Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Feb 26, 2015 10:48:27 GMT -5
I've been thinking about this lately: What qualities do older tales have that should be in newer titles? This is mostly about the mechanics and stuff, like which is the best battle system, huge overworld map or narrow paths to explore etc. I started thinking about this after getting my hands on the Wii version of Graces which my cousin bought a while back. I've previously thought the combat has gone worse after Vesperia but after trying it myself I found out it's actually one of my favorite battle systems. Though the controller is a bit clunky.
Basically I'm asking your opinions on what were the good design choices and is there any ideas how to improve the mechanics in any way.
So I'll start by listing some positives/negatives of some games in the series that I think are worth pointing out
Phantasia/Destiny (PSX/SNES): + The distinction between long- and short ranged artes. It has a lot of strategic potential and I think it could add a lot of depth into the newer battle systems if implemented properly - The combat was too clunky. +- The food bag thing didn't really add anything to the game.
Eternia: + Fun Minigames + Combat system added some depth and flowed a lot better. - Combat didn't have much going on, enemies were fairly simple. - 2D sprites on a 2D plane moving freely caused some problems with movement in towns/dungeons.
Symphonia: +- Lack of free run made the combat more interesting and more frustrating at the same time. +- EX skills worked well and making you choose between different arte trees was not a bad idea. + Again, fun minigames + The crafting system was simple but at least something. + Overlimit and Unison attack worked as they should have, the usefulness is matter of preference
Abyss: + Capacity cores---> skills, added a lot of options to the character building. + Sorcerers ring was tied to the story and characters instead of just popping up somewhere and magically being useful for the rest of the game. (very minor thing) + FOF change, good way to make use of the 3D plane. Also encouraged you to use different spells for the fields. + Chambers: arte customization is always welcome. Didn't have too much impact but fun micromanagement for those who like it. - Free run was broken (minor problem, you can always turn it off)
Innocence: + Tactics menu was a lot better than in previous tales + Again, skill system worked and added to the customization. - Awful/boring dungeons - Boring overworld +- Guild system for some grindy side activities - Lack of side stuff
Vesperia: + Combat system had a lot of depth, not to say earlier versions didn't have + Again, good side-stuff +- Multi bar overlimit. Nice addition to the basic overlimit, but made some of the bosses way too easy (Don't use it, problem solved) +- Skills from weapons +- Skill usage limited
Graces: +- Sidestep +- Focus on weaknesses +- A- and B- artes. +- Lack of TP +- CC +- Lack of "normal" attacks. +- Arles Pot +- Weapon customization +- Titles to replace skills
Also the general Abyss-monster recycling: It's not necessarily a bad thing, as you only notice it if you have played to other titles and it makes you familiar with their movesets. They still add new monsters in the mix so it's just basically more monster variety.
Most of this stuff is subjective. I'd like to hear if the games I've not played had any interesting concepts that could be developed into something.
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Post by aifread on Feb 26, 2015 14:32:55 GMT -5
Hearts (DS, I've not played R) This game has a pretty ambitious branching leveling system. Instead of your character leveling up, your weapon does. Every time it does so, you get three choices of what to level it up into, with each specializing in artes, skills, or raw stats. No matter what specialty you choose for that level up, you get locked out some of the other two, adding a huge element of choice and strategy. Furthermore, each arte, skill, or stat boost needs certain material drops from monsters in order to "craft" them, so this doubles as a form of anti-grinding because you can't just keep leveling up at any given point in the game because you'll hit a threshold where you can't get the materials you need. I see this as a plus because it makes the game more about strategy and skill than grinding. Another nice touch was the summoning system which was full of Tales and other Namco cameos. Destiny RemakeThis game has one of the best battle systems in the series. Graces is largely derivative of it, and most people I talk to who've played Destiny Remake see Graces as a major step backward. The fact that it's 2D adds a lot more than you might think because how you manage your CC has a huge effect on how far the boss comes to your side of the screen where he can start wailing on your party. This, combined with the speed of the battles, makes for a perfect marriage of skill and strategy, exactly what a good ARPG should be. The game also rewards you for beating bosses on higher difficulty levels by giving you more points to put into skills. Aerial combat and the Narikiri Dolls (more of these, please!) also make their debut here. Then there's the system that works kind of like Fatal Strikes, but rather than using certain types of artes to lower a gauge, you have to use a specific combo unique to each monster. The way Stan unlocks new Blast Calibers is pretty great too; you have use them to finish off certain key bosses like Leon and Dymlos. You can even do Zankuu Tenshouken as a counter to the final boss's BC that kills everyone in the party but Stan. Pretty dang epic. And the extra modes are the shit. There's one that makes it so you take significantly less damage (1/16th iirc) but that damage is PERMANENT. There's also solo mode and selector mode, which can be combined to let you switch instantly to another character in the same position to keep a combo going. (See Nore's selector combo video) SymphoniaHow did you forget to mention the relationship system? I'd love to see this come back in more of the Tales games with a bigger impact on the story or even the battle system. Imagine certain artes or dungeons only being unlocked when your relationship with a character is high (or possibly even low) enough. Overall I'd like to see less of a focus on combos in the battle systems. I feel like the new ones are more action-packed and fun to play, but have lost some of the charm and nuances of careful positioning and zoning (Free Run and a lack of 2D are also factors in this). Mystic Artes also don't feel as rewarding when they're piss easy to pull off and incredibly common. Characters with 4+ MAs is overkill.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Feb 27, 2015 3:28:52 GMT -5
I'm going to just pick a few points and touch on my thoughts. This way I won't have 3 paragraphs to say about each and every thing (sorry aifread). Free Run If you want to challenge yourself by not using it, you can do so. At the same time, if somebody really likes free run, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to use it. Everyone wins. I'll admit that, when I first started the series, I used free-run a lot. I particularly had a hard time with Symphonia not having it. That said, the more I play Tales, the less I use it. It seems silly now, but it WAS important to me early on. World Map
I love Vesperia's world map so much. It really is rather empty for it's size, but it's just so much fun running around something so big and beautiful. That said, I'd be surprised if we ever saw a console release with a world map again. While I would always welcome it, the leap from Xillia to Zestiria gives me hope that they will find a way to give that same feeling. Item Customization
The idea of item customization is good in theory, but seems to just result in grinding. Graces in particular was painful. I never wanted to upgrade anything because there was no way to transfer that effort to a new item. Getting a new item should feel good. It shouldn't be a pain to decide if you want to use something new or keep upgrading your current item. I only played Rebirth for ~4 hours and had next to no idea what I was doing, but it seemed to be going well. Improvements came pretty quickly and easily, so it wasn't brutal to switch to a new weapon. Given my limited experience, I'm not sure if it's a good idea to bring this up, so feel free to call me stupid. Crafting I like the idea of crafting. Unique items can lend more motivation to doing quests, or add more flavour to a particular part of the world. That said, it can go WAY to far. Unlocking the cameo weapons in Xillia 2 was a massive pain. Until that point I had no trouble crafting just by stopping by each bag/shiny in an area. It added something extra to field exploration without interrupting my momentum. The same can be said for Vesperia. Sure you had to go out of your way, but it was a small reward for exploration. Camera Angle I'm not really sure how to better describe it, but I think the camera angle in Graces/Zestiria is really limiting. The only real positive I can think of is making side stepping easier. There's no aerial combat, and to my knowledge the concept of knockdowns and OTG doesn't exist in either game (if it does, it's certainly not as dominant as it is in others). I'm not sure if they plan on keeping this new transitional style of having battles on the map, but if they do I hope they find some way to make it work with the older camera. Abnormal Stat Gain Systems like Graces' Titles and Xillia's Lilium Orb aren't for me. Maybe I'm just stubborn, but I like a level up to feel good. A general increase in stats. Level ups in Graces felt pointless because a good deal of your stats came from titles. Level ups in Xillia could be disappointing if you ended up gaining stats you don't particularly care about (or only got 2 movements - thanks endgame). Ultimately the Lilium Orb didn't give any character customization because it was possible to get everything, so what was the point? Cooking I miss actually cooking food. It was pretty much just crafting, but with food instead of equipment. So just go read crafting again and we'll call this good. ARPG The term 'ARPG' is so broad it's almost meaningless. Tales and Dark Souls and Diablo all have very little in common, yet they all tend to get lumped under the same general umbrella of 'ARPG'. I think one of the most difficult things of making an 'ARPG' is finding the balance between 'action' and 'RPG'. What appeals to me in Tales over say, Star Ocean, is that Tales has always featured more elements of action. Combat wasn't just about stats, and you were given far more options on how to deal with a situation. I feel like Tales is starting to move away from that. Put simply: Skill > Stats. How did you forget to mention the relationship system? I'd love to see this come back in more of the Tales games with a bigger impact on the story or even the battle system. Imagine certain artes or dungeons only being unlocked when your relationship with a character is high (or possibly even low) enough. Please, please no. Unless they fix it. But they won't, because they always have to have the 'cannon pairing', which means that you always have to be terrible to the cannon choice if you want anyone else. I don't even like Collette, but it felt awful having to pick every option I could to push her away. After a time I thought I had her down enough, but after only a few hours she was back on top. Please Collette, I don't want to be horrible to you, but you LITERALLY LEAVE ME WITH NO OTHER CHOICE. Let's say they do fix it. Even then I'm kind of against the idea, because realistically we probably wouldn't get multiple well-developed relationships. Rather, we would get a bunch of 'scenes' that change depending on who has the most affection. Using the Flanoir scene as an example, I find it really hard to be emotionally invested when I know that it could be anyone standing next to Lloyd. When it doesn't matter who appears in the scene, how can I buy into the idea that these two have a 'deep' relationship? I'm not saying it's a bad idea - I just see far too many ways for it to go wrong. In an ideal world, I'd agree with you, but I really haven't seen any game pull it off in a particularly successful way.
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Post by aifread on Feb 27, 2015 12:53:18 GMT -5
How did you forget to mention the relationship system? I'd love to see this come back in more of the Tales games with a bigger impact on the story or even the battle system. Imagine certain artes or dungeons only being unlocked when your relationship with a character is high (or possibly even low) enough. Please, please no. Unless they fix it. But they won't, because they always have to have the 'cannon pairing', which means that you always have to be terrible to the cannon choice if you want anyone else. I don't even like Collette, but it felt awful having to pick every option I could to push her away. After a time I thought I had her down enough, but after only a few hours she was back on top. Please Collette, I don't want to be horrible to you, but you LITERALLY LEAVE ME WITH NO OTHER CHOICE. You can get anyone to the top without being a thingyhead to Colette relatively easily if you do the extra overworld skits, even the Tethe'alla characters.
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Post by musaboriman2 on Feb 27, 2015 15:25:09 GMT -5
I miss the Vesperia world map, and having the characters actually cook food, too. In Zestiria, characters can make snacks, but you have no real control over it, it's just a support ability active while you move around the field/towns (like the support abilities in Destiny Remake).
While Graces has like my 3rd favorite battle system in the series, I don't they should return to that style a third time, or at least not for a LONG while and with significant changes (such as adding aerial combat).
Something I wouldn't mind is another game with a 2D plane to fight on, but with either HD sprites or modern 3D-character models. Just give every character a way to slide past an enemy (a la Legendia and others) and we're good. Give it good air combat and party synergy and it'd be great!
Guard Countering - a mechanic in Innocence R and Hearts R that I feel should be used in more games. Then again, I'm not sure they should put it in EVERY game, because I like the games to have different mechanics, but guard countering is a great, fair way to give enemies a chance to break out of combos, but also give players a chance to stop the enemy from breaking out with good timing.
Canceling Arte Animations - This is something I've only really seen in Vesperia, but I could be wrong. I'm talking about being able to cancel the animation of an arte by either guarding or starting a new arte before the previous arte has finished the entire animation. I feel this adds a lot to combo potential.
Tiered Artes: I know some people dislike this mechanic, but I like it as long as you have more than two types of artes. Symphonia, Vesperia, and Innocence R all have 3 types of artes you can chain, and give you skills you can use to mix up the order or use more artes in a chain. I particularly like the way Innocence R and Vesperia do this.
FoF Changes - I feel this mechanic could come back in some form and would be pretty cool if you gave each melee character the ability to create at least a couple of the FoF circles via attacks, (As well as having a caster like Tear to create invoke areas, and magic in general creating circles).
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Mar 1, 2015 12:50:59 GMT -5
While I really like Graces' battle system, in the end all it did was replace Y-axis with Z-axis, sacrificing aerial combat for more vertical movement. Though I like the way they made free-run less useful by making it too slow to use for dodging. If they just could find a way to combine the quick pace of Graces' battle system and the planning and positioning of Abyss it would be nice. If they really were to go for another 2D-plane LMBS, I think they should just use 3D models. It's not very pleasing to see those 3-frame animations in Destiny:DC or Destiny 2. Or maybe something like Guilty Gear Xrd.
What I would've wanted to see in recent games is more focus on the timing. The guard counter sounds like something useful, I honestly didn't find much use for the 'critical guard' etc. stuff in Abyss. It was easier to just block and bait attacks with high recovery times and attack when enemy is vulnerable. Also the animation canceling was cool in Vesperia. It is present in other games as well as Spell Cancel or Guard Cancel. I think they should focus on making the combo system as deep as possible. 'Technical Down' used in Hearts is very good mechanic, since it encourages you to use different artes and combinations. The more mobility/utility artes, the better. IMO.
Zestiria's world map is definitely a step in the right direction. Graces' one was not too bad, but it felt a bit too limiting. Xillia's was just horrible as far as I've seen. I think they should just use Xenoblade as an example with the world map and it should be fine. Though then they might need to give up the seamless transitions, but I kinda prefer the screen shattering anyway.
Relationship system would require either more branching storyline or a character avatar for it to work properly. Both of those wouldn't even be that bad though. I guess the avatar thing would kinda mess up the skit system and would require a lot of work with the choices/possible dialogue options. Branching storyline is not a new thing though, but it needs to be improved.
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VCent
Half-Elf
When's Destiny iOS
Posts: 26
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Post by VCent on Mar 1, 2015 17:11:29 GMT -5
Phatasia
++ The story was really good (from what I remeber). -- Didn't like the battle system.
Symphonia
++ Battle system was fun. +- EX Skills. -+ Overlimit is only activated after you sustain a certain amount of hits.
Abyss
++ FOF is a fun mechanic. +- AD Skills like Super Chain require a lot of Agillity and P. Attack.
Graces
? Friendship! -- No Normals. +- A Artes are set and you can't customize them (like changing the order, AFAIK). ++ Titles are fun.
Legendia
+- Combat isn't as deep, but I barely see people dedicating some lab time to Legendia. ++ But dat music, tho. ++ I also like Senel's grabs. -- Backtraking can be kinda boring sometimes.
Vesperia
+++ Battle system is deep and you can really put your personality in it. +- Overlimit. ++ Dat Fury Sparks hype.
Destiny PS2/DC
+++ Best aerial combat/maneuvers in the whole series. +++ Same comment as Vesperia (about the battle system). ++ The feature to get 15 of every item after you defeat the final boss (100% Collectors Book reward). +- Definite Strikes.
Xillia
--- 7 Hit combo on bosses. -- World Map. + Lilium Orb lets you get artes and skills that you want earlier. ++ Dash cancel is cool.
Xillia 2
--- Xillia 1.5. -- In pretty much every tales game, the protagonist is a little stronger than the rest of the cast, but Ludger is always 68 steps ahead of everyone. ++ You can move faster in the field. +- Enemy elemental weakness.
Symphonia 2
-- World Map. ++ Item crafting/customization is one of the best in the series. ++ Recruiting monsters.
I played a little bit of Innocence, Nakiriri Dungeon and Tempest but I haven't finished them yet.
And that's pretty much it for my opinion on the design choises in Tales. My favorites are Destiny DC and Vesperia while Xillia 1 and 2 are the ones that I consider the worst.
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Post by coliflowerz on Mar 6, 2015 22:00:49 GMT -5
In general, I have a problem with how offensively orientated the games are nowadays. They give the player way too many offensive options, so even a newbie can go ham on an enemy. In order to compensate, Namco has to add teching out of combos to bosses. Which is frustrating. I feel Tales fights need to be slowed down a little, and if they implement a CC system it can't regen as fast as it does now and it shouldn't have such a high max. iirc Destiny remake gives you more CC is you're playing by yourself, and I think that's a beautiful mechanic that should be implemented more.
I would love for the protagonist to be not as overpowered. It's really annoying when side characters get the short end of the stick. Xillia 2 is definitely the worst contender of this, but I feel Yuri getting that free Overlimit skill in vanilla Vesperia and Jude having Quickstep and everyone else getting mediocore inherent skills was kinda lame.
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