TRAVIO'S PROFILE

Yeah, from what I understand, they're just aliases for referring to specific objects within the game - as quasi said:

a - refers to the enemy's actor instance
p - refers to the party's party instance
t - refers to the enemy party's troop instance
s - refers to the switch global
v - refers to the variable global

To the best of my understanding, this lets you access any of the methods normally available to these particular instances. Basically, these are shortcuts to give you access to almost anything you could need in a formula.

author=Deckiller
The artists will report. Also, if people notice a possible issue, they could contact the artist for confirmation. Mods won't be policing things here; they will be enforcing the rules based on confirmation and consent from the artist.

Will efforts be made to ensure said person is actually the artist?

And what of materials that have been passed around to a point where finding the original artist is virtually impossible? I know I have a couple resources where, after finding them public with the phrase "I don't remember where I got these," I've tried to track the artist down and have been unsuccessful.

*sigh* Lightning Returns, and I hate the combat at times. Fights are either way too easy (Hold the attack button, two seconds later, dead mob) or over the top hard (using the quickest way to bring the enemy down with the schemata I'm equipped with, ten minute later I get a dead mob)- within the same spawn area. I'm not sure if I'm just missing something or what.

author=RyaReisender

The one problem with a comparison of FF13 here is that, unless you've played the first 20-25 hours of the game through until chapter 11

The game difficulty is challenging right from the beginning in FF13. Though of course due to much less options it's a lot easier to figure out what to do. But many encounters required you to think and use the correct patterns or you lost. For example the monsters that could only be hurt in break mode, you had to use at least one but often two ravagers to get them there fast before you're dead.

But the problem was, until Chapter 11, they still weren't difficult. The only enemies requiring Stagger I can recall before Chapter 11 (having just replayed it in the last week) that weren't bosses were the Pulsework enemies, the ones that open when you stagger them and can't attack any more, and those shell enemies that lose all defense when staggered. The only other enemies that require stagger the game tells you you should outright avoid them - and they're right, because those ones are tuned way beyond your ability to defeat in most cases.

Even then, you can usually keep Yin & Yang (COM/RAV) and clear most enemies without ever needing to switch paradigms. Once you get three characters, Diversity (COM/RAV/MED) is pretty much the only paradigm you need for most fights.

Now note I am the one in favour of the system 13 uses - resetting health after fights. I'm just saying that 13 didn't use it properly and the game ended up suffering for it (combined with the stupid idea of your game being over if the main character died but the rest of your party was fine). 13-2 fixed a lot of the problems with it, but ended up making it too easy to overpower enemies in the process.

South Park is another game that uses the reset after battle (well, technically no - your PP recharges, and you regain health outside of battle, but your mana doesn't refill) but it does begin to push the challenge as the game progresses (plus, it keeps you from just mashing X in other ways, which is <3).

The one problem with a comparison of FF13 here is that, unless you've played the first 20-25 hours of the game through until chapter 11, you're still in the hand holding tutorial section, which is rather sad and speaks to a lot of the game's problems. At that point is when that particular game starts to shine in the combat sections; until then, only the odd boss - particularly the Eidolons - is truly challenging. After that, though, is when you start to get access to what are, essentially, the game's superbosses. Unfortunately, they're still liberally sprinkled in between with fights where, once you're at a point where you're sufficiently powerful, you can just keep mashing the X button and call it a day five minutes later. These are the problematic fights and the ones that drag the game out too long without a challenge.

The real types of 'challenge' fights are things like the Oretoise family - even characters who've finished the game will still be challenged by these guys, as they can basically wipe out characters in one shot if you're not careful (something none of the final three bosses are capable of, by the way).

The problem's also aggravated in 13 by what, as I discovered last night, are a number of flaws in the combat system I didn't really notice on my recent playthrough. The problem is, I completed the game's story and pretty much decided that I'd come back later to 100% it because the 100% portion is pretty difficult to obtain. So I moved on to 13-2, which I'm sitting at about 95ish% on (there's two paradox endings I have left to get, and one is considered the hardest fight in the base game - one with Serah fighting Caius with just a monster to help; the other one just requires me to recomplete a tedious dungeon and I haven't bothered yet). The problem here is that 13-2 fixed a lot of problems with 13's combat - it feels faster, plays cleaner, and actually is balanced so that if you're not overpowering the enemies, you have to stay on your toes. Unfortunately, the game fails there in that you quickly and easily overpower your enemies; before I finished the game's main ending, I had level 99 in five of the six roles for both characters and the other was the mid-30s and one they never use anyways (so it's just extra stats). And that was without making a concentrated grind effort outside of raising a chocobo to race.

(I have yet to try Lightning Returns, but the battle system from the demo was interesting as a solo style game.)

If it could be done right - the need for a strategy when you don't overpower your enemy and not overpowering your enemy too quickly - it'd work for a game.