How would you fix FFVI?

[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.

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.

[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?

At what point did I say that XIII's weapon upgrading system should also be used?

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?

At what point did I say that XIII's weapon upgrading system should also be used?

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.

[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. 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.