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BLUE MAGIC (AND OTHER "MISSABLE" SKILLS)
Posts
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
LockeZ
View playlists
CloseBut, you reach the final boss of FF games when your primary team is level 50...
If you are high enough level to have beaten the final boss already, I think it's fair to assume you are familiar enough with the game to know twenty different ways to get an enemy to low HP even if only has 100 HP. Off the top of my head: demi, quarter, minus strike, poison, confuse, cast protect on it and attack with Vivi or Eiko's worst weapon, limit glove at full HP, probably one or two of Zidane's awful useless skills... They're not optimal tactics, but if you have to use them then it means the enemy is totally nonthreatening, so you can afford to get hit a few extra times while waiting for it to reach critical HP.
If you are high enough level to have beaten the final boss already, I think it's fair to assume you are familiar enough with the game to know twenty different ways to get an enemy to low HP even if only has 100 HP. Off the top of my head: demi, quarter, minus strike, poison, confuse, cast protect on it and attack with Vivi or Eiko's worst weapon, limit glove at full HP, probably one or two of Zidane's awful useless skills... They're not optimal tactics, but if you have to use them then it means the enemy is totally nonthreatening, so you can afford to get hit a few extra times while waiting for it to reach critical HP.
Reno
0
I like your idea about teaching partial spells you have to practice, that would definitely be more user-friendly. I'm not too keen on having you learn those automatically at predetermined increments... just seems to violate the spirit of it in my opinion.
Personally I'm rather neutral to blue mages. They are awesome at full power but they take a lot of work and time. The thing I hate the most about blue mages is when you have to be in the blue mage job (or in FF5's case, use your skill slot on Learning) to be able to learn blue magic- I know that's kind of a "no duh" thing but for examples like FF5 or FF10-2 I end up just ditching that job altogether.
FF7 and FF9 in my opinion are examples of how to do blue magic right. In FF7's case, one materia slot is a pretty small price to be able to learn blue magic and in FF9 (even though I could take or leave the Eat command), blue magic was relatively abundant and easy to obtain. So I think blue magic would be awesome as long as you make the ability to learn it readily available while the player is still able to use another job and/or use other abilities.
Or in lieu of that, maybe have the basic blue magic spells really easy to obtain so that a blue mage can have a leg to stand on and be a practical choice of party member before they find the more powerful spells.
Personally I'm rather neutral to blue mages. They are awesome at full power but they take a lot of work and time. The thing I hate the most about blue mages is when you have to be in the blue mage job (or in FF5's case, use your skill slot on Learning) to be able to learn blue magic- I know that's kind of a "no duh" thing but for examples like FF5 or FF10-2 I end up just ditching that job altogether.
FF7 and FF9 in my opinion are examples of how to do blue magic right. In FF7's case, one materia slot is a pretty small price to be able to learn blue magic and in FF9 (even though I could take or leave the Eat command), blue magic was relatively abundant and easy to obtain. So I think blue magic would be awesome as long as you make the ability to learn it readily available while the player is still able to use another job and/or use other abilities.
Or in lieu of that, maybe have the basic blue magic spells really easy to obtain so that a blue mage can have a leg to stand on and be a practical choice of party member before they find the more powerful spells.
Drakonais
2787
One pro I don't think anyone mentioned was that a Blue Magic system adds an additional potential reward in battle. Sure, there's plenty of exp and item drops. But the chance that an enemy might have a skill that a player can utilize for the rest of the game? That's a pretty big reward. Once Blue Magic gets introduced in any game I play, encounters become way less burdensome because there's a chance to strike gold.
So yeah, I'm a fan.
So yeah, I'm a fan.
I've always liked how Blue Magic in some games was pretty much optional, but its usual difficulty was rewarded with the ultimate skills.
Personally my party was usually Squall/Quistis/Irvine-Rinoa in FF8 because Quistis has Mighty Guard and Bad Breath, plus I've always really really wanted to get Shockwave Pulsar...never actually succeeded though. Stupid Tri-Face cards.
I also enjoyed it in FFX-2 because, again, skills like Mighty Guard and 1000 Needles. 1000 Needles was very handy early on in the game, especially in a New Game +.
On the contrary I disliked it in both FFX and FF9 because I found Quina painful to use at the best of times because of the variance in his/her attacks and the wasted turns I spent trying to Eat things (unrelated: must play FF8 and get the Devour skill for Squall. Om nom nom, T-Rexaur!!! 8D) and Kimahri...I found him useless generally because I would always teach Yuna black magic then spend most of my time with Tidus/Wakka/Auron/Rikku/Yuna. I have never used Kimahri.
Personally my party was usually Squall/Quistis/Irvine-Rinoa in FF8 because Quistis has Mighty Guard and Bad Breath, plus I've always really really wanted to get Shockwave Pulsar...never actually succeeded though. Stupid Tri-Face cards.
I also enjoyed it in FFX-2 because, again, skills like Mighty Guard and 1000 Needles. 1000 Needles was very handy early on in the game, especially in a New Game +.
On the contrary I disliked it in both FFX and FF9 because I found Quina painful to use at the best of times because of the variance in his/her attacks and the wasted turns I spent trying to Eat things (unrelated: must play FF8 and get the Devour skill for Squall. Om nom nom, T-Rexaur!!! 8D) and Kimahri...I found him useless generally because I would always teach Yuna black magic then spend most of my time with Tidus/Wakka/Auron/Rikku/Yuna. I have never used Kimahri.
Darkflamewolf
2178
I actually like Kimhari because you can take him in any direction you want after he breaks out of his initial grid. So you can use him in any way you see fit.
As far as the blue magic discussion goes, I love Blue Magic but I can see the cons that people may not like about it. So to make things easier, I'm going the FFVI Strago route with passive learning. The enemies WILL be using these skills (a few have conditions) and just by viewing it (not surviving it, you can die and learn) you get the skill. And secondly, I'm making sure all these skills are worth learning. No useless ones. So once you get enough skills, the Blue Mage actually becomes quite helpful.
As far as the blue magic discussion goes, I love Blue Magic but I can see the cons that people may not like about it. So to make things easier, I'm going the FFVI Strago route with passive learning. The enemies WILL be using these skills (a few have conditions) and just by viewing it (not surviving it, you can die and learn) you get the skill. And secondly, I'm making sure all these skills are worth learning. No useless ones. So once you get enough skills, the Blue Mage actually becomes quite helpful.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
author=SorceressKyrsty
I've always liked how Blue Magic in some games was pretty much optional, but its usual difficulty was rewarded with the ultimate skills.
I dunno, I think that's part of the problem, actually. An inherently faulty system with all the problems mentioned shouldn't be the way to get the best skills in the game. Making the hardest skills in the game difficult to get is great, but some of these problems are fairly serious and are creating false difficulty - you're actually not rewarded at all for your performance, you're rewarded for being a worse player, as well as for pure dumb luck.
If they were pretty good skills but not the best, it wouldn't be as big of a deal. But a better solution is probably to try to fix the problems in the OP, rather than make the system less central so that the problems don't matter.
The best Blue Magic in existence (in my opinion) is this one...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaKna4RkKTA
Oh, and I'm planning on ripping every frame in that spell and making it a battle animation for 2k3. Yup, I'll share it too! Don't worry. xP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaKna4RkKTA
Oh, and I'm planning on ripping every frame in that spell and making it a battle animation for 2k3. Yup, I'll share it too! Don't worry. xP
author=Darkflamewolf:O!!! ^O^
Already have it ripped Felix. PM me and I'll be happy to share it with you.
author=LockeZ
So, let's quote two of my friends from the Unofficial Squaresoft MUD.
Dana: Blue mages are, hands down, my favorite type of character in any game.
Omicron: Blue magic is an awful outdated system and I can't think of any justification for using it.
Whoa whoa whoa, who are you on UOSS? :D
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
My username is No, I'm one of the wizards.
