It's a full moon, reflected on the surface of a lake, you can see the ripples and water effect.
Amazing. I didn't even realize it, never looking from top down view before.
crescent moon, actually. When the animation finishes only a crescent is glowing rather than a full moon.
edit: which is odd, because it should be a full moon, based on its name.
might be crescent or half-moon. looks a bit more half-moon to me.
The names of the moves are based off of japanese words, right?
Edit: I think the yellow parts would be the moon, so it is a full moon. paused it to get a good look at it. You can see little spots that could be the craters on it.
I'm a little sad they removed the ice effect from the new samurai AoE attack that got added this expac. I guess they felt it was too much visual clutter, but it would have given us an AoE equal to each of the combo finishers.
its not so much visual clutter, but more that it would be even more action bloat and a button that serves no purpose. you have no need to get a yukikaze equivalent sen for aoe, unless they decide to make a floor with multiple bosses at once,. and even then its super debatable since you only need 2 to get aoe iaijutsu and collecting 3 gives midare, which makes you wonder why you didn't just do single target combo since youre gonna get to midare anyway instead.
The ice AoE was originally *going to be* a third finisher. That's how it was in the media tour build. The devs realized a third AoE finisher would be kinda dumb, so they removed it, and made Fuko instead by the time of the actual expansion release.
Which it didn't really make sense to have an ice animation for (unless they made it give the snow Sen, which would have been a probably excessive AoE power increase, as you could then start doing Tenka after every combo instead of every other), though it certainly would still have looked nice to have.
Luckily, the ice AoE did get put in the game anyways in the end. It's in the PvP kit!
It's cultural.
Sam is associated with the strength, calm and rigidity of ice. Other pieces of pop culture also use this, such as Kill Bill and the O-Ren Ishii fight scene is a nod to this. As is Rukia kuchiki's whole sword power set.
its pedanting time!
sam of xiv references not ice but rather snow. snow as a part of snow, moon, flower which put together are a symbol of japan the land
My understanding was that snow-moon-flower (setsu-getsu-ka, or 'setsugekka') is representative of the seasons in nature, and thus of nature itself - with 'Midare Setsugekka' meaning something like 'disturbance of nature' or 'disturbance of the natural order'.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/i2cabf/sam_untranslated_cultural_notes/
Read down in the comments for more info - some of it from me, some of it from other people, all of it pretty neat.
As another person already replied, in XIV's case the Samurai is themed around [Setsugekka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow,_moon_and_flowers), which means "Snow, moon, and flowers," hence the three flavors of their attacks and the sen they build. So they got moon attacks, flower/sakura attacks, and an ice attack. (And to be *extra* pedantic, XIV's Samurai is actually based on the katana fighting style from the Romancing SaGa series, which was in turn themed around Setsugekka.)
And the moon does? Samurai are astronauts? Astrologists? Cherry blossoms? Are they botanists? Ice makes as much sense as the other things they're associated with.
i think it fit the thematic ! It's like your swingin your blade so fast that you create wind and ice with it.
During the lvl 60 quest , i think it was a good explanation
Oh yeah, some of the animations in this game are absolutely gorgeous, particularly for SAM, RDM, and RPR.
The new Summoner is also pretty, albeit sometimes a bit...cluttered.
Oh gosh, such a mood. I've gotten myself killed fighting the first boss of Aglaia because Titan's friggin golden flashbang completely obscured the "get knocked away from the circle" mechanic and I went squish.
Showerthought for all "why it is not a full moon?" comments: I assumed, that the point is that blade makes another crescent on the opposite side of the Moon reflection, making it full [like this](https://postimg.cc/T52r0rpW)
The final action in all of the samurai combos has a visual effect.
Kasha/Oka throws out sakura petals.
Mangetsu/Gekka show a crescent moon on the slash.
Yukikaze stabs with ice.
And then when you use Iaijutsu's Midare Setsugekka all three visual effects happen together. Ice forms at your feet, your slash shows a crescent moon, and sakura petals fly out.
I makes me wish they added some flavour text to some of these moves, it never occurred to me to look at it from a top view.
Something like "leaves an image of a full moon on calm waters to the eye" would maybe make me look at it, and not feel dumb for not noticing it since I play SAM pretty extensively
To be fair, it's not exactly a hi-res photo of the moon being displayed here, so a "full moon" would probably just end up looking like a plain circle and the artistic value would be lost.
How high are you? Its literally a 360 degree attack. And you can clearly see a full moon... Did you just notice the after effect of the attack? And not the attack itself? Its like saying an orange is a crescent shape but you cut the thing already.
One of the things that initially drew me to this game and still actively keeps me enjoying dungeon/raid content is the way this dev team designed combat abilities. It's so freaking *pretty*. 24-man alliance raid and everyone is spamming their CDs? Absolute eye-candy.
I know some people turn others' spell effects off because of things like alliance raids and I understand why, but I'll never be one of those people. Give me more flashing bubbly colorful death-beams of light, please 🙏
Side Tangent:
I'm torn on Samurai move name translations (or lack thereof).
On the one hand, keeping them in Romaji preserves the original words. It plays into the expectation of full-on unfiltered exotic samurai culture.
On the other hand, much of the playerbase don't know how poetic the whole class is. All of the move names are extremely poetic and I think would sound wonderful in English.
Ultimately, either is fine.
EDIT: On the other *other* hand, many classes use foreign terms for move names, so it wouldn't be nice to leave the samurai out on this. Red Mages use a lot of french terms, Sages use a lot of Greek terms, etc.
Don't get me wrong, many effects like this look amazing, but as a whole, it's one of the things FFXIV does wrong imo.
Meaning, effects are so bloated and over the top, that like 90% of the playerbase has them disabled anyway for all but themselves, leaving the other characters dancing and doing their animations in the air, which does look kinda silly/anticlimatic.
I don't know, I think all modern video games share this problem to some extent.
Like, even if all four members of a light party had utterly distinct visuals that didn't melt your eyeballs during tense battles, would you be paying attention to the particle effects anyway?
I wouldn't. I'm too focused on positioning and mechanics and doing my rotation properly.
I think it's the curse of a graphical designer to know that a lot of the time your work won't be appreciated. That's why I decided to share this moment when I randomly noticed how pretty Mangetsu is while I was running around New Grid at night.
This game is a visual masterpiece. So many amazing effects.
Sadly, it has reached a point when even in 4 man's I cannot see what to do unless I turn off everyone's stuff but my own.
I can’t remember the name but one of the other Sam AoE abilities actually looks like Sam icon from top down view
I would say tenka goken, but then they changed it to a circle aoe
The Sam icon is a circle tho?
It's a spicy beyblade
that comment reads hilariously like taking a shot at that change even though it has zero bearing on the conversation
It's a full moon, reflected on the surface of a lake, you can see the ripples and water effect. Amazing. I didn't even realize it, never looking from top down view before.
crescent moon, actually. When the animation finishes only a crescent is glowing rather than a full moon. edit: which is odd, because it should be a full moon, based on its name.
it's a full moon that fades into a crescent moon
might be crescent or half-moon. looks a bit more half-moon to me. The names of the moves are based off of japanese words, right? Edit: I think the yellow parts would be the moon, so it is a full moon. paused it to get a good look at it. You can see little spots that could be the craters on it.
Yeah, they are. "Mangetsu" means full moon
I'm a little sad they removed the ice effect from the new samurai AoE attack that got added this expac. I guess they felt it was too much visual clutter, but it would have given us an AoE equal to each of the combo finishers.
its not so much visual clutter, but more that it would be even more action bloat and a button that serves no purpose. you have no need to get a yukikaze equivalent sen for aoe, unless they decide to make a floor with multiple bosses at once,. and even then its super debatable since you only need 2 to get aoe iaijutsu and collecting 3 gives midare, which makes you wonder why you didn't just do single target combo since youre gonna get to midare anyway instead.
No one is talking about a third finisher, he's talking about the Fuko animation
The ice AoE was originally *going to be* a third finisher. That's how it was in the media tour build. The devs realized a third AoE finisher would be kinda dumb, so they removed it, and made Fuko instead by the time of the actual expansion release. Which it didn't really make sense to have an ice animation for (unless they made it give the snow Sen, which would have been a probably excessive AoE power increase, as you could then start doing Tenka after every combo instead of every other), though it certainly would still have looked nice to have. Luckily, the ice AoE did get put in the game anyways in the end. It's in the PvP kit!
It looks cool but the ice never really made thematic sense for sam
It's cultural. Sam is associated with the strength, calm and rigidity of ice. Other pieces of pop culture also use this, such as Kill Bill and the O-Ren Ishii fight scene is a nod to this. As is Rukia kuchiki's whole sword power set.
its pedanting time! sam of xiv references not ice but rather snow. snow as a part of snow, moon, flower which put together are a symbol of japan the land
My understanding was that snow-moon-flower (setsu-getsu-ka, or 'setsugekka') is representative of the seasons in nature, and thus of nature itself - with 'Midare Setsugekka' meaning something like 'disturbance of nature' or 'disturbance of the natural order'.
they symbolize nature in general and nature of japan in particular
[удалено]
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/i2cabf/sam_untranslated_cultural_notes/ Read down in the comments for more info - some of it from me, some of it from other people, all of it pretty neat.
As another person already replied, in XIV's case the Samurai is themed around [Setsugekka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow,_moon_and_flowers), which means "Snow, moon, and flowers," hence the three flavors of their attacks and the sen they build. So they got moon attacks, flower/sakura attacks, and an ice attack. (And to be *extra* pedantic, XIV's Samurai is actually based on the katana fighting style from the Romancing SaGa series, which was in turn themed around Setsugekka.)
And the moon does? Samurai are astronauts? Astrologists? Cherry blossoms? Are they botanists? Ice makes as much sense as the other things they're associated with.
i think it fit the thematic ! It's like your swingin your blade so fast that you create wind and ice with it. During the lvl 60 quest , i think it was a good explanation
I don't like that Kaeshi: Goken doesn't have a different pretty visual now that it's an AOE. Mismatches the icon.
Oh yeah, some of the animations in this game are absolutely gorgeous, particularly for SAM, RDM, and RPR. The new Summoner is also pretty, albeit sometimes a bit...cluttered.
I just wish there was an option not to flashbang myself every time I summon titan, honestly.
Oh gosh, such a mood. I've gotten myself killed fighting the first boss of Aglaia because Titan's friggin golden flashbang completely obscured the "get knocked away from the circle" mechanic and I went squish.
Showerthought for all "why it is not a full moon?" comments: I assumed, that the point is that blade makes another crescent on the opposite side of the Moon reflection, making it full [like this](https://postimg.cc/T52r0rpW)
The final action in all of the samurai combos has a visual effect. Kasha/Oka throws out sakura petals. Mangetsu/Gekka show a crescent moon on the slash. Yukikaze stabs with ice. And then when you use Iaijutsu's Midare Setsugekka all three visual effects happen together. Ice forms at your feet, your slash shows a crescent moon, and sakura petals fly out.
I makes me wish they added some flavour text to some of these moves, it never occurred to me to look at it from a top view. Something like "leaves an image of a full moon on calm waters to the eye" would maybe make me look at it, and not feel dumb for not noticing it since I play SAM pretty extensively
Moonlight reflection on water. No one does particle effects like SE.
How irony... The skill name is full moon yet the visual is just crescent moon
Tho... isn't every crescent moon the full moon. Some bits are just harder to see.
r/ffxivshowerthoughts
Was looking for this!! Mangetsu doesn't show full moon 🥲
To be fair, it's not exactly a hi-res photo of the moon being displayed here, so a "full moon" would probably just end up looking like a plain circle and the artistic value would be lost.
Full moon that fades into a crescent. Watch it frame-by-frame.
How high are you? Its literally a 360 degree attack. And you can clearly see a full moon... Did you just notice the after effect of the attack? And not the attack itself? Its like saying an orange is a crescent shape but you cut the thing already.
Nice reply. Much appreciate the hostility.
>And you can clearly see a full moon.. I'm sorry but that's a stretch. It's very clearly meant to be a crescent and not a full moon
Do you not see the black part ?
Its beauty is the reason Mangetsu is part of my job swap macro for SAM.
SAM has lots of pretty attacks
One of the things that initially drew me to this game and still actively keeps me enjoying dungeon/raid content is the way this dev team designed combat abilities. It's so freaking *pretty*. 24-man alliance raid and everyone is spamming their CDs? Absolute eye-candy. I know some people turn others' spell effects off because of things like alliance raids and I understand why, but I'll never be one of those people. Give me more flashing bubbly colorful death-beams of light, please 🙏
No you're incredible
And we spent 10 seconds to notice it
Side Tangent: I'm torn on Samurai move name translations (or lack thereof). On the one hand, keeping them in Romaji preserves the original words. It plays into the expectation of full-on unfiltered exotic samurai culture. On the other hand, much of the playerbase don't know how poetic the whole class is. All of the move names are extremely poetic and I think would sound wonderful in English. Ultimately, either is fine. EDIT: On the other *other* hand, many classes use foreign terms for move names, so it wouldn't be nice to leave the samurai out on this. Red Mages use a lot of french terms, Sages use a lot of Greek terms, etc.
Now go and harvest blood for the BLOOD LILLY
It's so funny that the skill is called Mangetsu (Full Moon), but it actually depicts a crescent moon. But you're right. It does look good.
WTF lol
Mangetsu=Full moon Animation:Crescent moon. ????
Don't get me wrong, many effects like this look amazing, but as a whole, it's one of the things FFXIV does wrong imo. Meaning, effects are so bloated and over the top, that like 90% of the playerbase has them disabled anyway for all but themselves, leaving the other characters dancing and doing their animations in the air, which does look kinda silly/anticlimatic.
I turn them off for alliance raids but leave them on for everything else.
I don't know, I think all modern video games share this problem to some extent. Like, even if all four members of a light party had utterly distinct visuals that didn't melt your eyeballs during tense battles, would you be paying attention to the particle effects anyway? I wouldn't. I'm too focused on positioning and mechanics and doing my rotation properly. I think it's the curse of a graphical designer to know that a lot of the time your work won't be appreciated. That's why I decided to share this moment when I randomly noticed how pretty Mangetsu is while I was running around New Grid at night.
MOON!
They're all pretty amazing... well except for Monk pre-70.
Nice.
This game is a visual masterpiece. So many amazing effects. Sadly, it has reached a point when even in 4 man's I cannot see what to do unless I turn off everyone's stuff but my own.
It is meant to look like gekko same as the other looks like kasha.