fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2972 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2972 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 072 secrets from Secret Submission Post #425.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Enh, I guess? It just doesn't work for me. I generally find video game combat pretty boring, and hate grinding, so really, I'm not the market audience for JRPGs anyway.

I mean, I could dodge monsters and avoid battles in hack103, AND hide behind rocks, and that was 1983! I guess I would just hope video game combat has IMPROVED in the course of thirty years.

--Rogan

Yeah, outside of pokemon, I'm not a huge fan of turned based combat which a lot of JRPGs are. I have a special soft spot for the Tales series. Just something about the combat mechanics are so fun. And unlike other JRPGs, the Tales game have the difficulty setting in the options menu where you can change it at pretty much any point in the game.

I tend to set it to easy for field monsters and hard for bosses. Oh, and then of course, it doesn't work for first time playing the game, but for Tales of Symphonia I beat the game once, so the couple of times I've replayed it, I've unlocked the x1.5 experience. NO GRINDING WHATSOVER. It's amazing.

Have you ever played Lost Kingdoms? It's a weird card-based/real time hybrid. The second game more than the first utilizes its surroundings well, but even the first used the actual ground map/hiding behind rocks/water features/etc. Plus with the first there was always a bit of strategy. You could only use your cards during a triggered battle and sometimes you needed to destroy objects on the main field to get to certain treasure chests and stuff. So you'd have to remember to break shit before the battle ended and then it'd affect the main map. In the second game, you never entered "battle mode" so you always affected the main map... but they also nerved THE best card in the game, so yeah. :(

But I definitely agree with you re: lack of video game progress in certain areas. I think the one FPS map sums it up the best:

That makes sense. I'm not against turn-based combat, per se. I mean, I enjoy Hack103, and the terrain looked like this! The thing was, there was still so much you could DO with that terrain!

In Hack103, the combat being turnbased totally changed how you interacted with combat. You had all the time in the world to decide whether to attack with a weapon, zap with a wand, lead it into a pit or other booby trap, flee to another level, teleport yourself away, get some other monster to kill it for you, or write 'Elbereth' on the floor and just sit there going nyaa nyaa. There were so many options! There were so many different strategies you could use! And it was just YOU as the party.

That game looks like a joke these days, but I really appreciated the cracked out innovation the game would reward you for. (Just as an example: there's a monster called a cockatrice. It turns you to stone if it hits you. If you manage to kill it, preferably from a safe distance, you can pick up its corpse, which will also turn you to stone. However, if you have a pair of gloves, you can wield it as a weapon and turn rooms full of monsters into rock gardens. FUCKING AWESOME! Just for the love of god do not trip and fall on your weapon.)

No grinding does indeed sound amazing.

Never played Lost Kingdoms, but it definitely sounds like something different! Probably again not my thing (I really am more into platforming, puzzles, and exploring than combat in games) but it sounds really cool.

Oh god, is that map from something real? I kinda want to know the context behind the image!

--Rogan

Oh man, that does sound awesome. It reminds me off a lot of those old text based adventure games that had pretty much EVERY possible interaction command programmed in. I can definitely see why game programmers chose to focus on pretty graphics vs complete free rein in terms of possible actions though. If you make an improvement to a rendering system, it can be used in every game thereafter whereas that level of interaction I think would take a considerable amount of human effort and intelligence that ends up being specific and custom to that game.

Do you play Minecraft at all? I never got as into it as several friends, but super customization/flexibility of basic tools and materials seemed to be the main draw for the game.

And yeah, Lost Kingdoms is mostly combat. The sequel is more organic than the first when it comes to running around and exploring, but there are still monsters everywhere so you are pretty much forced to do battle always.

Not sure about the map. It's been linked around a bunch/become its own meme at this point. I found it this time just by searching "FPS map."

Yeah, Hack103 was one of those early games that was REALLY heavily based off those text games. (Which were heavily based off D&D, where it was a given that some smartass would try to do something like eat a dead cockatrice just to see what would happen.)

And yeah, I totally understand why programmers would get sick of covering every stupid little base. ("Wait, what if they eat an acid blob after eating the cockatrice? WILL THEY DIE OR GET BETTER?") But I definitely have a weakness for that kind of freewheeling mayhem. Me and Sneak are actually working on a 2D RPG/horror game right now, and I'm kinda trying to draw on that feel of being rewarded for doing weird things, rather than just plowing through combat and puzzles.

Never played Minecraft (our computer couldn't handle it) but it DEFINITELY gives me that vibe. Also it has golems in it, which I'm a sucker for.

--Rogan

That was something I liked about Bravely Default, it had the 'random monsters appear out of nowhere' thing but you could go into the options and set the percentage level of your encounters. So if you wanted to grind you can set it to 100% and get a bunch of random encounters, and if you just wanted to get through the damn dungeon already you can set it to -100% and get none at all. I wish more JRPGs would do that.

Oh wow, that's not a bad idea! I admit, I LOATHE grinding, so am always interested in seeing how games deal with it. Some of their tricks are pretty creative!

For instance, you have games like Zelda, where there's no leveling at all, and it's all about items and such. You COULD, if you were truly set on it, get through the game mostly running away.

Then you have games like Hack103, where you're encouraged to kill monsters not just for loot and XP, but because they're your main source of food at the beginning. (And, in fact, the game will sometimes reward you for shoving that dead floating eyeball in your mouth, or whatever.)

And then you've got games like the Last Story, which just rig their combat encounters to ALL be story-relevant, and rig the leveling system in such a way that you never really need to grind at all, just fight as you go.

It's really interesting from a game design standpoint!

--Sneak

I like being able to decide if I want to have random encounters or not. In games I usually like being able to settle down and grind for a while when I feel like I want to get my levels up, but when I'm ready to tackle a hard dungeon or something I just want to explore the dungeon and look for treasure and keep healed and ready for the boss. That's one thing I hate about a lot of JRPGs with random encounters, being in a dungeon and every other step I keep running into stupid random bad guys that I have to waste health and MP fighting. (Actually Bravely Default's kinda neat in the leveling area too, because it's not really character level that matters it's the level of your job. With the right strategy you could conceivably beat some of the hardest game bosses with low-leveled characters that just have the right mix of job skills.)

That's fair. I often find them distracting; I'm here to achieve my goal, and random encounters are mostly just a combat obstacle course. At least in platforming, you can mostly ignore enemies if you so prefer!

Also, in some ways, I get frustrated because turn-based combat can take so LONG. There's the cut to the battle arena, the music starting, maybe a dramatic camera angle, then choosing your attack. Even a one-hit kill can take a bit, while in real-time combat with no new arena, you can at least smack through minions pretty fast.

--Rogan

[ SECRET POST #2972 ]

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