Final Fantasy: Full Weapons and Armor set or Weapon/Accessory combination?

Which system do you prefer? One where you get to outfit your characters in a full set of armor (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, IX, XII) or where it is limited to weapons and accessories but comes with an upgrade/customization system (VII, VIII, X, and XIII)?

Personally I prefer the old school system that made a return in IX and XII. You could mix and match armor set pieces to customize the stat bonuses on your characters. I thought it was especially well done in XII--where you have a choice of a wide array of weapons, armor, and accessories that all have their own properties, disadvantages/advantages. For instance, katanas were good for characters with a high magic stat because their attack power is based off magic instead of strength.

The other system has seen a variety of customization systems with X probably being the most notable. So, I can see why people would like to just have the selection of weapons and armor to be narrower yet provide a customization system instead of variety.

Full set, no contest. One of my biggest gripes with some of the later games of the series.

Of course, accessory + customization.I will take passive abilities(AUTO-HASTE<3) over Bonus stat, any day.

I don't really mind as long as there is a lot of depth in character set up. So if you give me three pieces of equipment and a whole boat load of materia it is better than four pieces of equipment and two relics. Sometimes itemization is done well where you actually have to pick and chose gear for the builds you want, but often times it is just every piece is better than every other piece that came before it.

The only downside is that it kind of eliminates the amount of loot that they can doll out through chests and the like. Finding stuff I can really use is one of the hallmarks of an RPG Square-Enix, remember this!

It doesn't have to be specifically Main hand Off hand Head Hands Body Feet Accessory slots, but I definitely prefer more than just weapon + one or two more slots. For all I care though, it could be main hand, sub hand, armor, ring, earring, belt, necklace. Of course, I'm also used to having 16 equipment slots, due to being a FF11 player.

There we have the following:

Main hand, Off hand, Ranged weapon, Ammo
Head, Neck, Earring 1, Earring 2
Body, Hands, Ring 1, Ring 2
Back, Waist, Legs, Feet

I would be perfectly happy if every FF used the same system as FFXI. It reminds me of D&D. I also like to see the equipment that I put on have a visual affect on my character. It's really annoying to run around as Vaan half naked when he's supposed to be wearing Plate armor (or w/e).

The problem with that is then it transitions to prerendered video. It looks odd if you enter a town in full hardcore giant armor and pauldrons with 2 feet long spikes, and then get a CS with like a leather vest. and shorts and that's it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mirage

The problem with that is then it transitions to prerendered video. It looks odd if you enter a town in full hardcore giant armor and pauldrons with 2 feet long spikes, and then get a CS with like a leather vest. and shorts and that's it.

---

That's true but graphics are getting good enough that prerendered video can be replaced by respectable in game cutscenes. In fact, they decided to do all or mostly in game cutscenes in XIII-2 and it saved a lot of disk space. I suppose this same decision could be made for a Final Fantasy that shows armor, weapons, and accessories on a character.

Although the armor would have to be pretty dang awesome looking... :kakapo:

What I don't really like about showing the armor is that it quickly becomes miss-matched and/or doesn't co-exist well with the characters art style. I don't want all my characters equipped with the same stuff to look the same, I want them to be all distinct. Ideally this would mean the same armor has a different (but similarly styled) model for each character, but I am somewhat realistic about the amount of work that would take.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lamia

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mirage

The problem with that is then it transitions to prerendered video. It looks odd if you enter a town in full hardcore giant armor and pauldrons with 2 feet long spikes, and then get a CS with like a leather vest. and shorts and that's it.

---

That's true but graphics are getting good enough that prerendered video can be replaced by respectable in game cutscenes. In fact, they decided to do all or mostly in game cutscenes in XIII-2 and it saved a lot of disk space. I suppose this same decision could be made for a Final Fantasy that shows armor, weapons, and accessories on a character.

Although the armor would have to be pretty dang awesome looking... :kakapo:

---

Sometimes, prerendered videos are used not just because the developers want to make prettier visuals, but to hide loading times. For example in FF13, there are many instances of prerendered videos that looked *exactly* like the ingame realtime rendering, but while this video was playing, the game was secretly loading the graphics for the next part of the game. If anything, i would think they'd need to do it the FF7/8 way, where there was a prerendered background movie, with the actual 3D character models put on top of that. I'm not sure how accurate they could make that look. I know FF7 and FF8 had a few instances where the characters were moving slightly out of sync with the moving background, but the tech might be good enough to make that a non-issue now.

I always thought the FMVs that you could move around in were cool.

They were, but are ultimately not as special anymore when the consoles can render moving scenes in real time instead.

^ But that makes them special to me, in that Square was doing in the late 90's what every AAA developer wishes they could do now.

I don't have a problem with some of the later FFs nixing the full armor sets, but I definitely prefer it. I love how IX and XII have them, in addition to a customization system, and I might put gameplay of those titles over the later of the FFs that don't have it. Love customization in those two.

As far as cutscenes, I definitely understand the difficulty and that's probably why most games with full armor sets don't change character appearance. But I think we're at an age where developer's can make it happen. White Knight Chronicles did, but that still had the problem of the armor sets looking the same. Again, I think they can put in the little extra effort and have one character's scale mail look different and individually personalized than another character wearing the same set.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Necronopticous

Full set, no contest. One of my biggest gripes with some of the later games of the series.

---

Yep! It's just lazy!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Del Murder

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Necronopticous

Full set, no contest. One of my biggest gripes with some of the later games of the series.

---

Yep! It's just lazy!

---

Or better for balancing!

The more the better I suppose! Let me customise sections of platemail!

I like both systems, though what bugs me about XII in particular is that when you equip the different armours it doesn't update your characters model which was a missed opportunity I feel. In previous iterations of the game you could understand it because the consoles didn't quite have the power for all the things needed. FFXII however probably could have had it, I'd have loved seeing my characters running around in armour sets instead of civvy clothes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bolivar

Or better for balancing!

---

What does that mean?

Balance in a single-player game? Bwahahaha.

Balance is a single player game is different than balance in a multipalyer game. Despite the name balance only implies balance in a multiplayer setting, something being balanced in a single player game means it is close enough to not detract from the fun.

Of course there is a certain degree of balance in single player games too, but because of the nature of single player games, there usually only a very little effort made to ensure all characters are roughly equally useful thorough the game, and huge imbalances/borderline exploits are rarely ever patched, partially because patching pre-PS360 era was pretty hard to do, but that just means you need to spend more time playtesting.

Some examples are:
Certain Enemy skills that are extremely powerful and obtainable early in the game (hi2u Beta, aqualung, white wind)
Certain limit breaks/overdrives (Duel vs Selphie's Slots, Omnislash vs Tifa's slots, attack reels vs whatever that thing auron had.)
Certain stat boost possibilities (speed junction in FF8), and the ability to gain extreme stat boosts in general early in that game
Maria in Star ocean 3, Reimi in SO4

The reason these imbalances aren't a big deal is that ultimately, single player games are human vs CPU, and the CPU is never going to complain about being curb-stomped (well not until we have true AI).

But when it comes to Final Fantasy, a series all of us here have played numerous entries of multiple times, balance is very important for people who like me, who like to enjoy the stories without having roll their eyes at the gameplay.

Yes, and no. Just because a game becomes unbalance for longtime fans who examine it in depth doesn't mean it was poorly done. I am strongly of the opinion that if you play the game for the first time and it is naturally obvious how to break it they didn't do a great job balancing. But I give them a full pass if it takes effort to find the broken parts, ie you don't just naturally stumble into them.

If someone is dedicated enough to a game to replay it for years then they are also dedicated to take some of the balancing unto themselves, choosing to not use skill 'x' or character 'y' and so forth.

full armor is definately winning.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bolivar

But when it comes to Final Fantasy, a series all of us here have played numerous entries of multiple times, balance is very important for people who like me, who like to enjoy the stories without having roll their eyes at the gameplay.

---

It's not that I don't think balance is important. I'm just saying most of the FF games are terribly unbalanced. If you can't see that, you can't be looking too hard for it :p.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mirage

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bolivar

But when it comes to Final Fantasy, a series all of us here have played numerous entries of multiple times, balance is very important for people who like me, who like to enjoy the stories without having roll their eyes at the gameplay.

---

It's not that I don't think balance is important. I'm just saying most of the FF games are terribly unbalanced. If you can't see that, you can't be looking too hard for it :p.

---

I wasn't necessarily responding to you, but thanks for mildly insulting me nonetheless.

I still don't understand what having accessories over armor has anything to do with balance.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bolivar

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mirage

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bolivar

But when it comes to Final Fantasy, a series all of us here have played numerous entries of multiple times, balance is very important for people who like me, who like to enjoy the stories without having roll their eyes at the gameplay.

---

It's not that I don't think balance is important. I'm just saying most of the FF games are terribly unbalanced. If you can't see that, you can't be looking too hard for it :p.

---

I wasn't necessarily responding to you, but thanks for mildly insulting me nonetheless.

---

In that case, I'm sorry for directly responding to your post. If you want to, I could change that to a plural you, not you you.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Del Murder

I still don't understand what having accessories over armor has anything to do with balance.

---

The greater breadth of options the player has, the greater the likelihood they can break the game.

Defends what you define as options. If you have 4 pieces of armor but all they ever do is add +def and you have two accessories that have creative benefits the two is far more breakable.

It doesn't really matter all that much to me, but I can see full-armor sets providing more options than what X and VI had.

Full armor. Honestly I didn't care for the newer FF's and I'm not the only one.

I find it hard to believe that the lack of full armor is why you didn't care for the newer FF games. After all, FF13 gives you 5 equipment slots, just like FF4 and FF5. The only difference is that they're not locked to a specific body part.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mirage

I find it hard to believe that the lack of full armor is why you didn't care for the newer FF games. After all, FF13 gives you 5 equipment slots, just like FF4 and FF5. The only difference is that they're not locked to a specific body part.

---

Well, accessories are different than armor. Accessories are typically have one random trait like Auto-haste or Strength+10%. A lot of them are situational, and many of them are useless (Deprotect resistence +30%? wtf?). You could easily go through a game like FFXIII with just some basic HP+ or damage+ accessories. Armor on the other hand focuses on defense and upgrading thoughout the game. Level 1 armor will probably not make it easy for you when you face hard-hitting bosses. Certain armors also come with bonuses making a tradeoff of defense vs. bonus possible. It requires a lot more active management of equipment and I like that about it.

Status boosting accessories also offer that though. I know I made good use of them throughout XIII.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Del Murder

Certain armors also come with bonuses making a tradeoff of defense vs. bonus possible. It requires a lot more active management of equipment and I like that about it.

---

That comes down to the quality of the itemization more than the breakdown of what you are equipping. The idea of armor pieces with stat trade-offs is closer to an accessory based system than a traditional armor itemization. (Where every piece is simply a statistical improvement over the last.)

The main flaw of a primarily accessory based system is that with a lot of passive effects there my not be as much of an onus to continually upgrade, which is something that good itemization has to address. Because we all know that plot and gameplay are all things we use to dress up the pursuit of acquiring shiny new equipment!

Well if I remember correctly in VII, VIII, and X the armlets you get are essentially armor that you just upgrade when a better armlet appears. But it's boring... weapon + armlet. It seems like there is more variation in the FF games with full armor systems... In FFVI you had magic blocking shields that could either be paired with typically high physical defense armor or you could make your magic def and block insanely high by being completely decked out in magical resistant armor (Aegis Shield, Force Armor, etc) as well as two relic slots! In FFXII you could pair the helmet cat-ear hood with hermes sandals and have a ridiculously fast character. Equip a fast weapon with a high combo rate on that character and you have one hell of a damage dealer. Equip the masamune and mage body armor to up your magic stat and you're dealing maximum damage at a very high combo rate. Nice. It seems like these combinations don't seem to exist in the Final Fantasy games when it is just your weapon and an accessory. Although there were a lot of possibilities with FFX's customization system since you could add several passive abilities to both your armlet and weapon and of course the materia and junction systems in VII and VIII add some customization but they all require some deal of grinding. In VI and XII, when you find an awesome piece of armor, it is yours and you dont have to level materia or grind for customization materials.

Except of course that the physical block stat in FFVI didn't actually work :p. Physical evasion was actually calculated with the magic evasion stat :>.