How would you fix FFVI?

[Slothy]

Look, we all know that FFVI is the best damn game in the series. This is absolute, undeniable truth and Del Murder will totally back me up on this. But perhaps what's most amazing about it is that it's the best in the series despite the battle system being an absolutely broken pile of shit.

And I doubt there's anyone who would disagree with me there, even amongst the most hardcore FFVI fans. The battle system is terrible.

"Oh hey, I got attacked by some monsters. I guess I'll spam my infinitely usable, high damage attacks that hit every enemy on the screen every single time and end the fight inside of three turns tops. Oh, looks like I need to heal. I'll just use this Cure spell, then siphon back all of the MP I used from monsters that never use magic but seem to have MP anyway. Hey, what's this Ultima spell do?"

Seriously, the game is far too easy. If it weren't for the awesome characters, great world and story, and the music and lovely art style that all came together to be an amazing experience, this wouldn't be something I'd ever recommend playing.

So how would you guys fix it? You can feel free to toss out ideas for singular problems, or try and tackle the entire battle system, but I want to know what you would do to inject some challenge and player involvement worthy of the best title in the series here. I'll hold off on my own ideas since I'm short on time and I'd rather hear what everyone else thinks since everyone already knows I have an opinion about everything and you all stopped caring years ago.

[Alpha2099]

It's definitely too easy to farm Economizers, so either the drop rate should be modified or the item should be removed altogether.

Most of the time, I forgot I could use the Esper as a summon instead of just learning magic spells from them. Something should be done to bring the Espers to the foreground.

In some cases, the character skills are horribly broken, mostly Sabin's Blitzes and Edgar's Tools. By contrast, I never used Celes' ability, nor did I bother with Cyan's SwdTech. That could be balanced better.

Those are the ones that jump out at me. It's been almost 10 years since I played FF6 so I'm sure I could find more if I played it more recently.

[Del Murder]

Replace it with Tactics' battle system. Thread over.

For a serious answer, you would obviously need to scale down the 'free' commands such as Blitz and Tools. They should not be more powerful than everything else in the game. Perhaps have a time delay for using Blitz (maybe skip a turn to power up) and have some kind of limitation on Tools (ammo or have them break perhaps). For magic, Ultima is a broken spell and needs to be nerfed. The power of spells should be about the same as FFVII. Spells weren't overpowered in that game (Summons and E.Skills were but that's another story). Conversely, summons should be more powerful.

Vanish should just be eliminated entirely. Pump up the boss difficulty. Increase MP use for most spells. Make it so that some of the more powerful relics (Offering, Economizer, Gem Box) should need two slots to activate. Those things would go a long way I think!

[The Man]

I would replace it with FFV's battle system, rather than Tactics'. The fact that all characters (except Umaro and Gogo) can learn all spells without much difficulty is a large part of the reason the game is so easy. The Job system in FFV required a lot of work to master, and it wasn't really practical to have all characters master all jobs until at least the second world, if not the Void. It doesn't hurt that FFV was set up to be a much more challenging game, either.

Alternately, I would leave the current system but make it so most characters can master much less magic, depending on their starting job. Having all characters able to learn all spells removes a large part of the difficulty from the later part of the game. There is essentially no reason to use most characters' special abilities once they learn enough magic. The special abilities are just kind of... there.

A third option would be to use the job system, but also leave in the system where every character has a unique ability that no one else can learn.

Beyond that, I wouldn't go so far as to make Gem Box/Economizer/Offering require two relic slots, but I would probably nerf the Gem Box/Economizer and Offering/Genji Glove combos. Seriously, having the potential for five spells a turn cast for 5MP or eight attacks is just ridiculous.

Osmose needs to at least fail sometimes or something. There is no point ever conserving MP in the game as it exists because you can always recover it with minimal effort.

Runic is actually pretty cool, but as Alpha2099 said, the usefulness of the abilities is widely varied. I would balance the level of effectiveness between things like SwdTech (useless) and Blitz/Tools (way too powerful). There is also a glitch that makes it possible to spam Joker Doom in tool-assisted speedruns, but I might leave that in for the lulz, since most people won't be playing frame-by-frame.

I think they fixed Wind God Gau in one of the reissues, but it goes without saying that Gau as he currently exists is capable of being the most powerful character in the game. I guess that's to make up for his attacks being random and uncontrollable, but even so, he's still too powerful. Then again, so are basically all the characters in the game to a lesser extent.

Obviously a lot of the bosses should be way more powerful. Especially Kefka. For a final boss who had absorbed the entire source of magic in his universe he was disappointingly weak. I would also throw in the removed KaiserDragon as an optional boss (I think they did this in Advance, but I never played it).

That's a fair kickoff selection. I would probably do more things but those alone would improve the game a lot.

[blackmage_nuke]

Edit from a post I made a while back:
As has been said i'd weaken the op'd characters and power up some characters with crappy skills. I would make Blitz require MP and if possible make learning new blitzes plot related rather than level related (eg, visiting the spring in the phantom forest teaches Mantra and such).
Make Tools be 1 use per battle or have some kind of ammo system.
Allow Runic work on every magic spell.
Gau would be able to leap an enemy outside the veldt but it works in a final blow sort of way like morphing monsters to items in FFVII (the veldt would still be available as is incase you missed out on a monster or boss).
I would either leave swordtech as is or make cyan a dark knight like character which allows him to pick whichever swordtech he wants but he spends hp to use it. Alternatively make 'cover' a unique ability to him.
And have the moves that are damage OR instant kill inflict damage even when the instant kill is activated since so many monsters are imune to it (particularly Cyan's Swordtech and chainsaw).
I cant think of a way to power up Morph so I would use it more, maybe make it last until you deactivate it, but it drains mp every turn, and it allows terra to summon any esper I have already collected or any esper that is not currently equiped or possibly if there were different types of morph like Vincent has.
Make summons more powerful or atleast make thier power scale with the equiped characters 'compatiability (possibly based on the percentage of spells he/she has learnt which the esper teaches)

Also either add some kind of emotional scene for reviving Cid or make it compulsory that he dies.


The Job system in FFV required a lot of work to master, and it wasn't really practical to have all characters master all jobs until at least the second world, if not the Void. It doesn't hurt that FFV was set up to be a much more challenging game, either.
As much as I love the class system in V, I definitely wouldnt do this. I think the 1 character 1 class system is part of what gave FF6 it's charm. If each character could change class there would hardly be a need for there to be 14 characters in the game which would make FF6 majorly lose it's apeal.

[Sephex]

Make the game harder, but not LOL CRAZY JRPG GRIND 8000 LEVELS TO WIN.

I would also recommend giving each character unique dialogue for EVERYTHING in the World of Ruin.

[The Man]

As much as I love the class system in V, I definitely wouldnt do this. I think the 1 character 1 class system is part of what gave FF6 it's charm. If each character could change class there would hardly be a need for there to be 14 characters in the game which would make FF6 majorly lose it's apeal.Well, one reason for the large number of characters is because a lot of them have major plot relevance. I guess characters like Gau and Mog would lose a lot of their point though.

Anyway that's why I also suggested another possibility would be having a hybrid of the job system and FFVI's system, where characters can learn a lot of abilities but each character has one unique ability.

[Goldenboko]

Make the enemies harder. SEND ME A CHALLENGER WORTHY OF MY DEATH SQUAD :colbert:

[Citizen Bleys]

JP gamers whined that there was too much grinding in FFV, so Square made FFVI easier. Now NA gamers are whining that FFVI is too easy. There is no victory for the developer.

[Raistlin]

I don't think the entire battle system was broken, there were just some spells and abilities that were disproportionally powerful. These just would need to be nerfed to make it more "balanced." Limit their usage, lower a character's MP or ability to regain it, and lower the damage. Or you could just increase the levels/stats of all the baddies. It's really not all that complicated when you get down to it.

Then again, I didn't overly mind the ease of the game. I play most JRPGs looking for great characters, an engaging story, and at least some entertaining gameplay (which is often fulfilled by exploration and sidequests). There are some notable exceptions (FFT), but some of my other favorite RPGs aren't much more difficult than FFVI. On some of my second+ playthroughs in other RPGs years ago, I sometimes utilized glitches or outright Gameshark just so I could enjoy the story without feeling the need to grind.

EDIT:


Replace it with Tactics' battle system. Thread over.

I approve that your answer for how to improve FF games is "be more like FFT."

[Slothy]

Replace it with Tactics' battle system. Thread over.

Well, looks like Del cracked the code right away. We can all go home now boys and girls.


Alternately, I would leave the current system but make it so most characters can master much less magic, depending on their starting job. Having all characters able to learn all spells removes a large part of the difficulty from the later part of the game. There is essentially no reason to use most characters' special abilities once they learn enough magic. The special abilities are just kind of... there.

I actually think this might be going down the right track. Perhaps have affinities for each character to different spell types. Their affinity level could determine things like what level of spell they can learn, and how many spells they can have equipped at any one time. Characters who are natural mages would obviously get more, while characters like Sabin might not be able to learn anything but basic spells or even none at all. Really limit how much you can beef up everyone so you don't have a party with four people casting Ultima every turn. I'd even say lower the MP level for most characters as well so it's actually a somewhat limited resource.



Beyond that, I wouldn't go so far as to make Gem Box/Economizer/Offering require two relic slots, but I would probably nerf the Gem Box/Economizer and Offering/Genji Glove combos. Seriously, having the potential for five spells a turn cast for 5MP or eight attacks is just ridiculous.

They are definitely ridiculous. I might be for removing them altogether myself, but if not, at least have some big downsides to each to limit them a bit. I can live with the Genji Glove as is, but the Gem Box and Economizer, combined with the Quick spell, or the Offering with the Genji Glove are brutally overpowered. I'd say ditch the economizer altogether and have the offering and Gem Box take up two slots as you said could be good. Combine it with a less abusable magic system and the problem should be drastically reduced while keeping something that is undeniably fun.


Osmose needs to at least fail sometimes or something. There is no point ever conserving MP in the game as it exists because you can always recover it with minimal effort.

I like this, but I think I'd want to have Osmose recover far less MP as well. That and limiting who can even cast it would certainly help. Make it useful when it works, but not something that outclasses expensive Ethers or something and is basically free.


I would make Blitz require MP and if possible make learning new blitzes plot related rather than level related (eg, visiting the spring in the phantom forest teaches Mantra and such).
Make Tools be 1 use per battle or have some kind of ammo system.

...

I would either leave swordtech as is or make cyan a dark knight like character which allows him to pick whichever swordtech he wants but he spends hp to use it. Alternatively make 'cover' a unique ability to him.

I'm digging these suggestions.


I cant think of a way to power up Morph so I would use it more, maybe make it last until you deactivate it, but it drains mp every turn, and it allows terra to summon any esper I have already collected or any esper that is not currently equiped or possibly if there were different types of morph like Vincent has.

Letting Terra turn into a summoner with Morph isn't bad, but I wonder if maybe it would be interesting to block off the very high level spells, and perhaps even Espers from other characters but leave them available to Terra to use, but only when morphed. So she might have to Morph to use high level spells like Ultima and Life 3, but have Morph drain a bit faster and don't give any bonus damage for the change. Perhaps instead of making it build up over time as you fight you could give her an ability which let's her meditate or something in battle to build up her ability to morph, and once it's available it always lasts for the same amount of time? Morph is tough because as it is I think it's something that's useful, but not overly so with so many overpowered attacks. I think relegating your big attacks to it could help with that.

Some good ideas floating around so far.

[The Man]

Morph would probably be a lot more useful if you even just left the ability as it is but reduced how overpowered the characters are. As it is, it's so easy to hit the damage cap that by a certain point in the game there is literally no advantage to using it.

[Slothy]

There is that, but part of me likes the idea of Esper form Terra being the only one with the required level of magical ability to use the really big spells. I mean, by the end pretty much anyone is more powerful than every Esper ever. Even the meat head who strayed from his gym. I'll admit I like that a bit more for story reasons than just for gameplay though. It just kind of gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling about it.

[The Man]

That is a pretty cool idea, I must say.

[Laddy]

I agree with limiting or changing some of the special skills like Blitz, etc.

I would have more statistical variety with the characters in terms of HP, Vigor, etc. Most of all, though, I would have characters have a Skill Point system, in which they can choose to "buy" spells from lists when they level up. Espers still teach summons, but will mostly affect stats as you level up with them. Upon getting Espers, spells as well as other things (like HP +10% or Cover, as well as "Dual-Wield" or "Use Maces") will replace Relics and the typical magic system. Characters like Sabin and Cyan would be mostly limited to combat-based skills, while Terra and Celes will get black and white magic, respectively along with their own spells. Each character has a more defined class, but more versatility within it.

[Roogle]

Replace it with Tactics' battle system. Thread over.


That is an interesting concept. I have wondered how Final Fantasy games would fare if you could switch the battle system around. For example, a lot of people like the battle system of Final Fantasy X-2. I would love to play a version of Final Fantasy VI with the battle system of Final Fantasy X-2 with party members switching out instead of jobs -- wouldn't that be interesting?

The Final Fantasy VI modding community does a lot of work for this game through emulation and ROM hacking. Major bugs are fixed. There is a difficulty hack that I find myself fond of, not because of the increased difficulty, but because the battle theme does not play when you have a simple enemy encounter consisting only of one or two smaller enemies. This lets you enjoy the music and see it in a whole new light during battles. That's one thing I would change!

[Spooniest]

"How would I?"

More like "How did I." (http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/794/)

And if you don't like it, don't tell anybody, let them get stuck playing it like you did! :)

[Greatermaximus]

What can make any game better is a way to select the task variation/difficulty level. That's why we go at final fantasies at lower levels.

[Wolf Kanno]

I will have to come back to this thread when I have more time cause I can honestly write a book on how I would tweak the gameplay to make it even more awesome. :cool:

[Jiro]

Put a copy in every person's hands.

[Quindiana Jones]

I would make it so that you could put different hats on all your characters.

[Christmas]

Graphics!!!!

Yes, I am a graphic whore. :(

[Slothy]

I would make it so that you could put different hats on all your characters.

You work for Valve?

[Wolf Kanno]

I am going to break this up into sections to make this easier on... well everybody.

Characters

Terra - Honestly there isn't much I would change about her. Trance/Morph is a good ability, it's just a great ability in a game where it's not really needed. Tweaking the enemies and gameplay difficulty would be enough to make this skill stand out. Other than that, I might actually rearrange her natural level magic acquirement cause I find it silly that she learns some great spells at ridiculously high levels. I would allow her to learn some of her spells a bit earlier.

Locke - I would make his steal/mug command and thief weapons be based on his Speed stat a la FFTactics. It would make his gear and Esper growth a little more important and I feel it would make him more unique from the other brawler characters like Sabin and Cyan. I would also remove his ability to use the Illumina/Lightbringer cause he already gets the Valiant Knife and I like how this makes getting rid of the Ragnarok more of a difficult decision for some fans.

Edgar - Obviously, his Tool Command needs to be nerfed. There are a few ways to do this:

Easy Way 1: Make all of his tools 1X use per battle so you can't spam them. This still makes him pretty strong in the game, but not outright overpowering in boss fights.

Easy Way 2: Redo the damage formula and make his level no longer a factor in it. Instead rely on his stats, as this will make the esper system more practical as well as his equipment.

Medium Way - Make his tools have cool down times in terms of battle. So using AutoCrossbow in a battle makes it unusable for three battles afterwards. The number of battles needed to recharge is based on how broken it is. I feel this would greatly balance Edgar out while still keeping his Tools pretty powerful.

Hard Way: Create a Fuel system, though I feel this would be more cumbersome than balancing. I noticed most people don't like characters who have to keep track of arbitray ammunition in Turn Based RPGs. Just ask Billy Lee Black in Xenogears and Rangers in FFIII.

Other than that, I would probably strip him of being able to use the Ultima Weapon and Lightbringer as well, since he can use the Dragoon combo build. The guy has way too many options.

Sabin - Mainly nerf Blitz a little more, either by making them cost MP, or weakening it by changing the damage formula.

Celes - Like Terra, I wouldn't mind if her acquisition of natural magic spells was a bit more convient rather than having her learn Meteor at Lv. 99. Beyond that, I would work on Runic. My favorite choice would be to just give her a Relic or two that changes the Runic command around. My favorite choice would be for her to have it work like an Counter Magic ability if a spell is used on her. Another intriguing choice would be for her weapon to be endowed with the properties of the spell she absorbs kind of like the Mystic Knight class in FFV.

Shadow - Power down his Throw command, he does way more damage than he should with Shuriken, or you could jack up the price of his throw items by ten fold. Other than that, he's actually pretty balanced.

Cyan - Needs a new input system, my favorite idea would be to adapt the Super Combo move from Breath Of Fire where you have a short amount of time to input certain commands and depending how many you get in will determine the move he uses. Granted the game will tell you as you input them that you've put in enough to reach the next rank of his Bushido. Either his levels or a Relic can increase the amount of time for you to input commands. I also would allow the Gauntlet Relic to work in his Bushido moves.

Gau - He needs a glossary to tell you what each of the Rages do, and the player needs to be able to customize the list. One option would be that Gau can hold maybe 10 Rages at a time from his overall list so you don't have to get unnecessary hits while your cycling through his huge list of Rages. They already got rid of God Wind Gau mode so he's pretty tame now. Though I may still feel some of his Rages need to be nerfed.

Setzer - Make all of his Gambler weapons have secondary effects to offset their crummy attack power and his average stats, and maybe give him a relic to power up his slot ability.

Mog - Needs a relic to increase the success of his dance. I also feel some of his dances need to be reworked cause half of them are pretty worthless while the other half is devastatingly powerful. There is no middle ground with them.

Strago - Needs to have his Lores spaced out better in the game. He only gets a few worthwhile ones in the WoB and most of his really good ones are wasted because you can get his ultimate Blue Mage skill right off the bat in the WoR after you recruit him. Perhaps make some earlier boss also use Force Field and prevent Strago from doing the Hidon quest until he gets the majority of his Lores first. He also needs better magic enhancing gear, he gets the short end of the stick among all the mages.

Relm - Is honestly pretty balanced. I know people whine about sketch but if you are not using the Fake Mustache relic with her, you are simply using her wrong. I can't really think of anything to make her better without making her broken.

Umaro - I wish you could use Green Cherry's on him to make him stronger like in his boss battle. That would actually be kind of cool, to allow you to use certain items to temp raise certain stats or add properties to his attacks. It would make using him more strategic.

Gogo - Probably give him a better weapon/equipment pool, maybe some relics that can increase his ability with other party member skills.

[Roogle]

Relm - Is honestly pretty balanced. I know people whine about sketch but if you are not using the Fake Mustache relic with her, you are simply using her wrong. I can't really think of anything to make her better without making her broken.

I would add that the results of Sketch and Control would be based off her stats rather than the monsters. Since monsters typically have very low stats due to the nature of the characters' stats, attacks that Relm makes through Sketch and Control do very little damage to enemies.

[Wolf Kanno]

I'll get to that when I talk about monster scripts and tweaking overall gameplay difficulty.

Editga: Though in hindsight, it probably wouldn't help anyway since Relm has an abysmal Physical stat anyway, so you would still be screwed.

[Hollycat]

I would make it so that you could put different hats on all your characters.

You work for Valve?
Not possible, this was FF3.

[Jiro]

Let's see if I have any comments or additions.


Characters

Terra - Honestly there isn't much I would change about her. Trance/Morph is a good ability, it's just a great ability in a game where it's not really needed. Tweaking the enemies and gameplay difficulty would be enough to make this skill stand out. Other than that, I might actually rearrange her natural level magic acquirement cause I find it silly that she learns some great spells at ridiculously high levels. I would allow her to learn some of her spells a bit earlier.
I didn't see enough of a boost from Terra's Morph/Trance, honestly.



Locke - I would make his steal/mug command and thief weapons be based on his Speed stat a la FFTactics. It would make his gear and Esper growth a little more important and I feel it would make him more unique from the other brawler characters like Sabin and Cyan. I would also remove his ability to use the Illumina/Lightbringer cause he already gets the Valiant Knife and I like how this makes getting rid of the Ragnarok more of a difficult decision for some fans.
I agree with this. Locke is far too "warrior" build for such a thief character. He also misses his steals way way too much.



Edgar - Obviously, his Tool Command needs to be nerfed. There are a few ways to do this:

Easy Way 1: Make all of his tools 1X use per battle so you can't spam them. This still makes him pretty strong in the game, but not outright overpowering in boss fights.

Easy Way 2: Redo the damage formula and make his level no longer a factor in it. Instead rely on his stats, as this will make the esper system more practical as well as his equipment.

Medium Way - Make his tools have cool down times in terms of battle. So using AutoCrossbow in a battle makes it unusable for three battles afterwards. The number of battles needed to recharge is based on how broken it is. I feel this would greatly balance Edgar out while still keeping his Tools pretty powerful.

Hard Way: Create a Fuel system, though I feel this would be more cumbersome than balancing. I noticed most people don't like characters who have to keep track of arbitray ammunition in Turn Based RPGs. Just ask Billy Lee Black in Xenogears and Rangers in FFIII.

Other than that, I would probably strip him of being able to use the Ultima Weapon and Lightbringer as well, since he can use the Dragoon combo build. The guy has way too many options.
I'd like to see Edgar set up as far more of a dragoon. He's already well on the way. I'd say the 1x battle method is a bit shit, if only because it makes stuff like Bioblaster and the status effect inducing ones even more useless. You need to nerf the physical damage a bit and then maybe the balance would be returned.



Sabin - Mainly nerf Blitz a little more, either by making them cost MP, or weakening it by changing the damage formula.
Or make the combos really really really hard :greenie:



Celes - Like Terra, I wouldn't mind if her acquisition of natural magic spells was a bit more convient rather than having her learn Meteor at Lv. 99. Beyond that, I would work on Runic. My favorite choice would be to just give her a Relic or two that changes the Runic command around. My favorite choice would be for her to have it work like an Counter Magic ability if a spell is used on her. Another intriguing choice would be for her weapon to be endowed with the properties of the spell she absorbs kind of like the Mystic Knight class in FFV.
She should learn magic a little faster, but still slower than Terra. After all, her magic ability is engineered and not inherent.



Shadow - Power down his Throw command, he does way more damage than he should with Shuriken, or you could jack up the price of his throw items by ten fold. Other than that, he's actually pretty balanced.
Yeah Throw was pretty OP.


Cyan - Needs a new input system, my favorite idea would be to adapt the Super Combo move from Breath Of Fire where you have a short amount of time to input certain commands and depending how many you get in will determine the move he uses. Granted the game will tell you as you input them that you've put in enough to reach the next rank of his Bushido. Either his levels or a Relic can increase the amount of time for you to input commands. I also would allow the Gauntlet Relic to work in his Bushido moves.
Bushido is shit. I would've been happy for it to be the same as Blitz, honestly.



Gau - He needs a glossary to tell you what each of the Rages do, and the player needs to be able to customize the list. One option would be that Gau can hold maybe 10 Rages at a time from his overall list so you don't have to get unnecessary hits while your cycling through his huge list of Rages. They already got rid of God Wind Gau mode so he's pretty tame now. Though I may still feel some of his Rages need to be nerfed.


I haven't been a big fan of Gau basically because of this reason. If all Rages had three-four moves listed out then it would be much easier to remember what ones you liked/needed.



Strago - Needs to have his Lores spaced out better in the game. He only gets a few worthwhile ones in the WoB and most of his really good ones are wasted because you can get his ultimate Blue Mage skill right off the bat in the WoR after you recruit him. Perhaps make some earlier boss also use Force Field and prevent Strago from doing the Hidon quest until he gets the majority of his Lores first. He also needs better magic enhancing gear, he gets the short end of the stick among all the mages.
Were Lores super powerful? I think the MP cost outweighed the use for me.

I'm looking forward to seeing what other ideas you come up with.

[ljkkjlcm9]

And at the end of the day i played this game mostly the same way I learned to play FF1. Magic is worthless, just attack. And that's what i did. Picked 4 of your physically strongest characters and just attacked. Soon enough they do max damage either way. Hell, one of the best things to do is take shadow and turn him into an Imp. Shadow, cyan, Edgar, sabin. Cyan used lvl 1 swdtech cause it was slightly stronger until he had weapons that would randomly do magic. Edgar used drill or chainsaw but in the end just attacked. Sabin was about the only one i kept using abilities but only cause i enjoyed doing the inputs and changed it up cause they all did max anyways.

And for all the comments about genji glove offering, possible in FFV as well. Most of the relics were just abilities from FFV.

Making it so only certain people could learn certain spells is completely against everything the storyline is. Making espers harder to find and making say terra learn spells faster down to Sabin/Cyan slower i could get on board with though. Terra learns ice 2 with 100 points. Sabin learns it with 1000 or whatever. In the end terra can learn ultima pretty easy but everyone else would take a lot more to. So in this way people can be more aligned with spells, but anyone can still learn anything.

THE JACKEL

[Wolf Kanno]

I didn't see enough of a boost from Terra's Morph/Trance, honestly.

It's hard to notice with equipment bonuses and if you are using end game skills. This is why rebalancing the gameplay and difficulty would make this skill useful.


I agree with this. Locke is far too "warrior" build for such a thief character. He also misses his steals way way too much.

Having a Thief style character be so warrior like tends to bother me, I have a similar issue with Zidane in IX. Though utilizing the Speed stat more is also meant to make that stat upgrade more beneficial.


I'd like to see Edgar set up as far more of a dragoon. He's already well on the way. I'd say the 1x battle method is a bit trout, if only because it makes stuff like Bioblaster and the status effect inducing ones even more useless. You need to nerf the physical damage a bit and then maybe the balance would be returned.

Honestly, I feel BioBlaster is pretty overpowered, especially in the beginning of the game when you're dealing with Imperial soldiers naturally weak to poison damage. Air Anchor and Debilitator may suffer, but not many people use them either. Honestly, I may say that Air Anchor should be dropped completely. If gameplay balance is fixed, then Debiltator will actually become more useful and overpowered if used wisely. I am honestly more inclined to go the medium route to be honest.


Or make the combos really really really hard :greenie:

I feel that would make him frustrating to use, and depending on what system you are playing on, they can be hard to use. Though doing a Zell/Auron style time limit indicator could help as well but part of the issue with Sabin is that he does ridiculously high damage early in the game.

On further evaluation, I would also beef up Meteor Strike and make it work on more enemies.


She should learn magic a little faster, but still slower than Terra. After all, her magic ability is engineered and not inherent.


An interesting idea. Though tinkering with stat formulas can make her a bit weaker than Terra as well.



Bushido is trout. I would've been happy for it to be the same as Blitz, honestly.

The issue with doing that is that he would play exactly like Sabin except different equipment and stats to deal with. Part of VI's appeal was that every character plays differently and adds variety to the gameplay so I was hoping to find an alternative method rather than just re-using another characters playstyle.


I haven't been a big fan of Gau basically because of this reason. If all Rages had three-four moves listed out then it would be much easier to remember what ones you liked/needed.

Yeah, he's a bit annoying since you kind of need a guidebook to see which Rages are useful and which ones are suicidal.


Were Lores super powerful? I think the MP cost outweighed the use for me.

Actually they are, and like the Blue Mages in FFV, Strago was pretty much the go to guy for consistent and powerful Wind/Water elemental magic. The MP cost is high but getting some of his skills like Tsunami and Aero in the WoB may justify and balance them out. By the time you get them in the WoR, you have Grand Train and Ultima.

[Jiro]

Bushido definitely needs a new method of input. Waiting seemed hardly necessary. If I ever needed to have him do a move, it was either Level 1 or I got the rest of my party to go and let him charge while they attacked.

Will have to give Strago more of a chance. Definitely think physical attacks should be nerfed, greatly. Magic plays such an important role in the game but it's not that powerful, or at least, physical attacks are enough. Give it prominence, make it powerful.

Celes' abilities lie in her Red Mage like set up. While Terra would eclipse her in magical ability, Celes should also be able to wipe the floor with Terra physically. More health and defence etc would allow Celes to last longer in those tough battles.

[Greatermaximus]

The game's not hard when you can level up. You know the game well when you play on a handicap. Luckily these days the developer has all this insight from forums like these to go on.

[blackmage_nuke]

I am going to break this up into sections to make this easier on... well everybody.

Characters

CelesAnother intriguing choice would be for her weapon to be endowed with the properties of the spell she absorbs kind of like the Mystic Knight class in FFV.

Your other suggestions were great but I love this one in particular.

Also have allow us to decide how much gil we want to put into Gil Toss or Slots (more money in slots yeilds better icons/slower slots or something)

[Lamia]

Make the enemies harder. SEND ME A CHALLENGER WORTHY OF MY DEATH SQUAD :colbert:

This.

Magic should not be nerfed. The world of FFVI is one where magic is extremely powerful and supreme. Bosses and enemies should become more lethal instead. However, I think this should be an optional difficulty because not everyone is going to figure out how to take advantage of the broken battle system. My bf for instance had much more trouble in FFVI than in FFVII. He found many parts of the game to be pretty challenging (especially in World of Ruin before you get all badass)... There are a lot of options when it comes to magic, espers, and relics and the badassery wil vary while making it possible to put together a completely broken party.

[Roogle]

Magic should be able to hit multiple times. That would make spells like Meteor and Ultima much more powerful than someone using Genji Glove or Offering.

Espers should be a lot more powerful than they currently are, too. It seems like after a certain point, the spells do more damage than the Espers themselves.

[VeloZer0]

Multiple hits only become so relevant when you have a damage cap. If you remove the damage cap it would work towards fixing that problem.

[Greatermaximus]

In Final Fantasy Tactics the enemies level up with you. I'd do that with almost every game that allows you to return to a previous area.

Actually, we could make the entire game level with the adventurer's. We can give them the option to turn that feature on/off but it's the most reasonable way to make it a challenge imo.

If you want a challenging opponent play Chess and/or Call of duty against a strong player. Or some other game.

Against a cold calculating computer the human does better in the abstract in general. All games are numbers crunching. The FFVI system isn't difficult when you can easily level up.

[Loony BoB]

XIII got it right. The most effective way to make a game like Final Fantasy challenging while at the same time not requiring you to grind to insane lengths is to implement an appropriate level cap and force people into using their brain rather than their character's overpowered statistics.

[VeloZer0]

Your idea involves placing a known limit on the players power and tuning the enemies in order to create a challenge for the player. FF13 did one of those two things.

[Wolf Kanno]

XIII got it right. The most effective way to make a game like Final Fantasy challenging while at the same time not requiring you to grind to insane lengths is to implement an appropriate level cap and force people into using their brain rather than their character's overpowered statistics.

I would argue Suikoden does this better by simply lowering XP gains depending on your party level so that if you power too high (like literally two levels more than you need) then all enemies give you 1 XP until you reach a new area which I feel is abit less intrusive than just telling the player they can't level up their characters until a later chapter.

I really wouldn't have used XIII as an example as there are too many holes in the argument that it's "challenging".

[ShinGundam]

XIII got it right. The most effective way to make a game like Final Fantasy challenging while at the same time not requiring you to grind to insane lengths is to implement an appropriate level cap and force people into using their brain rather than their character's overpowered statistics.

I would argue Suikoden does this better by simply lowering XP gains depending on your party level so that if you power too high (like literally two levels more than you need) then all enemies give you 1 XP until you reach a new area which I feel is abit less intrusive than just telling the player they can't level up their characters until a later chapter.
I hate that system especially with many characters to level them like Suikoden.

[VeloZer0]

Actually the Suikoden system makes it a breeze to level unused characters. Because experience is on an exponential curve if you put an under-leveled character into the party they catch up extremely rapidly, often to the tune of several levels per battle.

[Wolf Kanno]

^ Or if you learn how to abuse the system, you can get a character to level 99 in a single battle. Though honestly, I like the Suikoden leveling system cause it's a good way to deter players from leveling without actually saying "no" to them. It also helps that the game sticks to the logical level as well since most RPGs don't actually give you much in the way of stat upgrades after Lv. 65 on average. So getting to Lv. 99 is often for the sake of itself rather than having a real tangible advantage.

[Loony BoB]

XIII got it right. The most effective way to make a game like Final Fantasy challenging while at the same time not requiring you to grind to insane lengths is to implement an appropriate level cap and force people into using their brain rather than their character's overpowered statistics.

I would argue Suikoden does this better by simply lowering XP gains depending on your party level so that if you power too high (like literally two levels more than you need) then all enemies give you 1 XP until you reach a new area which I feel is abit less intrusive than just telling the player they can't level up their characters until a later chapter.

I really wouldn't have used XIII as an example as there are too many holes in the argument that it's "challenging".
This requires restricting which areas you have access to, something I feel VI would not be incredibly effective with. Now, I know XIII also had this restriction to obvoius lengths, but the system can be used without such area restrictions. Also, I can use XIII as an example because it's the only system in the entire FF series which is in any way remotely challenging. Every other system just has a "level a few more times and you'll be fine" system.

[Wolf Kanno]

Except you can level your gear and that will fix the level cap issue, since your gear directly affects your three stats and only affect the battle score system, it's easy to grind a few levels for weapons and accessories and just plow through the games enemies if you are having issues.

Seriously BoB, you don't think I know how to see an exploitation in an RPG battle system? :p There are very very few systems that can't be made broken or not have ways to get past restrictions. There are always ways to get around things and FF is usually one of the easiest to bypass. If you want a difficult FF, play the NES version of FFI or FFIII, or do a challenge.

The leveling system from Suikoden is not one I would suggest for VI because manipulating stats by leveling is a core customization system and considering a characters level is actually the most important element of the battle system (most of the damage algorithm, including just the basic Fight command, use your level as part of the damage formula) so such a system would bork the game. I also feel the level cap from XIII would not work in the Ruined World segment since all the areas have enemies of similar difficulty to offset the players freedom of choosing where to go. I only mentioned I felt it was a better system than XIII's level caps as it's more user friendly.

Honestly, VIII's leveling system is probably the best idea, it just needs to be bigger and greatly retooled cause the issue with VIII's system is that the only thing that changed as enemies leveled were their stats and their magic. Since borking your own stats is pretty easy, the only stat that would bother a player is their Hp as it suddenly took forever to kill one of the dragon enemies cause they almost had a million Hp. Instead, the levels should also affect their attack scripts. Another idea to make enemies meaner is from FFIV, where enemies had counters for specifics commands. VI has these to a degree but it's pretty much de-fanged since IV's version of it. A combo of these two would make you think twice about leveling to succeed and it would change the enemies so strategy would become more important as the enemy would change as you got further into the game. Such a system would make the Ruined World very interesting as you try to revisit areas only to find the enemies have become stronger since you first wandered through.

[maybee]

I would make the game have flashy new 2012 graphics with terrible VA voice acting and the sound of Tidus laughing, Kefka's new laugh and a cutscence every 2 seconds and a battle system where you collect the monsters like Pokemon and the ending would be Terra falling down from the sky with To be Continued at the end.

Sounds good eh ? Well SquareEnix these days seems to think so.:greenie:

Oh and Mog, Umaro and Gogo will be DLC instead of finding them throughout the game and you'll have to pay $2 for them each, and there will be costumes like a sexy anime maid costume for Terra and a Assassin's Creed cloak for Locke.

Best Final Fantasy ever.

Oh and don't forget to make a Terra Returns with just her controllable. Sounds awwe-sume. :greenie:

[Loony BoB]

Except you can level your gear and that will fix the level cap issue, since your gear directly affects your three stats and only affect the battle score system, it's easy to grind a few levels for weapons and accessories and just plow through the games enemies if you are having issues.

Seriously BoB, you don't think I know how to see an exploitation in an RPG battle system? :p
At what point did I say that XIII's weapon upgrading system should also be used? :confused:

VIII's system was undoubtedly the easiest to break in any FF game I've ever played. I didn't even mean to make my players overpowered, but somehow I ended up cakewalking through the entire game. I loved the game, but it was the easiest game in the series battle-wise.

[Wolf Kanno]

Except you can level your gear and that will fix the level cap issue, since your gear directly affects your three stats and only affect the battle score system, it's easy to grind a few levels for weapons and accessories and just plow through the games enemies if you are having issues.

Seriously BoB, you don't think I know how to see an exploitation in an RPG battle system? :p
At what point did I say that XIII's weapon upgrading system should also be used? :confused:

VIII's system was undoubtedly the easiest to break in any FF game I've ever played. I didn't even mean to make my players overpowered, but somehow I ended up cakewalking through the entire game. I loved the game, but it was the easiest game in the series battle-wise.

I bring up the weapon system cause you said XIII and most challenging in the same breadth and I simply stated why you are wrong.

While I agree VIII's overall system is broken, let me clarify that I was specifically talking about the fact enemies level with the party, I didn't mean to sound like I was suggesting the Junction System, but games like FFTactics have shown that a good way to maintain balance is to let the enemies level with the party so the player doesn't dominate. I just felt that VIII and FFT didn't go far enough with making the enemies stronger and that statistical upgrades is mostly lazy design when you could be changing the enemies attack scripts and adding counters to enemies as they get stronger.

[ShinGundam]

I just felt that VIII and FFT didn't go far enough with making the enemies stronger and that statistical upgrades is mostly lazy design when you could be changing the enemies attack scripts and adding counters to enemies as they get stronger.
Ugh, we can say the exact same thing about any RPG period, at least in VIII enemies can gain additional abilities as they level up and the only reason it is easy is because FF is an entry level series.

[Loony BoB]

So long as it's more Skyrim than Oblivion, then I guess I don't mind all that much. But I still prefer Morrowind. :p

[Formalhaut]

I enjoyed XIII's system of levelling, deliberately halting your progression until the next crystarium upgrade. The only annoying thing bestiary wise is that once you leave the place, if you didn't collect full info on said enemy, tough!

The perfectionist within me was not impressed.

[dominusnovus]

After playing through recently, I've come to realize how easy the game can be. When I was in elementary school, I thought it was much more difficult. Now, I just semi-low leveled (only fought enough to keep properly equipped) a game so I could min-max stats with the best espers, and it was surprisingly easy even before I started to grind out some levels (except for one battle with a brachiosaur and a mistaken save state).

Warning: I start getting creative/messing with the game itself.

My suggestions (most of mine have already been suggested, and I'm likely repeating ones I really like):

Esper System Tweaks:
- Characters must learn Summons similar to spells, but can only cast them when equipped with the respective magicite.
- Make summons better (important for my other ideas on summoning; if its more restricted, it should be more difficult).
- Better distribution of stat bonuses; bonuses for other stats.
- Limit ability of characters to learn spells; when every character but Umaro can cast Quick and Ultima, its not too intense. Not positive on how to do this.

Stats:
- Make Stamina useful. I say make its main purpose determining HP, rather than usefulness of regen/poison. This would also make stamina-boosting espers better.
- Possibly more stats? Luck, agility, etc.
- Characters could have innate elements, strengthening their attacks with the proper element, weakening it with opposing. Always felt weird to see Terra casting Blizzaga/Celes casting Firaga.

Characters:
- Make more of Sabin's Blitzes physical. Its silly, plot-wise, that it makes more sense to focus on his magic power than strength. This is a man that can hold up a building, can suplex a train. Why should it make any sense that he should be built as a mage, while his brainy brother would get buffed up?
- Only Terra can Summon/only when morphed. If only when morphed, she should be able to repeatedly summon in same battle (or perhaps can summon once/battle normally, unlimited while morphed). Similar idea, have Morph be similar to doublecast.
- Strago and Relm should learn proper magic similar to Terra/Celes.

Gameplay/Plot (this could get me in trouble):
- Non-torroidal map. I don't know if its too much to have an actually properly globe shaped map, but that bugs me in every FF game.
- More opportunities to use Magitek armor. Cuz thats just fun.
- More scenarios for the full party to be split. Most obvious opportunities:
While searching for Terra, remaining party continues to defend Narshe from further Imperial attacks/entirely new quest.
While travelling to Opera/Vector, same thing.
While travelling to Thamasa, remaining party spies on Imperial activity (more involved than just 'Edgar seduces the maid').
In World of Ruin, give every character their own scenario; make Celes's the last one you can complete. So, they all get their moment to shine in the intervening year before Celes, Edgar, and Setzer (and Sabin) start re-uniting the team.
- Make Floating Continent a multi-party dungeon. Cuz those are just fun.

Equipment:
- First, more limits on who can equip what. Force more characters into division between light/medium/heavy armors. Also, no shields for relm/strago/sabin/etc. Or, only light shields (but more light shields, and qualify less of the shields as light). Also, more division on swords; I don't want Locke with the Ultima Weapon
- No more relics. Well, not exactly. Make relics both rarer and types of equipment. In other words, more equipment slots (helm, armor, greaves, boots, gauntlets, rings, necklace), and have occasional equipment that grants the bonuses that relics do. Kinda like how most western-RPGs are (Dragon Age comes to mind).

Those are my modest proposals. My less-modest proposal is that someone makes a Final Fantasy 6 total conversion mod for Dragon Age/Skyrim/Whatever.

[Takara]

- Limit ability of characters to learn spells; when every character but Umaro can cast Quick and Ultima, its not too intense. Not positive on how to do this.

Maybe it could be similar to FFXII: once a character gets an Esper, the others can never use it. Do you give Odin to Locke so he can benefit from the speed stat boost upon level up, or to a different character who could make more damage with Meteor?

That would also allow to make more specialized magic users. You could make Sabin more of a curative magic user or one that focuses on debuffing enemies for example; he's already a powerful fighter and had his Blitzes to rely on, he doesn't really need to learn Ultima. Give Ragnarok to Relm instead so she can learn Ultima, because little girls with the best innate Magic stat being able to wield that much power is terrifying. :p And then Terra learns it naturally later on, and a third character can then learn it from the Paladin Shield (make it one use only, so you can't pass the shield to another character afterwards). So you could have a maximum of 3 Ultima users ever; one natural, and up to two from learning it.

Maybe certain Espers could also be limited to certain characters for plot reasons. For example, only Terra could ever use Maduin, Shiva could be exclusive to Celes because of her affinity to ice, etc.

[blackmage_nuke]

Gameplay/Plot (this could get me in trouble):
- Non-torroidal map. I don't know if its too much to have an actually properly globe shaped map, but that bugs me in every FF game.
- More opportunities to use Magitek armor. Cuz thats just fun.
- More scenarios for the full party to be split. Most obvious opportunities:
While searching for Terra, remaining party continues to defend Narshe from further Imperial attacks/entirely new quest.
While travelling to Opera/Vector, same thing.
While travelling to Thamasa, remaining party spies on Imperial activity (more involved than just 'Edgar seduces the maid').
In World of Ruin, give every character their own scenario; make Celes's the last one you can complete. So, they all get their moment to shine in the intervening year before Celes, Edgar, and Setzer (and Sabin) start re-uniting the team.
- Make Floating Continent a multi-party dungeon. Cuz those are just fun.



I actually like all those ideas, it would lessen the problem of underleveled characters in the first half of the game.

Also I hate the idea of scaled monsters based on levels.

Though I wouldnt mind a limited leveling system or a system with no character levels. You equip an esper and it needs x xp until you get more stat point(s) progressively requiring more exp for each point (based on the character equiping it, not how many stats the esper has given out total, if you unequip it the exp resets to 0). As the game progresses the espers level up allowing the player to earn higher stats and making more powerful summons too. Maybe it'll be a automatic calculation based on how much magicite you have. That way there is a steady flow of power increase in the World of Balance AND the World of Ruin

The only problem i see with this is that you only get magicite around 6 hours into the game

[dominusnovus]

I actually like all those ideas, it would lessen the problem of underleveled characters in the first half of the game.

Glad you like it. Just to brainstorm a bit...

Narshe-based missions (while the 'main' party is on its way to find Terra/infiltrate Vector):
- Another imperial attack on Narshe, perhaps through the town itself, like in the prologue; now its the party thats defending Narshe as the magitek armor tries to make its way through. Or, they're attacking through the caves. Possibly you could have the help of the moogles.
- A raid on South Figaro/Doma.
- An entirely new dungeon, perhaps accessed similar to the Ancient Castle in the WoR.
- Recruiting support for the Returners. Getting Nikeah, Kohilingen, or Jidoor to ally with the Returners. Or, for some angsty fun, get Mobliz to support the returners. Then, they can feel that its their fault when Kefka blows the place up.
- In fact, Nikeah always felt underutilized to me, I'm sure something could be done there.

World of Ruin solo missions (with, of course, possible temporary allies to join), these should be fairly short, like the Terra/Edgar/Banon scenario, perhaps a bit longer:
- Terra arrives in Mobliz, and takes charge. Some minor battles early on, before Terra worries about how the children would fare without her.
- Locke travels looking for evidence of the Phoenix magicite, finally makes his way into the cave. Will need a new way to get there than by air; some mountain path. No idea on temporary members, perhaps some thieves. Even better, it could be the thieves that latter join Edgar. Maybe Locke was their other boss, and they think he dies trying to get to the treasure.
- Edgar recruits the band of thieves to help him find Figaro Castle. Some underhanded missions to earn their respect. Again, thieves could be the temporary party members.
- Shadow, if he lives, just does the mercenary thing. Gets abandoned by his employers in the Veldt cave.
- Sabin... this one's a bit tougher. Perhaps he just goes around, trying to help people.
- Cyan could attempt to restore order to Zozo, with mixed results (read: failure).
- Gau... I'm kinda stumped at this one, too. Something involving those hunters in the Veldt cave?
- Setzer's has to be depressing, as he's basically just given up to become a lush. Perhaps he searches for others and his lack of success leads him to abandon hope? I'm picturing him chartering different ferries, annoyed at the very idea of travelling by sea, rather than air. Or he tries to repair the blackjack/build a new airship, with similar failure? Maybe he gets it off the ground, crashes near Kohlingen.
- Mog tries to defend the moogle caves/Narshe from the horde of monsters that have descended upon them. The other moogles would be his help, and would die in the fighting, leaving him the last one standing.
- Strago searches the world for Relm and, upon failing, finds himself at the Cultist Tower. Having no hope, he joins.
- Relm... paints? This one's tricky, since the current game has her in the Veldt cave, if Shadow dies. We'd either have to change that, or have the scenario take place well before, or have two different scenarios. An Owzer scenario only really works if she's not in the Veldt cave; perhaps she tries to hold off the various painting monsters on her own. Otherwise, I got nothing.

These scenarios, of course, could intersect, perhaps even some of the characters might meet up at points (which could cut down on the total number of scenarios). If they see too much of each other, however, they might actually get optimistic and hopeful on their own, rather than relying on Celes' party to restore their hope. Cyan might meet up with Gau, briefly, for example (he knew that Gau was alive, anyway), and then they go their separate ways. But if Edgar meets Sabin, things get complicated. Shadow could meet up with almost anyone, really, without messing things up too much. In general, the scenarios should be somewhat dark and dispiriting, to contrast better with Celes'.

[Flying Arrow]

A few things:

-Get rid of the Magicite system.
Seriously, it sucks. It's might be the hands-down worst character-building system in any of the games. It either makes everyone exactly alike for no cost whatsoever or it turns into a spread-sheet bonanza of who has what and who still needs what (most characters not needing anything, the whole thing is pointless).

-Maybe, maybe get rid of the Fight command for every character.
Yes, gut fight and make their Skills their main offensive use. So, Edgar can only use Tools, Sabin can only Blitz, etc. This way, everyone has their own specific use and the differences feel meaningful. Obviously, the balance and effect of some of these Skills would have to be tweaked in order to fit into the game as is, but as it is there's almost no downside to having Edgar AutoCrossbow everything when you get him. Why even give him a sword?

-Make the game less grindy.
I want to use Strago. Don't make me scour the ends of the earth to get his Blue Magic. It's especially galling since he's a late-game addition rather than someone you've been building since the beginning.

I also want to use Gau. Don't make me spend my whole life on the Veldt battling the RNG to get him the abilities I want. Good lord.

[dominusnovus]

Thought of an idea for making Gau less grind-y: Allow him to learn rages if you leave him on the Veldt.

Example:
He leaps into a monster group. You leave the Veldt and do whatever. Based on how long you've gone without him (probably based AP, similar to Terra's Trance), when you get him back, he'll have learned a certain number of rages (of the learnable ones by that point in the game), with some randomness factored in.

[blackmage_nuke]

I dislike the idea of a character that grows more by not using him

[Elpizo]

If people want to get rid of "everyone can learn all spells", I think a good example to follow would be FF XII International's Zodiac Job system. Pick one class that can only learn a certain amount of skills and spells, and you're stuck with it for the rest of the game. That'll keep the magic pools unique. How many characters did VI have again? 14? You could asign each of them a zodiac job (with two that will end up re-using an already used job by another character) and have a fully unique cast with a wide variety of magic lists.

Or something like that.

[dominusnovus]

I dislike the idea of a character that grows more by not using him

Well, consider how Gau improves as it stands now. You don't actually use him; any battle in which he leaps or returns gets you zilch, other than the new rage. As it stands, the current system is incredibly tedious and random. At least Strago's Lores have some control over them. There's got to be a better way to do Gau's rages.

Oh, and quick idea on my World of Ruin scenarios:
- Umaro would be a temp character in Mog's scenario.

[Roogle]

If people want to get rid of "everyone can learn all spells", I think a good example to follow would be FF XII International's Zodiac Job system. Pick one class that can only learn a certain amount of skills and spells, and you're stuck with it for the rest of the game. That'll keep the magic pools unique. How many characters did VI have again? 14? You could asign each of them a zodiac job (with two that will end up re-using an already used job by another character) and have a fully unique cast with a wide variety of magic lists.

They could handle magic similar to equipment. For example, Espers can only teach certain characters certain spells. Suppose that only Shadow and Gau could learn Vanish, giving you more incentive to use them for that specific spell. Spells could be tailored to fit specific characters skillsets and build on them rather than detract from them.


Thought of an idea for making Gau less grind-y: Allow him to learn rages if you leave him on the Veldt.

Example:
He leaps into a monster group. You leave the Veldt and do whatever. Based on how long you've gone without him (probably based AP, similar to Terra's Trance), when you get him back, he'll have learned a certain number of rages (of the learnable ones by that point in the game), with some randomness factored in.

When I play the game, I simply put in a code to allow Gau to use all of his rages from the start. Obviously, I try to stick to ones that I have encountered so far so that he doesn't become overpowered. Maybe a system that allows you to easily gain access to Rages, but you can only use a certain amount before he has to go back to the Veldt and recharge or something? It's a difficult question.

[Yar]

I wouldn't go for radical changes like some mentioned in this thread. Buuuut...

I think it would have been interesting if the re-releases of IV, V and VI had a separate "hard mode" option. Similar to how FF I and II had an "easy" and "normal" mode option.

Some ideas:

-Make items and equipment more expensive, while enemies drop less gold.

-Tweak characters stats. Say maybe their stats increase fifteen percent less than they would on leveling up in the original? Another option would be increase the exp. required to level up~

-Tweak enemy stats. Maybe increase some stats or remove some immunities. Change enemy behaviors.

-Tweak the stat increases associated with Magicite. Or get rid of them completely.

-Tweak the rates at which characters learn magic. For example, a spell that grows at a x5 rate in the original could grow at x3. Alternatively, use a system similar to FF IX (though that would be my second option).

-Move around some item locations from the original. This could be done well or terribly :D But I remember the Ocarina of Time hard-version remake did something like this and it did help to add challenge to that game. Also get rid of some accessories. Does this game really need a 4x attack accessory?


I don't think that actions like removing special skills that some characters have is necessary. I think the overall difficulty can be increased with relative ease. But overall I think the most effective method might be finding a way to discourage grinding. Don't make it impossible, just make it enough of a pain in the ass that it would be more worthwhile to just continue on in the game.

[NeoCracker]

1) Create an Esper Affinity. AP builds your affinity with the equiped Espers (Certain characters can only equip certain Espers in this premise. For example Kirin could be equiped by Terra, Celes, Relm, some others perhaps.). As your affinity goes up, two things happen. Firstly, you will learn the spells, which stay on you forever. Secondly, you gain accsess to a certain set of stat boosts that get better as the Affinity goes up. This only applies so long as the esper remains equiped. (Perhaps the same esper could have slightly different stat variebles depending on who has equiped it.)

2) Sabins' Blitz's are physical.

3) Game is made harder.

[blackmage_nuke]

I wouldn't go for radical changes like some mentioned in this thread. Buuuut...

I think it would have been interesting if the re-releases of IV, V and VI had a separate "hard mode" option. Similar to how FF I and II had an "easy" and "normal" mode option.

Some ideas:

-Make items and equipment more expensive, while enemies drop less gold.

-Tweak characters stats. Say maybe their stats increase fifteen percent less than they would on leveling up in the original? Another option would be increase the exp. required to level up~

-Tweak enemy stats. Maybe increase some stats or remove some immunities. Change enemy behaviors.

-Tweak the stat increases associated with Magicite. Or get rid of them completely.

-Tweak the rates at which characters learn magic. For example, a spell that grows at a x5 rate in the original could grow at x3. Alternatively, use a system similar to FF IX (though that would be my second option).
.

I think changing numbers might make the game more challenging but I dont think it would in any way make the game more fun. Atleast not to anyone playing it again.

[Greatermaximus]

We need to revamp, improve, and/or redefine the game.

Do you mean in 1995 or 2012?

[dominusnovus]

-Tweak characters stats. Say maybe their stats increase fifteen percent less than they would on leveling up in the original? Another option would be increase the exp. required to level up~

But stats don't go up w/o Magicite. Other than HP/MP.

[Yar]

I was not aware of that! :D Thank you for letting me know

[Pezmerga]

I'd lower the damage on spells, and then limit who could learn spells, and how they are learned.

Most characters would only be able to summon espers, and get stat boosts from having them equipped. Basically only the women would learns spells. It definitely would not be Ultima spam fest! (Which should only be able to be learned by Terra, Celes, and Relm. But I'd make it a little weaker.

Strago would be all about the Lores. Might need to rebalance some though so they aren't too powerful. Like Traveler. Maybe cap it's damage based on level.

I'd also Make it so Terra, Relm, and Celes each had different, balanced spell lists available to them naturally as they level. (As currently with Terra and Celes, except maybe a little different). Also they could learn spells faster with the appropriate esper equipped as they level (instead of getting points to learn spells). For instance with Ifrit Terra might learn Fire 2 twice as fast. She needs to have 22 levels to learn it naturally normally, in this case every level she gains with ifrit would count as 2 levels towards her learning fire 2. This also helps with stat boost abusing if you want to learn spells faster.

However some spells would be harder to learn because she isn't naturally affluent to learning it. Maybe she learns Ice spells a bit slower. Ice 2 might only be available to Terra if using Shiva for x amount of levels. not at all without using Shiva.

Naturally I'd probably align Relm with thunder magic. Since Fire and Ice are spoken for. Terra would learn cure spells faster than Celes, and Celes would learn Status spells faster. Maybe Relm would be balanced with how she learns spells. She would learn cure spells slower than Terra but faster than Celes, etc.

Make the enemies tougher.

Remove the Economizer, or make it unique. Though only 4 people would benefit from using it now.

Make spells cost more if using the Gem Box.

[The Man]

I'm surprised so many people are focused on the Economizer, since Osmose makes it almost completely pointless. By the time you can get an Economizer, there is basically no point in the game where you can't recover missing MP from enemies using Osmose. I'm amazed so many people even bother to use it when you could replace it with a relic that would actually do something useful. Then again, if you nerfed Osmose then the Economizer would become a lot more useful.

Seriously, Osmose is completely broken.

I think making it impossible for most characters to use magic at all is a bit extreme, but maybe the females and Stragos should be the only ones able to learn all spells.

[Pezmerga]

I'm surprised so many people are focused on the Economizer, since Osmose makes it almost completely pointless. By the time you can get an Economizer, there is basically no point in the game where you can't recover missing MP from enemies using Osmose. I'm amazed so many people even bother to use it when you could replace it with a relic that would actually do something useful. Then again, if you nerfed Osmose then the Economizer would become a lot more useful.

Seriously, Osmose is completely broken.

I think making it impossible for most characters to use magic at all is a bit extreme, but maybe the females and Stragos should be the only ones able to learn all spells.

I agree. But If magic was taken out for most, it would need to be balanced so it didn't completely outshine the other characters.

Osmose is a little too strong, I agree. I usually play LLG now so Economizer is much more powerful with 40-60 max mp! lol But I do see your point for a normal game.

[The Man]

Ah, yeah, I forgot about LLGs. In normal play the Economizer is pretty much useless though.

[Wolf Kanno]

Esper and Magic Edition*

I like the idea of making different characters learn magic at different rates, it might deter people from teaching Cyan or Sabin Firaga if it took 999 AP to do so. Terra would require more AP to learn Blizzard magice While Celes needs more for Fire magic. Cyan, Locke, Sabin, and Edgar would all have high AP cost and all their AP modifiers would be 1, 2 at most.

I would also make it so summons were beefed up in damage and make some of them be capable of casting more than once in battle after you learn all their spells. I would change the magic damage formula to make it way less overpowered and make raising the Magic stat more useful.

I also feel what spells each Esper teaches should be reorganized a bit, drop some spells for certain Espers (Fire from Siren, replace Life with Cure for Bismark) and maybe give some Espers access to spells they didn't have before (Leviathan gets Blizzaga, Raiden gets Thundaga) so you're not restricted to having just one Esper for some spells.

I would also expand what stats the espers teach, so things like stamina will now be equated with physical defense and have one raise M.Defense as well.

I also feel the Espers should give the character a special attribute when equipped. So for instance, having Ramuh equipped raises Thunder magic by 1.5x damage. Here's what I'm thinking:

Ramuh - Raises Thunder Magic damage by 1.5x

Kirin - Allows Poisana to heal Darkness and Silence as well as Poison status effects

Siren - Bearer is immune to Silence status, adds Silence status to Attack command

Cait Sith - Bearer is immune to Confuse, adds Confusion status to Attack command

Ifrit - Raises Fire Magic damage by 1.5x

Shiva - Raises Blizzard Magic damage by 1.5x

Unicorn - Raises Cure Magic power by 1.5x

Maduin - Raises Thunder, Fire, and Blizzard damage by 0.75x damage

Catoblepas - Bearer is immune to Petrify Status, adds Petrify status to Attack command

Phantom - Raises Evasion by 5%

Carbuncle - Grants Reflect Pierce ability to characters magic commands but magic is 1/2 effective

Bismark - Raises elemental weapon spell cast chances by 20%

Golem - Grants Guard ability to the Knights Honor (Cover Command) allowing the bearer to take less damage when blocking a physical attack.

Zone Seeker - Raises M. Block by 10% lowers Evasion by 10%

Seraph - Doubles the potency of Regen and Raise including relics.

Quetzalli - Adds 0.5x damage to a characters Jump command, this is added on top of of the damage bonuses already given. Takes 1.5x more damage though.

Fenrir - Raises Counter damage and Critical Hit % by 10% but lowers all defensive stats.

Valigarmanda - Raises all elemental spell damage by 0.5x

Midgard Zolom - Null Earth damage, take 2x damage from Wind

Lakshmi - Reduces 1/4 of elemental damage. The elemental spells defense is based on what high level magic the character has learned, so for instance Fire damage is reduced if the character knows Firaga or Meltdown but not if they only know Fire or Fira. So if Terra knew Firage, Thundaga, Blizzaga, Holy, Graviga, Tornado, and Quake; she would only take 3/4ths of the damage from Thunder, Fire, Ice, Holy, Gravity, Wind, and Earth elemental attacks when equipped with Lakshmi.

Alexander - Raises Armor defense (only armor, no helmets, shields, or relics) by 0.5x, lowers attack power by 0.5x. Adds the ability to cast Holy with a 1/16 chance with Attack command regardless of weapon, but spell only has half it's attack power.

Phoenix - Chance of auto-summoning when the bearer of this Esper is killed. Formula is based on one similar to Phoenix in VIII and IX where the amount of Phoenix Downs are calculated to raise the chance.

Odin - Grants the bearer a 1/16th chance to have their normal attack dispatch an enemy

Bahamut - Raises Weapon power by 0.5x but lowers the characters defense by 0.5x. Adds the ability to cast Flare with a 1/16th chance with a normal Attack Command regardless of weapon but spell only has half it's power.

Ragnarok - Boosts the power and abilities of the Ultima Weapon, Ragnarok, Lightbringer, and Excalibur:


Ultima Weapon - Lowers the Lv./HP requirement for damage
Ragnarok - Raises stat boosts by 0.25x and increases the damage of the Flare spell by 0.5x
Excalibur - Raises stat boosts by 0.25x and increases the damage of the Holy spell by 0.5x
Lightbringer - Raises stat boosts by 0.25x and increases the damage of the Holy spell by 0.5x


Crusader - Gives the character immunity to non-elemental spells and abilities, but doubles the damage of elemental spell damage taken as well as negates the elemental defensive effects of equipment. So you can't use the Minerva Armor or Paladin Shield to get around the side-effect.

Raiden - Gives the bearer a 1/8th chance to have their Attack Command dispatch an enemy.

Leviathan - Grants Auto-shell, Auto Protect, and Auto Haste if a character has full Kappa/Imp gear equipped.

Cactuar - Party has a 1/4 chance of getting a Pre-Emptive strike against the enemy with the enemies defense and magic defense reduced to 0. There is a 1/4 chance that the party will instead retreat with 100% success. This special ability is negated for boss fights.

Diabolos - Increases the effectiveness of certain Relics:

Gauntlet - Triples physical attack power instead of doubles
Gold Hairpin - Reduces MP cost by 75%
Knight's Code - Will Cover party members that have have 25% or less of their health instead of 10%
Dragon Horn - Raises chance the character's Jump Command will be 3 or 4 hits.
Black Belt - Counterattack rate is raised to 90%
Master's Scroll - Attack damage is only reduced by 1/4th instead of half.
Growth Egg - Triple XP
Merit Award - Allows Gau and Gogo to equip it.
Thieves Bracer - Triples success rate of steal
Heiji's Jitte - Lowers cost of Gil Toss



Gilgamesh - 1/16th chance you'll either do 1hp of damage or 4x damage.

* Or How I'm mostly going to agree with a lot of suggestions so far and pretend I had the thought before they were mentioned... :shifty:

[Roogle]

I like the idea of Espers giving a passive bonus. That would allow for new party setups, compositions, and strategies rather than having certain Espers being forgotten after their spells are learned by the party.

[Wolf Kanno]

I like the idea of making you want to use the summons more. I'll probably do relics and equipment next.

[Heath]

Given how much critical acclaim FFVI gets around these parts, I was surprised to see so many suggestions for how to fix the game. Added to that, I'd also add that given how much I like FFVI, I was equally surprised at how many of the suggestions I agreed with!

Some of the ones I quite liked:

* Magical characters learning magic at a better rate.
* Limitations on what magical spells characters can learn.
* Limiting the use of things like Edgar's Tools to prevent the game being too easy.
* I especially liked Wolf Kanno's suggestions for additional bonuses for Espers.
* Changes to make Bushido, Relic and other skills more useful.
* Additional dungeons, making towns more interesting (particularly 'recruiting' towns for the Returners).

The one change I wanted to suggest was just making the towns fee more distinctive. I found a lot of them began to meld into one in my mind. I realise that that's partly because of graphical limitations, but the standard palette of towns (outside of the likes of Zozo and Vector) was slightly boring. I'd like the towns to have a bit more of an individual identity to make them stand out more as individual locations.

[The Man]

Even those of us who love the game agree that it's got one of the less intricate battle systems of the series (though far from the worst) and more importantly could be a lot more challenging. While the customisation system is pretty deep, there are simply too many parts of the battle system that are just completely broken.

[blackmage_nuke]

Edgar should only be allowed to equip female espers :jokey:
(Likewise, bear man Sabin should only be allowed to equip male espers)

[Greatermaximus]

To take an idea from FFT, have the enemies/game level up with you. The game can recognize your highest leveled character. I know the newer versions created more bosses. Now the question is should all games give you the option to buy the best equipment at a huge price.

Lets say the Paladin Shield's price is one million gold in the game?

Genji Helmet 100,000?

Get from special town?

[Wolf Kanno]

Enemies - Largely I would beef up some stats, make some of the damage algorithms better and make more enemies (most bosses) exploit a retort system to punish players more often. There are a few enemies that have counters if you use Tools and Blitzes for instance and I feel that should be exploited to keep those characters in check. Here's some examples of redone bosses.

Kefka (Frozen Esper Fight)

Give him the additional skills of Drain Touch(with a higher than normal damage algorithm), Hi-Potion, Shell, Reflect, and Protect

Kefka's weak physical attack now has a 25% chance of inflicting Silence when it lands.
If Blitz/Tool/Bushido/Cat Scratch is used on him, Kefka will counter with single target Blizzara on target, regardless of it being his turn.
If Runic is activated counter regardless of his turn with Drain Touch on character with lowest HP amount
If HP<50% Use Hi-Potion skill and cast Protect, Reflect, and Shell.

Kefka (Final Boss)

Kefka now takes half damage from all magic, even non-elemental spells* (Flare, Ultima) and skills that use Magic power to determine damage (Lores, some Rages/Blitz/Tools/Bushido/Slots)
Trine, in addition to silence and blind, now inflicts Sap, Confusion, Imp, and Slow.
Vengeance, in addition to dispelling all Buff effects on party, and grants them to Kefka except Reraise/shell/protect/reflect which if present heals Kefka instead for 1000hp per status per character that had the status.
Forsaken now ignores defense and split damage, meaning it will most likely be a party wipe skill, though Shell status will reduce damage by 25% and Jump/Hide status will be immune.
Havoc Wing has a 10% chance of ejecting the character from the battle field.
Kefka now has four hit box placements on his sprite. Only one can actually have damage inflicted on him but its also the only one the player can target normally. Unfocused attacks from Blitzes, Rages, and X-Fight can still target these dummy hit boxes, but they have no HP and will count as a miss.

Boss Phases

Phase 1
Full HP to 41,000 HP


Kefka starts the battle with Heartless Angel/Fallen One
Kefka Immediately casts Barrier Change
In this phase only one elemental spell will hurt him of the 8 elements. He still only takes Half Damage from the spell though.
Non-elemental spells used on him in this phase will be countered with Ultima
All non-magic attacks will miss
If Quick is used, Kefka will counter with Fallen One followed by an immediate use of Ultima.
Kefka will alternate between the three -aga spells, Havoc Wing, Vengeance, and Fallen One


Phase 2
40,999 to 20,000



Kefka will drop the Magic Barrier ruse and start charging Forsaken
Kefka takes half damage from all magic and has a 50% evasion to all physical skills. Kefka will not be hit by any unfocussed spells (Quake, Meltdown, Tornado) that he casts.
Kefka will counter any physical hit with Havoc Wing
Kefka will dual cast all magic spells and adds Bio, Graviga, Quake, Meltdown and Tornado to the list. Kefka will still use Fallen One, Vengeance, and Havok Wing though only 33% of the time.
If Barrage/X-Fight is used with a physical attack, Kefka will immediately counter with Vengeace, then Fallen One followed by Ultima even if the player attack reduces his HP to zero.


Phase 3
19,999 to 0Hp


Kefka will use Vengeance whenever ReRaise is active on a party member except when his algorithm has him casting Ultima next.
Kefka takes half damage from all magic and has a 50% evasion to all physical skills. Kefka will not be hit by any unfocussed spells (Quake, Meltdown, Tornado) that he casts, but is still susceptible to any the party uses.
Kefka will now have an irremovable status effects of Haste/Protect/Shell
Kefka will counter any physical hit with Havoc Wing
Kefka will replace Havoc Wing with Hyperdrive in his normal repertoire of attacks.
Kefka will now triple cast Flare, Holy, and Meteor. He will single cast Ultima.
Kefka can now also use Curaga which will restore 9999hp, if Kefka's HP somehow returns to Phase One status, Kefka will enact the Barrier Change tactic again but still retain all of his abilities from Phase 3.
Kefka will still charge up and use Forsaken though its casting time is faster.
When HP is reduced to zero, Kefka will use the attack Light of Judgement as a final attack. LoJ will be just a recolored version of Forsaken, Kefka will also use his trademark laugh as he disintegrates.

[NeoCracker]

Mosty, fuck the 10% chance to knock a guy off the battle field. That is a bit extreme. Just go for a 20% Instant death rate. Higher odds of happening, as well as not having a chance of just fucking you entirely with no real way to overcome. It works quite well since VI only has one relic equip-able by two people which prevents Instant death.

Also, he possesses the ability of the gods of Magic themselves, so I propose the following attack.

Sever Connection - 1 Target
--Effect 1: Removes all Magical buffs, including ReRaise
--Effect 2: Halves the accumulative total of all stats that have been boosted due to Per Level Esper Bonus's.
--Effect 3: Randomly eliminates half of targits Active Spell List.
---Notes: Does not register as a Status Effect, much like Charm in the original version of FF VI. No Duration. Stays on even after revive.

[Wolf Kanno]

If I made it so ejected character could be replaced by remaining party members mid-battle a la FFVIII, it wouldn't be so bad, besides the point of it was to make you the player choose whether to try a high risk strategy or play the boss' game. :p

Course looking at it again, I do feel that MegaTen has seriously influenced me.

[NeoCracker]

I think perhaps instead of replacing in battle party members, the last fight should actually go the route of the rest of the last dungeon and have different segments all together rather then the 12 man set up used. That way you actually do need to use everyone, except the extra 2 people that is. :p

[Sephiroth]

Phase 3
19,999 to 0Hp


Kefka will use Vengeance whenever ReRaise is active on a party member except when his algorithm has him casting Ultima next.
Kefka takes half damage from all magic and has a 50% evasion to all physical skills. Kefka will not be hit by any unfocussed spells (Quake, Meltdown, Tornado) that he casts, but is still susceptible to any the party uses.
Kefka will now have an irremovable status effects of Haste/Protect/Shell
Kefka will counter any physical hit with Havoc Wing
Kefka will replace Havoc Wing with Hyperdrive in his normal repertoire of attacks.
Kefka will now triple cast Flare, Holy, and Meteor. He will single cast Ultima.
Kefka can now also use Curaga which will restore 9999hp, if Kefka's HP somehow returns to Phase One status, Kefka will enact the Barrier Change tactic again but still retain all of his abilities from Phase 3.
Kefka will still charge up and use Forsaken though its casting time is faster.
When HP is reduced to zero, Kefka will use the attack Light of Judgement as a final attack. LoJ will be just a recolored version of Forsaken, Kefka will also use his trademark laugh as he disintegrates.



Sounds overpowered in case you don't deal ridiculously high damage like it is normal in Final Fantasy VI.

I would just make him immune to (damage) magic during the whole battle. And yes, I would give him Light of Judgment.