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Any alternative to removing laws...

Started by Darthatron, November 04, 2011, 01:40:01 am

Darthatron

I am willing to do anything to laws more appealing. Anything. So give me ideas.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
  • Discord username: Darthatron

Eternal

Remove Red Cards. Slay a unit who breaks the Law instead of Yellow Carding/Prisoning them. This causes the player to have to follow the laws to maintain a tactical advantage, but the punishment isn't so harsh that you'd restart if you ran into a bad law.
  • Modding version: PSX & WotL
"You, no less human than we? Ha! Now there's a beastly thought. You've been less than we from the moment your baseborn father fell upon your mother in whatever gutter saw you sired! You've been chattel since you came into the world drenched in common blood!"
  • Discord username: eternal248#1817

Kaijyuu

Ignoring feasibility...

No laws should ever be in effect without a card or something actually putting it there. Remove the law cycle entirely.
Make laws easier to put in effect, both for you AND the enemy.
Make laws easier to repel, both for you AND the enemy.

Hell you could possibly make a job centered around doing exactly that, instead of using cards. You'd have to make laws less effective though, else an opponent without a law-modifying job on their team would be too easy to cripple.


Laws should be something can be manipulated to your advantage, NOT a lame attempt to encourage variety in your party composition.
  • Modding version: PSX

Dome

Red cards may make you permanently lose stats...guess what? Remove them, like Et said
Give each fight 1 fixed law (Like in FFTA2)

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

Ethereal Embrace

Actually, yellow cards can also reduce stats.

Dome


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

Pickle Girl Fanboy

Laws should have no strategic effects whatsoever.  By strategic, I mean something that will affect you in future battles, so no Gil penalties, no stat reduction, no item removal, none of that.  Laws should only affect the battle you are currently fighting - so, laws should be purely tactical.

I also really don't like Combos and Totema summoning, since they smack of Mist Quickenings from FFXII, in that they are cheap one-shots which the enemy can't or won't use.  I'm not saying that combos and Totema shouldn't exist; but that, if the player can use them, so should the enemy.

So Laws should only affect the current battle.  Also, breaking a law should penalize a character, while following it should benefit a character.  How should it do so?

What I say is that each law broken should cause a random status ailment, reduce a characters stat for the duration of the battle (just like the Stat Break abilities), or should temporarily remove equipment from that character (with the equipment being returned to the character at the end of the battle, or upon completion of a prison sentence).

You may want to look at the penalties (called handicaps) and bonuses that are found in the Battle Arena in Final Fantasy 7, for inspiration.
http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/file/final_fantasy_vii_battle_arena.txt

I'm really iffy about Jail too, but it should be there, since it's an integral part of vanilla.  Maybe you could give the player a reason to send their characters to jail to get cards removed, by giving the player stiffer or longer-lasting penalties the more cards they accumulate.

Following the laws should benefit a character by buffing that character every time they do so.

And I agree, most enemies should have the ability to change the laws in such a scenario, since it'll be way to easy to accumulate buffs and debuff the enemy in these circumstances, especially with laws cards.  And speaking of law cards, in my scenario you should get a yellow card every time you use one of them.

One last thing - everyone should be allowed to get more than 2 yellow cards before being removed from battle... and you probably should never be removed from battle, ever, no matter what and how many cards you get.  Perhaps the red card could affect the entire party when you get one, since that's in keeping with the increased severity of red cards?

Some other penalties/bonuses you should consider:
*Reduce CT to 00
*Increase CT to 100 (Or Add: Quick)
*

Perhaps you could have different tables of buffs/debuffs that are available to only cards of a certain R-value.  Like, the least severe penalties/bonuses could be grouped with R1 cards, but if you already have 3 yellow cards or 1 red card, then you move down the ladder to the next most severe group of penalties.

And remember, if you do change the way laws work, you must also change the AI a bit, since the AI will try to never break a law, and that won't fit in this scenario.

Kuraudo Sutoraifu

I like Kaij's idea about a law user job class.  Call them a lawyer, or adjudicator, or proctor.  It could an interesting addition to the game, but it has potential to completely overpower the player if you didn't put in some failsafes or hindrances for the class.  Maybe you could force them to not be able to attack, akin to how a judge sits on the sidelines, but still allow them to be attacked since they are part of battle.

Pickle Girl Fanboy

Quote from: Kuraudo Sutoraifu on November 04, 2011, 12:32:16 pm
I like Kaij's idea about a law user job class.  Call them a lawyer, or adjudicator, or proctor.  It could an interesting addition to the game, but it has potential to completely overpower the player if you didn't put in some failsafes or hindrances for the class.  Maybe you could force them to not be able to attack, akin to how a judge sits on the sidelines, but still allow them to be attacked since they are part of battle.

I like this.

Dome

Quote from: Kuraudo Sutoraifu on November 04, 2011, 12:32:16 pm
I like Kaij's idea about a law user job class.  Call them a lawyer, or adjudicator, or proctor.  It could an interesting addition to the game, but it has potential to completely overpower the player if you didn't put in some failsafes or hindrances for the class.  Maybe you could force them to not be able to attack, akin to how a judge sits on the sidelines, but still allow them to be attacked since they are part of battle.

But if the unit can be attacked it can be used as an human shield
Wouldn't be better if they acted like "Judges"?

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

Kuraudo Sutoraifu

Dome, win or loss conditions for battles would need to be altered somehow if you had a potentially immortal teammate or adversary.  I don't know how well that would work.

But if they were like I described, they would be a priority target.  You would either need to worry about taking out their pseudo-Judge, or protect your pseudo-Judge from being taken out or both even.

Pickle Girl Fanboy

Holy fuck, I got an idea!

Judge Points, when accumulated, allow you access to a skillset that lets you change laws.  What do you think?

Darthatron

I personally think that Law Cards should be a player specific thing. HOWEVER! I have a solution. Maybe...

Red Cards still send you to jail.
Yellow Cards give a random debuff or unequip an item.
Cards no longer nerf stats or remove an item from possession.
Law card and gil fines still work the same.
Laws a randomly generated from their tier at the start of a battle. (You won't be able to check the laws before a battle.)

Tier 1 laws:

  • 1 law.

  • All laws are low rank. (ie: Elemental laws. No Fight. Stuff like that.)



Tier 2 laws:

  • 1 law.

  • Laws are high and low rank. (ie: Dmg2Race, Techniques, Skills, and what was mentioned above.)



Tier 3 laws:

  • 2 laws.

  • Laws are high and low rank.

  • Laws are randomly changed mid-fight by Judges.



Hopefully this would lead to Law Cards becoming less awesome for the player to use, since their effects would only last a few turns.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
  • Discord username: Darthatron

Dome


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

MountainDew~

Yeah I didn't like Dmg2Race at all. There really is no way of countering it unless I happen to have that one specific law card to cancel it...
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
  • Discord username: Holographic #1363

Darthatron

With laws cycling randomly, it would be an inconvenience for a few turns. Which adds to difficulty. No?
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
  • Discord username: Darthatron

Dome

Quote from: Darthatron on November 05, 2011, 08:44:42 am
With laws cycling randomly, it would be an inconvenience for a few turns. Which adds to difficulty. No?

No
Seriously, making you unable to damage a particular race sucks, even if for few turns

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

RavenOfRazgriz

I don't see an issue with Dmg2Race being in play for 2-3 rounds.  If you can't switch to a defensive stance for a couple turns or re-prioritize your targets, goddamnit you're awful.

Like I said on iRC, though, Dmg2Race has no business being in any setting where Laws aren't cycling though.  (Second Tier)  THAT is when it's something even an outside observer can identify as an awful idea.

Is it possible to have 3 Law ranks?  ie, a special third rank for just Dmg2Races and other really dumb ones, then have Tier 3 cycle between the old "high" Rank laws and these ones while excluding the lower level ones?  This way the third Tier has nothing but harsher, more challenging Laws, but they cycle on a regular basis.  It'd be challenging, but any bad situation can be remedied with an emergency Law card or by waiting out the cycle.  To make this a bit fairier, you could also offset the Law cycling.  Eg, Laws Cycle every other turn, but only one Law cycles.  So, you start Turn 1 with say Dmg2RaceA and Skills.  Turn 2, Dmg2RaceA disappears and becomes Techniques.  Turn 3, Skills disappears and becomes Dmg2RaceB.  Etc.  Using a card to change the Laws will change both Laws to another valid Law at random, but won't affect their cycling order, meaning one of your "new" Laws is cycling out fairly early while the other sticks around an extra turn.

Obviously, the idea here is to constantly emphasize the changing pace of battle, and make it not feel like you're on a hard set of Law "rounds" by having each Law change on an offset turn count.  You'd also be able to go beyond two Laws if you wanted too, just have them offset by Turn Count = Number of Laws in effect.  Eg, if the battle has 3 Laws, a Law on the list cycles out every turn, with the "round" to have every Law cycled being every 3 turns instead of every 2 turns like it was when only 2 Laws were in effect, etc.  Like this, you could constantly keep the battlefield dynamic and ensure even the most annoying Laws don't outlive their welcome.

(I'd personally also have every Law tier have the Laws be cycling.  Obeying a single Law for the whole fight seems like the kind of thing that quickly gets boring and puts you into a groove.  Since you can operate under the assumption that almost every player has played the original FFTA, having every Law tier cycle in some manner will in all likelihood be very welcome to them.  The first Law tier where only one Law is in effect could cycle every 3-4 turns, to be the "starter" tier that helps you get adjusted to Laws cycling, then the other tiers add more Laws, cycle faster, etc.  If you can't tell, I feel milking all the potential you can to cycling Laws is a very, VERY good idea because it feels like it'd remedy the majority of the problems that stopped me from picking up this game originally, at least in terms of the battle system.)

Pickle Girl Fanboy

November 05, 2011, 10:56:06 am #18 Last Edit: November 05, 2011, 10:58:49 am by Pickle Girl Fanboy
Law cycling sounds great, but battles are already incredibly slow as it is, including waiting on judges to move around.  Having a law roulette every few turns could make a random encounter last almost an hour.

I really like the de-equip item penalty.  You just lose an item until the battle is over, and then you can re-equip it.  Much simpler than what I had in mind.

Kaijyuu

Re: cycling laws.


Randomization only has so much place in a tactical game like this. Remember, this is chess, not mario party. If you're going to change the laws mid battle, make sure the player knows what's coming up (IE, showing "in 2 turns, laws will change to such and such"). Screwing up the player's plans for their following turns is NOT something the game itself should do; that's their opponent's job. 
  • Modding version: PSX