CRYSTALGATE'S PROFILE

author=Liberty
It was a really, really good game and I'm not joking when I say I like it in all ways over X. Most of the people who say they didn't like it at all usually do so because they think light-hearted means a lesser story OR they didn't like the fact that you were a girl doing feminine things in order to kick ass and save the world again (and heal it). Fact check, stories don't have to be grimdark in order to be meaningful.

May I suggest a shocking theory? I propose following; the people who didn't like X-2 didn't like it because they didn't have fun playing it. This is in the vast majority of cases the reason people don't like certain games.

Now, the rather big derivation from FF X may have a lot to do with it. There are a lot of popular games that give me the impression they are indeed great games, but I don't even consider getting them because they aren't games for me. I wouldn't enjoy them. Now, a lot of people who enjoyed X may have assumed that they would like X-2, but simple aren't wired in a way that makes X-2 fun for them. However, this still means they simple didn't enjoy X-2.

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.

One danger I can see with Merlandese's suggestion is that single spells can become ridiculously useful for a low price. Say you make a black mage type of character. Just toss in a single healing spell and the black mage will for the price of one artifact become a healer not that far off from a dedicated one. In the same vein, a support oriented mage just needs one good offensive spell to gain a massive offensive gain. Further, some skills tend to not care about the user's stat, like buff spells, and they may also massively boost a character for a single artifact slot. A thief type character for example, is usually very fast and you can give them a defensive buff spell that they can cast before any enemy gets to move. Since buff spells rarely cares about caster stat, that defensive spell will be just as effective as if a dedicated support mage had used it.

On the other hand, that may not be a problem at all. Maybe the player is expected to pull tricks like that? You may also be able to design around the problem if it indeed is a problem.

I went to the Darkroot areas and ended up procuring Havel's Ring and the Elite Knight set. With that I felt more confident taking on the Capra demon and did defeat him with relative ease. This gave me access to the depths which gave me finally a pyromancer. Just like that my character got a lot stronger. That seems to be in due time though, every currently accessible area is a lot tougher.

I must say I like armor in this game. Both the advantages and the disadvantages of heavier armor are noticeable. This makes me annoyed at what they did with armor in Dark Souls 3.

I'm interested in testing the game. I definitely qualifies for the "hasn't had as much contact with the game" criteria. I got curious about this game due to your "Stats, Stories, and Accessibility" blog and that's most likely what I will focus on if I beta test this game.