I am willing to do anything to laws more appealing. Anything. So give me ideas.
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.
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.
Red cards may make you permanently lose stats...guess what? Remove them, like Et said
Give each fight 1 fixed law (Like in FFTA2)
Actually, yellow cards can also reduce stats.
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.
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.
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.
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"?
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.
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?
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.
Dmg2Race MUST DISAPPEAR. IT SUCKS
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...
With laws cycling randomly, it would be an inconvenience for a few turns. Which adds to difficulty. No?
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
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.)
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.
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.
Just because it's random doesn't mean it lacks tactics. Preparing for unexpected situations or events is a huge part of planning and strategy, and a huge part of most competitive games. Randomness doesn't take away strategy in and of itself, it forces you to adapt to a new situation on the fly.
If you hop over to the Arena Subforum, my AI Battling Guide involves not one but two entries involving luck. Luck will fuck you or win it for you, that's true of almost every game in existence no matter how competitive it is, and you've got to accept that, but luck alone will not remove tactics from the game, and in many ways adds them when done correctly. We're also talking about FFTA, which has things like randomized stat growths. "Getting lucky" is a bit more noticeable in FFTA than FFT, so there's no reason not to take advantage of that fact in a positive way.
Also, I'm actually a really vicious tactical bastard when it comes to Mario Party and almost win because of it. I've only played through 7, but I use lots of foreplanning as far as that game goes. It's very luck-based, but luck has averages, and all it takes is a backup plan to recover you when you get rough beats.
As for the Judge moving around... does he really need to do that? Can't we just disable that fucker's turn entirely? Or does he do something I'm not entirely aware of or remembering on his turns besides walk around and be an annoying fucker?
Even if you can find out what's coming up next, checking the laws every few turns will slow the battle down again.
I think he moves so as to avoid any problems with him being a wall.
Anywho, re: luck.
There IS something to be said about manipulating luck to your advantage. This is the basis of games like poker, after all. The problem with laws being randomized though, is that they can be incredibly debilitating to just about any strategy. The wrong set of laws will completely destroy your strategy, rather than forcing you to simply adapt it to the new rules. Giving warning eliminates that possibility. It's still randomized, but planning ahead is no longer a crapshoot.
QuoteEven if you can find out what's coming up next, checking the laws every few turns will slow the battle down again.
It's been a while since I've played FFTA, but aren't laws shown on the screen during gameplay? Simply glancing up to the top of the screen is not going to slow down the game by more than a few milliseconds.
Giving a peek still defeats the point, you're not truly adapting to a constantly changing situation. To use your own example, it's like playing Poker while being able to see the opponent's hand. Sometimes you won't be able to beat their hand anyway, but you'll know exactly how to act against it no matter what.
If your strategy is getting completely destroyed, its either too reliant on a single thing or in some cases, the Laws are just too far-reaching. (The ever-too-hated Dmg2Race comes to mind.) The first is entirely on your head and a conscious risk you took when taking such a party into battle, because you know how the Law system functions and can only blame yourself if your lopsided party gets completely denied. In the latter, obviously something should be done, but it's not the fault of the randomizing system, but the fault of the Law itself. Sometimes, rarely, you might get the exact combination that makes everything you try to do pointless but somehow, in some way, doesn't cripple the AI. That's what we call rough beats. Shit happens.
QuoteGiving a peek still defeats the point, you're not truly adapting to a constantly changing situation. To use your own example, it's like playing Poker while being able to see the opponent's hand. Sometimes you won't be able to beat their hand anyway, but you'll know exactly how to act against it no matter what.
Err, choosing your actions based on randomized laws is adapting to a constantly changing situation. The situation is constantly changing. You are adapting to it. The only difference is you're not being blindsided by debilitating effects that cannot be countered without extreme versatility. Forcing the player to use 5 vastly different units so that they are never completely screwed over is limiting the player to rather few choices in team makeup. If you can see what's coming, you can adapt your strategy to the changing laws even with the least versatile team. Maybe your 5 bangaa lancers will have to hide in a corner for a few turns, but that's better than being nuked with a law change while your units are vulnerable (or do we want the player to always be defensive in the case of bad law changes, too?).
As for the poker thing, I wasn't using it as an analogy, but rather an example of a game where strategy still exists despite luck. I was just pointing out that luck does not inherently destroy strategy provided it is done well. Don't directly compare FFTA to poker, since they're vastly different games.
QuoteIf your strategy is getting completely destroyed, its either too reliant on a single thing or in some cases, the Laws are just too far-reaching.
The latter. Fix that and you've fixed my complaint about laws being able to completely destroying any strategy that isn't extreme versatility.
Forcing the player to adapt is fine. Nuking them is not. If there's no chance (no matter how small) of extreme, instant debilitation going on, 95% of my complaints vanish.
QuoteThat's what we call rough beats. Shit happens.
I don't consider that sort of outcome to be an acceptable one in a strategy game. If you lose, it should be because you were out played by your opponent. Nothing else.
Randomization still has a place provided you can manipulate it. Even then, the chances of making you lose due to luck should be minimized as much as possible. Again, this is chess, not poker, not mario party.
Writing this up has made me realize why I dislike laws so much. What they do is corral you. They take AWAY your freedom of team makeup. What's most grating about it is it's done in a meta fashion; other parts of the game encourage or discourage different team makeups, true, but they do so in a way that makes sense (bringing only mages with fire spells to a volcano with fire monsters isn't a good idea). Laws on the other hand, are completely arbitrary.
If the penalties for laws aren't as severe - and if the bonuses are useful - then the arbitrary nature of laws isn't as big of an issue.
And no, laws aren't displayed in a heads-up display or something like that. You have to set the L (or is it R?) button to hotkey Laws, and that will call them up when you press it, but only on an inactive turn (not while the enemy is moving. I really think there should be a HUD for the current law and the upcoming law, which can be toggled on and off.
Judges move when their turn comes up - they have really low speed, so it's very annoying early in the game and barely noticable once you're above level 30. They blow their whistle when you break a law, run up to you, and give you a card and/or kick you out. They also move dead bodies around so you can't create walls from them, which is whey they have turns - and speed - in the first place.
If you could immobilize judges - make them act just like the breakable objects in some missions, but give them turns every once in a while (it's the moving and decision making hesitation that makes them such time-wasters, and they usually move so they're close enough to get in your way. They should move as far away from you as possible.) and make them untargetable and undamagable, then they'll be okay.
I guess I'm okay with recycling laws but every other turn seems like huge hassle maybe ever 4-5 turns. I wanted there to be an in-battle equip skill like the one that Chemists have, but say that you break a law and that you lose that equip for the battle (therefore, unable to gain the AP for that skill, if any), then you couldn't use that option. If I'm correct, there is an equip weapon option that anyone can use in battle as long as they aren't equiping one at the moment.
Quote from: Pickle Girl Fanboy on November 05, 2011, 10:56:06 am
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.
That's why I have a VBA and hold the space button when it's not my turn.
Without laws, half the plot makes no sense. At least with this, the plot is kept in tact.
I agree with some points made. Laws should cycle randomly in Tier 2 as well (or Tier 2 shouldn't include Dmg2Race laws.)
Here's my idea for the three Tiers. Feel free to flame them down.
# Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3
--------------------------------------------
1 Fight Fight Fight
2 Items Items Items
3 Swords Techniques Techniques
4 Knives Skills Skills
5 Broadswords Dmg2Animal Dmg2Animal
6 Knightswords Missile Dmg2Human
7 Greatswords Healing Dmg2Bangaa
8 Missile Copycat Dmg2Nu Mou
9 Rapiers Time Magic Dmg2Viera
10 Instruments Color Magic Dmg2Moogle
11 Blades Control Healing
12 Protect Addle Copycat
13 Shell Bind Petrify
14 Poison Charm Katana
15 Confuse Stop Bind
16 Fire Slow Charm
17 Ice Haste Status
18 Lightning Silence Stop
19 Wind Protect Slow
20 Earth Shell Haste
21 Dark Poison Silence
22 Holy Confuse Target Area
23 Charm Target Area Target All
24 Stop Fire Fire
25 Slow Ice Ice
26 Haste Lightning Lightning
27 Silence Wind Wind
28 Addle Earth Earth
29 Bind Dark Dark
30 Control Holy Holy
Could law breaking effects be edited?
Perhaps a 50% current HP damage for yellow and a 99% current HP for red woudl suit best.
Those lists look fine to my untrained eye. Dmg2Animal in the second tier seems a bit off but I guess it generally wouldn't be as powerful as the others. As long as it cycles away, it's not so bad.
As for Law Cycling... a second idea is to cycle based on the law itself. Say... All Dmg2X only last for a single round, a weak one like Poison lasts 3-4, etc. This way you can add a secondary balance to wide-reaching or just annoying Laws by controlling how long they stay in effect in addition to their tiering. Obviously a different concept from what I discussed before, but also pretty worthwhile to pursue personally. If you can't tell, I'm rather in favor of finding the best way to implement Law Cycling, because a good implementation and adjusting the punishments for breaking them is the best means to save it personally.
It was just going to randomly change when the Judge has a turn. He blows his whistle and the new laws pop up. Boosting the Judge's speed will change how often laws are changed. I want to make it closer to other units speed, so the laws change roughly once every unit has had a turn.
Works for me.
Having to check each turn which law is in effect sounds painful...
They won't change each turn. They'll change once every time the Judge has a turn. Or I could make it only change once every few turns..?
Every Judge turn sounds fine by me. You can just manipulate his Speed to make the Laws cycle more or less often, after all.