FFVII remake coming, old fanbase thinks they own it.



  • @xaade said:

    That doesn't work in single player. Although it could work with dynamic enough AI.
    FFXI did it first, with AI as a real automated faction, and it worked. Except the rest of the game sucked.

    I was speaking to multiplayer from the outset there...and of course, NPCs can exist and be part of the game. I wasn't talking about taking them out any time soon -- one of the freakiest moments I ever had as an EVE player was the time half a Sleeper NPC wave went AWOL in a site because the site's grid (grids are how EVE determines what in your vicinity is visible) split in half inadvertently, and some of the Sleepers had spawned in a location which put them on the other grid-part from us.

    @xaade said:

    All you really ended up with is a box of rules no more advanced than D&D. It just happens that computers calculate in realtime.

    We don't need the rules themselves to be hyper-advanced -- although we've learned a lot about how to build RPG rulesets since Gygax and TSR put the finishing touches on the first AD&D Player's Handbook. The key is that each individual "thread" of story is no longer isolated from each other -- these threads naturally align and conflict in various ways as they come into contact with each other within an open world, and that is what allows them to weave into a tapestry richer than anything bound by a single story-string. Instead of a single campaign in isolation, now we have many campaigns with many goals, some cooperating, some conflicting, and all sharing a world with each other.

    Computers not only calculate in realtime, but allow us to scale far beyond the time and space limitations imposed by face-to-face play.

    @xaade said:

    You're not leveraging the capabilities of computers to produce AI.

    What I'm saying is that the stories posed by the NPCs, the AI participants in the world, are no more important than the stories that emerge from players playing the game.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Uh ok?

    It's the same thing as Super Mario 64.
    Complete these 10 levels to unlock the next 10 levels.
    Except for ESO, it's complete these 10 quest hubs to level up to the next zone.
    And ESO still has, complete this quest line to unlock Cadwell's Silver, which is the next faction's set of zones.
    You can't skip over Oblivion even if you've outleveled it, which is possible, I did it.

    Skyrim had a little bit of that in, complete this quest line to unlock the Soul Cairne zone.
    Complete more of the quest line to unlock mountain zone.
    Complete level X to unlock Solstheim.

    @blakeyrat said:

    You're also ignoring the huge elephant in the room: a perfectly legitimate way to play Skyrim is to not participate in any quests at all.

    You can also leave the first area in FFV, and grind levels without questing.



  • @tarunik said:

    these threads naturally align and conflict in various ways as they come into contact with each other within an open world

    TES isn't that far away from that with their Radiant system. They just need a lot more NPCs, so that your adventure isn't hurt by the loss of any of them.

    The Civil War was going to be a lot like that, with you having to capture many keeps, and being able to lose a keep you don't choose to defend, etc.

    @tarunik said:

    these threads naturally align and conflict in various ways as they come into contact with each other

    Of course.

    But that's doesn't mean that any of those threads have to be interesting.

    I mean, those threads aren't woven by a professional story-teller.

    Ever have a bad D&D experience. Like a triple natural 20 cutting your final boss in half.



  • @tarunik said:

    The key is that each individual "thread" of story is no longer isolated from each other -- these threads naturally align and conflict in various ways as they come into contact with each other within an open world, and that is what allows them to weave into a tapestry richer than anything bound by a single story-string

    Yeah, we kind of tried to do that at an extremely limited scale with an extremely limited rule-based AI:
    :something, something: mud crabs :something, something: terrible creatures …

    I'd rather we not build entire games around that concept just yet.



  • @xaade said:

    TES isn't that far away from that with their Radiant system. They just need a lot more NPCs, so that your adventure isn't hurt by the loss of any of them.

    The Civil War was going to be a lot like that, with you having to capture many keeps, and being able to lose a keep you don't choose to defend, etc.

    Yeah; you have to remember that both Radiant and Civil War got cut WAAAY back from the original scope to make the delivery date. You can dig into the Creation Kit and find tons of unused Civil War dialogs that they never had time to wire-in to the game.

    None of this changes the fact that JRPGs suck.



  • I think the experience would be more like.

    You are sent into a cave to kill off some bandits, but the Radiant AI decided some hostile takeover by Vampires was necessary, and you show up to have to fight off the Vampires, but then the Bandits of their own choosing (by diceroll) decide they are grateful and move away from the city that hired you.

    You can either kill them off anyway.
    Get paid by the first city, Follow them to another city and have the new city pay you to kill them (because they're still bandits)
    Or get paid by the city for getting rid of the bandits and track down the source of the vampires.

    One of the first sidequests in Whiterun with the foreign redguards and that redguard woman, does something similar to this with its outcomes, but it's not dynamic.


    Now in a space game you can get away with that level of AI, because it's ships, and you don't care what's inside the ship or to hear them speak.

    But in TES, you see the person, so you'd want enough diversity in appearance, speech, and behavior to not feel stale.



  • @Ragnax said:

    Yeah, we kind of tried to do that at an extremely limited scale with an extremely limited rule-based AI::something, something: mud crabs :something, something: terrible creatures …

    I'd rather we not build entire games around that concept just yet.

    Not in a singleplayer context, no -- AI's nowhere near good enough for it. But multiplayer is a different beast...

    @xaade said:

    But that's doesn't mean that any of those threads have to be interesting.

    I mean, those threads aren't woven by a professional story-teller.

    Ever have a bad D&D experience. Like a triple natural 20 cutting your final boss in half.


    I've had some bad D&D experiences, but they were either my own darn fault for making a char do something rather silly (like not get out of the way of a pissed-off pachyderm), or player-vs-DM tug-of-wars caused by player cleverness bypassing DM-intended plot. The best way to deal with the latter, speaking from the GMs side here, is to distance yourself a bit more from what's going on -- instead of focusing on a specific story to tell at your table, focus on the elements, and let the players put them together how they want to see it.

    As to the issue of not all of those threads being interesting -- that's natural and rationalizable in-universe, so it isn't a problem. You simply pick what you (or your character) would be interested in.



  • @Ragnax said:

    FF9 is better. Much, much better. Then again, it actually devotes entire arcs of the story to smaller parts of the player party going off to fullfill different objectives 'in parallel', giving everyone a chance to shine and develop.

    I'm stuck a few hours into Disc 2 on that game because my PS2 blackscreens when I enter a certain zone. But from what I've seen so far, I don't like it as much as 4, 8, or 10. Not that it's a bad game, though.



  • @xaade said:

    No, XII actually has better storytelling than VII, by a longshot.

    IFF, you ignore the two starter characters and treat them like a camera for the story.And, you realize that the real mistake they've made, is waiting until you don't care about a character anymore, to advance their development. All the characters in XII are just scenery until they are used. That's not how you keep a player engaged in the story. But if you take the points in the game that matter, the characters are much more interesting than you realize.

    It's not just Vaan and Penelo with whom I take issue. The remaining two not already mentioned playable characters fall into the Inner Tragedy Swordsman and Iron Hearted Princess tropes, with little else beyond that.

    In many of the other titles, there's a lot of tension building up for major plot points, particularly The Big Reveals, where you find out that [spoiler]the princess isn't dead, and she happens to be that weird lady you encounter nonchalantly venturing alone in one of the dungeons[/spoiler] and [spoiler]King Raminas'/Reks' killer isn't the guy in your party, but his twin brother! Come on, that's some laziness right there.[/spoiler]

    Vayne was a wasted opportunity because he gives a compelling speech to the residents of a city he just conquered, but then almost immediately reverts to being the complete bad guy.

    Reddas doesn't [spoiler]stay around long enough[/spoiler] to be interesting, ditto most of the Judges, and Gabranth's [spoiler]second change of heart[/spoiler] was a bit too late and predictable.

    I will concede that they did do a good job of showing off Ivalice as a world, though.



  • Like I said before, there are some convincing stories, but they wait until you don't care about the characters to tell those stories.

    I loved Basch, but they waited too late to execute the tragedy of his story. They wait until a point where you no longer care to find out, and then reveal it.
    Oh he must be a good guy, he's been so helpful.
    [spoiler]Gasp he didn't kill the King?[/spoiler] Oh well, I don't care anymore. He's saved us like 20 something times.
    I didn't care that [spoiler]it was his twin brother. That's actually a smart move.[/spoiler] But Basch waits until the information isn't useful anymore, to have your party find out.

    That's what is great about Vayne. He's very politically smart that he gives Al-Cid a run for his money. I don't mind this at all. It's basically the best that Lex Luthor has to offer in gripping stories.

    And Vossler was a badass, but alas he wasn't really involved in YOUR story. Again, a wasted opportunity.


    So what I'm saying is that the facts behind the story made for really great intrigue, but the execution and delivery of the facts were done in the most lame and boring of ways.

    If they would have kept the drama at the level of the opening sequence, with the timing and execution, the game would have been the best FF, hands down.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    JRPGs suck

    Except Way of the Samurai, which is brilliant (well, the one I played out of the series was anyway).


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    I know it is. I just said it was. What the hell is wrong with you people?

    What's it like having such mad social skillz you can't even be civil to people who agree with you?



  • It's awesome.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    It's awesome.

    So what did you think of the Grrl Power webcomic? You didn't ever say, unless I missed your response, and it's too much work to get the reply there.



  • Everything is Awesome



  • @FrostCat said:

    So what did you think of the Grrl Power webcomic?

    Never read it.

    I believe the entirety of my feedback was pointing out that "grrl" is not a word, and then asking what species the main character was supposed to be, since she's obviously not at all human.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Never read it.

    It must be terrible.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    I believe the entirety of my feedback was pointing out that "grrl" is not a word

    That I remember. I didn't name the strip.

    @blakeyrat said:

    and then asking what species the main character was supposed to be, since she's obviously not at all human.

    Why would you say that, bearing in mind that the comic is intentionally silly and uses cartoon logic.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I recently tried to play Final Fantasy VII, lauded by morons as the "best" of the Final Fantasy games, and OMG was it a snore.

    BTW, that's the kiddies.

    The grown ups appreciate 4 and 6 a lot more.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I recently tried to play Final Fantasy VII, lauded by morons as the "best" of the Final Fantasy games, and OMG was it a snore.

    Same. And there will never be a third Chrono game. One thing I loved about the second game that made people mad, is that everyone from the original is dead except one remaining character, who dies during the game, almost immediately after being introduced.



  • @Magus said:

    And there will never be a third Chrono game.

    You know, in a CRPG that builds on exploration, you can experience almost all of the content in one playthrough.

    I didn't start ChronoCross, because I saw the huge-ass list of characters and how mutually exclusive they were. Yeah, I don't want to play through the game 1000 times because I want to see all the content.



  • Most of them just change the dialog slightly. The quests to unlock them are the interesting part, and those can almost all be done in one playthrough. There are maybe 6 characters that I liked actually including in my party on occasion, usually dictated by their colors.

    Also, the combat, while entirely different from the first game, was awesome. The summoning system was also unusual and rather cool.



  • @Magus said:

    The quests to unlock them are the interesting part, and those can almost all be done in one playthrough.

    In one playthrough? Nope. The game was designed in such a way that you require a minumum of 3 playthroughs to get them all. This corresponds exactly to the 3 ways into Viper Manor early on in the game, because each way has a different character join you and iirc you can't go back and get either of the other two once the first one has joined you.



  • Yes, yes, almost == all. I will remember this in the future.

    ...My point was, there is very little of the game that can't be experienced in one playthrough, and even for those last two, you can do that quest in new game +, immediately fight the last boss, and do the next one. Getting all the characters enabled at once is slightly more complicated (Who am I kidding, you just have to beat the game with [spoiler]Harle[/spoiler] in your party.)... but you certainly don't need 1k playthroughs to see everything. 95% in one playthrough is definitely possible.



  • @Magus said:

    And there will never be a third Chrono game.

    Think of it this way: would you trust the present Square-Enix to create something worthy of that IP to begin with?



  • That depends on which team does it. Some of theirs are good. If the people responsible for The Four Heroes of Light and Bravely Default did it, absolutely. I'd be happy with just a Chrono Cross release on Steam.



  • FFVII HD as an action, quicktime event crossover from FFXV mechanics.
    So Chrono Cross HD as a date sim.



  • @xaade said:

    So Chrono Cross HD as a date sim.

    I know I really shouldn't, but I lolled at that even though it is quite likely far too close to the level of cock-up we'd get out of a HD remake of Chrono Cross than anyone outside of Square-Enix themselves would be comfortable with...



  • I quite liked seeing a simplified version of CC's stamina system in The Four Heroes of Light. I wish they'd kept that in Bravely Default, because the action-saving/time-debt they have doesn't feel as good. But clearly there are still a few good people in that company, because they managed to make games that are both original and a reference to old Final Fantasy games.



  • @Magus said:

    But clearly there are still a few good people in that company, because they managed to make games that are both original and a reference to old Final Fantasy games.

    Sorry to disappoint you, but Bravely Default was not created by Square-Enix. They published the game, but it was developed by Silicon Studios, which is an independent video game development studio and graphics technology company. (Its founder was the senior VP of Silicon Graphics; hence the name, probably...)

    The reason Bravely Default hits a lot of old FF (and DQ) tropes. is that their development team had a rather large amount of old FF and DQ veterans on board, presumably all ex-employees.



  • It was originally going to be a sequel to The Four Heroes of Light, though, which is, as far as I'm concerned, the best Final Fantasy title in recent years. And my point still stands: everyone farms off their stuff to companies like this these days, which is why we got a Strider game. If they were to farm it off to these guys, I wouldn't have to worry about the quality.



  • The big thing... is simply caring about the source material.



  • Squenix doesn't care about any of their source material. They care about cashflow. Otherwise they wouldn't reinvent the universe every year or two and market it under the same franchise name. I don't believe that most people in the company care enough to do it right, but I have no doubt that there are people who do available. FFVII is getting past the point where everyone is nostalgic for it, and the number of people who think it's horribly dated increase constantly, so remaking it while it's still 'legendary' is a good move for keeping up it's popularity. Meanwhile there are very few games that age as well as Chrono Trigger, and it was rereleased recently.

    I definitely don't think it'll happen; I let myself get my hopes up when their ENTIRE HYPE VIDEO USED FROG'S THEME, but even then I had my doubts. Still, I do think it could be done right, if they were to bother.



  • Does Squeenix still own Tomb Raider, with the new games? Those are pretty good.


  • FoxDev

    They do; they announced Rise of the Tomb Raider at E3 this year



  • Yeah, they showed off the new one at their conference. Looked pretty good. I haven't really played that series at all, so I wasn't terribly interested, especially considering the fact that they talked about the next Deus Ex.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Does Squeenix still own Tomb Raider, with the new games? Those are pretty good.

    That newest one wasn't too bad, just entirely unmemorable. Seriously, the only thing I remember about this game is that turning on TressFX makes Lara's hair go totally batshit insane.



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    That newest one wasn't too bad, just entirely unmemorable.

    Really? I remember it quite well. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I did "archer Lara" and used the bow 99% of the time, it was a perfect level of challenge.

    Never noticed any hair weirdness, but I was using NVidia card? Maybe AMDs had problems?

    The worst bit was the Quick Time Events, which are basically cancer. But fortunately, there weren't that many.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I did "archer Lara" and used the bow 99% of the time, it was a perfect level of challenge.

    Challenge? For me, it felt quite the opposite. I forgot I had guns like halfway through the game, the bow was so good.

    The story and the characters didn't hold up too well for me, though. The supporting cast felt like cardboard cutouts.

    @blakeyrat said:

    Never noticed any hair weirdness, but I was using NVidia card? Maybe AMDs had problems?

    I'm on a GTX 760 myself, and if you disabled the cool-hair-thing while leaving the rest on ultra, it didn't really take away from the (admittedly pretty nice) visuals. But running the benchmark with it enabled ended up hilarious.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Does Squeenix still own Tomb Raider, with the new games? Those are pretty good.

    I was confused by this... I'd forgotten Eidos is now part of Square-Enix.



  • @Magus said:

    It was originally going to be a sequel to The Four Heroes of Light, though, which is, as far as I'm concerned, the best Final Fantasy title in recent years.

    That may be true, but that just sets the bar somewhere below sea level, given how The 4 Heroes of Light failed miserably in regards to plot, characters and gameplay.

    It constantly splits the party, leaving the first half riddled with one and two person parties, which severely cuts into the potential for actual tactical gameplay, the characters are as flat as a board and altogether unpleasant ("I wanna be a great hero, so the first thing I'll do is ditch my teammate because all great heroes are huge dicks."), the villains are about as generic as you can get, and the autotarget mechanism, while attempting to be smart, completely fails at understanding healing, forcing me to spend most of the game fighting against the UI, as opposed to the actual enemies.
    Unless you use the class that's completely broken, I guess, since they game gives you a class that is invincible and does massive damage as long as you have money, which the game basically throws at you with a specific minigame.

    Really, the graphics and music were alright, but somebody really should've stepped in and canned the project since it's beyond horrible.

    Frankly, I'd rather pick up Final Fantasy V again, since it's superior in regards to storytelling, characters, gameplay, music and actual creativity. As incredibly goofy as it is, its villain is unique and memorable, I can actually like the characters and the game doesn't force me to wait until the midway point to finally have a full party to play with.

    The 4 Heroes of Light was a horribly misguided attempt to recapture the essence of the earliest JRPGs, simultaneously forgetting all the reasons why those games were horrible and going out of their way to add new terrible gameplay mechanics that caused The 4 Heroes of Light to be inferior in every noticeable aspect to a game seventeen years its senior.

    It's painfully evident that Square-Enix has absolutely no idea what it's doing in regards to the Final Fantasy series, and given this track record, I sincerely doubt they're actually willing to make the changes necessary to transform Final Fantasy 7 from a chore of a game that I couldn't even finish into something both memorable and fun to play.



  • Oh god.... stop it with the "Rise" thing.

    It was terrible with "Rise of the machines" and it make "The Dark Night Rises" the weakest of the trilogy.

    Rise of the Tome Raider??? Really....



  • It's better than some idiot calling gameplay elements lifted from Chrono Cross 'new terrible game mechanics'.



  • @Ratatoskr said:

    Frankly, I'd rather pick up Final Fantasy V again

    That game breaks at Dual Wielding Multi-shot Counter Novice classes.



  • @Magus said:

    It's better than some idiot calling gameplay elements lifted from Chrono Cross 'new terrible game mechanics'.

    I've never played Chrono Cross, but if it also has a horrible auto-target feature that works against the player, then it is also a terrible game.

    However, a more likely assumption would be that you're referring to the AP system as you've mentioned before, in which case I have to say that I really wasn't bothered by that element. It works well enough, even if I don't find it to be particularly compelling myself.
    It simply doesn't manage to do anything to compensate for all the flaws in the gameplay, such as the aforementioned auto-target, the other overpowered abilities such as Lux and the boss fights being either excessively difficult or incredibly easy based on which specific specialized equipment you bring along.

    Indeed, I had mentioned a plurality of "new terrible gameplay mechanics", and I can understand being confused about which mechanics this would refer to, but I would still consider it highly erroneous to immediately assume that I talk about each and every mechanic present in the game, instead of just a few that manage to strongly outweigh any enjoyable mechanics present.

    @xaade said:

    That game breaks at Dual Wielding Multi-shot Counter Novice classes.

    Quite. Final Fantasy has never been anywhere near difficult or balanced.
    But still, I would draw a distinction between a game being broken through a particular combination of skills that possess synergy to the point of offering overwhelming power, and a singular class that might as well have a giant "I win" button stapled to it.

    The former is a predictable consequence of a versatile class system, and the latter is an indication that they simple didn't care or happened to be extremely drunk. It's the kind of incredibly obviously design oversight that I might overlook in a title like Etrian Odyssey, but would be utterly unacceptable for a game carrying the Final Fantasy label, as it has to be able to stand up to its predecessors, which The 4 Heroes of Light completely failed at.



  • Chrono Cross used something halfway between the AP system and Bravely Default's save up actions thing. Basic attacks charge up your stamina to a maximum of eight iirc, and can be used as long as you have at least 0 stamina. Spells can be placed at any position on your skill grid, but get reduced or improved based on their position. Skills still have a base power, so you still usually put stronger skills more to the right. Based on the position, a skill will use an amount of stamina, so you can cast a weak skill or two with no penalty, but expensive ones incur a stamina debt. It probably has my second favorite rpg combat system, though fans of ff probably wouldn't like dealing with field colors and the weird weakness pairs.


  • Garbage Person

    FF7 sucked goatballs.

    That is all.

    FF6, on the other hand, was the peak of the entire series. One of my favorite stories in any genre in any medium, and the gameplay weren't bad either.

    Post-Playstation JRPG's that I actually like? Chrono Cross. Aaaand that's about it.


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