder, 1.0x damage Ice, Wind, Earth, 0.5x damage Fire, 0.5x healing Water. Now, with a THF in the PT, do you sacrifice WS damage (lolShadowstitch) to be able to MB Thunder, or do you sacrifice MB damage to be able to skillchain Viper Bite/Dancing Edge? Wouldn't prominent elemental resistances further outcast certain DDs from EXP parties? Take it further and then you also run into problems with the elemental enfeebles. Choke+Shock+Burn/Frost+Rasp+Drown were a huge part of my tactics while levelling BLM. How would those be handled? What about normal enfeebles? Would Crawlers be immune to Slow/Elegy?

I think the reason we got the NM resistance BS was solely for Divine Might. If Square actually made elemental resistances count, they could easily have made each Ark Angel have a different elemental property and that would have completely ruined the BLM Army for it. Kirin is such a great example of shit Square did right (on more levels than one). When my LS does Kirin, one BLM tosses Quake (lower Wind resist), melees SC, then rest of the BLMs MB Aero. It's 1) teamwork, 2) using a mob's weakness, and 3) coordinating skill.

I would really like to send this suggestion to Square (through POL), but have yet to draft something adequate; mainly due to the roadblock of weaponskills/skillchains. I thought of weapons that grant weaponskills (a la relic weapons for lowbie levels), but that's something else convoluted in its own right. BLM was the job I started on 3 years ago, and I really hate what it's become (hi2u taru BLMs, "lol I MPK'd the whole mage line pulling hate"). I wish something would be done to put more skill back into it... and I really want to strangle all the BLMs that can't toss a fucking Choke for the melees before nuking Thunder IV.

lol1postnub....

[FFXIFlux]

Uh, yea this has been botherin' me for a while..


Flux, what job do youy play?

Let me take a wild guess, you have 0-1 jobs at 75.

Read my whole quote.

On a neutral mob, yes, have them all the same.

Dumbest idea ever.

As someone else pointed out already it doesn't suit progression, or would you have level 0 worms casting 120 damage Stone 1 spells, or level 1 BLM with 20 MP not able to cast their 37 MP Stone 1 spell?

The spells are balanced by MP. Thunder 4 is 171, Stone 4 is 138. If mobs have elemental resists that matter then smart BLM will use the right spells and outdamage the e-penis retards using Thundaga 3 all the time.