Improve a battle system!

[leader of mortals]

Has there ever been a Final Fantasy game with a battle system that you thought could be SOOO much better with certain ideas? Well, if you have, now is the time to explain!

Battle systems that I know...

FF1: Set jobs determined at beginning of game.
FF3: Changable Jobs established throughout the game.
FF4: Set jobs determined by characters
FF6: Set jobs determined by characters, low hp limits
FF7: Materia, characters not very different from eachother, limit gauge
FF8: Junctions, characters, again, very similar, low hp limits
FF9: Set jobs determined by characters, ability system based on equipment, trance
FF10: Set jobs determined by characters, but allowing for mixed job classes, overdrives
FF10-2: Changeable Jobs established throughout the game.
FF12: License grid, Quickenings

If I could change some, I would make it so Junctioning magic to your skills allowed for special skills, such as Fire Strike and such...
I would give characters in FF7 more of a "class"...
I would allow for Trance to be saved
I would expand on the main overdrives(Tidus should have at least 1 more, and so should Auron)

So, what are your improvements?

[black orb]

>>> I dont know the details but FF13 battle system looks good to me..

[Fynn]

I like how each remake of FFII seems to have a battle system improved upon the former version. I never played the original, but when I played DoS I thought the system was pretty balanced, yet required some grinding at certain points. While playing the PSP remake, I was surprised by the fact that I was skimming through the game without a need to level up my stats/spells at all. And these are the improvements I think could be established for other titles - making them overall more balanced.

Also, like the idea of saving trance.

[Wolf Kanno]

FFI: I love the original FFI so there isn't much I would change except possibly making the Thief useful. He's pretty much dead weight in the party as he can't wear crap, can't do damage, and can't use magic. He's useless til you get the Class change. I also wish the Master Monk got a benefit beyond a silly sprite change...

FFII: Probably just re-balance everything. Let it take less time to upgrade magic and abilities; nothing extreme just not the way it is now cause its so slow, I almost think its impossible to level anything past level 8-10 without actually grinding for it... That way we can avoid using the trick, either that or allow you to switch party order so you can level guest characters easier.

FFIII: I like it the way it is. :cool:

FFIV: Already upgraded it beyond my wildest dreams with the DS remake. I love the augment system. :love:

FFV: Its quite possibly the most balanced game in the series. About the only classes that have issues are the new ones added to the GBA port and their underlying problem is their late arrival in the game.

FFVI: Major Re-balance of character skills and magic damage modifiers. Nerf the Figaro Bros. (can you say MP cost?) perhaps re-balance the summons and make them worth using.

FFVII: Remove the special affects of the Ultimate weapons and just give them a high base damage, make KotoR usable only on the optional WEAPONS, balance the damage of magic, summons, and enemy skills. Remove or at least lower the number of hits from Multi-Hit Limit Breaks.

FFVIII: For Limit Breaks, see VII entry also change some of the damage modifiers so it doesn't look like they ignore defense. Have the Junctioned magic create a specific stat value that can be placed on a stat but never allow it to succeed an amount that would allow you to max a stat out (basically forcing you to treat them like equipment). Up the damage of magic so its useful, limit the summons so they can't be spammed.

FFIX: Pretty happy with this game except for possibly upping the battle speed so it doesn't feel slow. Oh wait, I do have one major beef with the title. Drop the stupid "critical hit" aspect of summons. All I wanted was the ability to manually skip summon animations, not create a system where not being bored for a few minutes results in Bahamut doing laughable damage. Bad Square :twak:

FFX: Remove the "break damage limit" abilities. Remove the character's ability to one hit kill specific enemies, nerf the Aeons, allow for more teleport spheres to be readily available throughout the game. Increase the enemies hp, damage, and aggressiveness. Also, allow them to have and abuse abilities that make use of the CTB system. They should also have moves that allow them to skip party members turns. Give the ability to switch out dead characters on the map. If the whole active party is killed, allow me to switch in my healthy party since you created a "switch party in battle mechanic". I also feel they should have jumbled up the Sphere Boards and not everyone get stuck on paths, perhaps create sections that can't be accessed naturally, you literally need to "teleport" characters to these remote sections to gain abilities. Remove the fact that cinematic options in battles can cripple bosses. just allow it to either give you a short advantage or at least a fighting chance... While we're at it, give it a better plot and heroine... ;)

FFXI: Just give me a more user friendly interface. The one the game has it convulated and makes everything unnecessarily complicated.

FFXII: Bring over the Zodiac Job System version? Seriously, bigger board and possible a few more classes could be represented (Blue Mage anyone?) as well as implementing in a License Level that allows your characters to only be able to equip a certain amount of abilities and equipment. Example: Basch at level 50 can equip 255 License Points. Meaning, even though you purchased the ability Basch can only utilize a certain amount. Will you give him high grade weapons and magic and forsake strong armor and accessories? Or will you try a balanced approach. I would also allow for secondary conditions for gambits. For people who do programming, you will understand it as the If/Else type of code.

[Ultima Shadow]

FFIV: Make Meteor spell better. When you actually use it, it doesn't quite live up to how powerful it's supposed to be story-wise.

FFV: Make the Berserker class slightly better, make Gil Toss less broken against Neo ExDeath.

FFVII: Remove Knight of the Round, or make it only 1/3 as powerful. Make Ruby Weapon wear a bikini.

FVIII: Remove the very existance of the Hero/Holy War items. Nerf Squall's and Zell's limitbreaks, remove "The End", make Meltdown last only a certain duration, make it so that Zell can't loop his limit between only 2 different moves, make the power of enemies also increase depending on your junctioning rather than just your levels so that having your characters at lower levels isn't an advantage... and finally, make Ultima Weapon's HP 10 times as high and the rest of the stats maxed... and make him permanently level 100, just like Omega. And switch "Earthquake" for "Terra Break" as well as giving him Megiddo Flame, Bad Breath and Ultima.

...oh right, it was about the system and not specific enemies. Ah well. I agree that GFs should be limited. While they are pretty useless later on other than as meat sheilds, they are way too broken early on. And magic must be buffed as hell, because it's ridiculous how useless all the offensive spells in this game are.


FFIX: Increase the HP of Hades, Necron and Ozma and make battles proceed faster. Also, slightly increase the rate at which status effects like Stop will actually hit.

FFX: Give it something like the bonus wheel in Xenosaga. That would make things much more fun.

[leader of mortals]

Well, after reading Wolf Kanno's FF12 improvments, I will make one as well...

FF12: Instead of having license points be given after killing enemies, make it so you gain license points as you level. The reason is that the beginning of the game has you using the license grid fairly strategically, while nearer to the end you are just filling out you augments and useless equipment nodes. If you had to level to gain LP, the entire game might be more strategic, and I think you would try to make a grid set up to a character's strengths, instead of them all dissolving into a Red Mage type class.

Also, change it so the character's stats are more set into thier class(although they didn't do a horrible job with trying to set up a class for a character, it should be more extreme).

[Bolivar]

FFXII desperately needed the technicks to not be in their own little corner, so that anyone who wanted one or two technicks to complement their job archetype necessary had to become a "technicks class". I think that was poorly implemented.

Also, there should be weapon proficiency licenses instead of just unlocking the weapons. This would have made the license grid bigger, which is actually something it needed considering the potential length of the game. Having the mark hunts keep pace with the story, and exploring all the while, I usually have every character with every augment about halfway through the game. It's great for me, but makes things just a little less interesting.

[Wolf Kanno]

Also, there should be weapon proficiency licenses instead of just unlocking the weapons. This would have made the license grid bigger, which is actually something it needed considering the potential length of the game. Having the mark hunts keep pace with the story, and exploring all the while, I usually have every character with every augment about halfway through the game. It's great for me, but makes things just a little less interesting.

That's an interesting idea, perhaps instead of a proficiency license they could have just utilized the proficiency system from FFII but overall, I like the idea of making characters better with specific items than others. I now really wish they had released the International Version Stateside... :(

[blackmage_nuke]

For VI i would have had Sabin require MP for his blitzes and Edgar some kind of ammo for his tools, also I wouldve made the Near Death attacks abit more frequent but less powerful. Have Relm's sketch sucess rate higher and not cause the game to explode.

For XII I would have spread out the starting points for the lisencing grid further out so to get more a guidance in terms of job classes.

Also make trance in IX non-compulsory, that being said I actually didnt like it when trance was activated in boss battles as I liked to whitle down their health whilst stealing.

X and X-2 had brilliant battle systems, I dont think i'd change those. The sphere grid especially was a perfect example of a 'Job' system but at the same time it gave you complete freedom.

The repetetive drawing in VIII was really annoying, and what was worse was that leveling up actually made everything harder. I wouldve had normal levelling up and the drawing system side by side so that people could choose which system they wanted to use.

VII I have no major complaints about but it wasnt the best.

Also change the Thunder spell back to Bolt.

Also in games where you are allowed to choose your party make it so that you dont have to fill out all 3 or 4 slots (ie so you can take just 1 person) so that it makes it easier to do solo challenges.

[Kyros]

FFVI - dont have Edgar using the autokill chainsaw attack instead of the dmg attack vs bosses, make Cyan's bushido or w/e it was called (been A WHILE) not take 12 yrs to charge, make Gau scream GAU GAU GAU everytime anything happens :D

FFVII - Make Vincent's dmg keep up with everyone elses' (outside of limit breaks, his 3rd and 4th were really good if I remember), make Greased Lightning not wait a few seconds to show me the dmg =/, make me want to use magic other than cure more often (not saying its bad, just everyone can easily do physical dmg just as high most of the time in which magic isnt needed)

FFT - can my calculator have a turn now? I've been waiting since it came out in '98

FFVIII - DEVOUR DEVOUR DEVOUR DEVOUR DEVOUR DEVOUR DEVOUR DEVOUR

FFIX - pretty sure everyone would like to be able to choose when to trance, but with how they describe it as a sudden upwelling of emotion inside of the character I guess I can see why you're forced to go into it (though I'd prefer it be an option like with limit breaks too), make Ozma and Kuja difficult, remove Necron b/c he was dumb

FFX - WTF WHY DOES ZOMBIE ATTACK NEED A LV4 KEY SPHERE AS IF IT'S AS GOOD AS HOLY SCREW THAT, anyway um make Lulu do more dmg end game (Yuna was destroying her in magic dmg in my file and both had same/close amount of spheres used), make Rikku hit for more than 10, make Khimari useful outside of stealing lv3 key spheres from his brothers, let me start Lulu in Auron Wakka or Tidus' spheres so I can have her dolls be her main version of attacks RAWR

later games - whats up with the -ara and -aga and -aja? I don't mind it but was kinda a random change for me guess they just felt like changing little things here and there?

remakes - keep them as hard as the originals, don't know if this is always the case (haven't played every remake) but have heard this is the case with some =/

[Wolf Kanno]

later games - whats up with the -ara and -aga and -aja? I don't mind it but was kinda a random change for me guess they just felt like changing little things here and there?

That is apparently how they have always been in the Japanese version. Due to technical limitations and some odd localization, they were changed to Bolt, Ice and Fire 2 respectively. It wasn't til VIII that they finally were able to name the spells their true names.




remakes - keep them as hard as the originals, don't know if this is always the case (haven't played every remake) but have heard this is the case with some =/

This is only true with the ports of FFI and II (except the PS1 version which has normal and easy mode for both titles) and the GBA port of IV. V and VI Advance play the way they always do. The DS remakes are a bit odd though. III got rebalanced so in some ways its easier from the original and in other ways its still difficult. IV introduced the Augment system which needed the whole game rebalanced and most agree the game is much more difficult overall.

I still agree with you though :D

[VeloZer0]

People have already pointed out most major ones, so I'll try to think up some original ideas.

FFI - Add more of a turn order bonus for faster characters

FFII - Have spells change effects as they level up

FFIII - More consistent itemization to make all the classes more or less viable the entire time.

FFV - Make it so job stacking is a less viable tactic. This could be done through itemization like in FFIII (you only have the gear to equip one person as that class at a time most of the time.) or through generally needing a more balanced party.

FFVI - Same things most people have said, balance out special abilities, make desperation attacks more relevant, buff espers.

FFVII - Buff green materia, next to enemy skill and other command materia it is seriously weak. Summons need a buff as well.

FFIX - Speed up the pace of the battle animations, so I don't always have a large que of actions waiting to happen

FFX - Make Overdrives less easy to hold on to. I always kept them full, and when I came to a boss encounter I just blew all my characters and Aeon's Overdrives and it was usually over.

FFXII - I would need pages and pages....