Hard Mode: Would make every final fantasy a million times more fun and addictive.

[NeoCracker]

best. In games like P3/4, the early bosses have weaknesses that can be exploited but in the second half of their games, the tables are turned and instead, you're building your party in a way to lessen any advantage the computer can have. You're forced to remove heavy hitters in your party cause the computer can exploit their weaknesses and ultimately destroy your party in a few rounds because you were silly enough to bring them in

Aegis with the rign that nullifies Ligthing, Ken with the Ring that Nullifies Dark, and Doggy with the one that stops Light. No stat weaknesses on those three now, as well as three immunities on the dogs part, (Light, Dark, and Fire).

Top that off with the Beelzebub I made, I was strong or Immune to everything but three things, two types of Phsyical and a weakness to Ice. Guess what Accessory he could equip?

Of course you can't pull that until after sleeping table, and if you beat that smurfer you're set for the game.

That said, there is plenty that makes that game hard outside of the computer exploiting Weaknesses. It also has a vicious AI, abilities, and various monsters who's attacks help the others out in a single fight.

Straight up weakness exploitation is to easy to overcome in just about any game, even Persona, so it takes a lot more then that, though it is a positive step.

[Wolf Kanno]

You left out the fact that getting all of those Null elemental items requires you to obtain endgame Personas (Surt is the lowest level Persona at Lv. 50 and Beelzebub is Lv 81; meaning that many of them are either endgame high level monsters or can only be obtained by completing social links and achieving the level needed) and even then you have to learn all their skills to produce the item. Unless you knew exactly how to get them and went straight for it, chances are you won't be using any of those items until you're fighting the final boss and even then, they are useless against Elizabeth.

So yeah, I would say P3 has it covered, still.

[kriminal99]

I guess a bigger issue is making the game mechanics relevant. I work in mathematics and theory and often when I play games like this I do things like reduce certain abilities to others in terms of effectiveness both in general and under certain circumstances.

In FF 99% of the time all the cool game mechanics become irrelevant and it comes down to one command. For most of the game it's just fight/attack etc. If you could miss or not do most of their health in hp per attack it might actually be worth it to do something else. The other frequently relevant mechanic involves resource management, so maybe steal etc to get more valuable items so your fight command becomes stronger.

Designing a system where other things become relevant takes brains and is almost and art form but as someone who is capable of doing it, it is endlessly frustrating to see these game companies spend tons of money on art, music etc. and ruin what could be a really addictive game because a couple formulas taking up a few lines of code are not what they should be. Sometimes it comes down to something as simple as changing a single number to something else to make a game 10x more enjoyable.


But sadly to know what that number SHOULD be takes more brainpower and knowledge than anyone involved has and so 50$ million dollars becomes half as effective. I have seen developers frequently make absurd comments like "our game designers usually start out as level designers... we find that people capable of making well designed levels make good overall designers as well"... morons...

Someone who would be capable of making really well designed mechanics would be just as effective as an engineer, economist or something much more important. But there are such people around that we just don't use. It really just comes down to one number: IQ.

The real problem is that relatively stupid people don't know that they are relatively stupid and there are more of them. They are insecure about being inferior to people of higher intelligence and thus do their best to force handicap and punish anyone with a higher level of ability. I am sure there was some guy at SE that said "hey wait a minute, the numbers are all wrong the game is going to be boring and repetitive once the grandeur wears off" and some relatively stupid artist said "hey what do you know".

If we would accept and understand intelligence and just put everyone's IQ on their record EVERYTHING would be a million times more efficient.

But the reason I brought up game difficulty is because perhaps by simple dumb luck or by use of repeated iterations of some mildly effective formula that no one at Square really understands the nature of a lot of FF games have like one semi-addictive element. But instead of needing it to survive making use of that element makes you steamroll the whole game.

[NeoCracker]

You left out the fact that getting all of those Null elemental items requires you to obtain endgame Personas (Surt is the lowest level Persona at Lv. 50 and Beelzebub is Lv 81; meaning that many of them are either endgame high level monsters or can only be obtained by completing social links and achieving the level needed) and even then you have to learn all their skills to produce the item. Unless you knew exactly how to get them and went straight for it, chances are you won't be using any of those items until you're fighting the final boss and even then, they are useless against Elizabeth.

So yeah, I would say P3 has it covered, still.

Beelz was pretty much end game yes, but you can get some pretty rediculous defenses early on is my point.

Not once was covering my weakness an issue, those late game Items are just the point it wasn't even a task anymore. I mean, switching out a single party member many times is enough to prevent weakness exploitation.

I just argue that is only a small part of just why those games are hard, if anything it at least forces you to change up your game witch is more then welcome.

[Depression Moon]

I don't see a reason for it. The games are as hard as you make them to be. I wouldn't mind a New Game+ like X-2 had though that way if I missed something my first time through I don't have to get everything I looked hard for the first time and the things I missed. I guess hard would benefit from a New Game+ if New Game+ carries over stats and highest weapons and equipment.

[Elpizo]

It's hard for RPGs to be challenging, especially Final Fantasy games, simply because of what you can do and the abilities you have. Many people complain about simply pressing attack and cure. I don't really mind that.

For me, there's no real need to make it more difficult, just keep it interesting. Difficult =/= interesting. If you have to only mash attack to win, then make attacking interesting. In my experience, the Golden Sun series did this perfectly by giving weapons unleashes. Special, flashy attacks that have a chance of appearing and break the monotone of simply attacking. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn made it even better by giving weapons multiple unleashes, with chances of you getting the best unleash (such as Megido) and bowling through everything being lessened because, even if you got an unleash, you have no way of knowing which one it's going to be. This is perfect for breaking the monotone of mashing attack, because even if you do, you won't always just "attack" even if you select "attack". That's cool. FF should implement this.

[ShinGundam]

In FF 99% of the time all the cool game mechanics become irrelevant and it comes down to one command. For most of the game it's just fight/attack etc. If you could miss or not do most of their health in hp per attack it might actually be worth it to do something else. The other frequently relevant mechanic involves resource management, so maybe steal etc to get more valuable items so your fight command becomes stronger.

In other words, you want to play an FF where spells/characters/summons/items only be used them in the right context, It will be something like this: make a choice, fail, start over, repeat. Personally, it isn't important factor to enjoy any FF. When i play an FF, i always try to build a party that will rock in ANY situation as opposed to specialize my party depend on specific situations . I don't know it isn't big deal to me.

[kriminal99]

Has anyone here ever played magic? If not, you probably wonder what the big deal is about all the geeks and their overpriced cards.

The big deal is that magic was created by a phd in mathematics. Besides all the art, the game has an unprecedented amount of depth. The game is set up in ways that make many many many different strategies relevant and effective. Every strategy has counters and things that it works well against.

Why is this so rare in video games? It isn't impossible to make an rpg similar to this. WotC did it a looooong time ago by making a video game magic version where you got new cards for beating opponents. They did it again recently by creating a tactical strategy game out of their card game, and converting their cards to theoretical equivalents in the new environment.

I don't play paper magic, or the new strategy game, but I do have the cheap streamlined xbox version and a magic online account. The only problem with WotC is that they are GREEDY GREEDY bastards. You have to pay real cash for new units in the tactical strategy game. I don't play paper, but they have an online version and an xbox version I have played both of. You can easily spend thousands of dollars on one of the non xbox versions if you are not careful.

So yeah I want an environment where the CPU can counter your techniques especially if you do the same thing over and over. I want fewer longer battles. Maybe even one that learns from you, doing things like casting protect if you just attack over and over.

In FF a team that can handle any situation really just means a guy who 1 shots 99% of the enemies with the fight command, and another that can wipe the whole enemy party 90% of the time and someone to keep you alive and use some cheap repetive technique to kill the last actually difficult 1% of enemies (usually the final boss)

[rubah]

In FF 99% of the time all the cool game mechanics become irrelevant and it comes down to one command. For most of the game it's just fight/attack etc. If you could miss or not do most of their health in hp per attack it might actually be worth it to do something else. The other frequently relevant mechanic involves resource management, so maybe steal etc to get more valuable items so your fight command becomes stronger.

Oh, so what you want is 4 Heroes of Light

Someone who would be capable of making really well designed mechanics would be just as effective as an engineer, economist or something much more important. But there are such people around that we just don't use. It really just comes down to one number: IQ.

The real problem is that relatively stupid people don't know that they are relatively stupid and there are more of them. They are insecure about being inferior to people of higher intelligence and thus do their best to force handicap and punish anyone with a higher level of ability. I am sure there was some guy at SE that said "hey wait a minute, the numbers are all wrong the game is going to be boring and repetitive once the grandeur wears off" and some relatively stupid artist said "hey what do you know".

If we would accept and understand intelligence and just put everyone's IQ on their record EVERYTHING would be a million times more efficient.

Duhhhh, what? Okay, you just keep inflating your ego there, or whatever it is you're doing to make you feel good. I'll keep working with inferior people who still seem to have relevant insights and ideas.

~(seriously, what the smurf? You believe that bull?)

[Wolf Kanno]

It's hard for RPGs to be challenging, especially Final Fantasy games, simply because of what you can do and the abilities you have. Many people complain about simply pressing attack and cure. I don't really mind that.

For me, there's no real need to make it more difficult, just keep it interesting. Difficult =/= interesting. If you have to only mash attack to win, then make attacking interesting. In my experience, the Golden Sun series did this perfectly by giving weapons unleashes. Special, flashy attacks that have a chance of appearing and break the monotone of simply attacking. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn made it even better by giving weapons multiple unleashes, with chances of you getting the best unleash (such as Megido) and bowling through everything being lessened because, even if you got an unleash, you have no way of knowing which one it's going to be. This is perfect for breaking the monotone of mashing attack, because even if you do, you won't always just "attack" even if you select "attack". That's cool. FF should implement this.

Except that doesn't work for me, I find Golden Sun boring because it is easy, for all its customization options, I still found myself using just attack/cure. I never understood the idea of creating a robust customization system if it was ultimately irrelevant cause the game was too easy to really utilize it. My point is that every gamer has something that makes the games enjoyable for them and often times one man's trash is another man's treasure.

NeoCracker: Its not the only thing that makes P3 hard but it is something that makes you think and forces the player to not stick to one strategy, instead actually branching out and trying all the other characters. I would argue though that switching out one party member for another in order to prevent the computer from exploiting their innate weakness is by definition strategy.

[kriminal99]

Duhhhh, what? Okay, you just keep inflating your ego there, or whatever it is you're doing to make you feel good. I'll keep working with inferior people who still seem to have relevant insights and ideas.

(seriously, what the smurf? You believe that bull?)

Yes, because it is the scientifically validated truth. Intelligence is a huge taboo in our society thanks to people like MLK. There is a reason why streets named after the man are ridiculously correlated with high crime rates. They are populated by people victimized by the idea that "all people are created equal". People who continually fail to live up to typical expectations because they were not created with the ability to do so.

Calling it ego inflation is just circular reasoning. If you were one of those people of higher ability, you would be constantly attacked and force handicapped for challenging people sense of equality just by contributing and participating at your natural level of ability. Then you would have no choice but to step back and look at the situation to figure out what the heck is going on. And once you figured out what it was, you would have to draw attention to the natural difference in ability in people in order to ever get the problem resolved. That is not ego stroking.

[rubah]

sure it is! You've already assumed that since I disagree with you I am "inferior"~ Inferior relative to what or whom?

[Elpizo]

It's hard for RPGs to be challenging, especially Final Fantasy games, simply because of what you can do and the abilities you have. Many people complain about simply pressing attack and cure. I don't really mind that.

For me, there's no real need to make it more difficult, just keep it interesting. Difficult =/= interesting. If you have to only mash attack to win, then make attacking interesting. In my experience, the Golden Sun series did this perfectly by giving weapons unleashes. Special, flashy attacks that have a chance of appearing and break the monotone of simply attacking. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn made it even better by giving weapons multiple unleashes, with chances of you getting the best unleash (such as Megido) and bowling through everything being lessened because, even if you got an unleash, you have no way of knowing which one it's going to be. This is perfect for breaking the monotone of mashing attack, because even if you do, you won't always just "attack" even if you select "attack". That's cool. FF should implement this.

Except that doesn't work for me, I find Golden Sun boring because it is easy, for all its customization options, I still found myself using just attack/cure. I never understood the idea of creating a robust customization system if it was ultimately irrelevant cause the game was too easy to really utilize it. My point is that every gamer has something that makes the games enjoyable for them and often times one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Who customizes in Golden Sun, anyhow? I only used attack/cure, too, but, like I said, Golden Sun broke up the monotone of that by giving the weapons themselves flashy unleashes, so that even if you just picked "attack", you weren't sure what you were gonna get, unless you equip luck boosting gear like no tomorrow to spam Megido from your Sol Blade, but ah, they got rid of that in Dark Dawn. And the unleashes differed from weapon to weapon, so even if you mashed "attack", you could still get a nice series of different attacks because of this, thus breaking up the visual monotone of attacking. It's a good way to do things, and to ease the so-called pain of picking attack over and over again.

As if it's that bad. No less bad than having to grind because of the so-called difficulty just being overpowered monsters, for example.

There's no need to customize in Golden Sun, everybody base class and that's how it's best. Never quite saw the logic of a Jupiter adept spamming Mars-based attacks. Base classes are the best. And weapon unleashes. Love those. Makes spamming attack fun.

Just my opinion though, all of the above.

[kriminal99]

sure it is! You've already assumed that since I disagree with you I am "inferior"~ Inferior relative to what or whom?

I neither assumed that nor that you disagree with me. However you implying that I would assume you would continue to disagree with me just because of your initial response implies that you do not base your opinion on logic or reason because it is impossible to sway through logical argument.

What are you basing the inferiority part on.. saying if you were one of those people? Average is not generally inferior. I am talking about people in the 1 in hundreds range of ability... or higher. Anyways I did not mean to discount the possibility that you were in that range. There are plenty of people in that range of raw ability who do not develop a lot of crystallized knowledge on their own and are not particularly aware of themselves or their level of ability. They just learn things faster when they are told to and respect social order because their main drive is to go with the flow. If they are given a relatively stupid boss they just assume there is some reason why the social structure put that person in charge, and don't second guess it. They tend to be more successful in traditional ways than genius polymaths...

Before you know anything about it, IQ is hard to understand. You think things like you could just practice and get a higher score, or its biased towards some culture or type of information. You think it doesn't apply to everyday life. When you actually read about the science behind then you start to understand. Scores on all kinds of IQ tests are correlated. Vocab is a good measure of IQ up to a few STDs because people are constantly bombarded with words and their contexts, and only IQ limits your ability to extract their meanings. That same ability is what would allow you to quickly see the pattern in a string of numbers, or recognize a pattern in a sequence of abstract shapes. IQ is remarkably immutable throughout the course of a person's life. IQ is 80% heritable...

A mentally challenged person cannot tell the difference between a cat and a dog. Why? Their brain only generates 2 categories when looking at either: <furry> and <4-legged>. If you ask one why they thought the cat was a dog, that is the explanation they will give. This problem does not disappear past the challenged level of ability. A person with a 150 IQ will more effectively be able to make abstract generalizations from their observations and deductively reason in a way that a person with a 125 level ability cannot.

[Wolf Kanno]

Okay people, a few of you are getting off topic and I don't care for how the new subject is going so this is your first and final warning.

Elpizo: It's cool man, I was just pointing out that for me, even with a few flashy attacks, I found myself just finding every battle tedious and I would just mash X while I read a book or watched TV cause it was so easy, so having special attacks never really engaged me cause the challenge wasn't up to par (except for actually finding the djinn, some of them were a pain...) we all have different taste and that's why I feel if a game is going to be hard it should be an option.