[POLL] LOOKING FOR FEEDBACK ABOUT MY MAGIC SYSTEM

Poll

Which system is better (from a design perspective), and which would you rather play with? - Results

The two-Relic system is better, and I would rather play with it.
5
62%
The two-Relic system is better, but I would rather play with the multi-Relic system.
0
0%
The multi-Relic system is better, and I would rather play with it.
1
12%
The multi-Relic system is better, but I would rather play with the two-Relic system.
0
0%
I do not care for either system.
2
25%

Posts

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Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
author=Merlandese
GF/Junction System
author=Crystalgate
VIII are actually my horror examples of how to not balance a game.

Yeah, I've actually got something to say about VIII's stat/magic system. Once you draw certain magics or turn cards/items into said magics, all you'll ever use them for is equipping to your characters to boost stats and weaknesses/resistances. Once this is done, all you have to do is roll your face on your controller/keyboard (or spare your face and mash X/* key to attack) and wait for Eyes on Me to play again to acknowledge your mastery of the game. The only spells that are even marginally worth using (unless you really want to bust your balls on Omega Weapon) once you've got your perfect setup are Curaga and Meltdown, the latter only because some monsters at higher levels have defense vitality stats that won't result in 7000-9999 damage per hit.
And as much as I enjoyed the game, that always bothered me. The concept is brilliant: your power is tied to your magic, so you need to make important decisions about when to use your magic, because every use costs you power. The implementation just resulted in spamming limit breaks and physical attacks that were far too powerful and disregarding summons and magic that were far too weak.

Generally, I'm of the belief that abilities that have a cost, such as magic, need to be more powerful than abilities that are free, such merely attacking. However, the flip side is that cost has to be meaningful and directly tied to the power of the ability. Final Fantasy 7 and 8 both got this wrong, each in the opposite fashion.

You know, this has me thinking about a certain design philosophy for Magic the Gathering cards:

High power
Low cost
No drawback

You get to pick just two of those.

It's a good thing to keep in mind.
author=Crystalgate
My experience of Final Fantasy VII and VIII was that those games were broken in half by default. ... The systems didn't break the games because there was very little in the first place that wasn't already broken.


I agree and disagree with this stance, mostly in your continued emphasis on the words "broken" and "balanced". Yes, they were set up like this by default, but "broken" implies that they did it on accident, or are somehow missing the mark. Maybe I'm focusing too much on semantics, but these aren't the words I'd choose. Those games were completely playable.

You even gave a nice example of how they worked well anyhow. Triple healers weren't a problem? That... should be a good thing. If they work, they aren't broken. Or rather: if all the pieces are X, and the system compliments X, then it's balanced.

Something as messed up as Quick Hit from FFX may be broken for existing within the systems FFX provides, but the system itself isn't broken. There's just a mistake. Those can be tested for and avoided with vigilance and care. Once they patched Quick Hit everything worked a tad smoother.

The system alterations I'm suggesting aren't inherently imbalanced because they are drawn from some flawed negaverse. Any system can be broken or imbalanced if not handled correctly.
That's exactly right. That's why this conversation is important. It's debatable how much of the abuse in FF7 and FF8 were intentional and how much was unforeseen by the programmers, but there were definitely, definitely abusive ways to play the game. Playing Triple Triad for three hours, harvesting 100 Curagas, and running around spamming Renzokukens with Squall still at 1000 HP in the opening areas of the game, whether intentional or not, is pretty broken.

With any system like what we're talking about, where the player is given a lot of freedom to customize abilities, the possibility for abusive tactics like that exists (even unintentional ones), and it's important to think about them. I really appreciate all the input you all have given in this regard.

I'm curious about how a hybrid system can unfold, and extra aware of the potential pitfalls.
author=Merlandese
You even gave a nice example of how they worked well anyhow. Triple healers weren't a problem? That... should be a good thing. If they work, they aren't broken. Or rather: if all the pieces are X, and the system compliments X, then it's balanced.
Triple healers weren't a problem because the problem that they would normally cause already existed. It's not a problem the same way that your enemies using armor piercing rounds isn't a problem if your troops lack bulletproof armor.

The system alterations I'm suggesting aren't inherently imbalanced because they are drawn from some flawed negaverse. Any system can be broken or imbalanced if not handled correctly.

That is true. However, the problems I listed are very likely to occur with your system while very unlikely to occur with some other systems (class system, skills predetermined for every character learned via level ups as two examples).

Anyway, I think I throw in a suggestion of how to avoid the problem I outlined. Well, support magic is typically, with the exception of healing, independent of the magic/intelligence stat. So, let's make that true for healing as well. Now a support mage doesn't need to care about the magic stat. What we do instead is to make support magic much more expensive than offensive magic. That means that the resources an offensive mage would spend on the magic stat the support mage has to dedicate towards maximum MP.

Now a support mage cannot just throw in a single offensive spell and gain a huge offensive benefit, that spell would be pathetically weak due to low magic stat. The healer would have to dedicate artifacts to intelligence which would come at the expense of Max MP and in turn hurt its ability to use support magic. Likewise, if an offensive mage casts healing spells, it would have a devastating effect on its MP pool. The same would go for the thief casting a multi-target defense up spell.
Along a similar vein, I could add basic parameters. I was thinking of doing that anyway, but it helps solve the problem. One parameter can be dedicated to offensive magic, the other to defensive. Wisdom vs Intellect, for example. And while the power of buffs and debuffs can't really take advantage of a parameter, their effectiveness can in some ways. Length of effect, chance of failure, etc.

Healers who dedicate their growth to the healing stat will necessarily lack the power to deal lots of damage with offensive spells, and vice versa; a character still has the option of taking the middle ground but at the cost of effectiveness in all categories.
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