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NikkolasKing posted:So is there any real life inspiration for the Shoopuf in this regard, a gigantic animal that somehow exists by eating the tiniest organisms in the sea? Any baleen whale, like the humpback whale!
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Oct 28, 2020 18:07
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Thank you everyone for your replies and info about cool animals. Appreciate it. But now I'm watching an FFIX LP, they just finished the game, and Necron is a surprisingly challenging final boss, I think. His fatal flaw, and the flaw of every endgame boss, is their lack of HP. Yes, bosses should not just be buckets of health, but it's just a fact the final bosses in FFIX needed more health to account for the plethora of 9999 attacks you have access to. Steiner and Shock alone can fuckin' destroy everyone.
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Oct 28, 2020 19:37
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Necron can be very easy or near impossible depending on how bad Grand Cross gets you with status effects.
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Oct 28, 2020 19:55
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Tater Love 
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NikkolasKing posted:Thank you everyone for your replies and info about cool animals. Appreciate it. Interesting that there's very little, if any, multi-hit abilities in IX so hitting a damage cap per action is very easy. Also most end-game bosses/optional bosses top out at something like 65XXX HP which is usually quite low for FF endgame bosses?
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Oct 28, 2020 20:13
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Bosses in FFIX are disappointing. The only good thing is the items you can steal, which can be quite a boon.
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Oct 28, 2020 20:50
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Don't think I've ever managed to steal the flute from Hillgigas on Disc 2. And yeah they could've supplemented their lack of HP pools by needing to be more strategic but they're not great encounters.
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Oct 28, 2020 21:01
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The flute is a trap anyway, Haste sucks if it's not Auto-Haste since Haste speeds up the rate that buffs like Haste expire.
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Oct 28, 2020 21:39
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Mega64 posted:The flute is a trap anyway, Haste sucks if it's not Auto-Haste since Haste speeds up the rate that buffs like Haste expire. This really was the era of Square hating buffs, huh? First with the Barrier/MBarrier system in Final Fantasy 7, then the various buffs not named Aura not being very effective in 8...
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Oct 28, 2020 21:51
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Kinda makes up for how overpowered buffs were in the earlier FF games, like Haste in FF1-4, Blink in FF4, and Shell in FF5. Debuffs could also be powerful, like Slow in FF4 and whatever bosses were weak to in FF5. Buffs were still good in FF9, but only if you used the Auto-Buff abilities. It's still a shame that the one game you can get Mighty Guard early is also the game it's at its worst.
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Oct 28, 2020 21:54
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Final Fantasy mechanics have just in general been poorly thought out and/or entirely unbalanced.
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Oct 28, 2020 21:54
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Orcs and Ostriches posted:Final Fantasy mechanics have just in general been poorly thought out and/or entirely unbalanced. Yes, and that's why I love this dumb series.
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Oct 28, 2020 21:55
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Yeah, I don't think it's a negative. Breaking single player games is fun. I don't think they ever hated or liked buffs, or anything like that. They'd just throw an idea at the wall and ran with it.
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Oct 28, 2020 22:09
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I actively avoided buffs/debuffs until like...XII because I was a dumb kid who just pressed x to attack.
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Oct 28, 2020 22:18
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Orcs and Ostriches posted:Final Fantasy mechanics have just in general been poorly thought out and/or entirely unbalanced. If they wanted to balance the series you'd be doing 1HP attacks the whole game and bosses have like 30 HP or something. Like paper mario (I never played paper mario).
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Oct 28, 2020 22:20
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HD DAD posted:I actively avoided buffs/debuffs until like...XII because I was a dumb kid who just pressed x to attack. I never avoided them, but 13 was the first game where I really felt like I had to use them. Man, 13's battle system was great. Shame about the rest of the game.
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Oct 28, 2020 22:22
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Buffs are also extremely helpful in X.
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Oct 28, 2020 22:23
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jokes posted:If they wanted to balance the series you'd be doing 1HP attacks the whole game and bosses have like 30 HP or something. Like paper mario (I never played paper mario). this is actually harder to balance because any change in damage you take or do automatically makes a HUGE difference when you're dealing with single digit numbers. A buff that makes you do 2 damage instead of 1 is a 100% increase after all. That's why the first two Paper Mario games are very linear and hand out damage increases at predetermined intervals, with level-ups only letting you choose 1 stat to increase at a time out of a selection of 3. Even then, they are very breakable games.
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Oct 28, 2020 22:48
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HD DAD posted:I actively avoided buffs/debuffs until like...XII because I was a dumb kid who just pressed x to attack. It's funny, my partner who has lots of non-FF rpg experience going through 10 has gone through every boss fight (up till Yunalesca now) using Cheer at least 3 times. She probably would've used Protect/shell more but admittedly she was kinda underleveled for most of the game and only got them really late in the game. Augus posted:Even then, they are very breakable games. Pretty much all of the stuff in this post, yeah. The speedruns clown on the game's balance with the very easy to get buffs in that game, so I hope people don't conflate raw numbers with balance.
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Oct 28, 2020 23:15
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Cheer and Focus loving rule if you’re not getting one shot. FFX is a game about buffing/debuffing first and foremost. Then it’s elements, which boils down to just packing sensor. Anyone have that picture of the FFX sphere grid in a line to point out how linear it actually is? E: found it! 
jokes fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Oct 28, 2020 |
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Oct 28, 2020 23:20
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I just appreciate the simple up arrow for haste in 9 rather than zell hopping around like crazy or cait sith turning into a blur
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Oct 29, 2020 00:29
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Mega64 posted:The flute is a trap anyway, Haste sucks if it's not Auto-Haste since Haste speeds up the rate that buffs like Haste expire.
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Oct 29, 2020 02:40
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jokes posted:Cheer and Focus loving rule if you’re not getting one shot. That's definitely not linear, it's just displayed in such a way to make it seem linear. Each of those faint blue lines is a possible branch.
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Oct 29, 2020 02:48
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Scalding Coffee posted:Auto-Haste isn't even that good with multiple people, since everything has long animations, you are a bit faster with four people unless they are berserking. And having items that let you gain more power out of your summon... if you're fine with sitting through an even longer animation at all times. 
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Oct 29, 2020 02:51
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jokes posted:Cheer and Focus loving rule if you’re not getting one shot. really! poo poo, if they make that much of a difference the game should've communicated it more clearly. i guess it's ff tradition to leave exactly how much buffing affects your stats to the imagination or the very keen observer
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Oct 29, 2020 02:52
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Augus posted:this is actually harder to balance because any change in damage you take or do automatically makes a HUGE difference when you're dealing with single digit numbers. A buff that makes you do 2 damage instead of 1 is a 100% increase after all. That's why the first two Paper Mario games are very linear and hand out damage increases at predetermined intervals, with level-ups only letting you choose 1 stat to increase at a time out of a selection of 3. Even then, they are very breakable games. Early Ys games are a bit like that and you end up being extremely equipment dependent since going from 11 damage sword to 14 one might mean going from 1dmg/hit to 4/hit --- and the reverse for armor... again made somewhat manageable for them being smaller game where you can be reasonably expected to have picked up the next sword ASAP.
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Oct 29, 2020 03:48
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I still remember T40s making it through FFX while using Cheer once, maybe twice. Cheer and Focus only make a real big difference if stacked al 5 times. A younger person isn't going to even bother doing this. I know I didn't. In terms of buffs, FFX is: Haste > everything else. Maybe Protector Shell depending. But Haste is the king. Hasted Rikku is absurd.
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Oct 29, 2020 03:57
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The White Dragon posted:really! poo poo, if they make that much of a difference the game should've communicated it more clearly. i guess it's ff tradition to leave exactly how much buffing affects your stats to the imagination or the very keen observer So something I didn't learn until now, 20 years after first playing the game, is that the buff from cheer stacks up to 5x I think? So if you have the breathing room to use it and use it multiple time, it makes a big difference. I also just learned that "mental break" and "armor break" don't just reduce defenses, they set them to zero. Like, what? Can someone confirm I'm not taking crazy pills? Because that just seems too good.
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Oct 29, 2020 03:59
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Fister Roboto posted:That's definitely not linear, it's just displayed in such a way to make it seem linear. Each of those faint blue lines is a possible branch.
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Oct 29, 2020 04:01
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JagerNinja posted:So something I didn't learn until now, 20 years after first playing the game, is that the buff from cheer stacks up to 5x I think? So if you have the breathing room to use it and use it multiple time, it makes a big difference. Again, FFX is a game built around buffs and debuffs. Cheer, for example, reduces damage taken by 1/15 each time you use it, stacking 5x which ultimately reduces all physical damage taken by 33%. Haste gives you roughly 2x the actions, slow reduces enemy actions by roughly 1/2. These things alone mean Tidus is an essential dude since he almost assuredly gets Haste on his way to strength stacking or whatever. It gives you a single point of strength which is, uh, fine but it lasts until death or the end of battle. Focus does the same poo poo but with magic. Power/magic break halves enemy str/mag. Armor/Mental break set the respective defense stat to 0 which is absurd. Luck increases accuracy and crit by 1% which is, ya know, whatever. Stacks 5x. Reflex increases your evasion by 10% each time you cast it, stacking five times. If you have 111 evasion all attacks regardless of accuracy will have a 25% chance to hit before luck bonus. So with all this you can use buffs and de buffs to set up a situation where your dudes all hit about 3-4x as often as an enemy while only taking 66% of damage that actually hits you, reduced further by power/magic break AND protect/shell which reduces damage taken by 50%. FFX gives you a lot of tools to control the battles even if the enemy is immune to debuffs but of course all this is never explained mathematically and cheer goes dusty and unused by most players. Also, and this is important, Riku is the best healer in the game. I thought she was poo poo when I was younger but hoo boy was I wrong. I loving love breaking FF games over my knee.
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Oct 29, 2020 09:22
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The issue with buffs/debuffs in a lot of the games is that they don't always work and when they do work it's not conveyed well. In FF4 for example slow and stop are extremely powerful and work on most bosses, but "the enemy is attacking significantly more slowly" is difficult to spot without a visible bar (though better than FF9 when the animations eat up so much time). Similarly sometimes poison is a tickle and sometimes it's huge chunks of boss HP but it can be tough to spot and just write off as useless.
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Oct 29, 2020 10:03
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Victory Position posted:And having items that let you gain more power out of your summon... if you're fine with sitting through an even longer animation at all times. Hah you just reminded me I was considering an FFIX run with Garnet summoning as my main damage output and remembered that Boost, therefore long summon animations, would be about 2-3 minutes an action and fuuuuck thaaaat nooooise I'd rather stick to Quina dropping frogs on fools for 9999.
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Oct 29, 2020 10:09
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New FFXVI information up https://blog.playstation.com/2020/10/29/introducing-the-world-and-characters-of-final-fantasy-xvi/ https://na.finalfantasyxvi.com/ The concept art is gorgeous holy moly
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Oct 29, 2020 10:19
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FFXVI's website has a page with a couple character bios, and names. Clive is starting off as the worst Final Fantasy protagonist. He's got plenty of time to dig himself out of that hole, but being named Clive is not a strong start. Joshua has the exact energy of 'protagonist of a portable Castlevania game that is vastly overshadowed by a far more interesting supporting character'. And Jill is either the coolest early-game party member, or dead before the tutorial's done. Possibly both.
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Oct 29, 2020 10:25
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Tough words for a series with a main character called Cecil
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Oct 29, 2020 10:28
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Sakurazuka posted:Tough words for a series with a main character called Butz
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Oct 29, 2020 10:30
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One of them was named Onion Knight.
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Oct 29, 2020 10:31
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Sakurazuka posted:Tough words for a series with a main character called Cecil Cecil has interesting qualities right off the bat, though, at least Dark Knight is cool. The most interesting thing about Clive is that his name is loving Clive, and that isn't a positive.
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Oct 29, 2020 10:35
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Clive is so Ramza it actually hurts.
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Oct 29, 2020 10:42
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jokes posted:Cheer and Focus loving rule if you’re not getting one shot. I found Cheer ok up until you get protect, but once you get protect it felt outclassed. You need 5 turns to get it setup into 5/16 damage reduction, versus potentially 3 turns (or less) with protect setups that are a clean half damage reduction. They do stack together apparently, which sounds nice but I can't think of when you'd regularly need that for a normal run before postgame. If you mean in postgame then ok yeah that's fair. It's also obviously good in fights where they dispel you, though even in those Protect working immediately still is quite good. You brought up reflex, which funnily enough has not really worked out whenever my partner has tried abusing it in fights (can't remember which ones off the top of my head though), but I've always thought was really good since even 1 use of +10% evasion sounds significant to me. Obviously there's limitations on what you can dodge in general, and eventually my partner discovered customizing evade and counter on weapons so now it's all just lol.
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Oct 29, 2020 12:38
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Cleretic posted:Cecil has interesting qualities right off the bat, though, at least Dark Knight is cool. The most interesting thing about Clive is that his name is loving Clive, and that isn't a positive. I'm glad you've played the game and know all this already
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Oct 29, 2020 13:20
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