Game Mechanics

[Skyblade]

Well, I've picked up FFT again. This has sparked a whole new range of rants against this game, which I would like to discuss. I feel the gameplay mechanics of FFT are probably the worst of any tactical RPG I've played, and I would like to see who defends them, and how.

The Charge System. In itself, not a bad idea. But taken way too far. The huge cast times on some abilities are ridiculous. Does anyone use Aim +20?

The Zodiac System. Ok, so people's birthdays have a direct effect on combat...because..? Yeah, I've never understood this system. I mean, the birthday events and nods are fine, by why make all the weird connections in terms of which characters can best support or attack others? It's a system you have so little control over, and can't adjust or tweak. Why is it in the game?

The Bravery/Faith system. Another one I don't really get. What does this serve? What is the purpose of these stats? Don't we already have attack, defense, magic, and power? Isn't that simpler? What does this achieve?

The Support Magic system. Oh my gosh. Why, oh why can support spells miss? They're already of limited utility, with such short durations and range for so high a cost (in MP and cast time). Yet then you make it so you can cast Protect on your party and miss on all five. Ooh, or better yet, casting Raise, and having it miss. I mean, what the heck?!

The Egg System. Why is my party full of Chocobos after one month on the map? Why do I have to keep purging these beasts? Why can't the game understand that having one Chocobo in my party doesn't mean I want a dozen?

And why didn't they adjust or tweak any of these when making War of the Lions? We know they can make better gameplay, they made FFTA and FFTA2.

[NeoCracker]

Yeah, Bravery/Faith is an even more bizarre system when you actually realize what it does. :p

[Skyblade]

Yeah, Bravery/Faith is an even more bizarre system when you actually realize what it does. :p

Nah, I know what it does, I just oversimplify in my head because it does way too much. Why have this single stat that is easily min maxed and yet completely ruled the magic game?

Why tie reactions and treasure hunting to bravery? Why give certain weapons strength dependent on a stat that is, again, so easily min maxed?

Why couldn't they have tied these to already existing stats? Why couldn't reactions be tied to a stat associated with the reaction, like strength or speed? Why isn't magic actually controlled by the magic stats?

[NeoCracker]

Yeah, Bravery/Faith is an even more bizarre system when you actually realize what it does. :p

Nah, I know what it does, I just oversimplify in my head because it does way too much. Why have this single stat that is easily min maxed and yet completely ruled the magic game?

Why tie reactions and treasure hunting to bravery? Why give certain weapons strength dependent on a stat that is, again, so easily min maxed?

Why couldn't they have tied these to already existing stats? Why couldn't reactions be tied to a stat associated with the reaction, like strength or speed? Why isn't magic actually controlled by the magic stats?

Yeah, Bravery is just kind of a goofy stat all around.

I kind of like Faith, the premise that the effects of magic are altered from person to person I like, though I think the effects are a bit to great dependant upon the stat.

The Charge system is only an issue for a few abilities, IE Aim. Paired with 'Don't Move' and 'Reduce Charge' it's pretty good, but on it's own Aim is next to worthless. I like that they have something like that to really take advantage of it, but when it's next to worthless without exploit, I take issue.

The egg system I kind of like, except it spawns way to damn much, and there is no way to shut it off. It becomes more of a bother then actually usefull, especially since your humans will pretty much always outclass the monsters.

The Gemeni System is pretty much entirely ignorable. :p

[Wolf Kanno]

I'll give this a whirl...



The Charge System. In itself, not a bad idea. But taken way too far. The huge cast times on some abilities are ridiculous. Does anyone use Aim +20?

I feel NeoCracker nailed this one, they are high cost moves that only work well when you put it together with a team, as opposed to buiding a team of individual death machines. It makes classes like the Mystic more useful, while also giving hope to fanboys who want to see Cloud's Omnislash and Cherry Blossom Limit Breaks.


The Zodiac System. Ok, so people's birthdays have a direct effect on combat...because..? Yeah, I've never understood this system. I mean, the birthday events and nods are fine, by why make all the weird connections in terms of which characters can best support or attack others? It's a system you have so little control over, and can't adjust or tweak. Why is it in the game?

Well it is the Zodiac Brave Story and you can actually affect this stat since you simple cast out generics and keep recruiting until you get one with a stat you want. Story characters and story mission generics also never change their signs so it's pre-set and you can pre-plan if you want for that. The system itself is pretty much based around the actual Zodiac, so characters have high compatibility with like signs so water signs deal better against other water signs, and the opposite signs are ones to look out for, so I genuinely give Ramza my personal zodiac sign of Scorpio (which is debatably one of the best signs to give him since it gives him a major advantage against most of the nasty bosses) so I can deal greatly with Cancer, Scorpio or Pisces signs cause they are all water, whereas I have to avoid Taurus (earth) because it's my opposite sign. Its actually a pretty amusing system and I find it amusing how much thought went into and how well it actually aligns with astrological thought.


The Bravery/Faith system. Another one I don't really get. What does this serve? What is the purpose of these stats? Don't we already have attack, defense, magic, and power? Isn't that simpler? What does this achieve?

They affect reaction commands, Find-Item, the success rate of magic, and both help alter power and magic as well. They are basically easily manipulated Spirit, Staminia, and Luck stats all rolled into two simple stats. I also like how they affect you're view of the characters since they partially reflect the characters outlook when you look at some of the story character stats. Overall though, they are just renamed versions of M.Defense and a visible percentage of success rates. Faith does actually affect magic damage formulas but I feel this is largely an issue of balancing the game and keeping it away from the Linear Warrior, Quadratic Wizard (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards) issue that plagues RPGs (and is an issue in FFTA series). Bravery is a bit more balanced with it only affecting damge with Knight Swords and Bare fist, meaning only two classes actually benefit physically from having a high brave stat whereas Faith is pretty universal for all mage classes.

I like to think they work better than directly affecting the main four stats because the game has a heavy focus on min/max and it would be really annoying to know you can accidentally permanently lower your physical defense by screwing around with certain abilities. They are largely there for two reasons, for newbie players, they allow you to cause a lot of statistical damage with little effort, Raising a characters Brave twice is going to have a more dramatic effect than using accumulate to raise your strength stat by two points. On the other hand, knowing how to permanently manipulate the systems can offer veterans a way to build a more specialized party, like either keeping your parties Faith low so enemy magic won't work and then rely on Chemist and Monks for healing or go the opposite and raise the Faith stat high to keep Mage classes more effective.

So on the one hand, they are actually simpler if you are simply playing for the short game of achieving victory, or they can be complicated if you want to play a long game with a specific strategy for your units in mind. The other stats are also being affected by equipment and which classes you are leveling so simply having "raise/lower magic" stats may not be as simple if we have to factor in all that. Of anything, I would think making Faith and Bravery be the wild card stats in damage/healing calculations would largely simplify things since so many other elements in the game affect the basic four stats. It would allow an easy way to manipulate the formula without getting into too much of the game's algorithms.

My only personal beef with Bravery and Faith, is that I feel Bravery has no real flaws, Faith is a double edged sword and how you deal with it pretty much factors into what kind of player you are; but there is no real good reason not to have high Bravery. Even the idea of affecting Rare Item Find rates isn't a big deal where you can't just make an item finding mule to do this and then max out everyone else.


The Support Magic system. Oh my gosh. Why, oh why can support spells miss? They're already of limited utility, with such short durations and range for so high a cost (in MP and cast time). Yet then you make it so you can cast Protect on your party and miss on all five. Ooh, or better yet, casting Raise, and having it miss. I mean, what the heck?!

Honestly, they don't have short durations, I actually feel that Tactics makes support magic last longer than most other RPGs. The other issue is that their flaws can be circumvent by how you build your party. If magic isn't landing, then you need to start trying to manipulate the Faith stat and your characters gear. This game takes min/max more seriously than... well most games of the genre so usually there is an easy way to get around these flaws by just approaching how you build a character.


The Egg System. Why is my party full of Chocobos after one month on the map? Why do I have to keep purging these beasts? Why can't the game understand that having one Chocobo in my party doesn't mean I want a dozen?

The poaching system. Poaching also has a common/rare item chance and if you want to get some of the rare items in the game you will need to have a steady supply of monsters to play the odds, not to mention some monster classes will never be fought in the game so the only way to obtain one is to hatch it.


And why didn't they adjust or tweak any of these when making War of the Lions? We know they can make better gameplay, they made FFTA and FFTA2.

Your Mileage May Vary... (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/YourMileageMayVary)I personally don't like FFTA's dumb down mechanics and I felt it really sucked the customization possibilities away while also wrecking game balance, but that is my own opinion.

[VeloZer0]

As a system I think that charging is brilliant, it fits in with the games speed based turn based systems extremely well. As a matter of fact I think that having turns based on individual unit speed makes the vast majority of SRPGs that have player and enemy turns look somewhat juvenile.

In terms of balancing I think they could have done a better job on a few abilities. Some of the speeds on the really powerful magics are completely out to lunch, if a spell takes more than one turn to cast it better be ridiculously god-awfully powerful.* I think it is your dislike of the titles mechanics in general that has you painting this as a bad system, rather than one with a few questionable choices in balancing. Of course there is no argument that skills like Aim+20 and Meteor are rather useless abilities, but every RPG that I have ever played is chock full of useless abilities, aside from the ones that have a very restricted set of moves.

*Which could actually make an interesting mechanic if the risk-reward of casting a multiple turn spell was worth it in some cases. Wouldn't it be cool if you could actually cast Galaxy Stop but it just took a ton of MP and multiple turns to charge.

[Wolf Kanno]

I don't know, Meteor is actually pretty damn potent, it's attack range is really more detrimental than it's charge time and MP usage imo. It's just so easy to wipe out your own team if you are not careful.

[VeloZer0]

Exactly the point, if you are going to wait so long to cast it it should also have some attribute like only hits enemy units. Seeing as it is just about guaranteed that both friendly and enemy units have moved quite a bit before it will actually land.

[Skyblade]

As a system I think that charging is brilliant, it fits in with the games speed based turn based systems extremely well. As a matter of fact I think that having turns based on individual unit speed makes the vast majority of SRPGs that have player and enemy turns look somewhat juvenile.

Agreed. While most of the FFT games have kept the unit speed stat, I feel that this game's speed system is one of the best I've ever seen. It's incredibly effective, easy to manipulate, and simple to understand.

I'm not sure it's ideal, as the stat boosting does make it fairly easy to break the game. Three or Four Tailwinds get a character double turns, and from then on, the battle is basically over. Hit any unit with two or three Rend Speeds and they're crippled to nothing (these were how I got past the Progression Trap when I picked the game back up from my last save file, actually. And then I found a Degenerator trap and started delevelling).

But still, I really like the speed system in this game. It's so clear and precise. Really well done.




The charge system I like, but I like it the same way I like FFVIII's Junction system. It's a nifty idea, but I feel it falls short of its potential on execution. Tweaking charge times would help, but I still think there's some minor change needed to the system overall to make it ideal. I'll think about it as I play through and mention if anything strikes me.

[VeloZer0]

I think that there should be some mechanic to make charge times decrease as characters level up. Because as characters speeds level up the relative charge time increases, even if the actual clock ticks remain the same. Tying charge time to speed would make it so spells don't get 'slower' as your characters get faster. It could also create an interesting mechanic where you can choose to gear for MA to get more damage, or for Speed and have your spells cast quicker.

[Greatermaximus]

It can't be all things to all people.

They have to balance out the game the best they can. If it's too hard no one will play, if it's too easy it's not worth playing.

[Bolivar]

I don't have much to add to what Wolf said, I just think it's important to underline that randomness is the seasoning of RPGs.

I like the Brave/Faith and Zodiac systems because they make every battle unique, requiring the player to never stay with the same tactics. Both systems go over my head, but they accomplish what the developers wanted.

[Raistlin]

My main problem with Faith is that it it has such a dramatic effect. I don't have a problem with the concept in theory, but in application I think it needed to be toned down.