FF8 Battle...FF9 Style

I've been thinking about creating an RPG as part of my future work. Actually my future work involves both RPG games and the movie industry, but on the account of games, I have always thought that with the right tweaks, the battle system of FF9 is a pretty good one. For example, levels don't increase as your level increases - every enemy has a set level and given the time of the game, different enemies can gain new strength. For example, the same enemy before the Lunar Cry could have doubled his level number after the Lunar Cry.

With this, this could actually make FF8 much harder instead of being at level 20 and still beating the game because the enemy would be at level 20 too. What if Ultimecia was set at level 70? Adel at level 60? Omega at 100? Seriously this could make the game much longer, or it could make the game extremely boring because you're leveling up just to get the Proof of Omega.

Or it could make the game extremely difficult - maybe even more difficult than FF7. There's only so many elements you can junction to defense, so many statuses you can protect yourself with. Without time and patience, it's impossible to get all character stats to the desired maximum. Looking back, people did not enjoy Devil May Cry II as much as the original because the original was much harder to beat at harder levels. It would seem that difficult games is what the majority crave.

In my RPG I imagine difficult bosses and even more difficult superbeasts like Ozma or the Ultima Weapon. That could probably encourage people to buy my RPG. Would FF8, if the level of difficulty of the game increased, surpass FF7 as the majority claim it did not?


Imagine this: 2nd battle against Edea. By the time you reach her, you would probably be at around level 20-25. Let's set Edea at level 32. Seifer can fall, but when she finally says "Enough games. All SeeDs must die!", she casts Malstorm, which is like Gravija but inflicts Curse status too. Let's step this up a bit. Let's triple her HP, double her magic stats, increase her Speed so she has the potential to deal 2 hits every 4 seconds. This will a) increase the realism that you are fighting a Sorceress, an extremely powerful entity of the FF8 world with unlimited power, and b) will make this battle almost near impossible to beat without a proper stragedy. The fact that her HP is tripled means a) limit breaks would have a lesser effect and require more risk being at critical satus, and b) increase the length of the battle, therefore making it "challenging" because a lot of things can happen in a long fight. Let's say she has about 1000 HP left and then she suddenly casts critical Meteor? That would decimate your party, and also create some unwelcome hostility between you and the game CD.

But it seems that difficult games make greater enjoyability. List a boss that you would tone up the stats for, and give it a set level. If you were to Triple Ultimecia's HP so that she could survive Lion Heart and counter, for example, that could make all the difference between greater satisfaction for beating the game or disappointment for beating a game near impossible to beat (like FF1. I hear that the game is near impossible to beat).

It's possible to make an opponent tougher without actually increasing their HP. Better defences, better healing and items... all of those can make a battle last longer. A battle can become silly if an enemy's HP is simply too high - I can remember a few times when I've thought, "Hmm, for a slender and lightly- clad woman, Edea certainly doesn't seem to mind being shot in the face and slashed with a sword hundreds of times over." It can really hinder the realism, although I appreciate that 'realsism' must often take a back seat in RPGs. If the bosses posessed stronger magic and weapons, then the challenge would be greatly increased - having to defend one's own party whilst simultaneously attacking the enemy before that enemy can heal itself... tough stuff. Even more so if the opponents have got their hands on a few Elixirs or Heroes.

Yes. I can imagine that focusing on two different things at the same time can greatly impede the progress of a fight. I can take my fight with the Enyoles in Esthar as a great example. Leveling up from them was a good idea since you also get special items too, but Counter (which is an annoying thing for an enemy to have) can mean the difference between pummeling an enemy over and over until its dead or attacking till every counterattack kills your entire party. A lengthened battle can get tiresome, which is probably also why the rewards should be equalized too. An adamantoise who casts White Wind like every single turn should be enough to grant the fighters 2 level ups for example.

Yeah, you're right. HP increases isn't the only way to increase the difficulty of a game. For a woman ike Edea, surely she should have different kinds of spells - both black and white (probably not white, she's dressed in all black) - with the aid of haste and protect and shell.

Now that's what I'm complaining about: the spell called Dispel. This magic can seriously determine the level of difficulty of a fight depending on whether you use it or not. Should you use it, you can make sure Edea can never haste herself again. So in end, increasing stats (which is unchangable except Vitality. Hey, maybe we should get rid of Meltdown overall) is the only way to make an RPG such as FF8 more difficult. Limit breaks wouldn't be a bad idea. Going back to the 2nd Edea fight for example, what would it be if once she reaches 5000 HP, she could cast Ice Strike on all characters every single blow? You'd probably have to heal and attack very very slowly. If your level's not high enough, it's only a matter of time before you simply run out of curative magic to use or your life slowly drains as your own magic can even fully recover what's been lost.

Either you or Besimudo once mentioned: a limit break is a desperate messure attack. Squall's Rough Divide and Seifer's Fire Cross in the beginning FMV seem plausible. Edea certainly has a limit break too. There's something new. If all enemies (or at least bosses) had limit breaks, this could invoke new stragedy to beat bosses before the enemy can initiate a limit break and your 2 hours beating final ultimecia can come to a extremely irritating close.

But then a battle isn't exactly won with brute strength; that's what status attacks are for. In the last fights against Ultimecia, all that was basically doing was "keep punching and eventually you or she will fall". Status attacks could make a big difference.

But then, there is a difference between making a fun game and an impossible game, isn't there?

It's a good idea, since FF games, even though they're wonderful, lack more difficulty. I agree with Big D; it's not neccessary to increase the HP a lot; I mean, it doesn't make sense that a human enemy has way more HP than giant monsters. I think the key to make the game harder is setting levels and increase the stats. What was Edea's HP in the 2nd disk? I think it's about 16,000, not bad at all. The problem is that she has a weak physical defense and their attacks, except Maesltrom, weren't really impressive.

The problem with making a harder game though, is that some gamers would get stuck and it wouldn't be so popular. In short, they would probably sell less games.

It can be hard to balance all the many gameplay elements to eliminate loopholes... like FFVIII's physical (ie male characters') limit breaks. Not only do they allow a huge number of consecutive hits, but their effectiveness can often be doubled by using Meltdown to remove an opponent's Vitality. There is no equivalent for magic users - no multi-hit combo, no spell to eradicate Spirit. This almost requires the player to exploit the male leads' limit skills.

Opponents should behave in a more 'intelligent' manner, too. Take Lani from FFIX for example - she uses Scan to determine Garnet's elemental weaknesses, and then takes advantage of those weaknesses. She uses a variety of black and white magic, as well as physical attacks, in an effort to gain the upper hand. Unfortunately, she was often a miserably easy opponent. If a touger Boss used her kinds of strategies, it would greatly enhance the challenge. An opponent that'll pick on weak party members, analyze weak points, and basically avoid making the same silly mistakes repeatedly (like Ultimecia casting Holy on someone who's completely immune to that element) would add an extra element of thought and depth to the fights.

I always wanted WAY MORE optional bosses. more weapons, more gfs, more huge beasts just to fight for a nice item or 2. fighting is fun. but remember, fighting and leveling are to different things... leveling can take days and bore THE ABSOLUTE HELL out of you. the way i do it is i keep my characters at a low a level as long as possible then cast lev.up on a behemoth, bite bug, fasticolan, iron giant etc. except it doesnt last long becuase you level a lot when you win. who am i kidding. the whole level system blows

You really need a balance. RPG's can be let down if they are too easy or frustratingly hard. I think all of the FF's have a good balance, it just depends on how much effort the gamer is willing to put in.

With FF7 I found it challenging, and the first time I fought Sephiroth I got kicked. However this was my first FF and I hadn't done a lot to prepare for the final battle. After getting some more HP pluses and using a bit more strategy I defeated him but it wasn't a pushover. The next time I played it I did all the chocobo breeding and got Knight's of the Round and he wasn't anywhere near a challenge.

With FF8, a bit past halfway through the game I couldn't defeat one of the bosses. My brother told me I needed to do more junctioning and afterwards I didn't have too many problems. Ultimicea was easy with the spoils I reeped from Ultima weapon.

The other FF's I've played pretty much followed the same thing, whereby the more time I put into doing extra stuff, the easier the game became. I think this is probably the best way to do it, as the difficulty of the game is more or less determined by how the gamer plays. That's the only problem I can see with setting specific levels for bosses, the game wont change to accomodate for if the gamer has leveled up a lot, or simply rushed through. If Sephiroth became harder the moment you got Knights of the Round, and Ultimicea became harder once you defeated Ultima weapon (not just with increasing level) than both games would have been a lot more challenging.

Let me say this.


When making an RPG you have to dedicate ALOT of time and effort to making it balanced and intriguing. I have made over 5 RPGs, all of which I made using RPG Maker (95, 2000, and also 2k3.) And THAT isn't codnig, but yet takes ALOT AND ALOT AND ALOT of time to do it.

My first RPG took about 4 months to do, and was about average. I wanted to do all items/characters/skills/magic my way, not the default that came with RPG maker. So I spent hours and hours a day, typing in ideas into my MS Wordpad, I had over 100 items, 100 magic, 50 skills and 7 characters. And the time it took to get everything customized was :skull::skull::skull::skull:ing horrible., Then comes putting trout in place, and putting in switches, variables, events, and everything. I felt like cutting my wrists it got so time consuming. But, after finishing my game, (Final Fantasy : Sephiroth's Retribution) I was proud. If you shall embark on this journey, I URGE you to make sure you have the time and will to complete it. Plus, if you're coding it instead of using a prog such as rpg maker, I will pity you.

Advice...

1. Don't make it too hard...I made mine originally too hard, people at my school hated it, and I had to REDO it ALL over again. (which was my first 4 months, overall, the total process took about 9 months.)

2. Make it interesting, don't make it too easy either...Make it believable yet fantasy, this is a key element.

3. For God's sake, make your game worth the time to play, make a nice ending. Maybe a password to a porn site or somehting, but don't be disappointing and make the people mad that they spent their time on a game that gave them a troutty end.