FFT Arena: Discussion Thread (12/29/09)

[Zaen]

Well, my team is practically ready. I'm just waiting on the finished JP costs so I can slap on abilities and various RSM that seems questionable at the moment.

[FFMaster]

Yeah, i got a decent idea, I think. Expect more random stuff from me. When is the deadline to submit teams?

[PX_Timefordeath]

Deadline? Hm...

All JP and Items are now done. For now.

[R999]

This is just my opinion about the 1.3 AI Tourneys... overall I think they are really not exciting enough to watch. It's like back in the days when WoW PvP with everyone having huge crits and one-two hit kills. I think there needs to be a MAJOR change in the game's pace, making battles last much longer, giving them chances for come backs, etc. By increasing HP and lower damage from all skills will be a good start. Give the healers more chances to heal. Just my opinion.

Blizzard gave every class major survival boosts (people lasting 5x longer) with new equips and skill/talent tweaks as WoW became more competitively balanced in PvP. I think FFT can get the same treatment.

[Zenius]

lol half the reason I watch the AI Tourny vids is cause the commentary is imba ^^
All the guys who have done them (philsov piercewise arch) GJGJ

[Shade]

This is just my opinion about the 1.3 AI Tourneys... overall I think they are really not exciting enough to watch. It's like back in the days when WoW PvP with everyone having huge crits and one-two hit kills. I think there needs to be a MAJOR change in the game's pace, making battles last much longer, giving them chances for come backs, etc. By increasing HP and lower damage from all skills will be a good start. Give the healers more chances to heal. Just my opinion.

Blizzard gave every class major survival boosts (people lasting 5x longer) with new equips and skill/talent tweaks as WoW became more competitively balanced in PvP. I think FFT can get the same treatment.

It is and always has been balanced. and some of the 1.3 tourneys have very long matches, that's why arch has all matches play like x2 speed. I mean mine fight would be over 16 minutes. Just one fight. and I think many people in WOW would not be figthing one guy that long.

[TheKillerNacho]

This is just my opinion about the 1.3 AI Tourneys... overall I think they are really not exciting enough to watch. It's like back in the days when WoW PvP with everyone having huge crits and one-two hit kills. I think there needs to be a MAJOR change in the game's pace, making battles last much longer, giving them chances for come backs, etc. By increasing HP and lower damage from all skills will be a good start. Give the healers more chances to heal. Just my opinion.

Blizzard gave every class major survival boosts (people lasting 5x longer) with new equips and skill/talent tweaks as WoW became more competitively balanced in PvP. I think FFT can get the same treatment.

It is and always has been balanced. and some of the 1.3 tourneys have very long matches, that's why arch has all matches play like x2 speed. I mean mine fight would be over 16 minutes. Just one fight. and I think many people in WOW would not be figthing one guy that long.

Actually, Arch uses x4 if I'm not mistaken. Some of the "fast matches" take quite a long time real-time.

[R999]

Oh I didn't know they would last that long in normal speed. But to be fair this is turn based the other is real time. In a real time match up a lot more things are happening. In WoW arena PvPs (5v5), if both teams are good at survival it will last quite sometime. The point being is that there's basically no chance for comebacks and healing/survival strategies. I am not saying it isn't balanced, just saying it could be more interesting.

[Zeron]

And they were much longer last season before people had figured out the best damage setups.  It wasn't played as fast, but one of my matches was 11 videos I think, so nearly two hours, and another was about 10 videos.  We've had enough of the really long ones.

[formerdeathcorps]

I've noticed that on other games I've played.  Changing the game to favor offense over excessive defense doesn't usually change the victors (who tend to be the best at adopting new strategies), but tends to lower the amount of time needed.  2 hours is too long to determine a championship match for a video game.  (A chess match, maybe, but 4v4 FFT?)

[R999]

Forgive me if I made it sound like the matches are going to last 4 hours, but it's not I wanted to say. What I am saying is that from what I am seeing, the matches end too abruptly, without giving the healers a much chances. Overall I think there will always be a balance of defense and offense and Crowd Controllers (or status units in FFT). Making units last longer does not necessarily mean the game will automatically favor the defensive players. What it means is that your rush / aggressive teams will be less effective than before. What it also means, is that if both teams are being too defensive, the team with better Crowd Control/Status or better overall offense will likely win. You will get to see more powerful spells being fired off. You will need more than 1-2 hits to rush kill a unit. You will see more heals going in. Point being longer games will open up more interesting strategies.

The point you bought up about Chess though is interesting. I never really compared FFT with chess, but then they are both turn based strategy games. If you look at the most competitive PC games in the past decade (Starcraft and Counterstrike comes to mind), the most epic matches all last 35 minutes to an hour.

Anyway since most of you disagree with the idea so I'll just forget about it.

[FFMaster]

Can you really compare match lengths between game genres? Let me give some examples.

Fighting games are normally decided from about 2 minutes to maybe 5 minutes. Some games (IaMP) might go for maybe 10, but its pretty rare. RTS games can go for pretty long as well, but can also be short (rushing, Starcraft, etc). It really depends on your type of game, and the game style itself.

Game length honestly doesn't affect how competitive a game is. The only criteria really is balance.



Also, I can't see how this makes any sense at all.

Making units last longer does not necessarily mean the game will automatically favor the defensive players. What it means is that your rush / aggressive teams will be less effective than before.

How does it not favor defensive players? Off the top of my head:
-Gives more max HP so its more unlikely to spill over for healing with spells like Cure 3 and Cure 4.
-Allows more hits to be made, giving more chances for things like Speed Save to activate, which stall teams would normally have.
-MP healing would be needed more for teams with a Flare mage (or similar builds), since they run out of steam far too quickly, and rely on the battle being finished before they run out.
-And well, if rush teams are weaker, isn't that an advantage stall teams already?

But that doesn't mean I wouldn't mind more HP on units. Right now, too much shit is getting 1-shotted.

[R999]

Can you really compare match lengths between game genres? Let me give some examples.

Fighting games are normally decided from about 2 minutes to maybe 5 minutes. Some games (IaMP) might go for maybe 10, but its pretty rare. RTS games can go for pretty long as well, but can also be short (rushing, Starcraft, etc). It really depends on your type of game, and the game style itself.

Game length honestly doesn't affect how competitive a game is. The only criteria really is balance.



Also, I can't see how this makes any sense at all.

Making units last longer does not necessarily mean the game will automatically favor the defensive players. What it means is that your rush / aggressive teams will be less effective than before.

How does it not favor defensive players? Off the top of my head:
-Gives more max HP so its more unlikely to spill over for healing with spells like Cure 3 and Cure 4.
-Allows more hits to be made, giving more chances for things like Speed Save to activate, which stall teams would normally have.
-MP healing would be needed more for teams with a Flare mage (or similar builds), since they run out of steam far too quickly, and rely on the battle being finished before they run out.
-And well, if rush teams are weaker, isn't that an advantage stall teams already?

But that doesn't mean I wouldn't mind more HP on units. Right now, too much shit is getting 1-shotted.

FFMaster, I agree with all of your points, actually. It's going to take more than just changing the HP to make proper balance. Yes indeed abilities like Speed Save (and perhaps Damage Split if provided) will become much more powerful than before if used in a very high defensive team. However, that's provided if you can survive that long. And what if this unit is charmed? How about throwing status effects into the mix. All status effects, including Poison will also be more powerful. It's going to take sometime to adjust and rebalance the game, but it's not impossible.

I used to play Fighting Game tournaments in our local arcades so I know what you mean. However, fighting games do not always revolve around strategy. It's mostly about who can abuse the longest chain of combos more than strategy. If you can imagine playing in a fighting game where most 3 hit combos kill one guy, I am sure you'll probably never bother go watch the tourneys. In other words, even fighting games last long enough to let players survive very strong combos. Long enough to give the opponent a chance to comeback.

But I firmly believe a good balance can be achieved. Heavy Damage focussed teams will still be viable, because weak offensive teams will take much longer (3-4 guys) to kill one, while the strong offensive team will be able to wipe out unit by unit much more quickly. You'll have to rethink and plan out the setups a bit so that you are able to achieve the proper balance between offense, defense and status.

While game length might not determine how competitive a game is, however, the best match ups are those where a lot of strategies / tech / skills / combos being used creatively. Lengthier games allow more room for players to be creative, is more forgiving and giving players chances to do come backs, etc. The most entertaining matchups (in games of all genres) are usually long enough to show more than just a chain of crits or an early game rush. At least that is my opinion.

[philsov]

Longer matches with heftier units doesn't make the chances at the comeback any easier.  Once you're down its usually cyclic unless you get lucky with counter flood and/or charm -- that's just how the AT works.  Using wow as a horrible example, if a 5v5 turns into a 3v5, how often does the team with 3 win?  

See here.  Hefty ass unit, takes eight minutes to kill.  See all the comebacks?  no?  Really?

[R999]

@philsov, thanks for the video.

Perhaps there need to be more changes to defensive abilities than just adjusting the HP. At its current state, maybe FFT really does need better healer skills/jobs. WoW maybe isn't a good example (although 4v5 or 2v3 can do comebacks), but it is a game where you don't die in one-two shots. Healers are VERY important in theat game, to the point where they are usually the first primary target.

[PX_Timefordeath]

Wait for videos to come out, then say stuff.

[Zenius]

Maybe you should actually watch all the S3 Tourney videos

[Portmanteur]

Ok, this battle is taking ridiculously long, and I'm tired of announcing the massive sandbaggery taking place here, so I'm just going to throw on some music.

*Queue clever mashups*

Haha I usually think these types of remixes are really stupid, mostly because they remind me of a college roommate who thought that they (and therefore, he) were so cool, when everyone else hated them. But I thought these were awesome, and they're almost perfect for use in videos like this.

Also, holy crap why couldn't the ninja do more damage in one swipe than the time mage's clubbing?

[FFMaster]

Just realised why some of the damage numbers for that run were so low. At 40 Fury, my units would be doing about half as much as 70 Fury. Because Fury counts for double with weapons like Fists.

So Fist damage would be something like
PA * PA * Fury * (Fury+35) * (Enemy Fury + 35) / 1000000

So that was bad on my part.

But for Meatbone... can't really do much.

[boomkick]

But that doesn't mean I wouldn't mind more HP on units. Right now, too much shit is getting 1-shotted.

Just look at my first match with randomguyH