Let's revise Final Fantasy VIII's combat system

[Jotari]

So, this is just something I was randomly thinking on the bus. Final Fantasy VIII's combat system gets quite a bit of flak in some circles. People who want to be overly harsh say it's a massive boring grind fest. While people being more generally critical say it's way too easy to basically eradicate any difficulty in the game. Although I, and many others, personally do find a sense of fun in absolutely breaking a game's difficulty and have garnered a lot of fun from Final Fantasy VIII's battle system. Still, I do think it's poor design for the following reasons.

*Enemies scale to the player's level. Good in theory, but in practice this means levels are, essentially pointless. They offer no substantial increase in stats and boosts from junctionining magic gives a monumentally larger increase in power.

*Magic is a resource used to boost stats, meaning magic as an entire concept is completely useless. There is no incentive to use magic for combat when it's better spent giving stat boosts. This is even more so when you have to dedicate an entire command slot to using magic.

*Limit breaks are way too easily spammed for how powerful they are.

*You have six characters to use, but in effect, you only have three. The game's story splits the characters up and prompts you to use them, but junction swap makes it way too easy to swap absolutely everything a character as equipped. And since you can only field three characters at once, you only make three builds than are swapped among the six characters.

*GF cutscenes are unskippable. There's a boost function that turns them into a kind of mini game, but I ain't got time for that, at least for the relative level of damage they do. Which is way less than limit breaks.

*Items can't be used without junctioning a GF. This actually isn't all that bad as far as game design goes, but it's bloody stupid and wouldn't break the game if you could use items regardless.

 

Now, I have a few suggestions to fix this. The first and smallest change is to eliminate ending a turn to get a limit break. If you're low on health you can just mash circle to eventually get a limit break. I don't think this was intentionally implemented into the game. Simply make it so the rng for whether a character has a limit break or not is decided when the ATB guage fills. So skipping a turn will never allow a limit break if you don't have one already. The character needs to do something and wait before they get another roll. Suddenly limit breaks are immensely less spammable.

That's an obvious and small change. A larger change I propose is to remove magic as a resource. In Final Fantasy VIII you get, say, 8 Firagas. Meaning you can cast it 8 times. Although, instead, it means you equip it to your stats and raise a stat slightly. If you have 100, you raise it a lot. I'd remove that and make it like most games. If you learn something, you learn it once and can use it infinite times. Although there will be a standard MP system to stop high level magic making low level magic obsolete (and to stop Aura being an even bigger game breaker). Learning magic occurs in the same way, drawing it from enemies. But you only need to draw it once, and the success rate is lower. Maybe make it like pokemon where the enemy needs to be damaged to increase success. This stops magic from being useless, as it's not in competition with stat boosting. Magic still boosts stats, but to a far smaller degree too, and is more prevlent in how it effects a unit's growth long term. If you junction a powerful spell to strength, the character gets a boost to their strength growth rate. Magic is also set to a character. It can't be transferred to a different character. This helps it to feel like there are actually six different characters. In practice I think this would result in nominating one or two characters to be a mage while only getting enough magic to boost stats on the other characters. Maybe make the actual magic stat influence draw success rate.

Lastly GFs will be permanently set to characters. Well, not permanently, a rare item can be used to transfer them (like for Blades in Xenoblade Chronicles 2). This means you're forced to build a team of six characters instead of just three (although you can still pile all the resources onto three, or even one, character if you so choose, but you'll be punished for that when the story makes you play as other characters). This would necessitate the creation of some newer GFs so characters joining later in the game, like Irvine, aren't impotent from the outset.

This will make your characters less gamebreakingly strong compared to the enemies. It will encourage building your characters in different ways, instead of just making three of them interchangeable powerhouses. Magic will be useable and viable, as using it won't make your characters weaker. And since your characters aren't as crazy strong, there's more of a reason to use the high risk high reward GF attacks.  Drawing will go from tedious farming to something more akin to catching a pokemon. Alternatively the draw system could be scrapped entirely and learning spells could be done via GFs.

So yeah, that's what I'd do to try and fix Final Fantasy VIII's combat. I like the game a lot and think it's whole junctioning system is interesting. It's the kind of game I'd like to see them take a crack at again with a sequel or something (though it's one of those games where plotwise there's not a whole lot else to go with it, which would make a sequel seem a bit forced). If you have any thoughts on my thoughts or any thoughts on Final Fantasy VIII's combat system, feel free to share. I didn't really touch on refining which probably deserves a mention as it's one of the things that makes the game way to easy to break.

[Garlyle]

I've played Final Fantasy VIII back then, but I don't think I'd get myself to complete it again. Best strategy was to keep the level of your units low, while you gain a lot of magic spells to boost your stats by junctioning them with the help of your GF (Guardian Force). Problem is, this sort of grinding was boring, and without them the battles were just too long, even the random encounters. It was also very weird that you didn't had the Item command automatically equipped, compared to the job systems from previous FF installments. This was a big setback for items, as it was replaced by the draw command - leaving the other slots usually for Magic and GF. Not to mention you'll miss out on some GF if you don't have the command equipped, as a lot of them can only be drawn from enemies. Maybe you don't use the junctioned magics, but healing spells were still very much useful. Also you couldn't just farm money to buy items, you had a timely income based on your rank which was increased through tests.

Also I found myself playing the card game more than the actual game itself: trying to collect all the cards, converting them into items, then using those to get stronger stuff. At this point all I had to do is train my GF to use their abilities to get more variety of items and magic - this was better than drawing all the magic spells from the enemies itself. Difficulty did not scale with GF levels anyway. Of course the low level run was supported by the fact that boss fight gave you 0 EXP - which is an oddity by itself. You also get no exp if you turn your enemies into cards.

So to sum up all these block of text:

• Difficulty raises with level, but exp can be avoided by turning enemies into cards. Bosses give no exp.
• With more cards you can play the card game to get more from each cards.
• Meanwhile you can draw magic and GF from your enemies so you can junction them for better stats.
• Cards can be turned into more variety of items and even into magic.
• You get no money from fights, it's based only on your rank.
• Item command becomes irrelevant.

It was an interesting system, but a highly flawed one. Always having the Item command and better means to acquire them could've been a starting point. Maybe some more skills or traits for the characters to separate them better, as stats in this format didn't really matter. More interesting boss challenges could've also helped, because there's only a few of them where it was unique: X-ATM092, Diabolos and Adel. The rest was pretty much just a test of your current power. The rewards from the card system was probably too much, once you figure out how to turn them into other goods. I think nowadays it'd work better if stats were increased in junction only by the type of magic you assigned, but not by the amount of it. Also I'd drop the difficulty scaling through your current level - Final Fantasy X wasn't a difficult game, but it became quite challenging if you give yourself a couple of restrictions anyway.

[Lightcosmo]

I loved this games battle system, so I can't complain. The junction system is kinda the game, without it, it wouldn't be FFVIII.

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

So, this is just something I was randomly thinking on the bus. Final Fantasy VIII's combat system gets quite a bit of flak in some circles. People who want to be overly harsh say it's a massive boring grind fest. While people being more generally critical say it's way too easy to basically eradicate any difficulty in the game. Although I, and many others, personally do find a sense of fun in absolutely breaking a game's difficulty and have garnered a lot of fun from Final Fantasy VIII's battle system. Still, I do think it's poor design for the following reasons.

*Enemies scale to the player's level. Good in theory, but in practice this means levels are, essentially pointless. They offer no substantial increase in stats and boosts from junctionining magic gives a monumentally larger increase in power.

Levels make it so you can draw better magics. If your entire party average is 30+ for example, the enemies have their best spell lists to draw from.

*Magic is a resource used to boost stats, meaning magic as an entire concept is completely useless. There is no incentive to use magic for combat when it's better spent giving stat boosts. This is even more so when you have to dedicate an entire command slot to using magic.

I wouldn't say it's useless, things like haste are still great, Meltdown is godlike, and the concept of magic boosting stats per uses is unique, something I like about the game.

*Limit breaks are way too easily spammed for how powerful they are.

This is true, I can't disagree here.

*You have six characters to use, but in effect, you only have three. The game's story splits the characters up and prompts you to use them, but junction swap makes it way too easy to swap absolutely everything a character as equipped. And since you can only field three characters at once, you only make three builds than are swapped among the six characters.

Most FF's are like this, sadly. Take FFVI for example, so many characters and you only want to focus on like, 5?

*GF cutscenes are unskippable. There's a boost function that turns them into a kind of mini game, but I ain't got time for that, at least for the relative level of damage they do. Which is way less than limit breaks.

This is also fair enough.

*Items can't be used without junctioning a GF. This actually isn't all that bad as far as game design goes, but it's bloody stupid and wouldn't break the game if you could use items regardless.

I'm unsure on how I feel about this mechanic, really. But you don't really NEED items in this game.

 

Now, I have a few suggestions to fix this. The first and smallest change is to eliminate ending a turn to get a limit break. If you're low on health you can just mash circle to eventually get a limit break. I don't think this was intentionally implemented into the game. Simply make it so the rng for whether a character has a limit break or not is decided when the ATB guage fills. So skipping a turn will never allow a limit break if you don't have one already. The character needs to do something and wait before they get another roll. Suddenly limit breaks are immensely less spammable.

That's an obvious and small change. A larger change I propose is to remove magic as a resource. In Final Fantasy VIII you get, say, 8 Firagas. Meaning you can cast it 8 times. Although, instead, it means you equip it to your stats and raise a stat slightly. If you have 100, you raise it a lot. I'd remove that and make it like most games. If you learn something, you learn it once and can use it infinite times. Although there will be a standard MP system to stop high level magic making low level magic obsolete (and to stop Aura being an even bigger game breaker). Learning magic occurs in the same way, drawing it from enemies. But you only need to draw it once, and the success rate is lower. Maybe make it like pokemon where the enemy needs to be damaged to increase success. This stops magic from being useless, as it's not in competition with stat boosting. Magic still boosts stats, but to a far smaller degree too, and is more prevlent in how it effects a unit's growth long term. If you junction a powerful spell to strength, the character gets a boost to their strength growth rate. Magic is also set to a character. It can't be transferred to a different character. This helps it to feel like there are actually six different characters. In practice I think this would result in nominating one or two characters to be a mage while only getting enough magic to boost stats on the other characters. Maybe make the actual magic stat influence draw success rate.

Lastly GFs will be permanently set to characters. Well, not permanently, a rare item can be used to transfer them (like for Blades in Xenoblade Chronicles 2). This means you're forced to build a team of six characters instead of just three (although you can still pile all the resources onto three, or even one, character if you so choose, but you'll be punished for that when the story makes you play as other characters). This would necessitate the creation of some newer GFs so characters joining later in the game, like Irvine, aren't impotent from the outset.

This will make your characters less gamebreakingly strong compared to the enemies. It will encourage building your characters in different ways, instead of just making three of them interchangeable powerhouses. Magic will be useable and viable, as using it won't make your characters weaker. And since your characters aren't as crazy strong, there's more of a reason to use the high risk high reward GF attacks.  Drawing will go from tedious farming to something more akin to catching a pokemon. Alternatively the draw system could be scrapped entirely and learning spells could be done via GFs.

So yeah, that's what I'd do to try and fix Final Fantasy VIII's combat. I like the game a lot and think it's whole junctioning system is interesting. It's the kind of game I'd like to see them take a crack at again with a sequel or something (though it's one of those games where plotwise there's not a whole lot else to go with it, which would make a sequel seem a bit forced). If you have any thoughts on my thoughts or any thoughts on Final Fantasy VIII's combat system, feel free to share. I didn't really touch on refining which probably deserves a mention as it's one of the things that makes the game way to easy to break.

 

[Johann]

Players who find it too easy can do self-imposed challenges, at least. There are a lot of ways to do this, perhaps the most straightforward of which would be to not use the card refining ability or grind out Draw.

I really liked that the enemies scaled to level since I think experience points are dumb, as it usually means you're either too strong or too weak, and the only solution to those problems are to either run away from fights, or grind.

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Garlyle said:

Maybe you don't use the junctioned magics, but healing spells were still very much useful. Also you couldn't just farm money to buy items, you had a timely income based on your rank which was increased through tests.

No, healing spells aren't all that useful. Because you want to be in the yellow to use limit breaks.

2 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

I loved this games battle system, so I can't complain. The junction system is kinda the game, without it, it wouldn't be FFVIII.

 

Item command is one of the best in the game, as it lets you use phoenix downs and aura stones (using life to revive puts characters in the white).

2 hours ago, Johann said:

Players who find it too easy can do self-imposed challenges, at least. There are a lot of ways to do this, perhaps the most straightforward of which would be to not use the card refining ability or grind out Draw.

I really liked that the enemies scaled to level since I think experience points are dumb, as it usually means you're either too strong or too weak, and the only solution to those problems are to either run away from fights, or grind.

Like I said, scaling enemy levels is good in theory, but in practice it means avoiding all fights is just as profitable as fighting. The best solution would be to set caps on it, so bosses and enemies in later areas have a minimum level in which they can be at. Not that it'd even make a massive difference to Final Fantasy VIII, as a level 7 party could still annihilate a level 99 boss with high level magic junctioned and spamming limit breaks (this is provable as the hardest enemy in the game, Omega Weapon, doesn't scale based on level).

[Johann]

Just now, Jotari said:

Like I said, scaling enemy levels is good in theory, but in practice it means avoiding all fights is just as profitable as fighting. The best solution would be to set caps on it, so bosses and enemies in later areas have a minimum level in which they can be at. Not that it'd even make a massive difference to Final Fantasy VIII, as a level 7 party could still annihilate a level 99 boss with high level magic junctioned and spamming limit breaks (this is provable as the hardest enemy in the game, Omega Weapon, doesn't scale based on level).

Ah, but is it any better if random encounters get repetitive and boring? I think there are other ways to make them worth doing other than a growth system that is either meaningless (in FFVIII's case) or lead to the issues with experience points where you're either overpowered from overleveling, or too weak from not leveling enough.

[Jotari]

4 minutes ago, Johann said:

Ah, but is it any better if random encounters get repetitive and boring? I think there are other ways to make them worth doing other than a growth system that is either meaningless (in FFVIII's case) or lead to the issues with experience points where you're either overpowered from overleveling, or too weak from not leveling enough.

Ideally if it scales you'd never be overpowered. But if you just straight up never actually play the game then you eventually will be too weak to get past encounters.

[Johann]

Just now, Jotari said:

Ideally if it scales you'd never be overpowered. But if you just straight up never actually play the game then you eventually will be too weak to get past encounters.

I suppose the better way to frame it is that encounters should provide you, the player, with tactical experience, and potentially rewards like items or whatever that give more of a lateral growth than vertical one.

[Jotari]

2 minutes ago, Johann said:

I suppose the better way to frame it is that encounters should provide you, the player, with tactical experience, and potentially rewards like items or whatever that give more of a lateral growth than vertical one.

Well yes, combat in games should be fun and give the player some sense of achievement. But I doubt you'd find many who'd disagree with that sentiment.

[Lightcosmo]

I dont think the game has to be totally balanced. The way the game is set up, they usually expect specific strategies on certain enemies, which is totally fine.

[Jotari]

50 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

I dont think the game has to be totally balanced. The way the game is set up, they usually expect specific strategies on certain enemies, which is totally fine.

Final Fantasy VIII? Because with scant few exceptions that games strategy is as deep as "use limit breaks to destroy everything".

[Interdimensional Observer]

I'd be fine with abolishing leveling in FFVIII. Not all games are built around level progression, skills and equipment can be much more important, and fun/strategic too. FFXII has a hard mode where you're stuck at level 1 the entire game, I've heard it's workable because improving your gear and setting the right gambits is what actually matters and yet I find the game hard on its normal setting. 

Edited November 22, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[Slumber]

I'm on the "Fuck level scaling" train. A level 100 Grat isn't offering any more tactical experience than a level 1 Grat. What WOULD offer more tactical experience would be a fixed level monster that is supposed to have certain abilities and accurately scales to the section of the game you're at. You know, like 99% of other RPGs.

Level scaling with the player never works(I dare somebody to find a game that's made better by the mechanic) in RPGs, because it's never experienced the way the developers intend, and instead it almost always just dampens the feeling of character progression. Another big example besides FF8 being TES: Oblivion, where at a certain point, common bandits will just be wearing the the gear available, and you just get the feeling that "Oh, my world-saving hero character is still having trouble with common bandits. Cool." Same shit happens in FF8, albeit a bit less egregious.

Edited November 22, 2019 by Slumber

[Lightcosmo]

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

Final Fantasy VIII? Because with scant few exceptions that games strategy is as deep as "use limit breaks to destroy everything".

Sure, GeroGero, Red Giant, to name a few. So it's geared to more casual players, nothing wrong with that. I mean, if your junctions are wrong, and you don't understand the limit mechanics, your going to have a tough time. I prefer the game not being designed like others like FFXII for example, where your fighting Yiazmat for... way to long. Or fighting the Esper's and by "fighting", I mean slinging potions and Phoenix downs trying to stay in the game. Or the Judges in the Trial map, where to begin with how poorly setup that fight is.

Edited November 22, 2019 by lightcosmo

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

Sure, GeroGero, Red Giant, to name a few. So it's geared to more casual players, nothing wrong with that. I mean, if your junctions are wrong, and you don't understand the limit mechanics, your going to have a tough time. I prefer the game not being designed like others like FFXII for example, where your fighting Yiazmat for... way to long. Or fighting the Esper's and by "fighting", I mean slinging potions and Phoenix downs trying to stay in the game. Or the Judges in the Trial map, where to begin with how poorly setup that fight is.

I don't see what's so special about either of those fights. GeroGero (and Abadon) is a zombie, so I guess you could call chucking a phoenix down at it a strategy, but it's such an easy work around it's more like an Easter Egg. Re Giant has high defense, but still isn't all that special imo. Although the whole gimmick of the final dungeon eliminating certain powers is in itself an interesting mechanic. Among the boss battles in Final Fantasy VIII I'd say go along the creative root would be Diablos, who can put up a decent fight as the player is actually expected to be using limits against him, Adel who no sells all the most powerful multi enemy hitting attacks due to having Rinoa as a hostage. It does certainly attempt to have strategies on bosses, like they clearly want you to use Float against the brothers, but you can just not do that and still win with relative ease.

5 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

So it's geared to more casual players, nothing wrong with that. I mean, if your junctions are wrong, and you don't understand the limit mechanics, your going to have a tough time.

Well yeah, if you don't know how to play the game it's going to be difficult. The problem is that figuring out even in the slightest how the junction and refining system works makes the game super easy. It's like it was balanced with junctions not existing in the game at all.

[Slumber]

I'd like to point out that many people seem to struggle with figuring out the Junction system on their first playthrough, when you're not clear on what Junction Abilities you'll get, how to easily get good Magics, and how to set up Elem-J and Status-J. Some people just skip Drawing, getting Magic and learning/setting up rounded Junction abilities their first time through. Maybe a few people figure it out along the way, figure out stuff like where good Draw points are, what GFs learn the best abilities, but I'd say most don't have the easiest time in the world. Plus, aside from Zell, the super busted Limit Breaks are pretty obscure to get. Squall and Irvine are good, but they're not going to be tossing out 100k+ damage like Zell is without crazy high stats and/or their later Limits/Ammo. 

But people familiar with the game know how to do most of that out of the gate. 

It leads to a huge disparity in how the difficulty of the game is perceived. I'd say that FF8 offers a mild challenge when it's played the way the developers "intended". But after your first playthrough, the game gets cracked wide-open, and that's when it starts falling apart. 

One thing that would fix things super quick would just be to increase how much natural leveling impacts your stats, and nerf how much Junctioning does. This way, it'd be harder to turn your party into a bunch of shit-stomping supermen 5 hours into the game. Even at level 100, I think most characters hover around 50 for their base stats. The extra 200 to max out a stat comes from Junctioning. That gap is pretty insane. 

Edited November 22, 2019 by Slumber

[Jotari]

2 minutes ago, Slumber said:

I'd like to point out that many people seem to struggle with figuring out the Junction system on their first playthrough, when you're not clear on what Junction Abilities you'll get, how to easily get good Magics, and how to set up Elem-J and Status-J. Some people just skip Drawing, getting Magic and learning/setting up rounded Junction abilities their first time through. Maybe a few people figure it out along the way, figure out stuff like where good Draw points are, what GFs learn the best abilities, but I'd say most don't have the easiest time in the world. Plus, aside from Zell, the super busted Limit Breaks are pretty obscure to get. Squall and Irvine are good, but they're not going to be tossing out 100k+ damage like Zell is without crazy high stats and/or their later Limits/Ammo. 

But people familiar with the game know how to do most of that out of the gate. 

It leads to a huge disparity in how the difficulty of the game is perceived. I'd say that FF8 offers a mild challenge when it's played the way the developers "intended". But after your first playthrough, the game gets cracked wide-open, and that's when it starts falling apart. 

One thing that would fix things super quick would just be to increase how much natural leveling impacts your stats, and nerf how much Junctioning does. This way, it'd be harder to turn your party into a bunch of shit-stomping supermen 5 hours into the game. 

How do you think the developers intended the game to be played though? Because they obviously didn't set out to make a combat system that was too complex to understand to the extent that a lot of people ignored it. But if you do understand it the snowball effect is really, really big. Did they expect people would just keep 8 or 9 stocks of magic and not try to get 99 to maximize results?

[Slumber]

56 minutes ago, Jotari said:

How do you think the developers intended the game to be played though? Because they obviously didn't set out to make a combat system that was too complex to understand to the extent that a lot of people ignored it. But if you do understand it the snowball effect is really, really big. Did they expect people would just keep 8 or 9 stocks of magic and not try to get 99 to maximize results?

I think they intended the game to be played at a consistent pace, and not really grinding for magic until the very end of the game. Using Draw points, using Card Mod once it becomes available, and, occasionally, drawing heavily from monsters.

I don't think they expected people to hunt for an uncommon mob and Draw Water on Balamb Beach for the first 45 minutes of the game, letting people coast on maxed out mid-level magic for the first disc and a half until the game REALLY opens up, or playing Triple Triad for hours on end obtaining super rare cards that mod into high level items as soon as that becomes an option.

Edited November 22, 2019 by Slumber

[Lightcosmo]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

I don't see what's so special about either of those fights. GeroGero (and Abadon) is a zombie, so I guess you could call chucking a phoenix down at it a strategy, but it's such an easy work around it's more like an Easter Egg. Re Giant has high defense, but still isn't all that special imo. Although the whole gimmick of the final dungeon eliminating certain powers is in itself an interesting mechanic. Among the boss battles in Final Fantasy VIII I'd say go along the creative root would be Diablos, who can put up a decent fight as the player is actually expected to be using limits against him, Adel who no sells all the most powerful multi enemy hitting attacks due to having Rinoa as a hostage. It does certainly attempt to have strategies on bosses, like they clearly want you to use Float against the brothers, but you can just not do that and still win with relative ease.

Well yeah, if you don't know how to play the game it's going to be difficult. The problem is that figuring out even in the slightest how the junction and refining system works makes the game super easy. It's like it was balanced with junctions not existing in the game at all.

Your speaking from the prospective of someone who has knowledge of the game, what about a new player? Most wouldn't know a boss was a zombie right away, and his berserk tactic to force attacks that do piddly damage would surprise most people. When I first played my setup was draw, GF, magic, in that order.

If you figure out the intricate mechanics of the game, shouldn't you be rewarded? And balanced... I wouldn't say there is any game out there that achieves this, so expecting it is silly.

Edited November 23, 2019 by lightcosmo

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

Your speaking from the prospective of someone who has knowledge of the game, what about a new player? Most wouldn't know a boss was a zombie right away, and his berserk tactic to force attacks that do piddly damage would surprise most people. When I first played my setup was draw, GF, magic, in that order.

If you figure out the intricate mechanics of the game, shouldn't you be rewarded? And balanced... I wouldn't say there is any game out there that achieves this, so expecting it is silly.

That just goes back again to "it's hard if you don't actually know how to play the game." Which goes for anything.

5 hours ago, Slumber said:

I think they intended the game to be played at a consistent pace, and not really grinding for magic until the very end of the game. Using Draw points, using Card Mod once it becomes available, and, occasionally, drawing heavily from monsters.

I don't think they expected people to hunt for an uncommon mob and Draw Water on Balamb Beach for the first 45 minutes of the game, letting people coast on maxed out mid-level magic for the first disc and a half until the game REALLY opens up, or playing Triple Triad for hours on end obtaining super rare cards that mod into high level items as soon as that becomes an option.

So then like I said, they didn't think players would try and get 99 of every magic to maximize the effects.

[Interdimensional Observer]

29 minutes ago, Jotari said:

That just goes back again to "it's hard if you don't actually know how to play the game." Which goes for anything.

True. I'm convinced all video challenge boils down to three things at most:

1. Knowledge (information) and Wisdom (applying information)
2. Reflexes (not present in all games)
3. Luck

JRPGs don't have the second factor, so they're inherently easier to ace. You can have all the knowledge about Dark Souls/Street Fighter combat, it's worthless if you can't input the dodges, blocks, and attacks at the right times.

[Slumber]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

So then like I said, they didn't think players would try and get 99 of every magic to maximize the effects.

Sort of. I think they intended that to some degree, which is why that's possible to do in-game, and why some refining items give crazy high amounts of magic. I just don't think they intended people to do it less than like, 20-30 hours into the game.

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

the only issues i had back in the days with FF VIII were about assimilating magic, and limit breaks.

the first one was literally a chore, simply because if you wanted decent stats boosts and trigger rates you had to gather 100 points for each single spell you wanted to slot in the Junction menu. after that, all you had to do was to keep the stock at 100 in order to be effective, and just use items to heal up/cure yourself.

the second, while being quite fun to perform and watch, was also utterly broken. all you had to do was using Aura, or drop a character's HP down to the danger zone and then spam the switch turn button to trigger the limit break option.

needless to say, Squall's and Irvine's limits were the most destructive out of all the other characters, although Irvine's was probably the most broken due to the Zero spell effect removing defenses + Quick Bullet shooting. monsters and bosses alike were just melting down with that combo.

[Lightcosmo]

23 minutes ago, Fenreir said:

the only issues i had back in the days with FF VIII were about assimilating magic, and limit breaks.

the first one was literally a chore, simply because if you wanted decent stats boosts and trigger rates you had to gather 100 points for each single spell you wanted to slot in the Junction menu. after that, all you had to do was to keep the stock at 100 in order to be effective, and just use items to heal up/cure yourself.

the second, while being quite fun to perform and watch, was also utterly broken. all you had to do was using Aura, or drop a character's HP down to the danger zone and then spam the switch turn button to trigger the limit break option.

needless to say, Squall's and Irvine's limits were the most destructive out of all the other characters, although Irvine's was probably the most broken due to the Zero spell effect removing defenses + Quick Bullet shooting. monsters and bosses alike were just melting down with that combo.

I wouldn't consider these bad things, though. How many other FF's can you name that don't have something utterly broken? It's always been that way, since they try to design things to be fun over difficult. When they try to design things to a difficult POV, they end up making it boring, see the FFX arena monsters. Sitting there and using Quick Hit over... and over, gets very boring quickly, not to mention every time you attack, they counter you and your team gets wiped out, stuff like that is what i'd prefer they stay away from.

[Jotari]

3 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

I wouldn't consider these bad things, though. How many other FF's can you name that don't have something utterly broken? It's always been that way, since they try to design things to be fun over difficult. When they try to design things to a difficult POV, they end up making it boring, see the FFX arena monsters. Sitting there and using Quick Hit over... and over, gets very boring quickly, not to mention every time you attack, they counter you and your team gets wiped out, stuff like that is what i'd prefer they stay away from.

The issue isn't that the system can be broken, its about how crazy easy it is to break.