Miraclechao
Half-Elf
Planning another challenge run for Estellise ( •w•)
Posts: 5
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Post by Miraclechao on Nov 15, 2015 23:37:08 GMT -5
I'm not sure what to call this topic, so this is the best I could come up with. Considering that we have Manual, Semi-Auto, and Auto, why not have a additional controls for the Artes and Spells? The settings can work like such.
Simple Mode ~ Artes Tree: When compared to setting up 8~16 Artes/Spells, the Artes Tree is an easy-to-use play-style that can make anyone look cool. With it, you need to follow a specific chain, so you end up using some type of combo like 1. Tsunami Strike > 2. Earth Splitter > 3. Staff Rain > 4. Soulstoke Spin or 1. Forward-Step > 2. Earth Splitter > 3. Sidestep > 4. Soulstoke Spin. It is basically an auto-combo for mashing the attack button but it is limited so that players who want to use artes like Soulstoke Spin can not make instant use of it. You look cool using it, and it is helpful for those who don't care to learn other combos but what to simply enjoy the game.
Standard Mode ~ Artes List: When compared to having auto-combos... actually, I think the Artes List doesn't need much of an explanation. You have 4~8 button commands and 4~8 shortcuts. It's not as limited as the Artes Tree and not as complicated as the Command List.
Complex Mode ~ Command List: No limitations like 8~16 Artes/Spells. No limitations like following a specific order. Of course, since you need to input a command, you'll have an easier time activating artes and spells using the other two play-styles. A player who can get use to this play-style can pretty much use any arte or spell at any given time. Arguably, a player may already have all of their desired artes/spells equipped on the other play-styles, but an optional mode of play like this shouldn't hurt anyone.
On to the next subject, New Game Plus.
Typically, once you select the options you want in New Game Plus/Grade Shop, that's it. Some of the NG+ options are limited and you can not toggle a few of them ON and OFF, making those NG+ options something you may or may not want to get from the Grade Shop at all like x3 Critical. Something I think that should become a common thing in the series is a menu where you can indeed turn NG+ options ON and OFF. A menu with a list of things from the Grade Shop. The only highlighted options are the ones you purchased from Grade Shop. Things like x2 EXP, x5 EXP, x3 Damage and so on can be changed in the menu after starting NG+.
In addition to that, another New Game Plus bonus should be a Party Restriction Lock and a Character Restriction Lock. Party Restriction Lock is on by default and it only allows you to use the number of party members you are suppose to have at that current point in the story. Character Restriction Lock is also on by default and it prevents you from using characters you shouldn't have at that point in the story. When those options are switch OFF respectively, players can use from 1~4 characters and any playable character at any time. While it may not be as good as changing characters into other characters, it is a simple option that allows players to easily play with friends and use the characters of their choice in future playthroughs as a reward for gathering enough Grade and beating the game. Not only would moments like Flynn in Tales of Vesperia 360 not be a huge problem, but moments like No Elize/Leia/Muzét in a certain boss battle would be a thing of the past with NG+.
Lastly, another option should be the ability to control your team's currently level in New Game Plus. Basically you can change your level between one and your highest current level. This way players who choose to start off with their max level can always revert to any level of their choice at any given time. I was originally thinking of saying 0 EXP, but if you have complete control of your level, then the amount of EXP you get wouldn't really matter in the long run.
At the end of the day, we'd probably get the ability to learn cameo artes from costumes again before any of that stuff I mentioned, but the costumes with the cameo artes would be DLC only, so instead of Mystic Artes DLC, we'll have Artes DLC for common artes and spells and everyone will have Shining Fang because the Yuri Costume never gets old.
Thoughts and discussion?
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Nov 16, 2015 4:52:16 GMT -5
Frankly, It's too much effort from Bamco, who at this point treat effort about like a fat man treats a salad. But, for the sake of discussion...
I tend to subscribe to the Dark Souls thought on games and difficulty. Could Dark Souls have an easy mode? Yes. Am I infinitely glad that it doesn't, even though it wouldn't change anything because the regular game would still be there? Also yes. Looking cool is the reward for putting time into the game. Tales hasn't always been the most complicated of games, but if all it takes to pull off a flashy combo is 'push X + direction', then the satisfaction from pulling off that combo is non-existent. If all you want is to enjoy the game, then put it on simple and breeze through fights looking like a total dork. I have friends who do that, and I don't think any less of them for it.
NG+ options I don't really have much of an opinion on, since I typically don't use them. Forgive me if I'm wrong - it's late and I'm tired - but part of your second part seems like the old narikiri dolls argument, which yeah, those really should be a regular thing.
I want to say more, but that's really all my mind can mange right now... I'm not going to be at my best these next few weeks, so forgive me if I come across as a bit of an ass.
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Post by fateoffate on Nov 16, 2015 4:55:57 GMT -5
Simple Mode ~ Artes Tree:When compared to setting up 8~16 Artes/Spells, the Artes Tree is an easy-to-use play-style that can make anyone look cool. With it, you need to follow a specific chain, so you end up using some type of combo like 1. Tsunami Strike > 2. Earth Splitter > 3. Staff Rain > 4. Soulstoke Spin or 1. Forward-Step > 2. Earth Splitter > 3. Sidestep > 4. Soulstoke Spin. It is basically an auto-combo for mashing the attack button but it is limited so that players who want to use artes like Soulstoke Spin can not make instant use of it. You look cool using it, and it is helpful for those who don't care to learn other combos but what to simply enjoy the game. Standard Mode ~ Artes List:When compared to having auto-combos... actually, I think the Artes List doesn't need much of an explanation. You have 4~8 button commands and 4~8 shortcuts. It's not as limited as the Artes Tree and not as complicated as the Command List. Complex Mode ~ Command List:No limitations like 8~16 Artes/Spells. No limitations like following a specific order. Of course, since you need to input a command, you'll have an easier time activating artes and spells using the other two play-styles. A player who can get use to this play-style can pretty much use any arte or spell at any given time. Arguably, a player may already have all of their desired artes/spells equipped on the other play-styles, but an optional mode of play like this shouldn't hurt anyone. I really like this idea. Give more option for player depending on how casual or hardcore they are. Arte TreeMaybe give player some control over the artes you can use but restrict them in the Base - Arcane part. StandardVeteran player loves control of their artes without being forced to use another arte in arte tree. CommandFor advance player who want to be able to use all of their artes. On to the next subject, New Game Plus. Typically, once you select the options you want in New Game Plus/Grade Shop, that's it. Some of the NG+ options are limited and you can not toggle a few of them ON and OFF, making those NG+ options something you may or may not want to get from the Grade Shop at all like x3 Critical. Something I think that should become a common thing in the series is a menu where you can indeed turn NG+ options ON and OFF. A menu with a list of things from the Grade Shop. The only highlighted options are the ones you purchased from Grade Shop. Things like x2 EXP, x5 EXP, x3 Damage and so on can be changed in the menu after starting NG+. In addition to that, another New Game Plus bonus should be a Party Restriction Lock and a Character Restriction Lock. Party Restriction Lock is on by default and it only allows you to use the number of party members you are suppose to have at that current point in the story. Character Restriction Lock is also on by default and it prevents you from using characters you shouldn't have at that point in the story. When those options are switch OFF respectively, players can use from 1~4 characters and any playable character at any time. While it may not be as good as changing characters into other characters, it is a simple option that allows players to easily play with friends and use the characters of their choice in future playthroughs as a reward for gathering enough Grade and beating the game. Not only would moments like Flynn in Tales of Vesperia 360 not be a huge problem, but moments like No Elize/Leia/Muzét in a certain boss battle would be a thing of the past with NG+. Lastly, another option should be the ability to control your team's currently level in New Game Plus. Basically you can change your level between one and your highest current level. This way players who choose to start off with their max level can always revert to any level of their choice at any given time. I was originally thinking of saying 0 EXP, but if you have complete control of your level, then the amount of EXP you get wouldn't really matter in the long run. At the end of the day, we'd probably get the ability to learn cameo artes from costumes again before any of that stuff I mentioned , but the costumes with the cameo artes would be DLC only, so instead of Mystic Artes DLC, we'll have Artes DLC for common artes and spells and everyone will have Shining Fang because the Yuri Costume never gets old. Thoughts and discussion? Zesty has this and it's neat how you can turn off your Grade Shop in Battle Action. Maybe create two type of skill: Individual Skill and Group Skill. Group Skill is just like Zesty, affect entire party and you can turn off Grade Shop in it. Individual skill is your everyday skill in Vespy and Xilly. Oh, I made a hybrid of arte tree and standard arte.Give you more artes to use. Intended for games where your arte can only be used once per combo. What do you think?
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Miraclechao
Half-Elf
Planning another challenge run for Estellise ( •w•)
Posts: 5
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Post by Miraclechao on Nov 16, 2015 10:28:15 GMT -5
Friendly Person :)As much as I like the Xillia games, I have to agree. I can tell that effort is something the Tales series is starting to lack. I'm all for the idea of there being a skill gap between players who take the time to learn the ins-and-outs of the game and players who want to casually play through the game for just one ride. One of the reasons I'm not a fan of Semi-Auto is because most people I play with tend to just mash on the attack button without any care in the world, thus their TP plummets, and all the Orange Gels get gobbled up by them. The Artes Tree gives them even more of a reason to do so because the game now auto-combos for them. I once let my nephew (who wasn't even five at the time) play Tales of Graces, and he did alright despite the fact that he only mashed on the attack button. It's like fighting someone who uses Beginner Mode in Blazblue online. You might drop combo or two, but your opponent won't because all they have to do is mash the attack button. As someone who enjoys playing Tales games on a different level from casual players, it does feel nice when you play a game like Tales of Vesperia and the way you use a character can end up looking much different than fellow hardcore players and casual players. I figure it would be something worth having to, in a way, introduce new players into the series. I'm much rather focus on the more challenging side of things, but if it doesn't hurt us in anyway, then it shouldn't be too bad. That is unless the new audience is something we don't need (which is something I wouldn't be good at judging anyway). Also, there are people who don't mind/enjoy the Artes Tree as a whole. I'm not one of them, and I may not truly understand the appeal, but I don't want to take that away from them either. The Narikiri Dolls? That's pretty close to what I'm getting at. The point I wanted to make was removing the story restriction on playable characters. For instance, you don't get to permanently play as Flynn until much later in Tales of Vesperia PS3. With the Character Restriction Lock toggled OFF, Flynn can be used at any point in time throughout the story. In a similar fashion, Flynn, who is only a temporary character in Tales of Vesperia 360, can be used at any given time by switching the Character Restriction Lock to OFF. Basically, the option to use any character at any time on future playthroughs. The Narikiri Dolls would honestly be better to have in general and they should have been Support Talents for the characters in Tales of Zestiria. Either way, these are nothing more than pipe dreams. I agree that these would be things that require effort, which is one of the reason I want a game like Star Ocean 5 to succeed. Maybe a bit of competition just might be what they [Bandai Namco] needs to get that drive going. By the way, don't worry. You don't sound like an ass to me. Considering some of the stuff I dealt with, this is actually a breath of fresh air. fateoffateArtes Tree: Yeah, something like that. Basically like Vesperia's Base Arte to Alternate Arte to Arcane Arte like set-up. The combos can be customized somewhat, but they are limited. This keeps the Artes Tree simple for newcomers, but limited enough so that they will want to learn the other play-styles eventually for more flexibility. Standard: Indeed. This would be the middle ground. Command: Indeed. This would be for the players who want to have all the artes and spells right away. Imagine how broken a Spell Command skill would be if spell casting worked like the ocarina from Ocarina of Time... but I'm getting a little ahead of myself there. That's one thing I can get behind with Zestiria. The Battle Skills menu seems like the perfect way to control the settings for the New Game Plus options. That said, can they please go back to the old style of using skills. Appealing Guard being an universal only skill is killing me! An arte once per combo? Sounds sort of like a No Repeated Artes combo. ( •w•) Admittedly, I may not completely understand what your saying here [about the hybrid], but I am interested.
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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 Nov 16, 2015 11:59:56 GMT -5
Zestiria has this arte tree thing which, where you hold down a button to continue with different arte (i think that's how you do it, can't even remember xD). It's a good way to basically double your arte selection without adding any extra bindings. The problem is of course the fact that you can't use the artes otherwise. Still, it's kinda like an underdeveloped/(slightly different) version of fateoffate's idea.
IMO the combo chain from Graces/Zesty is a bit like the directional normal attacks from other games, although with a lot more flash as well as having different resources tied to them and just being a lot different in general. The problem is, the arte chain thing makes sure you won't ever drop the combo (even though you drop the combo way too often in Zesty, mostly because of mechanical flaws elsewhere). If you had all artes available regardless of the situation they could actually make position-specific artes that can't be smoothly chained to from all artes. They just had to dumb it down to avoid frustration. Because of that, making auto-combos optional doesn't help that much because the artes themselves suffer from the option. Or they had to put too much effort into making slightly modified versions of the existing artes to make the auto-chains possible.
The complex mode you suggested would be a bit overkill IMO, if you mean that you could ignore the base-arcane-whatever by using it. On the other hand, if they restrict it to one arte/combo it could provide some opportunities for complex and fun combos. You'd have to keep the enemy in a good position for the next arte to land properly which means you can't mindlessly spam artes and get to thousands of hits, which is the main entertainment for me in most fighting games.
After seeing that quickstep-chain-skipping I trust the development team a lot more. That's definitely a step forward in terms of mechanical depth. It made spellcasters a lot more fun to play and more viable as solo characters (but they had to basically make it useless by making instant spells possible).
I'm actually interested in doing a game in ACS style just to mess around with different options for Tales-type combat. That means I'd have to build an engine in unity or something since the existing fighting-game editors are too limiting and I lack the required knowledge for that.
Narikiri dolls should be a standard, I completely agree with that, as well as giving the option to toggle grade shop bonuses mid-playthrough.
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Post by fateoffate on Nov 16, 2015 12:04:21 GMT -5
Yes. You can't repeat artes. I don't like Palm Strike x10 to win after all.
When you press Up+X, you use it's slot 1. When you press Up+X again, you use it's slot 2. Sounds like arte tree, right?
For example Up+X : 1. Fang Blade 2. Swallow Fury Right+X: 1. Light Spear 2. Rising Phoenix
Up+X > Up+X = Fang Blade > Swallow Fury Up+X > Right+X > Up+X = Fang Blade > Light Spear > Swallow Fury
If you use Up+X three times, no artes performed. The character emit red particle just like when you're run out of SC in Zesty.
Does that make sense? ( •w•) I'm not a native English speaker.
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Miraclechao
Half-Elf
Planning another challenge run for Estellise ( •w•)
Posts: 5
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Post by Miraclechao on Nov 17, 2015 0:49:25 GMT -5
DermanZestiria has two variations of that. For Artes (Sorey, Alisha, and Rose), holding down the button will have them use a specific higher level artes afterwards. For Spells (Mikleo, Lailah, Edna, Dezel, and Zavied), pressing the attack button while holding on to a fully charged spell will let the user chant a specific higher level spell. It helps keep your Artes List nice and clean if you don't need to immediately use certain artes. It would have been nice to have before so that I could equip Dark Gaze and Deadly Gaze with one arte slot, but I like the idea and I hope it becomes a mainstay in the series. Regarding artes that require certain positions to work best and the Artes Tree, I figure that the Artes Tree itself would be build around setting up artes in a way that allows them to connect. For instance, the Artes Tree would use a short chain of Ghost Wolf into Lone Wolf instead Lone Wolf into Ghost Wolf because all of the hits can connect using the former and not the latter. Even then, the Artes Tree as it currently is still has its flaws. Edna has a combo that will always drop on non-heavy enemies unless they are cornered. Having artes like Darting Claw, Sonic Thrust, and Falling Snow can close the gap for those close-range position artes. If there are OTGs or it is possible to flinch downed opponents, then Rending Quake, Demon Fang, and Falling Thunder could do the trick. This is coming from the prospective of someone who doesn't like the Artes Tree, so my apologies if I'm missing the point. Oh lordy, that's not what I meant. That would most definitely be broken! (;^W^) The limitation would still be locked down to what the game says is possible whether it is an Arte Usage limit for combos, a specific patterns like low-leveled artes to high-level artes, one arte per combo, or something else beyond that. The only thing the Command List would allow is free access to artes and spells without having to set them on in the Artes Menu (which keeps you from being locked to an Artes Tree or limited artes slots). It all comes down to how the game's mechanics work however. What is the enemy variety like? Can enemies be juggled? Even after they are launched? Can enemies be hit while they are down? Without forcing them to stand up? How important are elements during attacks? What about weapons like swords, hammers, and axes? Does it matter where, went, or how the attack connects? Depending on those and other factors, a characters could end up having a be-all and end-all combo. For the Artes Tree, using quicksteps to skip certain actions is pretty good. I will say that using spells is pretty satisfying in Tales of Zestiria because of this as well. A successful quickstep to dodge and follow up with an attack spell or escape to use a healing spell feels really good. Excluding the reduced spell casting however, Tales of Xillia also allows quicksteps during combos. I remember the exploit called Manual Cancel from Tales of Vesperia. If you could replace that with Zestiria-like quicksteps, it could open up even better options regarding artes and spells. Sounds interesting. Also, I agree. After introducing them (and Character Transformations), you'd think they would make it a norm by now. It would be a lost to get rid of the option to toggle those New Game Plus options ON and OFF right after Tales of Zestiria. Of course, that kind of stuff would take effort. fateoffateAh, I definitely get it now. Kinda like Star Ocean 4, right? In that game, you had two special attack buttons (I think it was the left and right trigger buttons). You can set up to three special attacks that will always go in order on both special attack buttons. This meant that under normal conditions, you could do six special attacks in total before the combo ends. The attacks would increase in strength through the chain until it came to an end (on the six special attack). A combo can be LT1 > LT2 > RT1 > LT3 > RT2 > RT3 or even RT1 > LT1 > LT2 > RT2 > LT3 > RT3. By the way, I'll the last person who needs to act like a grammar nazi. Your English is good enough for me. I just wanted to make sure I understood you so that I don't go making blind assumptions.
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