• Welcome to Final Fantasy Hacktics. Please login or sign up.
 
March 28, 2024, 04:38:36 pm

[Old] Monster givaway battles?

Started by Dome, August 27, 2012, 07:09:03 am

You want them?

Yes
8 (72.7%)
No
2 (18.2%)
Other (Post & explain)
1 (9.1%)

Total Members Voted: 11

Voting closed: August 31, 2012, 05:56:06 am

Dome

August 27, 2012, 07:09:03 am Last Edit: September 24, 2015, 07:12:25 am by Dome
With "Monster Giveaway Battles" I mean random battles which award you a monster (If he survives the battle)

Example



If you manage to reach/Protect the monster (Which is a guest) and drive away the enemies (Their AI will be set to "Attack the monster"), he will ask to join your party

"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"

Dome

Guys, remember to state your opinions after voting!
Vote + Comment > Vote

"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"

HebrewToYou

I think this is a great idea, especially in the early game.

3lric

Just be careful not to surpass the sprite limit
  • Modding version: PSX

The Damned

(Hmm...I can't say I'm surprised that someone besides formerdeathcorps and potentially myself would want to do this.)

That said, before I say anything, much less vote, I have to ask this question: What are you planning to do with Train and, more importantly, Invite status at present? And if this ends up happening?
"Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try." - FFX's Yunalesca

"Good and evil are relative, but being a dick cannot be allowed." - Oglaf's Thaumaturge in "The Abyss"

"Well, see, the real magic isn't believing in yourself. The real magic is manipulating people by telling them to believe in themselves. The more you believe, the less you check facts."  - Oglaf's Vanka in "Conviction"

Dome

The "Invite" status can only be inflicted with the "train" support skill (The "invite" skill in the mediator's skillset no longer exists)
So, you cannot "invite" humans, but only monsters

"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"

Dome

You still have 1 day to vote guys, then the poll will be closed :-)

"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"

Dome


"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"

Neophyte Ronin

I voted Other.  Consider it a yes with additional ideas:

If there's a way that only certain monsters cannot lay eggs and breed instead of across-the-board laying or across-the-board sterility, so be it.  This would mean that all monsters that are considered unable to breed are candidates for the monster-rescue concept, while the rest have to be tamed the hard way.  Go even further and immunize certain monsters to Invite, period, so that these rare instances are the only way to get that caste into the party.

See, if the concept is a prelude for ditching the Taming/Invite ability altogether, then that really changes the playing field.  That'd be flat-out awesome, because you can't cheat and get monsters early in your party and have them soak up too much glory while your companions are still weak.  Trust me: the playing field in prior versions of Tactics Plus changed a great deal when you acquired a monster.  Then again, it can make the game unplayable if you grind too far to square off with one monster party that far outclasses you, unless you sucked in your gut and lured in a monster or two to equalize the battlefield.  If standard options are cut short, then that puts greater weight on the player to find a way past this.

Another advantage to having a few monsters breed via eggs and others requiring retrieval via other methods is that it makes certain castes rare and valuable again, even with their different strength, and it adds that "Gotta-Catch-Them-All" aspect that many on this forum board in particular happen to enjoy.  It would also present some hard planning of the whole poaching reward system.  Tack on the added trouble of making common items and rare items different from each other again (but change the ratio between in certain cases).

I would have been content with the original changes to monsters--suped up, ready to kill--but I'm impressed because now I can ditch that annoyance of ditching monsters on routine occasion, just so I can add a new party member on a specific unit number (because I'm anal like that).  Having monsters fill up your roster after just a few random battles was one of the chief complaints I had back in Tactics, which had nothing to do with the iniquity of their utility.

Also note that the typical range of an acquired monster is 45-74, while bred monsters are 40-70 (allusion to Delita's hint that wild monsters are a little tougher than the tame ones).  That means you're likely to get a strong monster off the field than from an egg.


Chocobos: obviously yes.  They're the reason monsters lay eggs in any Final Fantasy setting, period.

Goblins: no.  They're bipedal, demon-blooded humanoids who, despite supposed breeding ability, do not breed with eggs.

Bombs: maybe.  They're either spirits fused by alchemy, or being spirits, have no need to breed.*

Coeurls: Nah.  These guys are too useful.  If you had a live Coeurl, the Shadow-Bind trick is yours.

Pigs: No.  Bipedal pigs are even less likely to breed via eggs.

Anything Undead: NO.  If mere skeletons could breed, why the fuck have they not overridden Ivalice by now?  That goes for individual castes (like Vampire Cats) that may become an undead monster type.

Squid/Illithids: Yes.  Turns out the creatures themselves are asexual reproducers in D&D, though they are also parasitic lifeforms who sever the hollowed skulls of humanoids to inhabit their skeletal structure.  They are otherwise Mythos-tinged mollusks, for lack of a better description.  The fact that they are given a greater emphasis as a "Water Type Monster" is something I would contend since my understanding (and sometimes appreciation) of Pokemon is lacking.  The original monster was a ripoff of D&D, who also ripped Lovecraft off.  After considerable research, I found out its breeding patterns are similar to the whole egg thing; we can otherwise let it slide and there needs to be at least one black sheep among the bipedal monsters.

Bipedal Birds: Do I really have to answer this one?

Ahriman Eyes: Maybe.  They're technically a summoned demon that performs the work of their masters and I find it hard-pressed to give these guys the ability to breed in the mortal realm.  That's just a glaringly stupid oversight on part of the conjurors.  Aren't magicians supposed to be the wiseguys of this era?

Bisonkin/Bulls: No.  God, no.  Only the platypus can breed with leathery eggs--the only mammal that does.  These guys are a nefarious cross of man and bull that for whatever reason are never lost, based on their tracking skills inside deep labyrinths.  There are no historical precedents of them breeding in fucking eggs since Tactics.

Marlborough: No way.  These dark young breed with that horrifying Marlborough Spore technique.  I don't suppose individual castes could be exempt from laying eggs, like have only the Ochu/Otyugh the egg-layer who breeds either Marlboroughs, themselves, or both, and that Marlboroughs and their big daddies are sterile, save for their signature technique.  Or just let all three have Marlborough Spores as their Monster Skill and then breed Marlboroughs that way.  Would you really want to keep an egg laid by one of these fucking things?

Dryads: Being spiritual and magical and natural, the trees are bred via seeds.  Although that presents another can of worms since those seeds (to be buried, maybe?) must be hard to lug around.  Pick No.  It'll make these things rare and valuable.

Behemoth: No.  These guys are dead-ringers for this Giveaway Battle concept.

Dragons: Yes.  They're anatomically capable, right?

Hydras: Uh, yeah, I guess.



*Note: If Bombs had Auto-Life/Reraise all the time, they'd be a horrifying adversary unless you could poach them....

Dome

To be honest, I don't know if it's possible to disable the breeding of only certain monsters...but the idea is nice
It's worth discussing (After the poll is closed, I'll open a new one)

"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"

Stretch

Opened and closed before I saw it, voting yes. Give away bottom tier monsters, and control the breeding aspect by giving away better poaching classes later in the game or in more difficult conditions.
Yeah, right

The Damned

(Didn't get around to voting, but oh well, it wouldn't have exactly mattered given things were skewered towards "yes" and I wasn't going to pick "no".)

As far as I know, there is indeed no hack thus far that selectively allows some monsters to breed for others not to breed. The closest that you can get with what (little) I know at present is basically to move all monsters you don't want to breed to regular skill-sets and keep the others as "regular" monster skills. That would kinda screw over your plans for Monster Skill though, especially given the amount of monsters that Neophyte Ronin suggests shouldn't able to breed.

That said, I kinda agree with most of Neophyte Ronin's assessments if you were going to do about that way. I'd thought about it myself, but not in the egg way just because I found breeding overall troublesome and "unrealistic" since it a) happens far too quickly and b) you only need one monster for it to work. The latter is the more unfeasible in most monster instances assuming they "should" be able to even breed at all.

So, yeah...I could get behind a selective process for things if that's how things ended up going, especially since 48 giveaway battles is a rather significant chunk, even from random battles and especially if you're keeping Invite around even if it's as Train only.
"Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try." - FFX's Yunalesca

"Good and evil are relative, but being a dick cannot be allowed." - Oglaf's Thaumaturge in "The Abyss"

"Well, see, the real magic isn't believing in yourself. The real magic is manipulating people by telling them to believe in themselves. The more you believe, the less you check facts."  - Oglaf's Vanka in "Conviction"

RavenOfRazgriz

You can't make specific monster breeds lay eggs.  Laying eggs is a property of the monster gender and certain other flags.

Using whether it actually lays eggs to determine whether it should lay eggs is also pretty dumb logic to begin with when you consider the egg is less a literal egg and more a universal means to convey to the player "You're getting a new monster soon!"  There's no point in making many different ways to convey the same thing, especially on a PS1-era game where you'll want to use your 512mb disk space for more important things.

Dome

It is possible to make an hack that makes monster breed only lower tiers?
Example

Tier 2 -> Can only breed tier 1/2
Tier 1 -> Can only breed tier 1

"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"

3lric

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on September 01, 2012, 04:23:50 pm
You can't make specific monster breeds lay eggs.  Laying eggs is a property of the monster gender and certain other flags.

Using whether it actually lays eggs to determine whether it should lay eggs is also pretty dumb logic to begin with when you consider the egg is less a literal egg and more a universal means to convey to the player "You're getting a new monster soon!"  There's no point in making many different ways to convey the same thing, especially on a PS1-era game where you'll want to use your 512mb disk space for more important things.


Exactly, man, wouldn't it be nice if people actually knew how the fucking game worked before they post BS wall of text about shit that they don't know?
(and no Dome, I'm not talking about you, but im repeatedly annoyed by one specific persons posts :P)
  • Modding version: PSX

RavenOfRazgriz

Quote from: Dome on September 01, 2012, 06:19:49 pm
It is possible to make an hack that makes monster breed only lower tiers?
Example

Tier 2 -> Can only breed tier 1/2
Tier 1 -> Can only breed tier 1


That would be pretty easy to implement but would basically remove the entire point of the breeding system other than making monsters expendable party members.  You may as well just remove it entirely if you're going to do this, as you've removed all the benefit to the entire system unless you're a R4M player.

The Damned

(Of course I'd be wrong. Stupid inability to test things still....)

Egg aesthetic aside, there really are a least couple of monsters who really do seem like they shouldn't be able to breed at all, i.e. the Undead ones. Of course, everyone has different opinions both about game "logic" & "realism" and how much impact they should have on the game, if any, so it's probably pointless to talk about (right now).

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on September 01, 2012, 04:23:50 pmYou can't make specific monster breeds lay eggs.  Laying eggs is a property of the monster gender and certain other flags.


"Certain other flags"? Do "we" know what those flags are? Or just that there are obviously other ones than the monster gender?

I'm guessing part of it has to do with being a generic monster as well? At least, that's what I had guessed when I was told at least a year ago, apparently erroneously, that generic monster skill sets to the more regular ones would interfere with breeding by itself.
"Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try." - FFX's Yunalesca

"Good and evil are relative, but being a dick cannot be allowed." - Oglaf's Thaumaturge in "The Abyss"

"Well, see, the real magic isn't believing in yourself. The real magic is manipulating people by telling them to believe in themselves. The more you believe, the less you check facts."  - Oglaf's Vanka in "Conviction"

RavenOfRazgriz

They're Job ID related if I remember correctly but I'm too lazy to remember or look up the specifics.  It'd be easy enough to tinker with and find out but effort.

The Damned

(Eww. Effort.)

Say no more.

Actually, if this is all or mostly Job ID related, then it seems like it would be easy to test without the need for any coding, meaning even I could test it...if I could actually test things on this computer. Hmmm...I really should be using that new laptop I got though....
"Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try." - FFX's Yunalesca

"Good and evil are relative, but being a dick cannot be allowed." - Oglaf's Thaumaturge in "The Abyss"

"Well, see, the real magic isn't believing in yourself. The real magic is manipulating people by telling them to believe in themselves. The more you believe, the less you check facts."  - Oglaf's Vanka in "Conviction"

Dome


"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"