List topic: Season 53- Godlike brings the pain.

[Clear Tranquil]

Well ... *cough*AC/ACC media blurbs*cough*


"...Aerith has a sort of 'watery' image about her, so we used water to convey her presence".

S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
!

(Lifestream fountain in the church, drop of water when Cloud and Tifa are unconsious in the flower bed, Great Gospel rain, etc)

There's also the whole "as long as Sephiroth exists, Aerith must exist" thing with Sephiroth's Negative Lifestream/Black Materia shenanigans and Aerith's White Materia holy/light thing! >_>

I've thought of this before and Aerith's limits do have a sort of windy/rainy/stormy theme. Either that or just stick Alexander on her for holys!

[DjinnAndTonic]

I had completely forgotten about the Enemy Skill materia in Aeris' tank thing.

Aeris just got plot-claimed up to Heavy to me.

[Clear Tranquil]

Aha! Now I just have to convince the Djinns to allow Peppita's Angelic Cape and/or Spike Shoes! ^_^~

[DjinnAndTonic]

You're welcome to try. I'm not really familiar with their issues?

[superaielman]

I had completely forgotten about the Enemy Skill materia in Aeris' tank thing.

Aeris just got plot-claimed up to Heavy to me.

*Headdesk* Are you serious? There isn't even a plot claim to it, it's just a materia that's randomly there. Aeris has no more claim to that than the rest of the team and it makes her the castbest dueller.

That nicely highlights my problem with such materia. There is zero uniqueness claim to a materia and it completely changes the cast balance, to the point of making Aeris the best dueller in the game and overriding her normal uniquesness of bad damage/healing limits and making her a killing machine with enemy skill.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I thought that was Red 13's tank anyway! (I'm probably mistaken, but...) I certainly associated it with him because it is a "beast" materia.

But I agree wholeheartedly with Super, such weak plot claims are ridiculous and overturn gameplay balance for no reason.

I do extend the storebought attack magic to CC, but limited. I guess my problem with a cast like FF 7 is who gets what element?

Everyone gets every element, of course.

My problem with CC attack magic has always been that there is nothing that makes a red innate better with red elements, so giving them red elements is arbitrary, non-unique, and has no in-game backing. (Riddel makes much better use of red elements than Zappa does!)

However, the Magic stat, at its core, IS a unique thing about characters. What makes Relm, Aeris, Tia, and Gallows good (or at least non-horrid) in-game? That magic stat. Storebought attack magic to everyone makes that unique point about a character DL-relevant. In this case, there is no need to look for arbitrary reasons to divide the cast. Just like we let everyone in the cast use the utterly non-unique "Attack" command, which allows differences in Strength/Attack stat to shine, we could also let everyone in the cast use commonly available attack magic, which allows the Magic stat to shine.

This does not extend to non-attacking effects. Not only are said effects frequently degenerate and give whole casts advantages just due to something in their system, said effects frequently (though to be fair, not always) do not represent statistical advantages. Anyone with Cure 3 can heal fully, anyone with the Frog spell has an instant win status, anyone with Ruse can become super-evasive.

So yeah, the guidelines I am thinking of would be:

-Any attack spell which can -easily- (no grinding!) be given to every single member of a cast who can get it is legal to that cast (or portion thereof that can use it, see Lufia 2).
-Non-damage spells gained through this clause are not allowed, and damage spells with added effects have those effects thrown out. No MagmaPillar confuse hype, no draining hype, no timed card hype, etc.

Offhand, I think this most notably effects:
-FF7. Aeris and Vincent. Barret and Tifa to a lesser extent. Fire, Ice, Bolt, Quake, Bio (no poison). Contain/Ultima are far too hard to get 2 copies of, let alone 8.
-Chrono Cross. I forget exactly what is storebought, but the mages now don't (totally) fail.
-Valkrie Profile. Mmph. Not too happy with this one, because it makes mages less unique (only differences in their support spells matter). I am tempted to make VP exempt here. This view would have the amusing effect of making Shiho one of the best mages instead of one of the worst!
-Lufia 2. Tia gets more damage if I'm not crazy (L2s were before she left, right?). So does Lexis. Don't think anyone else changes too drastically, Selan and Maxim get some alternate damage.
-FF1, Ninja gets ICE2! YESZ.
-WA3 is screwed by this still because you can't give any spell to everyone. Oh well.
-FF8 is likely still screwed by this due to GFs being illegal! If you wanted to stretch things you could give everyone a Magic command anyway. On the one hand this increases uniqueness because damage rises and limit damage becomes less "I win regardless" so things like Zell's better limits matter. On the other hand, you lose the uniqueness of Squall's good physical. Eh.
-FF6 has Relm jumping up and down cheering because she just got above average damage. Mog gets more damage so he can win more easily without status, and a few other characters at least get decent options (Edgar and Cyan's spells should be similar to their best damage otherwise). Granted... FF6 pretty much is only getting one good spell here, Fire 3 (3x from Phoenix and 1x from Tritoch). It's too difficult to give Flare or Pearl (2x from only one Esper) to everyone, let alone Ultima, Ice 3, or Bolt 3 (1x).
-Mana Khemia, maybe, but I don't think common skills really held up well to unique skills even for people like Muppy and Pamela. Could be wrong. Also no idea at all what is legal here! I think this may be more relevant in MK2?
-Grandia 1 and 3 (2's magic being tied to very limited eggs probably means it's out). For G1 this mostly eases resource issues a bit since everyone has better damage from their uniques. For G3 this is at least a bit of a boost to Dahna, though probably changes things not too much overall unless you allow the Level 10 spells, and I'd be incilned to say you should not, they're annoying to get four of.
-Probably some I'm forgetting!


Anyway except for VP and FF8 this change feels mostly positive to me. The downsides are that it represents extra status topic work and generally upsets the prevailing visions for some characters.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

-Mana Khemia, maybe, but I don't think common skills really held up well to unique skills even for people like Muppy and Pamela. Could be wrong. Also no idea at all what is legal here! I think this may be more relevant in MK2?

Mana Khemia 2 has both Ulrika and Puniyo clapping their hands and believing: Ulrika gets to use that +20% fire damage skill on her strongest weapon in addition to her unique CS boosting passive for a whopping +50% to mult on a spell that already outdamages her to-go damage in the DL by 1.5x or so, while Puniyo gets to make use of her Doublecast to make the peoples fall down. Those would be the notable changes. The rest of the cast would mostly get WAYS TO OWN P3 CAST, since their uniques outdamage CSes, but they're valid options for mages.

Also, that suddenly makes those storebought rune averages Dhyer made legal. >_> <_<

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah, more ways to hit weaknesses is an assumed consequence of this view in general. I'm fine with this.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Also, more ways to evade resistances, which is also dandy (elemental resists are so goddamned inflated in the DL). This honestly has got me wondering, I like this idea.

[Taishyr]

While I'd probably be more generous than you re: what's given out in some regards (and possibly more stringent in others! but that's unlikely), I do also like this idea and approve of it.

(I think my main derivative is that I'd allow the status effects of spells... but this being said, I'd probably give CC people spells of their element only, simply for thematics/feels odd for Serge to be using Black spells/I could have sworn people got a slight boost for using stuff of their color. Aside from the last point, none of this is anything more than "It feels (more interesting)/(right) to me to do this", so hey. DL is for fun, let us have fun with it and explore the possibilities!)

[superaielman]

I'm not particularly a fan of this. I tried that with CC and blah. I can understand it, just doesn't appeal to me. 

-Lufia 2. Tia gets more damage if I'm not crazy (L2s were before she left, right?). So does Lexis. Don't think anyone else changes too drastically, Selan and Maxim get some alternate damage.

Tia gets Fireball at the least. That may be it, L2 spells appear right as she leaves. The big winner is Lexis and the loser's... oh hell, probably Guy offhand? Average goes up notably for him. Damage probably suffers a fair deal.

[OblivionKnight]

Personally, as noted earlier, I find it weird to allow one effect of a skill but not another (like with equipment), but whatever works for you. 

Thinking on it...the way I used to view things...

- Things had to be 100% unique.  Starting equipment didn't matter.  Storeboughts weren't allowed unless they were unique, 100%.
- Same went with storebought skills.  Artea for Godlike, on that note >_>  And Maxim. 
- Other stuff I'm certain, but...heh.  Changes a lot of characters, really.  Half tempted to bring it back, for the hell of it! 

Helps I'm weird >_>

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I could have sworn people got a slight boost for using stuff of their color.

The highest-level spells of a certain element (highest damage spells, stuff like Vigora) can only be used by people who have the same innate element as those spells. This is DL-irrelevant, as those are either OPG or a pain in the ass to obtain - and they're universally not storebought.

[Taishyr]

Yeah, I knew about those. Thought they generally did better performance-wise with their own elements, though... hm.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I generally went mostly thematic myself because of how spells beyond something like L5 start being highly reliant on innate elements, but they're not a huge deal. The higher performance ends up being something that happens by default of using stronger spells rather than a straight boost.

[Taishyr]

Okay. So, the boosted effect does exist, but it's minor and the higher-level stuff being innate-reliant is the big deal? (I'm trying to make sure I have the boosted effect actually existing correct. >_>)

Doesn't change my mindset much either way, but it's helpful to know I'm not hallucinating that stuff. >_>

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I'm not sure if there -is- a boosted effect. In fact, I sorta doubt it'd exist, because otherwise there would be a very noticeable difference between same-level spells used by innates and non-innates, and it'd be possible to pinpoint off a cursory glance. I never noticed that kind of variation and I tended to pack as much elemental variety as I could within my PCs while still always having their own innate spells even after three playthroughs, so I'd feel safe in saying that's not the case.

This is mostly to say that the only certifiable advantage in a vacuum innates get over non-innates is basically access to the highest-level stuff of their own element.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'm 99% certain it does not exist, since I played CC after Pokemon, which has such an effect, so my first assumption was the same as Tai's until a quick test showed it wasn't the case.

So yeah I kinda adopted the opposite playstyle and my Serge most certainly did have black elements on him. (Freefall in particular.) After all, what else should Serge do when he runs into a white innate (which like half of CC's bosses are) that resists his best stuff?

[DjinnAndTonic]

It is worth mentioning that there are a few a high-level storebought Elements (in Marbule I believe?) that only specific innates can equip. I think Ninety-Nine was one of them (hitrate becomes 99%, red innate). There's probably a few others. Worth noting that I definitely allow at least these Elements because they are both storebought and semi-unique. I need to recheck the list of available high-level storeboughts. >.>;;

I think the only 'skillset is storebought' series that I haven't really gotten around to thinking about is Suikoden, simply due to the scope of figuring out how I'd view them if I allowed them storebought runes... I think I would do it similar to the CC (and GS) 'affinity'-style assignment. But that's assuming that all Suiko characters have elemental affinity. I'm positive sure that S3 and S5 do, but I don't really remember how it worked in S1,2,4. ST likes this view, too, and there's probably a lot of S4-ers who would be using their ST form if S4 doesn't have elemental affinities.

Is there a list of these somewhere? (And a list of storebought runes? >.>;; )

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Just hit Suikosource. <_<

[Dark Holy Elf]

There are affinities in every Suikoden except S1. However, it is not a case like CC where each character has a clear associated element (some do, like Geddoe's Lightning and Kyle's Water). For instance, I think S2 Luc's highest affinity is a three-way tie between Wind, Darkness, and Pale Gate, and I think some characters even have equal affinity with every element.

I'm of the opinion that if you allow attack runes at all you should allow every such rune to everyone, and from there, let the rune affinities and magic stats determine uniquely how well each person can make use of each rune. Otherwise... not much you can do about the people with a many-way tie in their affinities. It seems like it's nearly impossible to assign everyone specific runes without being blatantly unfair.

[DjinnAndTonic]

There are affinities in every Suikoden except S1. However, it is not a case like CC where each character has a clear associated element (some do, like Geddoe's Lightning and Kyle's Water). For instance, I think S2 Luc's highest affinity is a three-way tie between Wind, Darkness, and Pale Gate, and I think some characters even have equal affinity with every element.

I'm of the opinion that if you allow attack runes at all you should allow every such rune to everyone, and from there, let the rune affinities and magic stats determine uniquely how well each person can make use of each rune. Otherwise... not much you can do about the people with a many-way tie in their affinities. It seems like it's nearly impossible to assign everyone specific runes without being blatantly unfair.

Nah. My idea was to reward people with high affinity only. So, if you have say... an A or higher in a given element, you get the associated Rune. Otherwise, you're screwed. So, if you have a 3-way tie for Fire, Water, and Wind, and they're all S's, then you get 3 runes. Lucky you.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Seems like it exaggerates the gap between A and B+, but... well, if you have to draw the line somewhere, I guess that's as good as any. An A rank is generally where I would look seriously at giving someone a rune of that type in S3. There are exceptions, though; for instance, Queen has an 06 (i.e. high) Magic stat but has no A's; instead, she has a B+ in Wind. You could argue she should get Wind based on that.

Mind, this isn't what I'm proposing at all, since I feel it gives characters access to non-unique skillsets (everyone would like the healing of a Water Rune, even people who have a C in it). My goal here is very much to increase the emphasis on uniqueness rather than decrease it. I feel the view I proposed does that but handing out runes based on affinity does not, and furthermore forces voters to keep track of something that, in some Suikodens (namely 2 and 4) is hidden from the player entirely. I also dislike how arbitrary the cutoff point is, and you'd have to arbitrarily pick one for each Suikoden game.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Well, I already went through and listed these in their respective  stat topics. The rule was basically A-rank affinity and up. Since only S3 has an affinity rating higher than A (because the spread is much wider and A+/S's are incredibly rare), it means I'm only allowing max affinity PCs to get storebought runes. This actually effects a very small percentage of duelers, and the most effected are from S3.

I personally like handing out skillsets because it reflects an in-game setup more. I find it interesting to see -more- of a system's skills being accessible than less. Universal basic damage spells is nice for showing off a magic stat, but it's pretty boring, so I prefer to just use more generous skill allowances.

Current weird skills I allow:
FF8 - GFs based on starting affinity + those skills and junctions.
FF7 - Several plotclaim materia
FF6 - Several plotclaim Espers and associated spells (Terra-Maduin,Tritoch; Locke-Phoenix; Celes-Palidor; Relm-Starlet; Setzer-Bahamut; Cyan-Alexander)
Grandia 1 - semi-unique spells
Grandia 2 - considering some plotclaim mana eggs/skillbooks
Lufia 2 - semi-unique storebought spells; Lufia1 plotclaim storebought spells
CC - elemental affinity storebought elements (half-grid restrictions like Dhyer)
GS - elemental affinity Djinni assignment
Suikoden - A-rank elemental affinity storebought runes
LoL - elemental affinity acquired magic (e.g. Vahn gets the Gimard Fire spell)
Dis/N1 - Weaponskills based on natural affinity
WA3 - plotclaim mediums/skills
WA5 - plotclaim mediums (Dean-Sea; Rebecca-Sky; Avril-Mountain; others-initials)
SH2 - plotclaim crests
Lunar2 - plotclaim crest magic (there's like 2)
SaGaF - scaled-up initial skills/magic
FF12 - scaled-up initial skills/magic
Brig - Rune Knights enter duels with their initial monster summons (yes!)

[Dhyerwolf]

I will say that my extension of CC elements along innate guidelines was basically because...well, the duellers already generally had this semi elemental reliance built in, and staying along element lines wouldn't then blur that. But I guess making weaknesses not hit more often is a good thing to me (Since making it so a person basically struggles against a whole large cast thanks to their ability to buy one specific elemental spell isn't something I'd be particularly fond of. I also don't have much of a problem with elemental resistance! Sure, there are definetely cases where it gets very inflated, but the people who are generally good at it are good because they are just giant general walls. Trying to think of the casts where it's really widespread in a manner...ToS, SO 2, FF 6, S5, FF 9 come to mind. I guess I can only speak pretty well for SO 2 and FF 9, where SO 2 is something I notably restricted in the topic since you could easily argue Fire/Ice/Earth armor for every fighter!...and FF 9 where the equips are just ridiculous...although you could restrict synthing if you really wanted to. Not sure it would make much difference). CC was also nice about generally making the elements fairly even (Unlike say...Suikoden where if everyone wants to maximize their magic damage, they are generally looking at a Lightning Rune).

True that Riddel may be better than Zappa with Red elements, but that's just the nature of having better magic. She'd probably want the healing that she's better with more (Not really an argument, just an aside note)! But my feeling was that at least by extending some magic I was allowing the stat to come into play.

Unfortunately, CC is generally the clearest game, by a landslide. Well, Grandia 1 isn't bad either (Just...magic isn't a large help to some degree. Healing isn't greatly potent, damage is very subpar with a few exceptions, buffs are a joke..etc). I would generally assume on something like Suikoden though, the only spells they are getting access to are pure damage spells (Or else as noted with FF 7 healing materia, the whole S2 cast for Heavy automatically!) I do readily admit that removing the niches people have carved out (like say Estella, the fire mage of destruction) doesn't really appeal to me (Similar to VP in that regard!). Although my gut at least with S3 is that since nearly everyone already has a rune of some sort anyways, it's better in my book (It's why I didn't make an extra average for me at least to use!). Of course, allow everyone everything and then we have 6 identical WA 5 duellers running around!

At the end of the day, it may be that CC is what I'd basically stick with because there is at least something clear. At least in the game that inspired this convo (FF 7), half the cast has some sort of materia (And hey, if the game wants to say Barret is too stupid to use materia by himself, I'd respect that).