General => Archives => FFT+ => Topic started by: on December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm
Poll
Question: You want them?
Option 1: Yes
votes: 8
Option 2: No
votes: 2
Option 3: Other (Post & explain)
votes: 1
Title: [Old] Monster givaway battles?
Post by: Dome on August 27, 2012, 07:09:03 am
With "Monster Giveaway Battles" I mean random battles which award you a monster (If he survives the battle)
Example (http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/82/xxxxxxd.png)
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
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: Dome on August 27, 2012, 11:30:32 am
Guys, remember to state your opinions after voting! Vote + Comment > Vote
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: HebrewToYou on August 27, 2012, 05:24:48 pm
I think this is a great idea, especially in the early game.
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: 3lric on August 27, 2012, 08:23:18 pm
Just be careful not to surpass the sprite limit
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: The Damned on August 28, 2012, 11:36:26 pm
(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?
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: Dome on August 29, 2012, 01:38:32 am
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
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: Dome on August 30, 2012, 05:56:39 am
You still have 1 day to vote guys, then the poll will be closed :-)
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: Dome on August 31, 2012, 01:52:36 am
8:2 Still some time to vote!
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: Neophyte Ronin on August 31, 2012, 04:54:18 am
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.
*Note: If Bombs had Auto-Life/Reraise all the time, they'd be a horrifying adversary unless you could poach them....
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: Dome on August 31, 2012, 05:47:18 am
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)
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: Stretch on September 01, 2012, 04:22:53 am
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.
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: The Damned on September 01, 2012, 06:15:18 am
(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.
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: 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.
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: 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
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: 3lric on September 01, 2012, 06:25:34 pm
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)
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on September 01, 2012, 06:28:58 pm
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.
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: The Damned on September 01, 2012, 09:16:02 pm
(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).
"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.
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on September 02, 2012, 11:05:53 am
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.
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: The Damned on September 02, 2012, 05:49:50 pm
(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....
Title: Re: Monster givaway battles?
Post by: Dome on September 03, 2012, 08:08:14 am